PvP/WvW Skill Split Release

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Didn't even notice the Rune of Surging removal.

Honestly, thank god. That thing was way overtuned and killed build diversity. Every power build and their mom and their moms mom and their moms moms mom was running that thing. I say this as one of the people who was exploiting just how good it was.

[Dat Boi Envy.4637]

Please A-NET, you made this post with an emphasis on getting community feedback. A vast majority of players have asked about the res to immobe change and you've yet to even address a single instance of it. This is arguably the biggest change made to WvW that is truthfully causing major problems in fights as well as being completely counter intuitive to itself. You normally stack res to help you with condis, but now by having res you're indefinitely rooted unless you have pulsing res. I fully support toning down certain classes and adding more variety to WvW, but you should be addressing key issues the community has first before you focus on micro issues within the classes.

My thoughts on the classes itself is, you can't keep nerfing scourge and expect people to still play it. They were super over tuned at the start of POF and tbh after last patch I find that they're relatively inline with where they need to be at the moment. The other big issue is Warrior. So many of the changes are to skills no competent warrior is ever going to use in WvW. The strength of warrior is their bubble, res, and stab. But yet you choose to address their damage? Seems kind of silly to me. I think a good way to go about it would be to leave most of the warriors kit alone and address the bubble (Winds). Potentially making it a smaller area, longer cast time, etc. The other changes seem so pointless, like "oh rampage is on a shorter CD, now i'm totally going to run it" -No Warrior Ever.

As a player, Commander, and guild leader I can say its nice to see such an interest in WvW and balance issues from A-NET. We as a community have felt like the red headed step child of the GW2 family for quite awhile now. So, I personally would like to thank you for at least trying to make changes in WvW, but I would greatly appreciate if all of you would really consider the feedback from the community before you make the final changes. The WvW community as a whole know whats "broken, op, or low tier" because we play it everyday for hours on end. Many of us have good suggestions on what can be done to keep WvW and exciting and diverse game mode, we only ask you for an ear that will listen and hear out our requests. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

-Envy

[Los Re.4607]

Put the passive traits changes in wvw too please. Why leave the job half done?

[adammantium.8031]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:A message from the Competitive and Skills & Balance Teams:

Warrior

Skills

• Rampage Reduced the cooldown from 180 seconds to 100 seconds in PvP and WvW. Reduced transform duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds
  • Kick: Reduced the cooldown from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP and WvW
  • Dash: Reduced the cooldown from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP and WvW
  • Throw Boulder: Reduced the cooldown from 12 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvW
  • Seismic Leap: Reduced the cooldown from 15 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP and WvW
• Battle Standard: Reduced the cooldown from 240 seconds to 180 seconds in PvP and WvW
• "On My Mark!:" Adjusted Vulnerability applied from 10 stacks for 10 seconds to 15 stacks for 6 seconds in PvP and WvW. Reduced ammo recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• "For Great Justice!": Adjusted Might granted from 6 stacks for 25 seconds to 12 stacks for 15 seconds in PvP and WvW
• "Shake It Off!:" Increased the number of conditions cleansed from 2 to 3 in PvP and WvW

Some thoughts from a wvw warrior perspective here.

In terms of encouraging build diversity, the alternatives to being an offensive Spellbreaker utilizing winds of disenchantment need to be really quite appealing. Even taking into account the changes to other builds, I don't think there's enough here to encourage any warrior to switch.

Shout warrior used to be a fun support spec, but there's nowhere near enough to bring this build back. It's simply outshone by other classes. I feel like it needs something unique to add to it; a damage modifier for allies, or doing direct damage somehow.

The recharge to battle standard, as others have said, is also not enough to encourage use. Biggest issue for me is how poison often prevents a revive actually taking place. The heal on the initial drop needs to be significant enough to mitigate that. Given that the recharge time exceeds most engagements, reducing it from 240 to 180 is inconsequential. You'll never get to use it twice, so it may as well be 5 minutes for all the difference it makes.The buffs battle standard provide (fury, swiftness, +30 power and condi) are frankly negligible.

I'd love if rampage was a viable elite. Smashing into a large group with a huge health pool should be amazing fun. I think it could do with having the recharge reduced even further though; maybe 60 seconds might be frequent enough for it to have an impact later into a fight.

The nerfs to BE and full counter still leave it as a powerful and effective spec, so no real problems there.

[zealex.9410]

@Obindo.6802 said:Ur not fixing passives, ur making anything to with passives complete trash tier instead of fixing it.

And how should they go about fixing them?

[reikken.4961]

I'll take a moment to elaborate on why I don't like the proposed changes to scourge's shade skills.

edit: this is from a PvP perspective. I have no insight into WvW

It hits power and support builds, and hits them harder than it hits condi builds, as they have more of their power tied up in Desert Shroud and Garish Pillar than condi builds do.

So obviously all scourge builds make use of Desert Shroud. It's a major source of damage and barrier. But for power scourge, it's also damage amplification, since it leans heavily on Death Perception's 50% crit chance boost to do good damage. Meanwhile condi scourge takes Dhuumfire, which is just 1 stack of burning, same as all the other shade skills. Also, Power Scourge takes the Spite trait line, and can take Spiteful Spirit, which triggers on using Desert Shroud. Yes, condi can take Weakening Shroud in Curses, which is similar, but only half of that trait is tied up in Desert Shroud, unlike Spiteful Spirit, which is entirely linked to shroud. So yeah, a cooldown nerf to Desert Shroud is a much bigger deal for power than for condi.

Now, as for support builds. A defensive scourge build is inclined to take Foot in the Grave. Which triggers on using Desert Shroud. Can't very well support allies if you're as easy to lock down as offensive necro is (ie the easiest class/build in the game to lock down), so this trait is pretty important. And then in Blood Magic, Life From Death is another trait that triggers on (exiting) Desert Shroud.

Now on to Garish Pillar. For support builds, it's pretty straightforward. Garish Pillar triggers Transfusion, which makes up most of the class's means of healing allies. Any nerfs to Transfusion hit support scourge hard. Simple. For power it's a little more nuanced. It's mostly that, from my experience playing both builds, I find that power scourge relies more on that fear to help it land bursts, such as axe 2, than condi does. But there's also that fear trait in Spite that I don't use (Dread). As well as the fact that it has less boon corruption and weakness to mitigate damage, which also makes the fear disproportionately more important. Ultimately, it's a much bigger issue for support than for power, but still bigger than for condi.

OK. So. What could we do instead? Alternative suggestions:Well there's obviously just cutting the condi damage on Desert Shroud.But if we don't want to do that, the number of pulses of Desert Shroud could be cut. It would make it do less overall damage and lower the uptime on area denial, but Spiteful Spirit, Foot in the Grave, and Life From Death would be untouched. And while Death Perception uptime would be down, access to it for bursts would remain intact. And to go along with that, if you also want to reduce defense, the base barrier could be reduced (the healing power scaling is already nonexistent, so no need to hit that. not that it would make any difference since it's so low anyway).

Or you could just go ahead with the planned nerfs and just massively buff Spite and Blood Magic. I have no idea that that would look like, but non-scourge builds would benefit this way too. They would have to be some pretty extreme buffs, though. Not like the Vampiric Presence nerf-buff. As these cooldown increases are some pretty extreme nerfs.

[Philanthropist.7246]

Doesn't WvW need to be balanced separately from PvP, b/c zerg v zerg the impact of certain things is very different from when it's 5v5. And the type of play makes it different as well -- holding points vs sieging keeps.

[Nimon.7840]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

Necromancer

Skills

• Garish Pillar: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW

Makes support builds, that run transfusion even more useless

• Desert Shroud: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP and WvW

Another strait out nerf to the already not so great dmg, because its easy to avoid.

• Ghastly Breach: Increased the cooldown from 75 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP and WvW

I dont care.

• Plague Signet: Increased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP and WvW

Nobody takes this in wvw. Except roamers, abd thats a huge nerf for them. And tbh. Necro already is freakin bad at roaming.

• Trail of Anguish: Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 35 seconds in PvP and WvW

Not necessary.

• Signet of Undeath: Reduced the cooldown from 150 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP and WvW

Attempt to make a useless signet viable. But by nerfing trail of anguish this is still useless, cause it takes way too long to revive. If you do this, give the revive at least a bigger radius in all gamemodes

• Life Siphon: Reduced the cooldown from 12 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP and WvW

The general buff that does nothing, since dagger mh is pretty bad.

• Dark Pact: Reduced the cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW

Same as life siphon.

• Signet of Vampirism: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP and WvW. Increased the base heal from 3960 to 4950 (+25%) in PvP and WvW

Still useless. Make the passive heal better instead to make ut viable.

• Well of Blood: Increased the base heal from 5240 to 6026 (+15%) in PvP and WvW. Increased the heal per pulse from 280 to 490 (+75%) in PvP and WvW

Nice little buff.

• Spectral Grasp: Reduced the cooldown from 50 seconds to 35 seconds in PvP and WvW

Now we are talking bout doing things right. Would be nice if this was pve as well. But still ita not that good, cause people dont get pulled the whole way.

• Blood is Power: Adjusted the Might granted from 10 stacks for 10 seconds to 15 stacks for 6 seconds in PvP and WvW

Still nobody will play that.

• Well of Suffering: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only. Increased the amount of Vulnerability applied per pulse from 2 stacks to 4 stacks in PvP only.

Nobody plays it right now, cause wells are way too easy to avoid.

• Signet of the Locust: Increased the power coefficient from 0.65 to 1.0 (+54%) in PvP and WvW. Increased the base heal per hit from 970 to 1455 (+50%) in PvP and WvW

Prwtty much useless. Maybe good for roamers,, but as i mentioned. Necro is a dead roaming class.

Traits

• Reaper's Protection: Increased the cooldown from 60 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP only
• Last Gasp: Increased the cooldown from 50 seconds to 75 seconds in PvP only

Well these two... i really dont care for pvp. Its a dead gamemode with a whole bunch of stupid people playing it.

Over all, it seems more to me, that necro is meant to be a storage charakter. Cause with these nerfs, necro will still be played, but wont be asked for that heavily anymore, especially For wvw.

I didnt read ele or rev, but if they dont get some heavy nerfs there as well, necro might get to the dead class its supposed to be:

Only mediocre in all gamemodes. Not even a niche where it can shine

[dzeRnumbrd.6129]

Necro feedback

Personally I think the Scourge is close to being balanced, it doesn't require this heavy handed approach after the most recent nerfs haven't even had time to settle down.

The changes you're going to make are really going to kill scourge and I will probably switch to a mesmer or a heavy class for WvW if you go ahead with these changes.

The logic that nerfing scourge makes reaper and necro viable is simply not true. It simply makes people switch to a different archetype that does what they want.

It's a real shame but this could be the end of necromancer being a meta profession in WvW - it has been a meta profession in WvW forever and this change is looking like it will kill it.

I'm really disappointed with the changes proposed and I think the Areannet staff who decided this list must not play scourge extensively in WvW.

Individual comments:

Garish Pillar: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW

I've never heard one complaint in WvW about this skill - if the problem is PvP then make it PvP only

Desert Shroud: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP and WvW

This is a 50% nerf guys - that's way too much. We're already feeling the huge impact of your recent nerfs.

You haven't given the recent nerfs enough time to form a new judgment about where scourge sits.

The problem you have here is you say scourge is a support class and yet you are nerfing barrier uptime by 50%!

Too much sustain and too much support was a NEVER a complaint about scourge - the only complaints are damage - in particular boon corrupts.

Due to the fact you combined sustain/support/damage into 1 skill (Desert Shroud), you have to nerfing our sustainby 50% (unnecessary) and our support by 50% (unnecessary) in order to nerf our damage (actual goal).

I think 50% uptime nerf is way way over the top regardless (even if it was a damage only skill).

I suggest you move the barrier granted on Desert Shroud onto Sand Cascade instead.

That splits our support/sustain and damage skills apart and allows you to address those areas independently when balancing.

So you can buff our sustain/support when you nerf our damage.

So I suggest 7k of barrier on Sand Cascade and Desert Shroud grants no barrier - damage only.

Ghastly Breach: Increased the cooldown from 75 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP and WvW

This nerf has no point. Every fight is over (or at least decided) by the 75 second mark.

If some scourge manages to pull a Breach out at 75s instead 90s and it turns a fight on its head then anyone who gets annoyed at that is not very smart.

Plague Signet: Increased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP and WvW

I'm going to hazard a guess that this is a PvP nerf - I have no idea why it was put into WvW.

Trail of Anguish: Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 35 seconds in PvP and WvW

If anything I think this skill is massively UNDER powered, it needs more stacks of stability (3+) and far longer duration on swiftness (or it needs superspeed to replace swiftness).The only redeeming feature is the cooldown which you've now ruined.Whichever bad said this needed a nerf has no idea. In PvP you just don't stand on the red circles.It's pretty damn easy to not get hit and the counterplay to this skill is ez mode.

Signet of Undeath: Reduced the cooldown from 150 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP and WvW

Passive is too weak - I might use for 5 targets and fast cast time.

Life Siphon: Reduced the cooldown from 12 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP and WvWDark Pact: Reduced the cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW

Dagger buffs are minimal and in the end they won't make any difference at all.

Signet of Vampirism: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP and WvW. Increased the base heal from 3960 to 4950 (+25%) in PvP and WvWWell of Blood: Increased the base heal from 5240 to 6026 (+15%) in PvP and WvW. Increased the heal per pulse from 280 to 490 (+75%) in PvP and WvW

Neither skill deals with conditions which is very important in WvW.Add a pulsing condition clear to Well of Blood and add some group utility for Signet of Vampirism.

Spectral Grasp: Reduced the cooldown from 50 seconds to 35 seconds in PvP and WvW

Good change - I'll use this in certain circumstances but because it is a projectile I need trail of anguish before using it so I don't get pulled by projectile reflects.

Blood is Power: Adjusted the Might granted from 10 stacks for 10 seconds to 15 stacks for 6 seconds in PvP and WvW

Still won't use it.

Well of Suffering: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only. Increased the amount of Vulnerability applied per pulse from 2 stacks to 4 stacks in PvP only.

Meh, it's OK i guess.

Signet of the Locust: Increased the power coefficient from 0.65 to 1.0 (+54%) in PvP and WvW. Increased the base heal per hit from 970 to 1455 (+50%) in PvP and WvW

Meh, boring skill what about a stunbreaker and superspeed on activation. It's basically worthless and when I see necros running it in WvW I think "Trash necro".

TraitsReaper's Protection: Increased the cooldown from 60 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP onlyLast Gasp: Increased the cooldown from 50 seconds to 75 seconds in PvP only

Boring.

Overall this patch is: "Nerf scourge into the ground. Make useless buffs for Reaper and Necro that accomplish nothing".

[ZerotheFang.5890]

@Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

@ZerotheFang.5890 said:i agree the magi amulet was a bit much with some healing type builds, but could we do something about stealth in spvp thief kinda disappears too much to fast and can rapid cast those, or engi stealth gyro.

You do know there are abilities that reveals stealthed enemies right?

yeah but i no play a class with that ability and since only warrior and engi and rev can do it poorly with 1 skill so they can recast it or use the new elite. i play necro for pvp so kinda pointless if i do not have it on that.

[Silver.2076]

Hopefully my post won't get lost in the many posts here. From WvW's point of view: I think you disregard the current meta! Nekro and Guard are very taky set up. This defensive is only broken by Higher Power Dmg. Higher condi damage can usually no longer be achieved. Too much remover and resistance. If you now additionally take this opportunity to break through defensive directly and quickly, you will drag the fights into the length and further promote the meta of overtaxing! I. e. winning decisions will only be made by the person who has been handling trash dmg and condi spam for the longest time and who is desperate for it! It is not a competative thought to win by mistakes or weaknesses of the other! You should instead increase the damage further so that performance can be rewarded, not the other's mistake!

[Gretzel.6790]

meh okay seven fucking characters

[reikken.4961]

@dzeRnumbrd.6129 said:I suggest you move the barrier granted on Desert Shroud onto Sand Cascade instead.That splits our support/sustain and damage skills apart and allows you to address those areas independently when balancing.So you can buff our sustain/support when you nerf our damage.So I suggest 7k of barrier on Sand Cascade and Desert Shroud grants no barrier - damage only.

oh man, I could get behind this for sure. drop some selfish barrier for party barrieris outside the scope of this topic, though

[Gretzel.6790]

@Silver.2076 said:Hopefully my post won't get lost in the many posts here. From WvW's point of view: I think you disregard the current meta! Nekro and Guard are very taky set up. This defensive is only broken by Higher Power Dmg. Higher condi damage can usually no longer be achieved. Too much remover and resistance. If you now additionally take this opportunity to break through defensive directly and quickly, you will drag the fights into the length and further promote the meta of overtaxing! I. e. winning decisions will only be made by the person who has been handling trash dmg and condi spam for the longest time and who is desperate for it! It is not a competative thought to win by mistakes or weaknesses of the other! You should instead increase the damage further so that performance can be rewarded, not the other's mistake!

Thank you

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@dzeRnumbrd.6129 said:

Desert Shroud: Increased the cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP and WvW

This is a 50% nerf guys - that's way too much. We're already feeling the huge impact of your recent nerfs.

You haven't given the recent nerfs enough time to form a new judgment about where scourge sits.

The problem you have here is you say scourge is a support class and yet you are nerfing barrier uptime by 50%!

Too much sustain and too much support was a NEVER a complaint about scourge - the only complaints are damage - in particular boon corrupts.

Due to the fact you combined sustain/support/damage into 1 skill (Desert Shroud), you have to nerfing our sustainby 50% (unnecessary) and our support by 50% (unnecessary) in order to nerf our damage (actual goal).

I think 50% uptime nerf is way way over the top regardless (even if it was a damage only skill).

I suggest you move the barrier granted on Desert Shroud onto Sand Cascade instead.

That splits our support/sustain and damage skills apart and allows you to address those areas independently when balancing.

So you can buff our sustain/support when you nerf our damage.

So I suggest 7k of barrier on Sand Cascade and Desert Shroud grants no barrier - damage only.

This is a terrible idea. For one, it ruins a number of traits that tie Shroud and defense. For example, while Unholy Sanctuary is already awful with Scourge, this suggestion makes it completely worthless as you're at 1 HP with no Shroud or barrier at all.

Two, it leaves Scourge in the very same position as normal Necro defensively, except even worse. One defensive cooldown, that's LONGER than Shroud's and at the same time lacks the damage reduction of Shroud and is for a smaller amount. Oh, and is on a .5 second delay instead of instant.

[Vagrant.7206]

@AphoticEssance.7592 said:I have a hard enough time trying to get in larger groups with holo/engi.. and your going to nerf my burst by that much? Please reconsider or give us something that only engi can bring exclusively to larger groups.

But... but... mortar gun will do slightly more damage. :expressionless: You might even be able to 1000 damage on a crit with zerk gear! Don't worry that the thing takes like 3 or 4 seconds to hit the target!

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:

@Shaman.2034 said:

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I am actually extremely surprised how heavy-handed these changes are. Although I don't necessarily agree with all of them, I applaud the direction you are going in and think you did a good job with this list. Thank you for the update. I am not going to comment on other balance issues that weren't addressed because this is strictly about skill splitting.

One general critique I have, though, is how you seemed to increase cooldowns on all passive traits without actually looking at how varied their effectiveness was beforehand. So now traits like Soothing Bastion, for example, get punished with a 90 second cooldown when they weren't really ever a problem in the first place. I am okay with the cooldowns being increased as I myself am not a fan of passive defenses,

however

, the traits need to be more deeply evaluated and adjusted for such a big blanket change.

We went back and forth on this a bit. In the end we decided to err on the side of consistency for anything that cleansed conditions, fired on getting CC'd, or anything defensive that fired at low health. If we missed something, let us know and we'll look at it.

Thanks for responding, Ben. I since edited my post to include a question in there and to correct some misinformation, but I will post it here too:If this

is

only about skill-splitting, does this mean you will also be adjusting the functionality of some of these traits in all game modes to warrant the cooldown increase?

It's hard to say at this time. Do consider that just because we don't want passives to be very strong in PvP, doesn't necessarily mean we have a problem with them in PvE.

What about all the proposed buffs to skills and traits that are underperforming in PvE, and will likely still underperform even with these changes? Shouldn't one of the goals be to minimize the amount of skill splits in general? I think just about every buff on this list could make it to PvE without changing anything there, while it reduces the amount of split things in the game for people to have to juggle.

We'll probably look at some of them to see if they can go game-wide. Our first focus for this release was on splits only. But as we revise the list, a few old splits and maybe some new ones might get changed to game-wide.

I would definitely suggest taking a closer look at the core engi skills that are getting buffed -- toolkit, poison dart volley, glue shot, and mortar kit. These skills are heavily underperforming in PvE, and are even worse in PvP/WvW. The proposed buffs to them will do very little to increase their usefulness and do not offer anything unique to engineer or team play.

In other words, I'd like to see some more "oomph" behind the idea of bringing up the underperforming aspects of classes. Because right now, all I see is engineer oblivion in PvP -- Holo's ability to survive will be gutted, and scrapper is still quite weak overall (and will continue to be against the scourge). Core engineer is so far gone right now I don't even know how to bring it back.

@Shadowcat.2680 said:

@Razor.6392 said:

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:

@MADPIEMAN.8023 said:Buff sword on weaver (dmg on actually used skills and making some skills easier to land) and buff tempest to compete other support specs like firebrand and chrono

We feel that while the current state of sword weaver and tempest might be under performing a bit, they aren't too far from viability. Considering the changes we're planning for other classes, we feel that they may be in a pretty good spot after the release. We didn't want to buff them with this release just to have to nerf them later. We may be wrong, so we'll be keeping an eye on them after the release to see how they fared.

What's your opinion on holo photon forge autoattacks having 240 range while sword weaver has 130 range?

I was dueling a guildie last night in our guild hall with him on his sword weaver and me on my holosmith, and his number one problem trying to hit me was the difference in range between the photon forge autoattack and weaver sword. Reducing the range of the forge's autoattack would make sense as a balance adjustment to bring it in line with the range of other melee weapons. Most greatsword autoattacks have ranges between 130-150, and the forge's autoattack looks like a large sword of light.

While I personally feel that the range on PF melee should be brought down to 180, that would require an animation change on the skill to prevent serious confusion, and that's beyond the scope of this proposed balance patch.

[Voltekka.2375]

Scourge is getting another nerf, this one seems huge. The cooldown increase is just overpowering

[Atmaweapon.7345]

One of the stated goals is to reduce the impact of chaining instant offensive abilities together, but it seems to me that the 3 main offenders have been almost completely untouched in this regard; Mesmers, Thieves, and especially Fresh Air elementalists. This honestly feels like a huge nerfbat is being swung at the top professions in the meta right now (except for Mesmers,)

If you really wanted to fix instant cast offensive abilities, you should have just done the following:

1) All instant cast offensive abilities share .5 second global cooldown.2) Teleports now interrupt offensive ability casts.

There, without touching numbers at all, the instant cast offensive ability problem has been mostly solved. Fresh Air Eles no longer delete people with one macro and Mesmers/Thieves can no longer hide behind an obstacle/run away and then instantly teleport on top of you to perform whatever attack they were masking that you had no possible way to react to outside of flat out guessing.

[Velimere.7685]

@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:One additional note: The changes we're targeting here are nearly all focused on areas we could split between game modes. Please try to keep feedback focused in that area.

Things outside of basic numbers changes (changing the way a skill works) are not splittable.

To quote myself from another thread:

@"Velimere.7685" said:I would much rather the "breaks stun" portion of Elusive Mind have a 10-second ICD than 4 seconds of exhaustion. Mirage doesn't have baked in endurance gains like Daredevil does, nor does it have 3 endurance bars for 3 subsequent dodges; at the very least, the exhaustion should be 2 seconds and not 4 seconds on Elusive Mind.

Edit: Actually, the better fix is to make Nomad's Endurance cause shatters to give 10 endurance each and for False Oasis to give 10 endurance each pulse for a total of 50 (5 endurance each pulse in PvP for a total of 25). This way the exhaustion would interact with Mirage like how it interacts with Daredevil instead of gutting the spec.

Granted, if you can only do split changes then an ICD on the "break stun" portion of Elusive Mind is more in line with that.

@Cal Cohen.3527 also mentioned in another thread that Mirage could use more nerfs, but that isn't the case; specific non-Mirage traits such as Confounding Suggestions (which could have its ICD doubled), Imagined Burden (which should only spawn 1 Phantasmal Berserker that deals 25% increased damage as opposed to a 50% increase in damage spread between 2 phantasms), and Chronophantasma (maybe give it an ICD and a buff icon for the player and enemies to know when it's available).

Speaking of which, it is also my strong opinion that all trait procs should have buff icons when they are available which would make for better informed decisions from both players and their opponents in actual gameplay; I mean you already have icons for every trait in the game, so this shouldn't be too crazy to implement, right?

Mantra charges should also be visible to all players in my opinion. Mantra charges are instant-cast, so this would allow the only form of possible counterplay via awareness.

[TheBravery.9615]

Warrior

I'll respond to warrior because it's what i main in.

• Full Counter: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.75 to 1.5 (-14%) in PvP and WvWIndifferent to this suggestion
• Dagger Autoattack chain: Reduced the power coefficients from 0.55, 0.55, 0.85 to 0.4, 0.4, 0.85 (-15% overall) in PvP and WvWFine, but give it a boon strip on the final strike of the chain to give dagger a 'boon strip' choice for weapon. Necromancers corrupt on scepter auto attack (corrupt>strip), which I might add is also a ranged weapon. Please review inter profession balance.
• Aura Slicer: Increased cooldown from 6 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvWNo. Savage leap has a longer leap and is also 8 seconds. Please review intra profession balance.
• Disrupting Stab: Reduced stun duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvP and WvWYes please, 1.5 second is too long for a #3 skill. Deals more damage than pommel bash (warrior mace 3) and pommel bash is only a second daze. Please look at CC across the board and tone it down or rework stability into something other than a boon.
• Breaching Strike: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2 (-20%) in PvP and WvWIndifferent to this suggestion.
• Break Enchantments: Reduced the power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.5 (-50%). Increased the number of boons removed from 2 to 3 in PvP and WvWIndifferent to this suggestion, but why are you guys even considering to split this from PvE? is this even used in PvE? Reassess this skill as a whole.
• Featherfoot Grace: Increased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP and WvWIndifferent to this suggestion.
• Frenzy: Reduced the cooldown from 50 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP and WvW. Increased Might granted from 5 stacks to 10 stacks in PvP and WvWThis is a purely offensive utility slot, all other utility slots have some sort of hybrid utility in the form of defensive boons and effects combined sometimes combined with offensive capabilities. 40 seconds and extra might is not enough. Warrior has enough might generation. Either cut it down to 25 seconds for more up-use, or keep it at a longer cooldown but allow warrior to maximize burst potential in short time period with a 20% damage / condition damage bonus for 5 seconds.
• Rampage Reduced the cooldown from 180 seconds to 100 seconds in PvP and WvW. Reduced transform duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds
  • Kick: Reduced the cooldown from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP and WvW
  • Dash: Reduced the cooldown from 6 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP and WvW
  • Throw Boulder: Reduced the cooldown from 12 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvW
  • Seismic Leap: Reduced the cooldown from 15 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP and WvWIndifferent to this, but why are you wasting time with changing the cooldown on seismic leap if you're changing rampage to the same cooldown?
• Battle Standard: Reduced the cooldown from 240 seconds to 180 seconds in PvP and WvWHesitant to approve, really doubting this. May have undesirable effects in WvW zerg wars, but you can test it and revert if it doesn't work I guess.
• Crushing Blow: Increased the power coefficient from 1.2 to 1.5 (+25%) in PvP and WvW. Adjusted Vulnerability applied from 10 stacks for 10 seconds to 15 stacks for 6 seconds in PvP and WvWIndifferent. Don't think this is what offhand mace needs, but go ahead and try it.
• Tremor: Increased knockdown duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP and WvWNo. Please stop promoting these 3 second hard stuns/knockdowns. This isn't what offhand mace needs. It's a slow clobbering weapon with absolutely no mobility, can you think why offhand mace is not used competitively? It needs mobility.
• Sword Autoattack chain: Increased the power coefficients from 0.6, 0.6, 0.6 to 0.6, 0.6, 1.0 (+22%) in PvP and WvWIndifferent.
• Flurry: Increased the power coefficient from 1.04 to 2.0 (+92%) in PvP and WvWThe power damage is needed, but what's needed more is the ability to move while casting this attack. Too many targets run resistance, you won't land all hits and you're a sitting target eating ranged damage while using this.
• Savage Leap: Increased the power coefficient from 0.75 to 1.0 (+33%) in PvP and WvWIndifferent. Don't think this is necessary but ok.
• Flaming Flurry: Increased the power coefficient from 1.04 to 2.0 (+92%) in PvP and WvWIndifferent. Don't think this is necessary but ok.
• "To the Limit!": Increased endurance granted from 50 to 100Not what's needed. A simple change to bring back shout warriors is if this had a reduced cooldown and removed blind/weakness or something.
• Blood Reckoning: Increased damage to healing conversion from 20% to 25% in PvP and WvW. Increased Adrenaline gained from 10 to 30 in PvP and WvWThe healing increase is needed but I'm against the adrenaline gain to 30. Already have "to the limit" for that, you're blurring the lines between the other skills in this game.
• "On My Mark!:" Adjusted Vulnerability applied from 10 stacks for 10 seconds to 15 stacks for 6 seconds in PvP and WvW. Reduced ammo recharge from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.Not what's needed. Have this reveal hidden enemies in a range around you in addition to the reveal on target. If you want to spam vulnerability, reduce the recharge time in between ammo uses.
• "For Great Justice!": Adjusted Might granted from 6 stacks for 25 seconds to 12 stacks for 15 seconds in PvP and WvWThis skill fell out of favor due to power creep. It may still have a place for shout warrior builds if the cooldown was reduced.
• "Shake It Off!:" Increased the number of conditions cleansed from 2 to 3 in PvP and WvWVery much needed, but a shorter cooldown would have been better. Change "Shrug it off" to use the same effect as well instead of just cleansing 1.

Traits

• Defy Pain: Increased the cooldown from 60 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP onlyAgainst this. All in favor of active play, but this is still passive play in the end. Change the mechanic so you gain a charge when you strike with a burst ability. Have it activate only if your health drops below 50% and you have a charge. (charges expire in a few seconds)
• Last Stand: Increased the cooldown from 40 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP onlySame problem with above, still passive. Rework mechanically if you want to fix this problem. Keep it at 40 seconds. Gan a charge when you evade an attack. at 5 charges, the next CC is negated and you activate balanced stance. (charges expire in a few seconds)
• Shrug it Off: Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP onlySame Idea as above, use charges to activate passive to promote active play. Help resurrect an ally player, gain a charge, next incoming condi activates shake it off. Have no cooldown on this.
• Dead or Alive: Increased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP onlyKill something, get a charge, negate next lethal blow and survive.

Like all balance patches, even those were severely limited in scope and avoids the more prominent problems of balance.

I'll crosspost what I said before.

Skills

Hammer

• Hammer 4 and 5 - Staggering Blow and Back Breaker: Swap staggering blow to become skill 5 and backbreaker to become skill 4, adjust cooldowns accordingly. Staggering Blow is much more useful in WvW due to its PbAOE attack mechanic. 25 seconds for a single target stun with a long windup time doesn't make much sense. Likewise, this would be healthier for WvW balance. Make AOE cc on a longer cooldown, single target CC on shorter cooldown. Slightly increase cast time on backbreaker and increase knockback distance of staggering blow.

Longbow

• Longbow Burst - Combustive Shot: Level 1 and 2 combustive shot are too weak to bother using. it will be difficult to merit use of this attack with spellbreaker. Adjust combustive shot so it creates a fire field for 5 seconds / 5 ticks on all stages of adrenaline use, but adjust target cap per adrenaline bar usage:
  • Level 1 - 5 targets,
  • Level 2 - 6 targets,
  • level 3 - 7 targets.
• Longbow 1 - Dual Shot: This makes longbow incapable of sustained power or condi damage. Have it apply bleed on the second shot if the first shot hits.
• Longbow 2 - Fan of Fire: Change Fan of Fire's mechanic to fire 3 consecutive arrows in quick succession instead of firing 3 arrows in a spread. This skill's mechanic benefits from being close range with is unsuited for Longbow as it's a terrible close range weapon.
• Longbow 4 - Smoldering Arrow: Give smoldering arrow the ability to leave a small fire field for 2 seconds / 2 pulses. This skill is painfully weak in all applications of the game, long cooldown for being a #4 skill with poor tradeoff.

Rifle

• Rifle burst - Killshot: This is a gimmick skill that -when it crits- hits very hard. However, it's also a high risk skill that fell out of favor in the power creep over time. The reward for sitting down for almost 2 seconds to cast an attack is not worth the risk now due to the abundance of damage reduction boons, mobility, etc. I would like to keep this a high risk attack, but balance the reward out. Give this a 100% crit chance.

Mace

• Mace 2 - Counterblow: Mechanically difficult to use, getting stuck by behind will cause your character to swing in front of your character, missing the character that hit behind you. Change it to a PBAOE attack upon successful counter with a small radius.

Sword

• Sword 4 - Impale: Mechanically flawed. Projectile travels too slow and hit register is unreliable. The skill chain - Rip is also very weak compared to just leaving the sword impaled on your target. Increase projectile speed of impale, and give Rip the ability to steal boons. Fixes usability and rewards player for using RIp depending on situation.
• Sword 5 - Riposte: Same problem with Mace 2 Counterblow, mechanically unreliable to use if your target sneaks behind you. Make it a small PBAOE attack on successful counter.

Warhorn

• Warhorn 5 - Call to arms: Horrifically weak for a #5 skill, weak boon and weak condition, long cooldown and the only benefit is really the blast finisher. Rewrite this skill. Have this remove weakness, fear, and blind off nearby allies. Grant stability and retaliation to allies.

Aquatic weapons

Won't look at these because all professions need their aquatic skills looked for serious balance and usability overhaul.

Healing

• Mending- Sees 0% use. At least categorize it as a physical skill so it benefits from cooldown reduction trait.

Utility Skills

• Throw Bolas - The ammunition is nice because it punishes less on misses. Speaking of misses, thats why this skill is bad. It's unreliable. Cast time too long, range too short, projectile speed too slow. Reduce ammunition in tradeoff for better usabiilty by faster projectile speed, longer range, and faster cast time.
• Fear Me - Has 0 place in this game. CC isn't even hard CC, cooldown too long, deals no damage. Thematically unfit for warrior to draw enemies away from self. Scrap this, change this to a half second taunt unblockable taunt on a short cooldown.
• Sight beyond Sights - A pretty weak ability with only 2 charges, i'd suggest increasing the charges to 4

Elite

• Signet of Rage - The reason why this is even being used by warriors today is because it's universally fit for all builds where as the other elite skills are highly specialized. That said, this skill is still undertuned in the current meta of boon stripping and corrupting. Instead of passive adrenaline gain, grant additional adrenaline whenever you strike a target to promote more active play. Activating signet should also make your boons incapable of being ripped off of you. Increase cooldown to compensate.

Traits

Strength

• Brave Stride: Doesn't fit/benefit off the design of warrior - to stay in combat, gain adrenaline, becoming more dangerous as warriors continue fighting. This trait only benefits warriors entering combat and ends there. Have this grant stability whenever you strike a New target while in combat, after an internal cooldown.
• Restorative Strength: Have this remove weakness, reduce might stacks to compensate.
• Merciless Hammer: Read this why this is still bad after an update https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/25476/merciless-hammer-could-use-a-rework#latest . "Thematically it makes sense, but it is useless in terms of practical function." Confusion does not belong on hammer. All hammer attacks don't deal condi damage. Just give it fury whenever you interrupt something, make interrupting attacks do more damage.

Arms

• Opportunist: Cooldown too long for the benefit gained, and benefit gained don't justify taking this trait. Highly specialized trait as well, not all warriors have access to immoblize. Have this increase critical hit damage against immobilized foes.
• Dual WIelding: The fact that this doesnt stack with quickness and has a cap on attack speed makes this useless the same way theres only a usable critical hit chance of 100%. Just have this stack with quickness and other attack speed effects, reduce the attack speed increase in this trait if you have to.

Tactics

• Leg Specialist: Sees 0% use because its a short immob on a too long of a cooldown. Reduce cooldown to 3 seconds.

Discipline

• Crack Shot: Sees 0% use because rifle has adrenaline build up built in to its auto attack by default. If warriors take rifle, its to killshot and burst. Scrap this. Have this cast "on my mark" whenever you swap to rifle in combat.
• Vengeful return: Sees 0% use because situations are too rare/difficult to make use of. Scrap this. Allow vengeance to be readily available when you are down and deal more damage when your health is below a health threshold.

Berserker

• Berserk mode: This uses 3 bars of adrenaline. It should activate traits that go with 3 bars of adrenaline for consistency. Its either that, or change it so it doesn't require adrenaline to activate and use a base cooldown to activate.

[Vallun.2071]

@Hiraldo.7954 said:At first glance most of these changes look good, however I'm very puzzled as to why Celestial Avatar CD is being increased, heals are being reduced, and GoTL is being nerfed. Druid is barely viable as a healer in WvW right now and this will likely kill it entirely.

Also, nerfing warrior damage is silly, they aren't overpreforming at all in that regard. Full counter and break enchantments coefs should stay as they are on live. Dagger changes make sense though.

Edit: I mean warrior damage in groups, not roaming. Dagger changes and featherfoot grace nerf should hit roaming spellbreaker hard enough to leave break enchantments and full counter as is in order to keep spellbreaker viable as melee dps in groups

Druid is amazing in small skirmishes in both pvp and wvw. They dont fit in team fights in pvp or zerg fights in wvw sure, but that was the purpose of soulbeast wasnt it?

[Djill.2150]

As someone who mains support builds like Firebrand and Druid in Ranked PvP I can't say I'm happy for these changes. Firebrand was already removed from the meta, the druid is being hit so hard I'm not sure if they'll even remain in the good/great tier.

I am the kinda person that likes smart gameplay, prolonged fights and tactics instead of BAM, you're dead - I fear that the nerf to support will make it even less likely for these kinda fights to happen. Those that say that druids have passive gameplay simply don't druid very well in my opinion. And it's also not realistic to say they have no counters. A good enemy team focuses me down and runs me off, a bunch of people who all attack another target will indeed not stand a chance.

Granted, I can't predict what changes to other classes will do for the overall gameplay, so I can't know for sure if this is the case but to me it feels like you're killing support/bunker characters mostly because some people don't know how to deal with them. I want more variety in the meta builds for PvP as much as anyone else, but this will just kick them out, not increase the overall number.

I sincerely hope this won't mean that there will be no heavy support/bunker classes in PvP anymore. To me that would take the fun out of the mode. That said I do understand why you'd split PvP and PvE - AoE damage is my main gripe. You should do significantly less damage with cleaves and simple ground AoE's than you do single target (way more of a difference than now), I think.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Just doing a search on Mesmer for this thread shows the main problem with this patch will be the lack of attention to how broken Mesmer is post rework.

The class is completely busted right now. SS tier pressure. SS tier burst. SS tier survival. SS tier rotation / decap. SS tier CC. SS tier disengage. SS tier engage. People are even banning mes from 1v1 because it's becoming just an accepted fact that mez is unbeatable when played by any competent player.

[Djill.2150]

On a different note: WvW and Spvp are significantly different - if you're going to split skills you should split them for these game modes as well.

[dzeRnumbrd.6129]

Further feedback:

Nefarious Favor

The nerf of this skill in the last patch needs to be reverted. I don't think you thought through the issues long enough.

I believe you made this change in order to try to impact upon scourge's sustain rather than impact on our support abilities.

Given that Scourge can condi transfer and condi clear with other skills, the only people you have nerfed with this change is the scourge's allies.

So placing a bunch of people into a condi meta and then nerf condi clears isn't going to reflect nicely on condition spamming professions like scourge.

You should have left the condition->boon conversions totally alone and then the previous nerf may actually have had a bigger impact on the condi meta.

Scourge is supposed to be a support class, clearing conditions in a condi meta is really important - so REVERT NERF!

CoR

CoR nerf doesn't address the issue - the issue is a lack of risk for the amount of reward.

The solution is to invert the damage - so:

• Change damage modifiers from: 1.25 -> 1.75 -> 2.25

• Change it to: 2.25 -> 1.75 -> 1.25

So the nearest hit is damaging and the furthest hit is least damaging.

This will restore the risk:reward balance to the skill, it won't deny them huge damage, it will only require they take a risk of getting "up close" in order to apply their huge damage.

Wells

Wells (particularly Suffering and Corruption) need more burst damage (so HALVE the ticks and DOUBLE the damage) - this is mainy due to the fact that people are better at playing these days - Scourge has taught them to get out of red circles ASAP instead of trying to tanking them. So sometimes we can get 1 or 2 ticks even on a perfectly placed well. The damage needs to apply faster. I'd say this one change may see Wellomancers return to WvW after scourge is nerfed to into oblivion.

Obstructed on walls

After scourge's neutering in last balance patch the reason for this change no longer sense.

The original justification for making walls give you obstructed was that it wasn't "fun gameplay" for necros to be able to bomb walls.

Meanwhile weavers are downing 5 players or blowing up an AC with 1 or 2meteor showers.

We think it is only fair the Necro's AOEs are treated exactly the same as other profession's AOEs.

We shouldn't be a second class citizen in the AOE world.

It only makes sense to re-enable this functionality after the huge nerfs we've received. We can no longer light up the wall with instant downs.