PvP/WvW Skill Split Release

[Vagrant.7206]

@"Mizhas.8536" said:In my opinion, shade delay is not much of a problem but i really think that shades should be able to hit different heights like any other AoE in the game. It´s really frustrating in WvW that the enemy scourges can hit you from top of the wall and not having the chance of fighting them back.

Other skills have really wonky AoE too. Blunderbuss only hits in a horizontal cone, not a vertical cone, so if an enemy is on stairs, I'm not hitting them with blunderbuss. A surprising number of engineer "cone" AoE skills have this problem too.

[Exitus.3297]

My general thoughts after thinking about the changes can pretty much be summed up like this. ANet, you are generally good at identifying problems and going in the right direction, but...

1. Skill splitting is getting a bit out of control (I know it's sometimes necessary, but Auto-attacks in this patch are getting nerfed on some classes, which is bizarre to me).
2. Healing/Damage coefficients are getting changed a bit too harshly in 1 patch (a 20% buff/nerf to anything in one set of patch notes is not tiny).
3. Auto-Proc traits I feel weren't actually addressed. They are just less frequent. This will only make players feel more forced to take other traits, not open their options.

If the overall goal was to increase build diversity, I'm not sure if this is how to go about it. I know you guys are trying to generally tone things down, which is fine, but most classes (E.G. Deadeye) aren't played necessarily because of the numbers, but because of Quality of Life issues.

[darwinslittlehelper.7182]

Throwing my two cents in:

I like where the thinking behind the changes listed are coming from. Good to see, though some of the preliminary changes will not have the desired effect...Thoughts1)Nerf or better yet, replace Sand Savant. This single GM traits causes most the of problems for playing against scourge competitively. Controlling a massive area of death on a faster cooldown is broken. As a bonus, less fps loss for those in WvW. Most people do not like playing Guild Wars 2, the flip book.

2)If passives are being nerfed (I understand this is not the patch to redo mechanics, but many passives should just be removed and/or changed), then instant spells need to also be looked at. Instant abilities can be stacked quickly and in conjunction with channeled abilities, creating the massive burst that some classes are capable of. These bursts are frustrating to play against, as they are often from stealth and are clearly tempting for macro users. The bursts exist as they do due to the passives. I have no definite answers, though many on these forums have some great suggestions.

3)AoE. Why the obsession?? So many easily placed, drop on cooldown, zero thought AoE's. I have always thought an AoE should be a tactical choice, the power of the AoE offset by it's cast time, cooldown and other factors. Reducing the sheer number or at least size of many AoE abilities will force players to use and target them with more care, making for a better game experience. You might be able to see your target over the particle effects, can actually have a chance to react and plan, less calculations for the servers equals less lag again (see what I did there ;). If I get swarmed by ten guys in WvW, see you at the respawn, no problem. I should be able to see the color of the grass I am dead on though, not a solid wash of red circles as far as I can see. In PvP, several classes have very powerful AoE's that cover or nearly cover capture points, for a fair amount of time, while still allowing capture. Most of these AoE's are spammed.

4)Stealth. I can hear the angry murmuring. I know it will likely not be fixed. I know it would cause a lot of rebalancing and adjustment. Many like how it works now, I do not. I think it should not work the way it does, from the game launch. Attacking via stealth should reveal. Being in stealth should count as being in combat, slower speed, no recharge heal. Being close to someone should reveal you in short order. Some classes should not have access to stealth, some should have less than they do. Thieves should still be the masters of this ability. A base engineer stealthing is ridiculous, toss elixir S should shrink allies in an AoE, right? right? The trapper rune is also ridiculous, at least with the current way stealth works.

Couldn't help it, wandered into bigger changes, outside of the scope of this upcoming patch. I would just like some of these thoughts to be considered. I would just like this great game to be even better, for everyone. Less visual spam, less passives, less AoE. The game has a great base combat system, it is a great selling feature.Do not trivialize that with overloaded spammed skills. Make sure to make those skills and tactics matter, not just cram every button you can find.Thank you for the consideration if you made it this far :)

[ILoveMonotony.1479]

As I already mentioned before, I really like the proposed changes.

Just a few things about the Engineer:-for the Mortar Kit, an increased projectile speed is IMHO preferable over more damage. I'd of course gladly take both;-[EDIT] Flash Shell should be a smoke field;-the Mortar Kit tool belt skill Orbital Strike could use some love. A lower cast time, a much reduced activation time and additional effects (2 seconds of burning and blind, maybe some confusion too) would improve it a lot. Since Holosmith is locked out of the F5 ability the most dominant specialisation can't abuse it;-this suggestion is more than a pure skill split, but maybe consider binding the Function Gyro to the F5 too. Make it a ground targeted ability that resurrects allies but has additional effects (AoE stability and resistance maybe). The Scrapper gets better value out of its main mechanic and only core Engineer retains access to the F5. It would be a little extra core Engineer has over the elite specialisations. The F5 abilities could get buffed without increasing the overbearing elites.

[darwinslittlehelper.7182]

One more thing. WvW has one kill=one rally. PvP needs this as well. Multiple rezzes off one kill is ridiculous in a 5 man to a side game. Looks terrible as well.One kill=one rally is fine.

[Wichidi.9281]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Arenanet, please read:

I'll state my opinions mostly from an spvp point of view, while still taking in to mind how it effects wvw and pve. But first it is important to point out what the problems are that the intra-class dynamic faces at this point in time in spvp. This is not only my opinion, but also the majority opinion of players playing platinum + at least from what I understand:

• Mesmer builds are too strong. There is too much DPS pressure here for how much survivability and utility is present.
• Spellbreakers specifically, not Berserker or Core, are too strong. This is mainly due to the power and utility behind Full Counter.
• Druids specifically, not Soulbeast or Core, are too strong. This is 100% due to Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow.
• Firebrand and Scourge are still mandatory choices for 5 man play and generally increase the win rates of any team, even in ranked or unranked, the more of them you have in your team. I wouldn't say they are "over powered" but the utility and function they bring into the dynamic of conquest matches or even wvw squads, is just more heavily evolved than anything else in the game right now. This effect becomes exponentially screwed up the more Firebrands and Scourges that are present on the same team together. They completely break the idea of not having a holy trinity. Firebrand and Scourge is the holy trinity at this point. Other classes/builds do not compare to the importance of these two in competitive play, spvp or wvw.
• The above problems result in the ultimate problem which is, very little class/build diversity in competitive play. Other classes aren't so kitten that they are unplayable but none of them are able to compete in viability with Mesmer based specs/Spellbreaker/Druid/Firebrand/Scourge.

How do I feel about the proposed changes? Well I think there are shortcuts and more simple ways to fix these problems that exist in spvp/wvw, without dabbling in so much change across the board on every character:

• Mesmers - Tone down the damage. It doesn't need to be neutered but it really needs a cut in its damage. However this is achieved, is up to the balance team.
• Spellbreakers - Full Counter needs nerfing. Nothing else needs to be touched! just Full Counter. However this is achieved, go for it balance team.

+1 on this

spellbreaker needs to be toned down in terms of counter. You dont need to done down the dmg on aa or increase the CD on dagger 2 leap. If u go with all the nerfs its gonna be as he said: Rip warrior.

@Dark Knight.6294 said:Rip warrior

basically just nerfing everything into the ground sounds easy to do but pls dont make the same mistakes with spellbreaker as with rev and dont overnerf them.

if u go with all those nerfs core war is going to be stronger than spellbreaker.

And IF u do so, at least make sure to make berserker viable again. I did not see any changes to berserker in the suggestions so i highly doubt making Berserker viable in PvP again is one of the goals. (It could easily be made viable again by reverting the nerfs from May 16, 2017).

[Curunen.8729]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:'ey all. As many of you have pointed out, a fair number of the changes posted earlier are not going to have the impact we're looking for, or only impact one of the two competitive modes. So we're going to be reviewing a lot of the posted changes and will be making some of them into just PvP and others into just WvW. The changes will be aimed at the game mode that they most directly impact.

Very good to hear.

Elusive Mind possible solutions:

• 10s ICD on stunbreak only with clear UI effect on dodge bar to indicate cooldown.
• Convert all crowd control into a daze (and remove daze), no internal cooldown.

[Curunen.8729]

@OriOri.8724 said:

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:'ey all. As many of you have pointed out, a fair number of the changes posted earlier are not going to have the impact we're looking for, or only impact one of the two competitive modes. So we're going to be reviewing a lot of the posted changes and will be making some of them into just PvP and others into just WvW. The changes will be aimed at the game mode that they most directly impact.

Good to hear. I can't wait to see the second draft of the proposed mesmer changes especially. Please take into consideration our (mesmer players) thoughts on the EM change, many of us would rather lose the stunbreak entirely (and indeed some of us have wanted this change ever since the trait was originally leaked.....) than have exhaustion tacked on haphazardly like the first round of proposed changes suggested. There is some great discussion in the mesmer forums about why exhaustion not only hurts the class quite a bit more than it affects DD, while also not even addressing the root issue with EM, which is stunbreaks on ridiculously short CDs that allow us to then launch back an ambush attack, while also evading attacks."Many of us" is a little disingenuous.

As far as I know from the forum it is only a few people including yourself that wants to lose the stunbreak entirely.

I would hazard a guess that many if not most on here want to keep the stunbreak element as it allows freeing up utility slots for other skills than stunbreaks. I certainly prefer to have the stunbreak on dodge so I don't need to use utility skills for it aside from blink.

Anyway of course, I agree with exhaustion being a mistake, and I would prefer keeping the stunbreak with the ICD only solution, or your other proposed solution of converting stun and other cc into daze - allowing movement from cc but no skill casting.

[snh.7091]

Also, I'm very curious how this patch will affect the much toxic Shatter Mesmers. It's funny how literally everyone complains about thieves "just because" while Shatter Mesmers are 100x more cancerous than anything in the game surpassing Scourges and Warriors.

Deadeyes:Everything we do is heavily telegraphed and can be dodged or blocked with ease. It's enough if the terrain is just a little bit narrow for the projectile to miss and the range of the rifle is capped at 1200 (1500 if crouching) unlike Rangers with a longbow, so just get out of range and you're safe. On top of that, if a Deadeye wants to go for that killshot, they need to 1) trait and gear up for maximum power leaving them pretty much defenceless with only around 11k health, 2) mark the target, 3) wait for at least half a minute to get 7 malice stacks in stealth, 4) hope the conditions will turn out in their favour to land that shot, which given the MASSIVE TELL everyone has above their head with Deadeye's Mark every sane person will simply run, use stealth, hide in a large crowd, or teleport back to base and everything we traited and waited for will be for nothing. Most of the times Deadeyes, due to very bad design, don't get to land the killshot.

Now let's talk about Shatter Mesmers:Shatter Mesmers can stack excessive amounts of stealth given the fact that they are scholars, not assassins. There is no big mark above your head indicating a Mesmer is up to no good and you should be aware. Most, even experienced Mesmer players have admitted to use macros (computer-aided actions that in this instance can be considered cheating without punishment) to execute a series of combos in a split second in a sequence without a tell against which there is literally no defence on most occasions. Even if you want to use a stun break, the sequence, mostly due to being computer-aided (macro) is so fast the human response just cannot follow and while you attempt to stun break you are dazed again, left defenceless and dead in less than 1/2 second.

Yes, you say, this is coming from a Deadeye, but think about it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Deadeyes, or Thieves in general, as an assassin profession, should be granted no tells, not Mesmers, if ANet really want to keep this type of toxicity in their game.

The Shatter Mesmer plague needs to end. The previous patch fixed literally nothing. They still down people without a warning in less than 1/2 a second and call themselves pro executing commands with the help of the computer.

[gonso.4268]

So..... SB Warrior is dead right?

[BeLZedaR.4790]

@gonso.4268 said:So..... SB Warrior is dead right?

No.

[Link.1049]

It looks like the thief nerfs are going to hit harder than intended, while not making any of the skills more viable.

SkillsHeartseeker: Increased the power coefficients at all thresholds by 20% in PvP and WvW. The new values are as follows.Above 50%: 1.0 to 1.2Below 50%: 1.5 to 1.8Below 25%: 2.0 to 2.4This won't change heartseekers usefulness... it's too expensive to cast as interrupts, closers, and other skills are all more useful

Sword Autoattack chain: Reduced the power coefficients from 0.8, 0.8, 1.3 to 0.6, 0.6, 1.3 (-14% overall) in PvP and WvW- combined with other changes this is going to be a really negative change.

Roll for Initiative: Increased the cooldown from 35 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP and WvW--> I'd not do this, your lowering damage on the autoattack, making them rely on other skills, but then effectively casting chill on them... not good.

Infiltrator's Strike: Increased the power coefficient from .75 to .9 (+20%) in PvP and WvW- it'd be more effective if it actually did what it says it did... the immobilize pretty much never has an effect due to passives.

Signet of Shadows: Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW- Still useless... unless signet of shadows increases movement speed beyond what it currently does, there's really no use for it, it's too expensive to slot for pretty much zero return. Speed boosts are basically useless in pvp and wvw now since everything grants swiftness. Maybe completely rework this signet.

Smoke Screen: Reduced the cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW- This isn't going to increase use, the casting time is too long for when it is needed.

Dagger Storm: Reduced the cooldown from 90 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP and WvW- still to easy to interrupt and load up with conditions etc... for what it does compared to the other elite traits it's still very expensive.

Hide in Shadows: Increased the base healing from 5240 to 6026 (+15%) in PvP and WvW- again, main issue with this one is casting time, that's why it's rarely used. If casting time were reduced you could take that 15% away and it'd be fine.

Skelk Venom: Increased the venom heal per hit from 965 to 1206 (+25%) in PvP and WvW- Skelk venom is useless. Reducing the cooldown and increasing the healing even more would help. Or maybe have it remove conditions or convert conditions or SOMETHING, otherwise all the other heals are just, better.

TraitsInstant Reflexes: Increased the cooldown from 40 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP only- too much given the amount of insane power creep lately...if you're gonna go this route, try 60 seconds insteadPain response: Increased the cooldown from 16 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP only- eh..not a really useful trait to begin with so...sure...why not?

Hard to Catch: Increased the cooldown from 45 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP only- I'd leave this one be

I also looked at Mesmer... it could use a BIG look through instead of the very mild one here. The current meta build of this is insane as its still a passive build, and generates MASSIVE amounts of damage while bunkering and being immune to damage the entire time.

One thing I would adjust in ALL classes that have the ability to become invulnerable is that while invulnerable you cannot deal damage. Too many classes pop invulnerability and then do these massive power attacks, turning it into who hit who first wars, or who popped their invuln first wars.

[Link.1049]

It'd also be good to revisit thief downstate... maybe increase the duration of the stealth ability, increase the distance for the shadowstep, or both.For traits:invigoration precision could use a boost to be usefulConcealed defeat- nice that deceptions charge faster, but the secondary part of smokescreen when down is completely useless. Maybe that's the one that could help with downstate? making you invis long enough to have a chance to get up like the other classes?Leeching venoms would be used more if it was buffed

Deadeye could also use some tweaking... deadeyes mark takes forever to cast... and many of the basic skills can be blocked by...grass. or air...Maybe let skills stay in after malice fades until a new target is marked, most the steal skills now go to waste on deadeye, making one in the chamber useless...and most things that deadeye does that use that mark to do boons and stuff like fire for effect

skills:shadow trap would be more useful with a shorter cooldownCaltrops needs a major buff or just removedThieves guild- in pvp and wvw would be good to have a BIG buff in damage especially since the cooldown is astronomical

bidning shadow... maybe reduce delay to 1/2 secondshadow flare- in pvp and wvw, (and pve) up the damage substantiallyShadow gust... shorter cast time

[Link.1049]

OH... also... for PvP... please fix the kill rally thing... instead of tagging a dude, running across a map, dying, and then getting magically rezzed because someone you hit 5 minutes ago died, then getting downed again, and getting the rez again for a dude not even in eyesight who you maybe hit with an aoe once?.. end it.... perhaps give a death rally a range of no more than the size of the points? I don't mind so much if multiple people rally off of one dude... but it's mind-shatteringly annoying when you down someone in 1v1 combat on home 3 times in a row, only to have them rez each time because someone at mid or far died of old age.

[Anchoku.8142]

@Aza.2105 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:If this split is limited to numbers, why not add toughness and vitality to every profession to tone down damage?

Thats because toughness doesn't work. You won't notice any difference.

Not even if every amulet added 500 toughness and 500 vitality? Maybe throw in some negative healing stat, too, as an experiment. Team fights can certainly be prolonged and professions leveled by global scaling of base stats.

Nope it wouldn't change much. I'm a buildcrafter so I tend to test a lot of different possibilities that you normally wouldn't see in the meta. One thing I've specifically tested for quite awhile is if you could create a build that has high health and toughness and if they could survive all the extreme amounts of damage that is going around. The answer is no. I tested with rev, since theoretically they have high damage mitigation. With max toughness, scrapper rune, protection boon, minor gm trait from retribution line (with stability up and vengeful hammers up, you still will die in like 1-2 seconds.

Revenant also has the most theoretical condi dmg reduction. With their gm trait from kalla -33% condi damage, vengeful hammers -20%, kalla heal -50% and Rite of the Great dwarf -50%. When the heal is up or rite of the great dwarf, you take less condi damage but its not enough to change the fight at all. Once those two buffs fade, even with the -33% passive and vengeful hammers buff you die in a few seconds to conditions.

My conclusion is that damage is simply out of control. Its too high, too fast with little slow down between the damage being pumped out. The only way toughness or any form of mitigation would matter is if Anet scaled down damage significantly. Which would lead to another problem, there might not be enough damage to actually kill someone who is max mitigation. Ultimately the problem with gw2 pvp combat is the rate at which things are applied. That is damage and potentially mitigation. It just needs to be slowed down. There has to be a vulnerability time between each action you make, so enemies can punish you.

So, if I understand you correctly, if given the choice, you might prefer something like -1000 power, -1000 condition damage, -50% boon duration, and -50% condition duration over some smaller buffs to vitality and toughness. Would that be acceptable?

[GrimIchor.7320]

I don't mean to be that person, but like ok druid is kind of dedicated healer type everything you do is heal heal heal, like that is what our class does, that is pretty much all we do, with every other class slowly creeping in on that in ways that can at times make you laughable at that job unless you go crazy out of your way to be the best possible healer ever and not dip into anything else, and the other classes competing are still capable of ridiculous amounts of damage while they are doing it, while as a druid your staff skills just aren't likely to kill anyone on their own...i mean sure we have our pets, which are where we get alot of our damage from, but jebus man, a mesmer can keep itself perfectly healed running mirage and murder you in two seconds with phantasms and the like without batting an eye, can we please get some more love instead of dropping us more down that hole of inevitable irrelevancy? maybe i'm wrong here, it's very possible i am, i've been maining a druid for a couple years now and it's kind of the only class i really enjoy playing in the long term, be it pve or what have you, cause i love the whole healer role idea , i enjoy backing people up , i enjoy helping in a support role while being able to play the elite class, not simply have the druid sun symbol up and still be running meta build ranger crap.

[Red Haired Savage.5430]

@Inoki.6048 said:There is no big mark above your head indicating a Mesmer is up to no good and you should be aware.

They're mesmers they're never up to any good. Even ones on your own side with their troll portals, I've seen more people die from taking a bad portal into a zerg... The only good and safe mesmer is a dead mesmer.

[Aza.2105]

@Anchoku.8142 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:

@Aza.2105 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:If this split is limited to numbers, why not add toughness and vitality to every profession to tone down damage?

Thats because toughness doesn't work. You won't notice any difference.

Not even if every amulet added 500 toughness and 500 vitality? Maybe throw in some negative healing stat, too, as an experiment. Team fights can certainly be prolonged and professions leveled by global scaling of base stats.

Nope it wouldn't change much. I'm a buildcrafter so I tend to test a lot of different possibilities that you normally wouldn't see in the meta. One thing I've specifically tested for quite awhile is if you could create a build that has high health and toughness and if they could survive all the extreme amounts of damage that is going around. The answer is no. I tested with rev, since theoretically they have high damage mitigation. With max toughness, scrapper rune, protection boon, minor gm trait from retribution line (with stability up and vengeful hammers up, you still will die in like 1-2 seconds.

Revenant also has the most theoretical condi dmg reduction. With their gm trait from kalla -33% condi damage, vengeful hammers -20%, kalla heal -50% and Rite of the Great dwarf -50%. When the heal is up or rite of the great dwarf, you take less condi damage but its not enough to change the fight at all. Once those two buffs fade, even with the -33% passive and vengeful hammers buff you die in a few seconds to conditions.

My conclusion is that damage is simply out of control. Its too high, too fast with little slow down between the damage being pumped out. The only way toughness or any form of mitigation would matter is if Anet scaled down damage significantly. Which would lead to another problem, there might not be enough damage to actually kill someone who is max mitigation. Ultimately the problem with gw2 pvp combat is the rate at which things are applied. That is damage and potentially mitigation. It just needs to be slowed down. There has to be a vulnerability time between each action you make, so enemies can punish you.

So, if I understand you correctly, if given the choice, you might prefer something like -1000 power, -1000 condition damage, -50% boon duration, and -50% condition duration over some smaller buffs to vitality and toughness. Would that be acceptable?

Not sure if it would be that easy. I think a starting point would be to look at the damage, the rate of damage and mitigation, and health tiers. If you look at it from a design point of view. Players are dealing nearly the exact same damage as they do in raid situations. Except they can't one shot the raid boss because it has millions of health. And raid bosses can not one shot players with little to no indication. In pve big, strong attacks are highly telegraphed so you can dodge them. While in pvp its not uncommon for a player to get killed in a couple seconds from a opponent coming from stealth or after one knock down.

[Morvar.9864]

One little possible adjustment came in mind for Ventaris. Change the projectile destroying part in "Protective Solace" to count as blocks. As healers they could do some tagging in WvW with the help of Rune of the Guardian.

[Arheundel.6451]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Arenanet, please read:

I'll state my opinions mostly from an spvp point of view, while still taking in to mind how it effects wvw and pve. But first it is important to point out what the problems are that the intra-class dynamic faces at this point in time in spvp. This is not only my opinion, but also the majority opinion of players playing platinum + at least from what I understand:

• Mesmer builds are too strong. There is too much DPS pressure here for how much survivability and utility is present.
• Spellbreakers specifically, not Berserker or Core, are too strong. This is mainly due to the power and utility behind Full Counter.
• Druids specifically, not Soulbeast or Core, are too strong. This is 100% due to Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow.
• Firebrand and Scourge are still mandatory choices for 5 man play and generally increase the win rates of any team, even in ranked or unranked, the more of them you have in your team. I wouldn't say they are "over powered" but the utility and function they bring into the dynamic of conquest matches or even wvw squads, is just more heavily evolved than anything else in the game right now. This effect becomes exponentially screwed up the more Firebrands and Scourges that are present on the same team together. They completely break the idea of not having a holy trinity. Firebrand and Scourge is the holy trinity at this point. Other classes/builds do not compare to the importance of these two in competitive play, spvp or wvw.
• The above problems result in the ultimate problem which is, very little class/build diversity in competitive play. Other classes aren't so kitten that they are unplayable but none of them are able to compete in viability with Mesmer based specs/Spellbreaker/Druid/Firebrand/Scourge.

How do I feel about the proposed changes? Well I think there are shortcuts and more simple ways to fix these problems that exist in spvp/wvw, without dabbling in so much change across the board on every character:

• Mesmers - Tone down the damage. It doesn't need to be neutered but it really needs a cut in its damage. However this is achieved, is up to the balance team.
• Spellbreakers - Full Counter needs nerfing. Nothing else needs to be touched! just Full Counter. However this is achieved, go for it balance team.
• Druids - There are way too many nerfs being directed into the wrong places on this one. I main Ranger/Druid/Soulbeast in every game mode and I tell you no lie when I say that the problem with Druid is completely within the two traits Druidic Clarity and Celestial Shadow. This is THE ENTIRE base of the Druid's survivability. Slightly nerfing these two traits wouldn't really effect pve and wvw play and would be better options than the enormous cuts proposed in the OP statement. Please read the previous thread I had opened on this topic as it goes into much deeper detail, with community feedback. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/27812/druid-post-2-6-2018-patch-druid-players-give-feedback/p1 - If you do not read the thread, the point being is: To make Druid Clarity cleanse 3 condis per second, for 4 seconds upon activation instead of immediate 13 condi cleanse and Celestial Shadow's stealth/super speed should be reduced from 3s to 2s. This is more than enough of a nerf to make Druids much easier to kill. Nerfing them too much, will result in Druid losing all viability in any competitive setting.
• Firebrands & Scourges - Honestly, and a lot of people may disagree with this, I don't think these classes need any nerfing. Maybe they need a bit of reallocation to where power lies within the specs or how healing/protections need to be rotated to achieve high end results but they do not need nerfing.

About holy trinity & niches - If anything, I can say to the balance team that there actually needs to be a holy trinity so to say. Every class/specialization should be a stapled kind of gameplay and role within any group. I believe it would be healthy for the game at this point. It also would help with overall balance because, if one class is the stapled boon removal guy "As example" nothing else can ever really replace him, despite how much he is nerfed. But when every class can do every job, naturally it will result in some top 3 statistically superior selections and balance will never be achieved. I think it would be a good idea, to focus on giving core/hot/pof specializtions there own niches that only they can really do. This would make every specialization irreplaceable and always the best at what they are designed to do. Firebrand, Scourge, Spellbreaker, Druid, Thieves are great examples of this competitively. Mesmer should be in that list but Mesmer is better used as an example of a class that can do too much and is too good at everything. Pve wise, you have Druids and Chronos that are the only distinguished roles and the rest are DPS transparently based. How to change that? No idea, probably a lot harder to do than it is competitively. In competitive settings you have more roles that classes can specialize in such as: Team Support, Side Node Monkey Bunker, Bruiser "many subtypes within this", Decap +1 DPS, Point Nuker "Which historically doesn't work well in conquest but works great in wvw backlines".

Oh and PS:

1. Barrier killing all critical hits is questionable and needs to be reviewed.
2. Leave Thief alone. Stop it, stop nerfing it. It doesn't need nerfing.
3. Please be careful who's feedback you listen to, if this is truly a patch dedicated towards competitive areas in the game.

Thief does need nerfing....... are you serious ? If you watch AT monthly you see teams reaching the finals with 2x thieves and here you say they don't need nerfs : they can chain 2 unblockable attacks ( one is getting buffed in dmg also ) reaching up to 8k unblockable attack on a 5s average , after that they have dodges for days ( dodge=invulnerability ) and in wvw with evasion food is 10x worst. They need to remove the unblockable of infiltrator strike and avoid absolutely to buff shadow shot...which would be very stupid

[messiah.1908]

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:'ey all. As many of you have pointed out, a fair number of the changes posted earlier are not going to have the impact we're looking for, or only impact one of the two competitive modes. So we're going to be reviewing a lot of the posted changes and will be making some of them into just PvP and others into just WvW. The changes will be aimed at the game mode that they most directly impact.@Ben Phongluangtham.1065 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:'ey all. As many of you have pointed out, a fair number of the changes posted earlier are not going to have the impact we're looking for, or only impact one of the two competitive modes. So we're going to be reviewing a lot of the posted changes and will be making some of them into just PvP and others into just WvW. The changes will be aimed at the game mode that they most directly impact.

Will there be a follow-up post at a later date with your revisions?

Yep! I'm hoping we'll get a revision within the next week or so. Possibly early next week, given localization time.

Oh my god that is wonderful :D

I am beyond happy with the communication. It is refreshing and really, really making a difference with the attitude in the community. Thank you!

---

Aside from this, another suggestion I had would be to give Bountiful Disillusionment a 10 second cooldown on the stability and possibly the removal of Aegis from Chaos Storm.

Not only that, but mesmers also have fairly easy access to permanent protection, as well as every other boon in the game. However, the permanent 2 stacks of stability with Bountiful Disillusionment coupled with the constant Aegis (that blocks the attacks that would strip it), make for a very powerful combination that is hard to stop.

which build are you refering to? the bunker/support or the current meta power demolisher?you do know that nerf to the traits will result hurting the support build in all game mode (pve/pvp/wvw) while i think the problem is the the dmg .ask yourself what made this build meta only now?

1. condi was nerf
2. mirage appearedso you see the build was long ago nerfed but only now with the mirage got reemerge again. so the problem is within mirage trait line which got nerfed hard.so take scourge with curroption abilities or spellbreaker and mesmer will feel the pressure.

[Zzero.4316]

when is this planned to take effect?

[Lonecap.4105]

I'll add in my own thoughts to Warrior changes later on to this post, but for now I just really wanted to say, thank you so much for the communication. It's really amazing to see a thread like this and it made my day. It's incredible you guys are reaching out and that we're working together on this!

[MyPuppy.8970]

In my opinion, it's good but barely enough. There is not enough trade off for doing high damage. Also instant-cast burst from range or stealth are what forced people to gear/trait defensively to being sometimes unkillable 1v1, which resulted in buff in damage/utility, it is an endless loop that leaves asides the specs that neither received any kind of rework in their damage/sustain/utility mechanic. Some skills do too much for the effort required, all the more when they're nearly spammable. Macroable combos from 900-1200 should get cast times or simple nerf in damage. Some range weapon/skills are just too rewarding regarding the risk involved. But overall it is a step in the right direction since burst specs will have to think twice with a lesser safety net.

The bold text is the culprit behind all the passives. If passives are toned down, this part should as well.

[Raffboy.8364]

Ive been playing around with Renegade in WvW and to my suprise its actually working. There are some changes that would help the spec more than just buffing the damage. Summoning the Chars takes a little bit too long in any hectic 1v1 or small teamfight type situation. Half a second would be perfectly fine because it takes a while untill the Charrs attack anyway, so there is no real harm and i dont think it would break pve . Another thing is that playing Revernant outside of Herald can be very daunting because the access to swiftness is really peoblematic, which makes roaming kinda exhausting. My proposal for that would be to buff the talent "Rapid Flow" and give it a 20sec swiftness duration or something like that. It would be an easy fix and it would bring some build diversity back to the Revernant. Lots of people dont wanna play anything but Hreald because of the lack of movement speed increase.