PvP/WvW Skill Split Release

[DemonSeed.3528]

I accept the challenges coming with the changes. No time for cryin' just kill peeps an keep em dyin'. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

[Caliburn.1845]

Resistance converted to immob needs to be a priority. It has a bigger impact than most of the stuff listed here.

[Enox.5870]

Winds of Disenchantment should be re worked or nerfed. It's too big of a game changer in WvW. The skill completely changes the course of a battle. All you have to do right now is stack Scourge Necros and have like 4 Warriors in WvW and you win. Drop all your damage in a Winds of Disenchantment and you see people just die instantly. Only takes a few seconds to do. Something like that is bad for a competitive game mode and should be changed sooner rather than later like you guys did with Epidemic.

Necro skills getting a +10 second nerf is a little too extreme. I'd say start at +5 seconds first then see how it goes from there.

Coalescence of Ruin needs to be nerfed. I'd stay a -20% damage reduction. Coalescence of Ruin can one or two shot basically any class and has no player skill involved.

[Zero.3871]

my opinion to auto invul:

biggest Problem is the great uptime of invuls in this game, so those traits

Stoneform: Increased the cooldown from 70 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP onlyDefy Pain: Increased the cooldown from 60 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP only

in wvw imo dont Need higher CDs, they Need Shorter Durations. at the beginning of a fight nothing would Change if i fight warrior or ranger, they are invul the first 10 seconds if they want, so if i am playing power i simply can do NOTHING for whole 10 seconds while i get MASSIVE dmg from them. when i Play for example reaper, if enemy is undefeatable for 10 seconds while they can attack me - lets say they have just 3k dps on me (thats low) - they do 30 k dmg to before i can start dmg them.

other solution could be to create skills like Dragon hunter f3, that only defend against attacks from in front of you, so you can move around enemy who is using that and still dmg him.

my opinion to necro changes:

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 WvWSignet 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

more heal for necromancer on unusual skills....okay...but i think well of bloods Problem is, that i can't stand 6 seconds inside of it to get the whole heal, cause its to easy for enemies to bomb that. necro skills Need to be faster. i would prefer necro wells that have Shorter uptime (maybe just 3 ticks) , but shorter cooldown or higher Impact on each tick. that would make them more useful in dynamic fights.

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

compare that skill to warrior greatsword 3, or Guardian GS 3, or other weapon skills from other classes, so i dont understand the high cd on it. i think 20 secs are still way too high for a 600 range,1target, skill.

Plague Signet: Increased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 40 seconds in PvP and WvWTrail of Anguish: Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 35 seconds in PvP and WvW

plague signet is one of most important stunbreaks (and condi removals) necro have, while necro lacks massively stability. so that would be a heavy nerf. some compensation neededon Trail of anguish also a stunbreak + stability nerf...

at least:

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

plz dont Forget that this skills Count as shroud entry, many traits that works with shroud entry get nearly useless with 30 seconds cooldown on it. synergies between scourge and his traitlines are already low, that would punish synergies hard...so finally scourge lost more and more traits he can use halfway useful.

1 wish of mine:

blood bond in bloodmagic traitline dont work on power necs because you Need 4 stacks of bleeding i dont have on power reaper. would be nice to see another restriction on it, that make this trait more useful for more builds (build diversity). e.g. vulnerability stacks, condi and power necros are using that condition.

[Mr Pin.6728]

As a ranger player I can somewhat understand the changes geared towards making druid less dominate on a point but I am somewhat perplexed on how an axe buff, a weapon with 900 range (hurray for standing in giant condi circles!), wonky after casts, substandard split damage, down right bizarre targeting (half the time it just targets my feet and I throw my axe into the ground) and no real utility will increase build diversity for a ranger. This is more problematic in WvW where the dominate specs aren't being toned down that much and ranger already struggles for a role in the game mode. Well struggles is polite. They are plain hated in the mode and players take great glee in killing underpowered ranger "noobs". I see you are removing druid from PvP meta or at least toning it down but you aren't giving a WvW ranger player the tools, utility or damage to survive. Particularly in mass combat where scourge will still be king and mesmers will still be the dominate power roamers. They won't bring any group utility to the table and now will be less of an asset due to decreased sustain and more of a liability due to substandard damage and rally potential.

When I saw ranger changes I'll admit I expected them to be pvp only. I mean why would you nerf a class in WvW that literally does not have a single meta build?

[dani.4398]

@Caliburn.1845 said:Resistance converted to immob needs to be a priority. It has a bigger impact than most of the stuff listed here.

Caliburn my friend, this is an argument where I'll back you up 100% of the time. Resistance to immobilize needs to be changed for a better WvW experience

[Emapudapus.1307]

Reaper's Protection: Increased the cooldown from 60 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP onlyAt least in pvp noeone runs this cuz its in bad traitline, nerfing it seems pointless and overdone, 60 sec is alot already.

[Jamez Jamez.9674]

"Seed of Life: Increased the cooldown from 1 second to 3 seconds in PvP and WvWRejuvenating Tides: Reduced the base healing per pulse from 650 to 550 (-15%) in PvP and WvWSolar Beam: Reduced the power coefficient per strike from 0.3 to 0.25 (-17%) in PvP and WvWCelestial Avatar: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW"

I can understand why these changes were made for PvP but in a WvW standpoint I have no idea why these types of changes were made. In WvW these changes seem completely unnecessary, from my own experience and talking to people in the community no one goes around saying "Man druid is just way to good in WvW and needs to have something done to them. They're not the primary source of sustain for groups, they're not a primary source of damage for a group, and they're not really a primary source of condition clear for a group. Touching these skills seems to be the opposite of what is trying to be done here by splitting skills to begin with, it's a PvP change for WvW.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

I don't agree with the 5 seconds added to celestial avatar since it comes alongside a bunch of other nerfs for Druid/ranger. The rest of the changes should be enough to make druid less powerful in pvp.

Alternatively a lot of the druid changes should be pvp only, since they're not overperforming at all in WvW.

[Sigmoid.7082]

@Emapudapus.1307 said:Reaper's Protection: Increased the cooldown from 60 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP onlyAt least in pvp noeone runs this cuz its in bad traitline, nerfing it seems pointless and overdone, 60 sec is alot already.

Consistency. Every trait that does something when stunned should now be on a 90s cooldown i believe.

[BigEvs.6971]

Can you fix the Weaver heal "Aquatic Stance" to actually work with the on-heal effects of Runes? And any other leftover bugs like this? At this point I'm left wondering if the lack of interaction is intended.

Otherwise the changes look fine, hard to judge too much from the onset but I'm a fan of everyone's passives getting nerfed.

[Blackarps.1974]

Its definitely a step in the right direction to adjust skills with huge cooldowns. WvW and PvP are so fast paced that my guild rarely, if ever, take skills that have higher than 30 second cooldowns (outside of elites that is). WvW is all about support or damage. You have to be doing at least one of those at all times so some skills will just never get used. Signets are pretty lame unless you can have a trait that gives the passive to allies. Single targets upon their activation make them mostly useless in a WvW situation.

I also like that you guys are taking steps to make things like spirit weapons actually usable. I'm not sure if people ever will take them but at least you guys are trying to make them somewhat viable.

Lastly, keep up with lowering passive traits and their synergy. Its so lame to have a trait grant X boon or X condition to you or an enemy. It just leads to button mashing and less skill based play.

[dani.4398]

@Hiraldo.7954 said:

Will have to respectfully disagree with you here, BE and FC are two of the biggest sources of damage on spellbreaker right now and the class isn't even close to topping the dps charts in 90% of engagements. They have very few reliable AOE damage skills as is, and all are extremely high risk to make use of. Looking back at it the full counter nerf seems reasonable but I don't think a 50% damage nerf on BE is called for.

I respect your position, I just see full counter as a defensive skill with too many resources. It negates damage, does AoE damage, dazes enemies, removes a boon (cause of the daze), it grants you defensive boons if traited and to top it all does unblockable damage. The skill is too strong.

[DeceiverX.8361]

Decent changes, but you guys really need to do something about the guild hall arenas if splits are going to be this drastic. Having them follow PvE values defeats the purpose.

Passives are most infuriating just because you don't know if they're there or not. You can't plan to burst someone down or set up such plays. Nerfing cooldowns honestly doesn't really fix the issue so much as the issue is that these effects are just too strong in it of themselves and frustrating to play against.

WvW and sPvP need similar stat systems. A six-amulet approach to sPvP would hep improve build diversity tremendously as it gives much better granularity for builds, and increasing the stats to reflect PvE/WvW gear would allow for universal balancing for both formats to allow for numbers tweaks that are fitting for both

Related to the above, unpredictable/non-counterable burst damage is an equal problem in WvW; by removing passives, you'll need to do something about this because currently, half of being able to deal with oppressive burst coming from a few builds lays solely in using passive immunities. We know these effects are not fun to play against. With unified stats, burst from a few oppressive builds can be cut down, and as a result, so can most of the defensive powercreep such as chain blocks/invulns from a number of professions which similarly punish aggressive play and too-easily shut it down by following through with nearly-identical damage while being immune. Dealing damage while not receiving damage isn't fun for anyone.

There's still a lot more that needs to be done, however. I know these aren't really within the scope of the above, but they need to be considered as problem areas.

• Reaper Shroud degend, SoS trait movespeed, and Reaper's Onslaught all need to be reverted. Reaper shroud entry cooldown reduced to 7s baseline. There's no good answer except doing this. Cut damage from shroud like how it was prior if necessary.
• Death Blossom needs to be reworked into some kind of gap opener/closer because D/D thief cannot compete with mobility these days.
• Hide in Shadows still doesn't cleanse torment and is the only cleanse-heal that can't remove it due to torment being added later to the game/remvoal of antitoxin.
• Stealth stacking removed/replaced with something more active/better. Stealth-shatter mesmer and D/P thief/SA Deadeye are anti-fun, and are more or less strictly a WvW design issue.
• Offhand sword on Warrior/Mesmer need love/are just too weak compared to other options.
• Resistance corruption -> immob is a major problem in WvW and should probably be removed from the table.
• Winds of Disenchantment/Winds of War is a major problem in WvW and needs further review.
• Dire/TB gear's existence perverting condition builds' balance in WvW causes balancing issues even between sPvP and WvW. These sets have no other purpose but to be OP in WvW (not used much in PvE). They need to be removed and replaced with other options akin to the way that Magic Find was with select-stats.
• Boon prevalence/dependence is a problem; necessity of stability and excess of CC + corruption is getting out of hand.

Some minor criticisms:

• Heartseeker and Shadow Shot didn't need damage buffs.
• OH sword on warrior/mesmer needs something a bit more. S/S warrior still lacks any real synergy or usefuless in comparison to other kits; Axe will remain a superior MH weapon for power on core warrior (and dagger is still >> sword), and shield just overshadows OH sword in about every way.
• Endure Pain should probably increase to 3s with the cooldown being increased to 90s.
• Pain Response cooldown increase is excessive and forces Daredevil in conjunction with Acrobatics due to the sheer amount of condition overload in the game. Bump to 30s instead of 40.

[werdernator.6105]

You should look again over the holosmith changes for wvw. Holosmith already is a snowballing profession in wvw, it only works if your team is doing well and can provide backup and support for you as you lack any meaningful way of sustain.Removing the single stack of stability on engage guts you even more than previously and the severely decreased damage you proposed makes the class even less useful to begin with (a weaver can do your job better, at range, think about that).Holosmith brings nothing to the group except a little CC and massive melee damage. Gut that and it's entirely unviable. It's fine that a class can deal that amount of damage as long as you can shut that damage down relatively easy - as is the case with holo currently.

Now you plan to remove the damage - why would anyone still bother to play a damageless glasscannon? Why would anyone even want to play that if you could just pick a weaver, stand at 1200 range and rain despair onto the enemy? Why even bother going melee without any defensive capability just to deal mediocre damage? There's no reason. Sorry guys, but your proposal is not a nerf - it's a nail in the coffin for one of your shiniest elite specs to date.

[Rysdude.3824]

@Caliburn.1845 said:Resistance converted to immob needs to be a priority. It has a bigger impact than most of the stuff listed here.

Cannot emphasizd this enough.

[Fennymcjoo.9502]

As a WvW player, I agree with the majority of these changes. One of the biggest issues facing WvW right now is resistance to Immobilize. It makes resistance a liability for groups due to the amount of corrupts. Resistance shouldn't convert into immob, it should convert into literally anything else.

This is coming from at least 80% of the WvW Community please give feedback that you're hearing us.

Thank you,-BT

[Lyger.5429]

Great changes and I play thief, we need to tone down the powercreep and go back to the basics. Also +1 for keeping the shatterstone meme alive.

[views.9608]

Resistance to immob is the worst addition yet. You are rewarded with no safety while you have this buff In a fight. The corruption should be to literally anything else. Indirectly nerfing power scourge hurts it having diversity.

[ZerotheFang.5890]

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.

[Paul.2054]

Also you should really consider nerfs to tempest when you nerf a lot of damage across the board like this. Tempest always had the passive sustain and prot uptime combined with actually good damage on a support, which is also getting all of those damage buffs btw, that you're just asking for annoying things to happen. You should make their prot, vigor and regen uptime take brain power rather than be baked into passives.

[Kharturr.2794]

Good to see some more activity in this regard. Some good, some questionable.

The most important split that still needs to occur however is the ::Resistance -> Immobilize:: corruption table in WvW specifically. The sheer scale and quantity of corrupts makes resistance incredibly dangerous purely because immobilize is a near death sentence with the heavy zone denial going on atm.

[owler.6804]

I would love to see the autoproc changes in wvw too. Why would they make the game less skillfull only in pvp?

[Turk.5460]

@"Mr Pin.6728" said:As a ranger player I can somewhat understand the changes geared towards making druid less dominate on a point but I am somewhat perplexed on how an axe buff, a weapon with 900 range (hurray for standing in giant condi circles!), wonky after casts, substandard split damage, down right bizarre targeting (half the time it just targets my feet and I throw my axe into the ground) and no real utility will increase build diversity for a ranger. This is more problematic in WvW where the dominate specs aren't being toned down that much and ranger already struggles for a role in the game mode. Well struggles is polite. They are plain hated in the mode and players take great glee in killing underpowered ranger "noobs". I see you are removing druid from PvP meta or at least toning it down but you aren't giving a WvW ranger player the tools, utility or damage to survive. Particularly in mass combat where scourge will still be king and mesmers will still be the dominate power roamers. They won't bring any group utility to the table and now will be less of an asset due to decreased sustain and more of a liability due to substandard damage and rally potential.

When I saw ranger changes I'll admit I expected them to be pvp only. I mean why would you nerf a class in WvW that literally does not have a single meta build?

Ranger/Druid/SB's are the third most seen roaming in WvW, from my experience. Meaning that I see more of them than Revs, Engies, Guards, Warriors, Eles, and Necros. 6 seconds on Signet of Stone was incredibly over the top. Reducing that to 3 is a welcome change.

[Kovu.7560]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

Ranger

Skills

• Solar Beam: Reduced the power coefficient per strike from 0.3 to 0.25 (-17%) in PvP and WvW
• Celestial Avatar: Increased the cooldown from 15 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW
• Healing Spring: Increased the number of conditions cleansed per pulse from 1 to 2 in PvP and WvW

I heavily disagree with these three changes. Firstoff, Healing Spring is already Ranger's best source of healing skill condition removal. Its AoE and it pulses. While it'd be neat to be immune to conditions more than 1/3rd of the time it seems a little too potent in an AoE situation (especially on a hotly contested point in pvp). Nobody would ever run Bear Stance, and the core ranger heals would definitely be out, (especially with those might nerfs).

That said, Solar Beam is a Druid's only real source of dps whilst locked into staff. If you're going to nerf the auto attack, I hope there are plans to improve the potency of some of the other staff skills. Namely Astral Wisp and especially Vine Surge. At least one of the other skills would need a big boost in damage. Also, a boost to the healing on Solar Beam so that its actually noticeable would be nice. Honestly, I doublt many druids would even utilize a staff if it weren't for Ancestral Grace.

Celestial Avatar? No, please no. The 15s nerf was too much, the form is already gated by a healing-fed energy meter. Most people stick to playing ventari revenants and elementalists in wvw because of their ability to provide sustained healing, and the druid's ability to offensively contribute (especially if they're built for support) or provide support in other ways is already subpar to other options, especially in wvw.

If the burst healing of Celestial Avatar is too potent, look at reducing some of the base healing and coefficients, along with the cooldowns -- work Druids toward a more sustained healing spec that can keep CA up longer instead of "here's some health, see you again in half a minute."

It's not mentioned, but Druidic Clarity should probably be reworked to be less initially potent but more beneficial to Druids trying to, you know, support. The stunbreak is nice, but the condition removal should be reworked. Instead of removing all of the conditions at once, grant some form of ongoing condition removal while the Druid is in CA. This would be especially helpful to Druids trying to keep up with the frontline in wvw but not entirely negate opposing condition bursts.

I can't say I agree with the changes to many of those traits, but if every profession is being hit with that particular hammer I'll wait to see where it takes us.

I feel like Druid is probably performing too well in pvp and as a result many of the nerfs are spilling over into wvw where they're not even close to being meta.

Unrelated, but I can't really get behind the "lets nerf everything on scourge" train. That spec has already seen plenty of hate in the last few patches. I hope the Reaper Shroud degeneration nerf is reverted at some point, it'd be nice to see more of those running around again.

~ Kovu