PvP/WvW Skill Split Release

[santenal.1054]

Mortar kit buffs:-Increased velocity-Condi cleans on elixir shell-Stun breaker on orbital strike (this one is verry important)

[Shadowcat.2680]

Please consider adjusting Endure Pain in WvW to have the same duration and cooldown as it already has in PvP. The proposed adjustment to Signet of Stone (cooldown and duration halved, the exact same treatment Endure Pain got in PvP) suggests the balance team wants to cut down on long lasting invulnerabilities.

Endure Pain has a far greater effect on largescale WvW than Signet of Stone does with spellbreaker's role in zerg play with their elite as even a bad spellbreaker can run into an enemy zerg, drop Winds of Disenchantment, and run out again unscathed with a 4 second Endure Pain to do it with.

[rowan.2581]

From a WvW Perspective Firebrand needs to have its tome system redone or it will keep getting nurfed. Any nurfs done to F2 and F3 will always be solved by just adding another Firebrand or breaking them so much no one uses them at all.

In a lot of fights one guard will start out in f2 the other in F3. Spam your skills for the most part and switch tome to ether F2 or F3 depending on the one you started in.

The tome skills need to share pages between all 3 tomes and be able to freely switch between the tomes with a slow regen on the pages. Should be able to get 5 to 10 skills off if spamed vs the 20 you get now.

Each class needs its core elite spec to be a elite spec. (By elite spec i mean the spec line that buffs your classes machanic) Tons of balance problems with the dubble buffing of the class machanics ( yes the core elites would need to be buff in some spots). It would also bring the core game to be in line with the ex-pacs and balance it out for all 3 games ( Core, HoT, and PoF)

Guard=Core virtues, HoT Dragonhunter, and PoF FirebrandEle= Core Arcane, HoT Tempest, and PoF WeaverRev= Core Invocation, HoT Herald, and PoF RenegadeNecro= Core Soul Reaping, HoT Reaper, and PoD Scourgemez= Core Domination, HoT Chronomancer, and PoF MirageWar= Core Discipline, Hot Berserker, and PoF SpellbreakerThief= Core Trickery, HoT Daredevil, and PoF DeadeyeEngi= Core tools, Hot scrapper, and PoF HolosmithRanger= Core Beastmastery, HoT Druid, and PoF Soulbeast

Anyways i hate posting so i will keep it short but there is a lot more to say and i might post more or not depending

[BABE.6384]

I have some feedback mostly for Renegade. I'll start with a few skills specifically.Shortbow #2 cast time should be less.Shortbow #3 is completely useless in pvp outside of a body cleaving situation.Shortbow #5 needs to be fixed so you can not jump over the shock wave and negate the attack. (including using leap abilities)(In general some leap abilities jump over other skills, Holo leap vs Polaric Leap being a very frustrating and fight turning example, that I have experienced on the ele side many times.)

Hopefully the change to Razorclaw's Rage feels better, because honestly that skill never even felt worth casting.

And lastly Citadel Bombardment could use a smaller spread or wider explosion radius,this would allow it to be more consistent in hitting people that are ALIVE.Otherwise less cast time and energy drain could also make it feel more worth using in a cleaving body situation, where there is no issues with it connecting to your target.In its current form I only cast Citadel Bombardment maybe once every 5-10 pvp matches on Renegade.

I have had some decent success in platinum pvp with a few renegade builds.However it is HEAVILY impaired by its cast times with the amount of cc spam in team fights. Which does make it rather lackluster in full 5v5s, especially if you get focused.Those two combined make it a very hard battle to get any leeching combos off with your elite, to be able to sustain with Kalla in team fights.

What I would actually say the WORST issue with Renegade is related to cc as well...Whenever a summon is cc'd, even by a 1/4 sec daze. They sit around for what seems to be 2-3+ seconds before starting to do their actions again.Two of the summons are 10 second duration, two are 6, and the elite varies.It is completely unacceptable for some of these skills to not work for almost half of their duration because of a single small cc.

There is so much pvp/ small wvw potential for Renegade and its summons. It just needs a bit of love on the summons, their cast times, and the shortbow.

Renegade also suffers from most Revenant stun breaks in general being too punishing imo, besides Riposting Shadows and the one in Herald which are strong.One of my Renegade builds in pvp, use both the mallyx and kalla legends.The stun breaks from both of these legends lock you into an animation after stun breaking.

Having your stun break lock you into an animation only for that to be interrupted instantly again....makes it feel extremely punishing to fight decent warriors, thieves, mesmers, and holos.

I understand that Pain Absorption and Darkrazor's Daring need to have a cast time for such a powerful effects,but it feels very clunky to have the casts times be any longer than a 1/4 sec on the skills paired to revenants stun breaks.Also I don't believe that the energy cost for a stun break should be more than 20 (Riposting Shadows excluded)No other classes offensive potential is severely hampered by using its active defenses like Revenant is.

[BlueCar.1587]

@Gandarel.5091 said:I really don't understand why Rune of Surging is getting removed. It's not a passive proc because it's activated by the player, and it's not an immunity. Furthermore, it is the only PvP rune with power as a primary stat that has boon duration to it. Unless we get a replacement stat stick, this is yet another Revenant nerf.

Magi amulet removal makes no sense either. Why does Arenanet hate support builds? Healers in raids are fine, but not in PvP? They already removed all the optimal support amulets, why are they pushing? Not every profession has the luxury to create viable hybrid builds so the ones that had to go full support to properly do well in at least one field such as Firebrand and Ventari revenant will just cease to exist.

Removing rune of surging is bad for revs, but every powerbased meta class used it and this passive cc was just stupid. Revs still could use the rune of the leadership or the rune of durability to get their boon duration. They dont need something to deal damage( they already deal enough) they need utility.

And removing magi amulet is right. When they removed clerical amulet i cried that ele might be dead, but it was one of the greatest changes ever, be cause it forced him to use his brain. He wasnt a dumb unkillable healer anymore, but a supporter whose damage could be an essential criteria in the teamfight and whose healing assumed skill to be effective.

All in all im looking forward for the changes.

Gj anet.I have one last quesion : when will the 2v2 update be released ?

[samo.1054]

This:

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

• Defy Pain: Increased the cooldown from 60 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP only
• Last Stand: Increased the cooldown from 40 seconds to 90 seconds in PvP only
• Shrug it Off: Increased the cooldown from 25 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only
• Dead or Alive: Increased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 60 seconds in PvP only

Is lazy design and balancing and it does NOT help with this:

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:Increase build diversity

For the love of Grenth, stop balacing this way. I have nothing against nerfing passives, but what you did there is simply kill off the trait. It's useless! Simple as that. 2 seconds of Defy Pain on a 90 sec cooldown? Think of it and tell me with a straight face that you think that's fine. You keep on nerfing stuff so that you kill it off and when you buff something you overdo it to the point where it's the absolute only right choice to take. If you're going to nerf those passive traits OFFER AN ALTERNATIVE!

The more you do things that way, the more you pigeonhole builds, the more useless traits there are in the game and the harder it will get for you to clean things up.

Stop killing stuff when nerfing, stop being lazy and only adjust cooldowns, change the mechanics, get creative!

[rowan.2581]

Actualy Mez should be Core Illusions not core dom

[Damocles.4908]

when is this patch coming?

[David.5974]

Hi guys,most of changes looks great but there is one thing what I really dont understand. Speaking for engi, you remove elixir condi cleansing... So now if I want pick scrapper, purge gyro is mandatory, and bulwark almost too (and yea, we still waiting for gyros redesign) this mean useless AI for team fight and playing fragile bunker. Only one viable option for WvW is holo. I am OK with changes and they are needed but nerfing core traits damage not only holo, but scrapper too ( I understand that core engineer is dead in every game mode now - because its f2p)

Anet look at scrapper trait line and holosmith line. Give Scrapper some love I really like function gyro and I am sad that this little clever floating thing can only revive and stomp ppl. Why not giving me some advantage if I not using fun gyro? Or attack option... Elite specs are needed okay, so every spec must be usefull

[eldenbri.1059]

Since you're still working on Mesmer, here are a few thoughts. For background, I've played almost solely mesmer for five years (mostly solo roaming in wvw).

• Exhaustion is probably not the best way to nerf Elusive Mind. I don't play Mirage, but you never want to make a grandmaster trait feel bad
• Extremely high burst damage from stealth is not good. As much as I've loved stealth for dropping focus or re-positioning, I think it would be fine to have a flat damage reduction on all attacks initiated from stealth (this would apply to all classes)
• Chronophantasma and continuum split are awesome. But with the phantasm redesign, being able to cast ether signet inside continuum split is probably too much. It seems like you could make ether signet just reduce cooldown, and you get rid of a lot of phantasm spam cases. There should be a little improvement to ether signet as compensation (maybe make the active reduce cooldown on all phantasms by 10 seconds - and this should affect Mental Defense - and change overall signet cooldown from 35 seconds to 30 seconds). I hope you don't nerf chronophantasma or continuum split. Chronophantasma creates many interesting builds. Continuum split has a long cooldown, a pretty clear tell and counterplay from attacking the split.
• The phantasmal defender is a cool idea. It feels like it needs a little enhancing to be the payoff for a grandmaster trait or having a spot on the utility bar.

Thanks for all the hard work. You can never make everyone happy with these kings of changes, but it's great to see the effort and the communication. The recent mesmer changes ended the condi chrono build that I played since HoT. I think they were great :)

Have an excellent day!

[Sereath.1428]

@"eldenbri.1059" said:

• Extremely high burst damage from stealth is not good. As much as I've loved stealth for dropping focus or re-positioning, I think it would be fine to have a flat damage reduction on all attacks initiated from stealth (this would apply to all classes)

That's actually an interesting and potentially great idea, just like how Exhaustion was added to Unhindered Combatant in order to balance it and now soon with Mirage. They could create a new "Debuff" for anyone that is on stealth and have it last a couple of more seconds after leaving it. This debuff would considerably reduce outgoing damage. There you go, you balanced every 100-0 instagib combo from stealth on any class.

I like it, that would really lessen how incredibly over-preforming and cheap is stealth in general.

I hope this gets noticed.

[pah.4931]

@rowan.2581 said:From a WvW Perspective Firebrand needs to have its tome system redone or it will keep getting nurfed. Any nurfs done to F2 and F3 will always be solved by just adding another Firebrand or breaking them so much no one uses them at all.

In a lot of fights one guard will start out in f2 the other in F3. Spam your skills for the most part and switch tome to ether F2 or F3 depending on the one you started in.

The tome skills need to share pages between all 3 tomes and be able to freely switch between the tomes with a slow regen on the pages. Should be able to get 5 to 10 skills off if spamed vs the 20 you get now.

Each class needs its core elite spec to be a elite spec. (By elite spec i mean the spec line that buffs your classes machanic) Tons of balance problems with the dubble buffing of the class machanics ( yes the core elites would need to be buff in some spots). It would also bring the core game to be in line with the ex-pacs and balance it out for all 3 games ( Core, HoT, and PoF)

Guard=Core virtues, HoT Dragonhunter, and PoF FirebrandEle= Core Arcane, HoT Tempest, and PoF WeaverRev= Core Invocation, HoT Herald, and PoF RenegadeNecro= Core Soul Reaping, HoT Reaper, and PoD Scourgemez= Core Domination, HoT Chronomancer, and PoF MirageWar= Core Discipline, Hot Berserker, and PoF SpellbreakerThief= Core Trickery, HoT Daredevil, and PoF DeadeyeEngi= Core tools, Hot scrapper, and PoF HolosmithRanger= Core Beastmastery, HoT Druid, and PoF Soulbeast

Anyways i hate posting so i will keep it short but there is a lot more to say and i might post more or not depending

I think diminishing returns would fix the issues you're describing. Most other games have them. The more you apply the SAME buff/condition in a short amount of time, the less effective it becomes. Pretty simple.

[Vagrant.7206]

@XxsdgxX.8109 said:

@"eldenbri.1059" said:

• Extremely high burst damage from stealth is not good. As much as I've loved stealth for dropping focus or re-positioning, I think it would be fine to have a flat damage reduction on all attacks initiated from stealth (this would apply to all classes)

That's actually an interesting and potentially great idea, just like how

Exhaustion

was added to

Unhindered Combatant

in order to balance it and now soon with Mirage. They could create a new "Debuff" for anyone that is on stealth and have it last a couple of more seconds after leaving stealth. This debuff would considerably reduce outgoing damage.

There you go, you balanced every 100-0 instagib combo from stealth from any class.

I like it, that would really lessen how incredibly over-preforming and cheap is stealth in general.

I hope this gets noticed.

Overall I like this idea, although there would need to be quite a bit of fine tuning to find the right balance where classes that rely on stealth (like thieves) don't feel overburdened by such a change. Poor implementation will just result in stunlocking from stealth, rather than going straight to damage.

[Shadowcat.2680]

It's probably been mentioned already in these 19 pages, but I think it bears repeating:

In lengthening the cooldowns of passive traits like Defy Pain, Self-Regulating Defenses, and Shared Anguish, please do it on a case by case basis instead of going for a one-size-fits-all 90 sec cooldown for all of them. These passives are not equal. To use these three as an example since all three are Master level traits, Shared Anguish is actually getting the greatest cooldown increase of the three (30 secs increase vs the 15 sec increase the other two are getting). This would imply that Shared Anguish in its current form is stronger than the current Defy Pain and the current Self-Regulating Defenses, and yet Shared Anguish is nothing but a passively procced stun break and it's an orphaned trait (no other traits affect it). Both Defy Pain and Self-Regulating Defenses can be improved through Grandmaster traits in the same line (Last Stand and HGH) and both are invulnerabilities of some flavor in addition to being stun breaks. Shared Anguish is by far an inferior trait to the other two and yet will have the same 90 sec cooldown in the proposed changes.

[Wichidi.9281]

@eldenbri.1059 said:

• Exhaustion is probably not the best way to nerf Elusive Mind. I don't play Mirage, but you never want to make a grandmaster trait feel bad

it would be a shame if the CD on a grandmaster trait giving 4 secs of stability would be increased from 40 to 90 secs right? lul

[eldenbri.1059]

I agree. It's fun to use skills or see your traits proc.

And since you can only have 3 GM traits, it feels like each of them should feel valuable.

[Asum.4960]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

Necromancer

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

What the actual kitten.

Did you just nerf half the Necro traits by nearly 50%!?

Well alright then.

[Vagrant.7206]

@"Shadowcat.2680" said:It's probably been mentioned already in these 19 pages, but I think it bears repeating:

In lengthening the cooldowns of passive traits like Defy Pain, Self-Regulating Defenses, and Shared Anguish, please do it on a case by case basis instead of going for a one-size-fits-all 90 sec cooldown for all of them. These passives are not equal. To use these three as an example since all three are Master level traits, Shared Anguish is actually getting the greatest cooldown increase of the three (30 secs increase vs the 15 sec increase the other two are getting). This would imply that Shared Anguish in its current form is stronger than the current Defy Pain and the current Self-Regulating Defenses, and yet Shared Anguish is nothing but a passively procced stun break and it's an orphaned trait (no other traits affect it). Both Defy Pain and Self-Regulating Defenses can be improved through Grandmaster traits in the same line (Last Stand and HGH) and both are invulnerabilities of some flavor in addition to being stun breaks. Shared Anguish is by far an inferior trait to the other two and yet will have the same 90 sec cooldown in the proposed changes.

Reactive Lenses are also facing a significant nerf (40s -> 90s), and they're a passive stunbreak as well. They're arguably worse than shared anguish because they also trigger on self-CC regardless of whether you have stability. They're just an adept trait though.

[Tzozef.9841]

You say not to address individual classes, but to the changes as a whole...this issue is with balance are WITH individual classes that need to be addressed. Here's my basic rundown.

-Necro

1. REWORK and BUFF Core Necro Shroud
2. Buff Death Magic Traitline

-EleBuffs in General. Look at old Ele builds that were viable and nerfed and can be brought back for more build diversity.

-MesmersThey are in a good spot overall, any slight tuning would be fine.

-ThiefsAre fairly good right now. But Daredevil Condi spam NEEDS TO BE NERF, it's the WORST offender for passive trash builds.

-EngineersFor the love of God stop nerfing them!!! They are soo boring to fight and have zero build diversity and identity.

As someone who likes fighting Holosmiths, they were never a problem since PoF launch. No point gutting engineers at all. If anything, buff each specific trait line to fulfill a specific IDENTITY of the builds. i.e. Explosives- buff kit use, Firearms-buff pistol and rifle, Inventions- buff turret/gadgets/ and utility skills, Alchemy - give back defensive and condi capabilities.Do it to a point where these accentuate those capabilities IMMENSELY so it stands out when you put those traits on.

-RangersChanges are pretty solid. Otherwise if these changes don't go through it's still not a problem

-GuardiansHonestly right now, all three specs are pretty solid and have been good for awhile.

-Revenants

1. A real mess atm, really need to look at CORE REV hard. Imo, rework Ventari's tablet as ON the player (like Firebrands books), and not a movable turret placement.
2. Shortbow on renegade needs to be buffed, and spirits shouldn't take damage at all.

-Warriors

1. I like the changes to the Tactics trait line.
2. Spellbreaker doesn't need nerfs, leave it.
3. Berserker really needs to be brought back into usability in WvW/PvP, it does kitten against condi. You really need to decide to make Berserker viable either by bringing back synergy with Cleansing Ire, or seriously considering making Discipline Fast Hands baseline. This will solve everything and every issue warriors have been having.

NOW, LOOKING AT THE CHANGES AS A WHOLE - The nerfs overall to annoying passive specs, fine. BUT YOU NEED to look at specs that are complete TRASH i.e. Core necro shroud, core rev, core engi, etc etc..and also OLD BUILDS THAT GOT NERFED BACK like D/D Core Cele Ele, Condi Engi, Hammer/Bow Warrior, Warhorn Warrior, Trapper Ranger so on and so forth that are now viable and balanced to bring back into the meta!

That's all for now

[Blackdagger.9670]

just read the changes.to interpret this; Anet is trying to tell us; Play mesmer for the win.

We knew its their favourite profession and always gets the lowest amount of nerfes but here again, another proof.go for it bois, gg.

[Lexan.5930]

For necromancer dagger changes, are therr plans to make 2 and 3 castable to targets behind you so that you can use them while retreating?

[Tzozef.9841]

"Increase build diversity

By decreasing the power of some of the more dominant builds, we hope to give increased viability to builds that previously were pushed out by these dominant specs. We're also increasing power levels in some targeted areas that previously were underperforming."

You need to BUFF the viability of other builds, not just 'nerf' the dominant specs. You guys keep making the same mistake.

[pah.4931]

Core necro and Reaper shroud CD reduced to 7 or 8 seconds! (across all game modes)

Thanks :D

[Ragion.2831]

@pah.4931 said:Core necro and Reaper shroud CD reduced to 7 or 8 seconds! (across all game modes)

Thanks :D

used to be 5 seconds tho (traited). If they arent going to give proper defense then it should go down to 5 seconds especially with the degeneration rate.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Ragion.2831 said:

@pah.4931 said:Core necro and Reaper shroud CD reduced to 7 or 8 seconds! (across all game modes)

Thanks :D

used to be 5 seconds tho (traited). If they arent going to give proper defense then it should go down to 5 seconds especially with the degeneration rate.

Was only a 30% reduction on the trait, not 50%.