[dT] Balance Patch 05/08 - Fractal Meta Changes

[Cayseth.8371]

Hi everyone!

We updated our website to reflect the recent balance changes introduced with the 05/08 patch.
I'll discuss the relevant fractal meta changes and our findings below.

Link: https://discretize.eu

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General

Let's start with the changes that affected all builds.

• Empower Allies (Warrior): 150 Power -> 100 Power
• Pinpoint Distribution (Engineer): 150 Condition Damage -> 100 Condition Damage
• Assassin's Presence (Revenant): 225 Ferocity -> 150 Ferocity
• Spotter (Ranger): 150 Precision -> 100 Precision
• Frost Spirit (Ranger): Previously granted a 75% chance to deal 10% bonus damage on hit, now grants a 100% chance to deal 5% bonus damage. Basically a nerf from 7.5% bonus power DPS to 5%.
• Sun Spirit (Ranger): Reduced applied burning duration from 3 seconds to 2.5 seconds (Chance now 100% instead of 75% on hit, cooldown still 8 seconds, still 2 stacks applied)

Overall, the nerfs result in a 6-7% DPS loss for power builds and a 3-4% DPS loss for condition builds.

The changes to Spotter also led to new optimal gearsets for builds that require Assassin's items to hit 100% critical chance.
While you can optimize for the presence of Spotter and use Curry Butternut Squash Soup when you don't have a Druid in your party, the main problem remains that you need different gearsets for fractals and raids due to the precision gained from the Infinite Mist Omnipotion.

Note that we updated our Gear Optimizer to reflect the recent changes, please use it to determine the optimal equipment for your personal agony resistance level.

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Mesmer

• Continuum Split (Chronomancer Special Skill): Cooldown increased from 90 seconds to 105 seconds
• Signet of the Ether (Healing Skill): Cooldown reduced from 35 seconds to 30 second
• Compounding Power (Trait, Illusions): Bonus damage reduced from 3% to 2% per stack (max. 10%)
• Restorative Illusions (Trait, Inspiration): Worse base healing, better scaling with Healing Power

Support Chronomancer received a small nerf in form of the Continuum Split cooldown increase. The most annoying consequence for fractals is that you won't have CS ready for the defiance bar at Ensolyss with 66% health, not even for the second one if you're too fast.
Apart from that, nothing really changed in terms of boon uptime - you just have to make sure not to waste internal SoIs.

With the changes to Tempest Defense (Elementalist Air Trait) you will want to run the Boon/Chaos variant 99% of the time to feed your hungry Arcane Weavers.
Hybrid Chronomancer remains the meta pick for groups with no Arcane Weavers and a Druid.

Healing Variant

We added a healing variant to the Boon Chronomancer guide, as more and more people are trying out the triple DPS team composition now - more on that later.
As the Chaos variant really doesn't do much DPS with offensive gear either, you can think about swapping when your party has trouble with those wonderful random instabilities.

DPS Chronomancer

The DPS Chronomancer received a 5% damage nerf with the changes to Compounding Power. The buffs to Signet of the Ether and Continuum Shift result in a bit smoother rotation, as you just fit in four Phantasms-Signet-Combos in between the CS phases.
Overall the build is still a decent pick in fractals with all the usual mesmer utilities, tons of CC and high Vulnerability output.

Guides:

• Boon Chronomancer Guide (Rating: Meta)
• Hybrid Chronomancer Guide (Rating: Meta)
• Power Chronomancer Guide (Rating: Great)

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Warrior

• Crushing Blow (Mace 4): Now applies 15 stacks Vulnerability for 6 seconds (instead of 10 stacks for 10 seconds) plus 25% increased damage
• Tremor (Mace 5): Knockdown duration increase from 2 seconds to 3 seconds

With the changes to Empower Allies, the question arose whether its still worth to run Tactics instead of Discipline as a Banner Warrior.
The short answer is yes - as long as your party is running a power-focused composition, it is about ~3-4k additional group DPS in fractals.

Banner Warrior

Below is a short overview of the current Banner Warrior build options:

	Enemy Boons	Traits	EA	Weapons 1	Weapons 2	CC	Damage	Vulnerability
#1	Yes	Disc/Spb	No	Dagger/Axe	Axe/Dagger	250	93%	Medium-High
#2	Yes	Tact/Spb	Yes	Dagger/Axe	Greatsword	250	81%	Medium
#3	No	Disc/Tact	Yes	Axe/Axe	Mace/Mace	940	84%	Medium-Very High
#4	No	Disc/Tact	Yes	Axe/Axe	Greatsword	150	86%	High
#5	No	Disc/Spb	No	Mace/Axe	Axe/Dagger	350	100%	Medium-High
#6	No	Tact/Spb	Yes	Axe/Axe	Greatsword	150	82%	High

With enemy boons present (-> Mistlock Instability: No Pain, No Gain), you will want to run the Spellbreaker/Tactics Dagger+Axe/Greatsword variant (#2) with EA.
Without, the Base Warrior variant with a secondary Mace/Mace set (#3) shines with massive CC, EA and high damage.

DPS Spellbreaker

The DPS Spellbreaker build is now the best DPS build for small hitboxes, making it an excellent choice for damage dealers in fractals. It has access to high CC with mainhand Mace, Kick and Bull's Charge.
Warrior is in a very good position now, nearly all Trait lines can be played with competitive but not overpowered DPS numbers.

Guides:

• Banner Warrior Guide (Rating: Meta)
• Power Spellbreaker Guide (Rating: Great)

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Elementalist

• Meteor Shower (Fire, Staff 5): Initial damage increased by 23%, damage will now decline by 10% for each subsequent hit with a minimum equal to 10% of the initial impacts damage (the diminishing return is separate per target)
• Tempest Defense (Trait, Air): Reduced the damage increase from 20% to 10% against disabled foes
• Glyph of Storms (Skill, Utility): Recharge time of storms is now based on player's attunement

The nerf to Tempest Defense hit Air Weavers hard, making Arcane the better choice in nearly all scenarios now.
Even without a Chaos Chronomancer you can give yourself quite some Vigor and Protection to strengthen Arcane's trait Bountiful Power - Air is only worth considering in fights with a near 100% broken defiance bar like Ensolyss.

The Meteor Shower change led to some speculations about canceling it being better than finishing the cast or taking three conjured weapons, in reality nothing changes at all.
Taking a third weapon stays niche for fights like MAMA, you might want to think about swapping Lightning Hammer with Icebow though if you have three Weavers and can't make use of the second weapon charge (e.g. Ensolyss).

Guides:

• Power Weaver Guide (Rating: Meta)

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Ranger

• Healing of all Celestial Avatar skills reduced by 30-40%
• Grace of the Land (Trait, Druid): Increased the duration of might granted by this trait from 8 seconds to 12 seconds, decreased the stacks granted from 3 to 2
• Healing Spring (Healing Skill): Conditions removed per tick increased from 1 to 2
• Call of the Wild (Warhorn 5): Reduced the durations of fury, swiftness and might granted from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. Might stacks granted increased from 3 to 6
• Lightning Assault (Wyvern Pet Special): Can't hit more than one time on the same target anymore

Druid's healing output was overpowered before the patch, now it is more in line with other healing builds.
In condition-heavy scenarios (-> Mistlock Instability: Afflicted) Healing Spring is even better now, especially if combined with Trapper's Expertise.

The changes to Spotter and the offensive spirits had a much higher impact, as it cripples your group's damage output even further if you insist on running a Druid instead of a third DPS character.
Nonetheless Boon Druid is still the best choice if you desperately need a dedicated healer in your group.

The changes to Might generation are a small buff for Fractal content, as the slower ramp-up time is compensated by pre-stacking there.
Combined with the buff to Call of the Wild, Power Druid should have no problems keeping up Might - it just doesn't heal much anymore :-)

Keep in mind that the fix to the Wyvern pet is a huge hit to your defiance bar damage, for the moment Iboga (meme) and Rock Gazelle (CC) are the best pet options.
Jacaranda (Vulnerability) and Black/Pink Moa (CC) are the second best choices once Iboga is fixed.

Guides:

• Boon Druid Guide (Rating: Meta)
• Power Druid Guide (Rating: Great)

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Other professions

Power Holosmith received minuscule rifle cooldown reductions, it's still a good alternative DPS for fractals due to high CC, very high Vulnerability output and multiple Stealth options.

Power Dragonhunter received buffs for Greatsword 3 and 5 but its damage remains behind other options. Core guardian has less utility and relies too heavily on Unscathed Contender, which is difficult to maintain in fractals.

The changes to Deadeye didn't do anything, while it's easier to generate Malice now, the problems with missing burst and general scaling still exist. Thief remains an awkward, below average DPS build.

Guides:

• Power Holosmith Guide (Rating: Great)
• Power Dragonhunter Guide (Rating: Great)
• Condition Reaper Guide (Rating: Good)

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Team Compositions

With the nerfs to offensive group buffs you will want to reduce the amount of support characters in your party as much as possible.

The optimal offensive team composition remains Boon Chronomancer, Base Banner Warrior and triple Arcane Weaver.
This setup ensures 25x Might, Banners, EA and 9-12 boons on average with access to high CC and reflects.

Vulnerability is only an issue in longer fights, if your Warrior is too lazy to watch out for missing stacks (and use Counterblow/Crushing Blow accordingly) you are free to run a DPS Chronomancer, Holosmith or Dragonhunter instead of the third Weaver for more consistency.
The same applies if you are having trouble with defiance bar damage (e.g. if the Warrior has to run Spellbreaker for boon removal).

If you prefer a more defensive group setup, the Chronomancer can swap to a healing variant providing strong burst heals, frequent condition cleanses and Regeneration.
Keep in mind that fast resurrecting and rallying is the highest priority in all group content.

Should the healing still not be enough for you, the Boon Druid comes to rescue. A Power Druid can remove conditions at the same speed but struggles to heal up a full party.

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Website

We are happy to announce the conversion to static HTML pages with this release. We are now using Gatsby to create blazing-fast pages out of our React components.
This leads to a much faster, lightweight and SEO-friendly website. Just take a look at those amazing lazy-loading fractal images :-)

A big thanks goes to /u/DxCx66 for all the coding help, especially for the Markdown renderer and the awesome pre-fetching of Gw2 API components.
This also means that clients don't have to send requests to the GW2 API for skill data anymore - and if the API goes down, everything still works!

We also added Disqus to our guides which enables everyone to comment and discuss each page. We are excited for you feedback!
As always, make sure to hit CTRL + F5 to force reload if any problems occur.

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Thanks to everyone supporting and contributing to our community! I've set up a Patreon page if you want to give something back.
Our Discord server is also open to anyone willing to participate in our discussions.

See you in daily fractals!

[Voltekka.2375]

"Iboga (meme)". I lol'd. Thanks for the guide!

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Druid is now like bs fb healer is better

[Prophet.1584]

@"Cayseth.8371" said:

Ranger

• Healing of all Celestial Avatar skills reduced by 30-40%
• Grace of the Land (Trait, Druid): Increased the duration of might granted by this trait from 8 seconds to 12 seconds, decreased the stacks granted from 3 to 2
• Healing Spring (Healing Skill): Conditions removed per tick increased from 1 to 2
• Call of the Wild (Warhorn 5): Reduced the durations of fury, swiftness and might granted from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. Might stacks granted increased from 3 to 6
• Lightning Assault (Wyvern Pet Special): Can't hit more than one time on the same target anymore

Druid's healing output was overpowered before the patch, now it is more in line with other healing builds.

In condition-heavy scenarios (-> Mistlock Instability: Afflicted) Healing Spring is even better now, especially if combined with Trapper's Expertise.

The changes to Spotter and the offensive spirits had a much higher impact, as it cripples your group's damage output even further if you insist on running a Druid instead of a third DPS character.

Nonetheless Boon Druid is still the best choice if you desperately need a dedicated healer in your group.

The changes to Might generation are a small buff for Fractal content, as the slower ramp-up time is compensated by pre-stacking there.

Combined with the buff to Call of the Wild, Power Druid should have no problems keeping up Might - it just doesn't heal much anymore :-)

Keep in mind that the fix to the Wyvern pet is a huge hit to your defiance bar damage, for the moment Iboga (meme) and Rock Gazelle (CC) are the best pet options.

Jacaranda (Vulnerability) and Black/Pink Moa (CC) are the second best choices once Iboga is fixed.

Guides:

• Boon Druid Guide (Rating: Meta)
• Power Druid Guide (Rating: Great)

in your testing have you found power Druid or condi Druid to provide more DPS in raids? i'm assuming in raids the condi build will still out DPS the power build. Also what gear would you recommend for a raid build power Druid if it is better than condi.

[Cayseth.8371]

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Druid is now like bs fb healer is better

There are definitely better healers than Druid, Auramancer Tempest was stronger before the patch already! The reason for Druid being the first healer in any group is them bringing multiple offensive buffs though.

@"Prophet.1584" said:in your testing have you found power Druid or condi Druid to provide more DPS in raids? i'm assuming in raids the condi build will still out DPS the power build. Also what gear would you recommend for a raid build power Druid if it is better than condi.

Condition Druid will usually result in higher DPS in raid scenarios, you can take a look at Snow Crows Website for raid benchmarks. It's pretty close though, and Power Druid wins on fights with short phases. The gear stays the same for Power Druid in fractals and raids (Full Berserker), as you hit 100% critical chance with Hunter's Tactics & Vicious Quarry - even without the Infinite Mist Ominpotion or Assassin's pieces.

[Prophet.1584]

@Cayseth.8371 said:

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Druid is now like bs fb healer is better

There are definitely better healers than Druid, Auramancer Tempest was stronger before the patch already! The reason for Druid being the first healer in any group is them bringing multiple offensive buffs though.

@"Prophet.1584" said:in your testing have you found power Druid or condi Druid to provide more DPS in raids? i'm assuming in raids the condi build will still out DPS the power build. Also what gear would you recommend for a raid build power Druid if it is better than condi.

Condition Druid will usually result in higher DPS in raid scenarios, you can take a look at

Snow Crows Website

for raid benchmarks. It's pretty close though, and Power Druid wins on fights with short phases. The gear stays the same for Power Druid in fractals and raids (Full Berserker), as you hit 100% critical chance with Hunter's Tactics & Vicious Quarry - even without the Infinite Mist Ominpotion or Assassin's pieces.

Thanks for the response, it's nice to have options for raid bosses that require power instead of condi like Dhuum.

[Ayrilana.1396]

RIP Necro and Rev

[Saint Sated.2698]

@Cayseth.8371 said:

Keep in mind that fast resurrecting and rallying is the highest priority in all group content.

Does the blood magic line not put Necro in a unique spot?

[LucianDK.8615]

Guess revenants are completely dead then

[Bakeneko.5826]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:RIP Necro and Rev

Reaper is still good in fractals due to Epi, since it can be bounced on almost every boss in fractals.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

@Bakeneko.5826 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:RIP Necro and Rev

Reaper is still good in fractals due to Epi, since it can be bounced on almost every boss in fractals.

You mean scourge? Reaper is slowly turning into a power spec.

[Lunateric.3708]

@Bakeneko.5826 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:RIP Necro and Rev

Reaper is still good in fractals due to Epi, since it can be bounced on almost every boss in fractals.

Fractal fights rarely get to last long enough for epi bouncing to be any meaningful if you have a good comp. Hence why power completely dominates fractals outside a few CM bosses.

[Bakeneko.5826]

@Lunateric.3708 said:

@Bakeneko.5826 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:RIP Necro and Rev

Reaper is still good in fractals due to Epi, since it can be bounced on almost every boss in fractals.

Fractal fights rarely get to last long enough for epi bouncing to be any meaningful if you have a good comp. Hence why power completely dominates fractals outside a few CM bosses.

Yet people are still running 4 necro and druid, go figure, people want reliable (though slower) way to clear content.

You mean scourge? Reaper is slowly turning into a power spec.

Yes, either scourge or Reaper, whichever is better condi :D

[tim.4596]

Thank you for the hard work you put into this guys. I've checked your website and it's amazing too.

Do you do dungeons too or mostly fractals ?