Balance Patch Discussion Thread

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Specialka.7290 said:Endure pain reduce direct dmg to 0, it is not an invuln if I am not mistaken.

Yeah. I think it's just elixer s distortion and renewed focus? I can't get in game to see exactly what skills got this change.

This and probably mistform/obsidian flesh.It's fine with context. I'm wary about giving condi-ignore to mesmers though, especially since distortion synergizes with chrono and signet use gives distortion.Its feeling very much like Arenanet cannot stop giving mesmers competitive edges.

[Tao.5096]

1. Mesmer - biggest problem with mesmer is it's sustain, where it was the biggest condition bomber and yet it got buffed in a matter of sustain. This has never been adjusted for whatever reason, while for example, Scourge gets a nerf on condition damage, while sustain and mobility is still the most crappy from all - Sand Swell 1 second cast time? Because it's better than Wurm, doesn't make it a reliable mobility buff...
2. Perhaps Reaper build will be parsed with Scourge which will make a viable option for Necromancer players to use. To be honest, I prefer to have several options to use along with play styles, instead of some stupid meta which caters for a single build.
3. Firebrand healing had to be nerfed, because even noob players could just stand and spam boons and heals all around, not mentioning ressing downed enemies. It was way too powerful for bunker. Now it forces Firebrands to actually think what they do and how they play, instead of standing and pressing skills.
4. Revenant - it appears that Anet is going to repeat it's stupid mistakes. Do we have to go back to HoT release times where Revenant was 1-2 shoting everything? That class is utterly powerful with it's boon application (might, fury), has great sustain and fine mobility. It's even party share-care, so yes, it's a a very missed decision.
5. Ranger - so again, another mistake from the past. Instead of trying to parse other builds like druid or core to Soulbeast, then they cater for one build. Honestly, who does approve such changes before deployment?

What I personally dislike in this neverending thing in PvP mode, is that since Anet started making Meta builds, there is really not much for improvement.While in past, each class had multiple viable builds almost in every aspect, now those being trashed, we are left with single build with few tweaks, no more.And "git good" is exactly the same thing that Anet shows to PvP and WvW mode - "we don't care".

[mortrialus.3062]

@"Tao.5096" said:

1. Mesmer - biggest problem with mesmer is it's sustain, where it was the biggest condition bomber and yet it got buffed in a matter of sustain. This has never been adjusted for whatever reason, while for example, Scourge gets a nerf on condition damage, while sustain and mobility is still the most crappy from all - Sand Swell 1 second cast time? Because it's better than Wurm, doesn't make it a reliable mobility buff...
2. Perhaps Reaper build will be parsed with Scourge which will make a viable option for Necromancer players to use. To be honest, I prefer to have several options to use along with play styles, instead of some stupid meta which caters for a single build.
3. Firebrand healing had to be nerfed, because even noob players could just stand and spam boons and heals all around, not mentioning ressing downed enemies. It was way too powerful for bunker. Now it forces Firebrands to actually think what they do and how they play, instead of standing and pressing skills.
4. Revenant - it appears that Anet is going to repeat it's stupid mistakes. Do we have to go back to HoT release times where Revenant was 1-2 shoting everything? That class is utterly powerful with it's boon application (might, fury), has great sustain and fine mobility. It's even party share-care, so yes, it's a a very missed decision.
5. Ranger - so again, another mistake from the past. Instead of trying to parse other builds like druid or core to Soulbeast, then they cater for one build. Honestly, who does approve such changes before deployment?

What I personally dislike in this neverending thing in PvP mode, is that since Anet started making Meta builds, there is really not much for improvement.While in past, each class had multiple viable builds almost in every aspect, now those being trashed, we are left with single build with few tweaks, no more.And "git good" is exactly the same thing that Anet shows to PvP and WvW mode - "we don't care".

Mesmers have high survivability but low sustain. There's a difference.

[Tao.5096]

@"mortrialus.3062" said:Mesmers have high survivability but low sustain. There's a difference.

if we are seeing sustain as "how many successful hits you can survive" then fine, I agree.

By sustain i meant simply how long you can survive by being attacked - no matter if those landed, or missed due to e.g. blind.

[EthanLightheart.9168]

ANET can you please explain why u 90 % of the time scale random stuff that nobody cares about and never something relevant?It's far from believable how impactless this balancing is for pvp and sad one other time....

[FtoPScrub.5476]

The Mirage nerfs are not what I would have done but at least they did something. FB/Thief nerfs were good. Very disappointed they decided to buff Spellbreaker w/ Shake It Off & Holo with invuln changes. What's the reasoning behind that? They should have anticipated these two specs being top dog after Mirage nerfs and preemptively nerfed them, but instead they buffed them??

[Tails.9372]

@KumaDXL.9124 said:Why would you nerf Pistole + Pistole and buff soulbeast dmg ? Soulbeast already beat deadeye pp on mostly everything. Really nerfing p/p thief ??? The class is already too risky to play u die by every class literally on 1 v 1 not to mention mesmer can delete you from the match if he is against you in the match and mesmer isn't the only class can delete a deadeye p/p. This p/p thief Isn't even meta ! why nerf it. I'm the only guy with at least a decent build for it and I can tell you there is no way I can carry a PVP ranked match with this build. Mesmer, Engi holosmith, Thief, Rev , soulbeast all these classes can delete p/p Deadeye thief on a PVP ranked match, So explain to me why nerf? The first nerf was the stun on deadeye. now you nerf the p/p unload skill. Like 2 nerfs for my build on the two last seasons why ?! it's not even OP its not even meta. I'm the only person who got a decent build for it! With all respect, ArenaNet Balance team stop hearing Gold and Silver crying babies and get some feedback from your Plat or Legends players. The deadeye p/p is supposed to kill fast because it dies fast by any burst combo even FIREBRAND support can kill a deadeye on 1 v 1 if he is smart enough. Holosmith can do the same amount of massive dmg as the deadeye p/p and can survive even better!Well some people were complaining about flashy pew pew cause they dont know how to game mechanic so A-Net did what had to be done.

[Malafaia.8903]

@FtoPScrub.5476 said:The Mirage nerfs are not what I would have done but at least they did something. FB/Thief nerfs were good. Very disappointed they decided to buff Spellbreaker w/ Shake It Off & Holo with invuln changes. What's the reasoning behind that? They should have anticipated these two specs being top dog after Mirage nerfs and preemptively nerfed them, but instead they buffed them??

THIS ^

[mortrialus.3062]

@Tao.5096 said:

@"mortrialus.3062" said:Mesmers have high survivability but low sustain. There's a difference.

if we are seeing sustain as "how many successful hits you can survive" then fine, I agree.

By sustain i meant simply how long you can survive by being attacked - no matter if those landed, or missed due to e.g. blind.

Nah sustain referred to your capacity to heal damage. Weavers, Spellbreaker, Druid, and Firebrand are high sustain. This isn't petty semantics there's a very good reason for the terminolgy.

[anduriell.6280]

@Mbelch.9028 said:I don't see one yet, so might as well get the ball rolling...

I saw some really nice QOL changes for classes throughout, but had some questions as a whole relating to why some changes were made.

5.) Soulbeast damage buff — This is a potentially scary buff to a class that already has great damage. Thoughts?That buff was unnecessary and will make the soulbeast one shot builds a meme. i would have liked more the rework of the pets so soulbeast has more options. Even petswap while merged would have been so much better without breaking the class.

If mirage is anything like wvw it will reach some absurd level. And you are lucky spellbreaker immunties are nerfed in that gamemode, because in wvw is also a meme.

[Switch.4892]

Coming from a support main, I feel the nerfs to Firebrand are fine. However I would have loved to see the other support classes (Tempest, Ventari Revs, Med Kit Scrapper etc) get a few buffs to be brought on par with Firebrand.

[Mbelch.9028]

@Tails.9372 said:The change to unload was stupid and is nothing but pandering to the nonsensical notion that unload spam is somehow a good stadagy. Even before these changes it was already easy enough to to deal with this if you how to game mechanic.@KumaDXL.9124 said:Why would you nerf Pistole + Pistole and buff soulbeast dmg ? ... Holosmith can do the same amount of massive dmg as the deadeye p/p and can survive even better!How? It was a 2 INI nerf total, 1 INI if you don't complete your combo, which isn't the easiest to do, as Tails pointed out. This is just plain wrong. Sorry some folks clearly became accustomed to 3 spam. Thief doesn't deserve nerfs, but PP is braindead and it did.@mortrialus.3062 said:Does the invulnerability condi change impact Elixer S and Endure Pain?It does impact Elixir S, but not Endure Pain. The biggest thing about this change is for Engineers, Guardians and Elementalists who theoretically could die in their few seconds of invuln because they were ticking away, unable to do anything or cleanse anything.

[Poseidon.3852]

@"KumaDXL.9124" said:Why would you nerf Pistole + Pistole and buff soulbeast dmg ? Soulbeast already beat deadeye pp on mostly everything. Really nerfing p/p thief ??? The class is already too risky to play u die by every class literally on 1 v 1 not to mention mesmer can delete you from the match if he is against you in the match and mesmer isn't the only class can delete a deadeye p/p. This p/p thief Isn't even meta ! why nerf it. I'm the only guy with at least a decent build for it and I can tell you there is no way I can carry a PVP ranked match with this build. Mesmer, Engi holosmith, Thief, Rev , soulbeast all these classes can delete p/p Deadeye thief on a PVP ranked match, So explain to me why nerf? The first nerf was the stun on deadeye. now you nerf the p/p unload skill. Like 2 nerfs for my build on the two last seasons why ?! it's not even OP its not even meta. I'm the only person who got a decent build for it! With all respect, ArenaNet Balance team stop hearing Gold and Silver crying babies and get some feedback from your Plat or Legends players. The deadeye p/p is supposed to kill fast because it dies fast by any burst combo even FIREBRAND support can kill a deadeye on 1 v 1 if he is smart enough. Holosmith can do the same amount of massive dmg as the deadeye p/p and can survive even better!

I agree with you so much on this even tho I have never-ever even made a thief character on my account. EVER. Why do I agree then? Well, because I literally got rektd against Unload Thiefs A LOT... So, what did I do? I asked in Heart of the MIsts map chat and in my guild how to counter it. I specifically went to good thief players and asked them "hey, how do I counter this? What's happening? Is this intended?" They told me how it works and what they hate, so I got good and literally only lost against Unload Thiefs when I got caught off-guard with no meaningful CDs and so. It really didn't need a nerf at all.

@"Switch.4892" said:Coming from a support main, I feel the nerfs to Firebrand are fine. However I would have loved to see the other support classes (Tempest, Ventari Revs, Med Kit Scrapper etc) get a few buffs to be brought on par with Firebrand.

Couldn't agree more! We need all support builds to be at least viable, if not meta.

Apart from all of this, I do think that they didn't do much with this patch, but they also didn't do much wrong either. Apart from the thief nerf and a couple of other things, all around it is a fairly positive, or useless patch. At least it didn't break things even more, IMO. The bigger issue is that for such a minor change we wait faaaar too long. Honestly, this kind of patch would be fine if it was a weekly or bi-weekly one. If that was the case, we could get PvP somewhat great and balanced in a matter of 2-3 months. Instead, we get this, which is fine, but not to justify the long wait!

We all knew that this wasn't going to be a "definitive patch" to end all patches and balance everything, but it was too small to justify the long wait. Again, as with the weak LW episode full of bugs, ANet is showing that it is heavily understaffed for whatever reason. It may be bad planning, not enough resources or whatever. Be it as it may, they are taking too long to implement minor things as if they were an indie company. SAD!

Again, let me repeat it one more time:

The biggest negative point of this patch is that it is not impactful enough to justify how long everybody waited for it. Patches like this are fine and justifiable if they were released on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. It would be "slow and steady". But likes this, it is just slooooooooooooooooooooooooooow until everybody left the game or PvP for good.

A few of my personal points regarding the changes:

Negative:

• They didn't fix Full Counter's animation bug.
• They nerfed Mirage in the wrong way.
• They buffed Revenants in the wrong way.
• Thief P/P nerfs.

Not sure what to think of yet:

• Buffs to Warrior and Ranger (SB and SlB) . This can either be minor buffs that won't do much difference or game-changers. I do not have much experience with playing either, so I really don't know.
• Anything related to Ele... most of it just seemed not to make much sense.

Positive:

• Nerfed Firebrands just right. I love this change, it's on point.
• Invulnerability effects will now stop conditions from applying damage.
• The few changes to conditions to last longer but have fewer stacks. I know it's minor, but it's a step in the right direction.
• Nerfed Ranger Pet dmg.

Also, I would love to finally see the few bugs that playing with the action cam brings fixed, mostly related to how teleport skills work quite differently with the action cam. Most of them will not just bring you closer to the target if casted between the maximum range and the minimum range that would get you straight to your target. instead, they just go off without doing anything. Also, If you are using the action cam you have to have your target also targeted in your aim reticle, instead of just having it tab targetted for certain skills to function properly. Lastly, your auto attacks will stop if you happen to aim somewhere else for a time and if you use any skill, you will have to press 1 again to restart auto-attacks.

EDIT: I must confess that I am heavily in favor of a brawler-but-not-bunker meta. I like my fights longer, where you need to play tactics instead of just fast burst dmg of any kind. In fact, I love it so much that I would give everybody a 100% HP boost and a 50% healing nerf, while keeping the same dmg, in PVP, if it was me.

[Tails.9372]

@"Mbelch.9028" said:Sorry some folks clearly became accustomed to 3 spam. Thief doesn't deserve nerfs, but PP is braindead and it did.So what? People should decide for themselves how they want to play the game. If they want to use a simple strategy which has a lot of counterplay then that's their decision. Abuse it, it's an easy win for everyone who knows how to deal with it. But that's beside the point. Something over / underperforming is a valid justificaiton for buffs / nerfs, simply saying "I don't like how this guy plays the game" however is not.

[Caine.8204]

Balance is garbage like usual. Honestly, PVP gets worse and worse as time goes on. I enjoyed playing this game in Vanilla release, HoT was okay, and now that we are in PoF, PVP is just horribly unfun to play. You either have to have a one-shot build, or something extremely tanky that can't be one-shot. There's no in-between if you are solo-queueing. Necro gets nerf upon nerf stacked on, but one-shot mesmer isn't changed ever. Chrono becomes powerful for one patch, and it gets nerfed by 50% among other nerfs immediately. Invuln is changed, so now you see one-shot power guardians appearing.

The removal of any sort of tank amulet has made the meta absolutely dumb with insta-gibs. The changing of the trait system has made most builds or variants unviable. There is only ever 1 good path to take for a profession nowadays, when previously in Vanilla it felt like there were multiple "okay" builds per profession - but nowadays, there is a HUGE split between what entitles a "good, solid" build, and what is complete garbage.

Necro: Can only play scourge. Every single trait pick is a MANDATORY pick. Nerfed multiple patches in a row, even though they are the MOST targeted profession in any match. Now they are nerfed back into "useless when targeted" territory.Guardian: With the new focus skill, power guardian can just plop a few skills on you to kill you if you are any sort of squishy build.Mesmer: Chrono gets nerfed because it survives too long, but stealth GS mesmer can be untouchable and also instant kill you. Wow, that's a lot of fun, glad that build stayed. Oh, and it got buffed, because of the invuln changes.Ranger: Sucks, like it always did.Ele: Another build that can continually heal and remove conditions, as well as stack every boon, and plop on an invuln (which was also buffed). While wielding marauder ammy, outheals any single target damage.Warrior: Tanky, heals self, removes all conditions and stacks resistance/stability, as well as having high mobility to run from fights. Recovers from a "loss" in about 5s and can return to battle healed enough to win most fights.Thief: Most mobility in the game, most dodges in the game, and if you're at 50% you instantly lose to a 8k crit. If you dodge that one, he has another 8k crit for you. If you dodge that one, well, he can just teleport away, then teleport back and give you another 8k crit. Because why not?Rev: Still useless unless you're an absolute GOD at the ONE BUILD THAT HAS BEEN VIABLE SINCE THEY'VE BEEN RELEASED. I'm not kidding. There has only been one build.Engineer: Not really played. Might be playable in this meta but i doubt it.

It just seems like Anet has forced every profession into taking one specific role in the group, and any sort of variation has heavy drawbacks that make it completely useless at top level play. Rather than giving each player a choice at role (of which there are three: support, damage, and tanking), they have forced each profession into one role. Most, except for guardian, are forced into playing a completely damage-focused role.

I honestly don't understand the removal of tank amulets. It's not like this game is an e-sport, or has any sort of audience behind it any more. PVP SHOULD BE A STRATEGIC BATTLE. It shouldn't be "zerg from one point to the next, insta-gib one target and move onto the next". Who honestly has fun playing this anymore? It's just frustrating.

Is it really so hard to balance damage with toughness and healing? Is it really so hard to make balance so that battles last more than 10 seconds (team fight) or decided in 5 seconds (one-on-one).

Because honestly, I can walk into a fight on ANY profession and INSTANTLY know whether it's going to be a win or lose. 1v1 or team fight, doesn't matter. The fight, and the game, is decided within seconds.

[mortrialus.3062]

@Poseidon.3852 said:Negative:

• They didn't fix Full Counter's animation bug.
• They nerfed Mirage in the wrong way.

I think they nerfed Mirage in the right way. Now Elusive Mind is a problem that still needs to be addressed, but Axe and Torch skills absolutely needed to be toned down. Main the Disillusioned is an okay area to give a non devastating haircut to Mirage's Damage. Also hitting Adventure runes, which while a nerf that hits everyone, definitely hits Mirage the hardest.

The main idea behind all versions of condition mesmer is that it uses confusion, which does a lot of damage when skills are used into it. It's high burst is balanced by the larger amount of counter play it has for a condition. You can avoid almost all damage by just not attacking into the confusion. But with torch and to a lesser extent axe and shatters dumping immediately lethal levels of burning and torment it effectively takes away the counter play of confusion. Before if you landed all three pulses of torch damage, it was something like 17k damage in burning over 4 seconds. At which point it forces you to either heal through it or cleanse it or die. You don't get the luxury of not using skills into confusion.

So they didn't go far enough in regards Elusive Mind, but they absolutely trimmed the right areas when it comes to Condi Mirage's damage output.

[Specialka.7290]

P/p deserved a nerf, that kind of gamepaly should not be rewarded.

[ApaWanka.2698]

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

5. Elixer U was overbuffed. Granting both quickness and stability on the same skill regrants holos the ability to "Pop stab, mindlessly spam holo rotation". This should be reverted asap. Anet please stop randomly buffing utility skills that are already meta.

Almost agree with everything .... specially with revert ElixirU changes. It was fine like it was....

As a main Holo (pvp/wvw) I hate the change, as the majority of the engineer comunity. We already have enough Stab and Quickness.... I prefer my walls and combo fields on Toss Elixir that were a unique tool for engis, not a duplicaded akward TossElixirU farting more quickness and sending an SLOW proyectile that break stun (really? That was necessary?)

[jihm.2315]

never expect mesmers to be equal to other classes they will always be op just deal with it

[apharma.3741]

@Mbelch.9028 said:Thanks for all the comments so far!

I saw some really nice QOL changes for classes throughout, but had some questions as a whole relating to why some changes were made.

1.) Mesmer changes — Were they enough? Time will tell, but according to a few top PvPers, the nerfs happened in the wrong places and might have done damage in the wrong way.2.) Reaper damage buff — Was that necessary?3.) FB healing nerfs — Was that necessary?4.) Revenant damage buffed — Both directly and indirectly... I don't think this was a good decision. Their PVP damage was already legendary. If you say it wasn't, you've never faced a good Rev.5.) Soulbeast damage buff — This is a potentially scary buff to a class that already has great damage. Thoughts?Adding on..6.) Really interesting change, making condis not tick on invulnerable skills. I think it's smart overall, as the skills have longer cooldowns and were intended to make you not take damage. I think Engineers, Elementalists and Guardians benefit the most from this.

I agree entirely but specifically:

Yep the mesmer changes hit torch despite it not being an issue because they listen to people who'd rather ban mesmer and ask for nerfs than look at it critically and figure out how to deal with it. Axe changes are welcomed but not enough to make too much of a difference, elusive mind is still broken as it prevents mirage being punished for failing to dodge properly.

Drop torch, get staff. Can't wait for people to complain about what? Chaos storm? Chaos armour? The auto?

[KumaDXL.9124]

@Mbelch.9028 said:

@Tails.9372 said:The change to unload was stupid and is nothing but pandering to the nonsensical notion that unload spam is somehow a good stadagy. Even before these changes it was already easy enough to to deal with this if you how to game mechanic.@"KumaDXL.9124" said:Why would you nerf Pistole + Pistole and buff soulbeast dmg ? ... Holosmith can do the same amount of massive dmg as the deadeye p/p and can survive even better!How? It was a 2 INI nerf total, 1 INI if you don't complete your combo, which isn't the easiest to do, as Tails pointed out. This is just plain wrong. Sorry some folks clearly became accustomed to 3 spam. Thief doesn't deserve nerfs, but PP is braindead and it did.

If I only spam 3 Than I wouldn't even win a single game on pvp ranked XD You didn't play my build or even know about so don't come and say its braindead. any class could kill me If I'm not paying attention spamming 3 XD. ALSO, If I spam 3 3 3 as you said they can simply dodge two times and there u go I HAVE nothing as p/p thief XD. NOT to mention walls in matches. NOT to mention zero dmg skill on warrior and ranger isn't that a braindead cough. NOT to mention blocks on guard. NOT to mention mesmer dodge forever. NOT to mention the reflect bubble on firebrand, Reflect block on the warrior, Reflect shield on ELE, Reflect spin on Scrapper. I have to be aware of all These! p/p Deadeye build is to catch ppl who aren't paying attention "Braindead" ppl who don't dodge ppl who doesn't use their skills to survive. If you think p/p is brain dead. How about ranger pewpew he can survive better than the thief deadeye p/p and do the same dmg on isn't that a braindead? ...... If you haven't played p/p deadeye on a plat match or tournament on the last 2 matches. If you think the deadeye p/p combo is easy I dare you to give me the full combo on text.

[Tails.9372]

@"Specialka.7290" said:P/p deserved a nerf, that kind of gamepaly should not be rewarded.That's just a slippery slope which can be used to justify nerfing anything, in fact if someone loses against P/P he deserves his loss thanks to how many counterplay there is. Saying that someone shouldn't get "rewarded" for outplaying inherent disadvantages just because the gameplay is "simple" doesn't even make any sense. If unload spam would give you easy wins against more skilled players the situation would be different but that's definitely not the case here. From a class balancing point of view there's no actual argument to justify this nerf and every support for it boils pretty much down to "me don't like this playstile".

[Sariel.2143]

Sayonara d/p shortbow Thief.Infiltrator's arrow nerfed or bugged? Can not use it on anything but flat surface right now.

[Tact.8063]

i play mesmer for most of time in gw2 (half year) so i will only say this and try to find some other class for survibilityman they make my condition mesmer and mirage build absolutly wasted i used to have 100% burn which used to give me a 18k damege over 6 second now it do same but over 18 second , it was hard enough to survibe in close for six second (you need to povide more cover condition in confusion and troment )now it always get healed even by low condition cleans build and heal skill. it no longer do anything that would make me want to go close to diliver 10(now 4) stake of burning (which can easly be dogded by smart intant player) 18 second is way hard i would rather have 1 stack for 3 second and 1 for 6 that way burst will dilever in 6 and 12 second which give average of 9 second enough to heal on condition cleans (even scourge F2 skill recharge by then)

unless dev do something like above or introduce some wepon skill other then torch, septor(which 3rd skill realy need work(reduce cast time to 1 from 2 is to must)), axe and staff

staff do not give good dps(uless you use infinate horizon trait, even then slow moving orb are/is easy to dodge and get out of way, at range) it more cc and surviblity tool

using axe to stack torment is not easy as cloan got distroyed the second they are created(scourge realy most of time) even with infinate horizon it way hard to reach 15 stack even in 3 to 5 second making a torment burst imposibly(and u are not invenerable at time you are squise ,so you waste your 2 evade just to stay close for 3-4 second)

with torch incredible uselless now staff and sceptor barely doing dps only tool of condition is axe for mirage

core mesmer conditon build is effectivly deadjaut deserve it colldown increse time it was one of OP skill (it was an elite so..) but it was no more elite then a gurdian instent healing every one full hp i have no problm there but with this mesmer conditon and phatmase(old nerf) build is dead

[dolofanboy.8140]

Mesmer- They nerfed condi mirage as a whole by gutting torch, blurred frenzy, and Jaunt instead of addressing the real issue which is the axe weapon and bleeds from pistol. This makes the s/t staff build even worse and pigeon holes them into running the axe build.Revenant- Rev didn't need the buffs and will be a staple on every team.Warrior- Not sure what to make of the changes, only two things I see that will have any impact are the Attacker's Insight nerf and the Shake It Off buff.Thief- The nerf to double steal was needed because of busted it was and the nerfs to condi thief were good. Could still use some nerfs on sword 2.Engineer- The invulnerability change was a huge buff to engi vs anything condi. I expect double elixir S to be used and potentially the new elixir U as well.Guardian-Firebrand nerfs change nothing.Elementalist- Still irrelevantRanger-Probably still bad but I see Boyce running around with a build that apparently beats warriors engis and mesmers.Necromancer- Losing damage for more boon rip was a good change although I think the new cboon might be a bit too strong.TLDR:Everything except ele and ranger(?) is viable in a competitive setting (AT's) optimal comps are probably Thief/Mesmer/Rev/Guard/Necro,War OR Engi/Mesmer/Rev/Guard/Necro.

EDIT:ports are bugged so that's an indirect nerf to mesmer thief and rev and buff to the others