If you could only do one balance change on each class?

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Here's a thread that provides a "fun" way to highlight what people think is the main problem with each class. What would you do if you could only change one skill, trait, or base ability to fix the game? Feel free to either do one for all classes or just the ones you are familiar with. You can also do one per elite spec as they sort of count as a "class".

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Here is an example to start:

Thief ( core ) - Dagger storm no longer a trick r: random resets on this skill are non interactive and annoyingDeadeye - silent scope reverted May 22 2018 r: a no ICD stealth on dodge is bad for the game.

Mirage - Mirage cloak now causes 3 seconds of exhaustion when it ends if it was either used while CCed or fails to evade an attack r: first part of this nerf is obvious and has been asked for by the community for ages. Second part is mainly to discourage monkey style gameplay by adding some counterplay to it so attentive players have a way to punish mirages that are just mindlessly spamming evades with a weapon stow.

Ranger ( core ) - Axe 1 only stacks might when it critically hits r: this skill currently allows for tanky builds doing too much damageSoulbeast- Dolyak stance no longer reduces damage r: Why this skill was buffed remains a mystery to all.

Revenant ( core ) - Added Duelists preparation ( 2 second block ) back to sword 4. Shackling wave now deals only 1 strike, +2 strikes if DP blocks an attack r: this is the simplest way to kill two Rev problems with one stone. Currently Rev burst is arguably too high, but Rev has problems without support. This change reduces Rev burst damage while giving them better defense in return.

Engineer ( core ) - Reverted Elixer U to February 22, 2017 r: this is mainly a problem with Holosmith, but regardless quickness and on demand stab is too much on the same skill as it encourages spammy gameplay.

[derd.6413]

if only things were that simple

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Instead of tackling the problem and remove that ability to mirage cloak while cced you choose to Smiter's boon an entire elite spec but sure let's play that game:

Rev - everytime you swap legends while having less than 50% energy you begin with 0 energy.Holo - everytime you fail to hit with a forge skill your heat level rises 50%Sb - when you merge with your pet while having more than 2 boons, all boons are removed and your pet stats are subtracted from yours.DE - when you fail to evade an attack you're revealed for 3sec.

And so on.

Now everything requires a brain to play yay!

[derd.6413]

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Instead of tackling the problem and remove that ability to mirage cloak while cced you choose to Smiter's boon an entire elite spec but sure let's play that game:

Rev - everytime you swap legends while having less than 50% energy you begin with 0 energy.Holo - everytime you fail to hit with a forge skill your heat level rises 50%Sb - when you merge with your pet while having more than 2 boons, all boons are removed and your pet stats are subtracted from yours.DE - when you fail to evade an attack you're revealed for 3sec.

And so on.

Now everything requires a brain to play yay!

these are horrible

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

@derd.6413 said:

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Instead of tackling the problem and remove that ability to mirage cloak while cced you choose to Smiter's boon an entire elite spec but sure let's play that game:

Rev - everytime you swap legends while having less than 50% energy you begin with 0 energy.Holo - everytime you fail to hit with a forge skill your heat level rises 50%Sb - when you merge with your pet while having more than 2 boons, all boons are removed and your pet stats are subtracted from yours.DE - when you fail to evade an attack you're revealed for 3sec.

And so on.

Now everything requires a brain to play yay!

these are horrible

I know they're, they were only made to show how pathetic his mirage suggestion is.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Warrior:Combustive Shot : Increase Number of Targets to 10. Now pulses every 1.5 Seconds instead of every 3 Seconds. Dmg and Burning are decreased appropriately.

Engi:Buff Medi Kit Auto and fix the Animation.

Mesmer:Remove Stealth from Torch.

Guardian:Decrease casttime of Mace Symbol.

Revenant:Let the Tablet follow you around like a pet.

Necro:Remove the Shade effect around the scourge himself.

Ele:Make Aura Share from Water 10 Targets.

Thief: Don’t care.

Ranger: Don’t care.

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

@derd.6413 said:

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Instead of tackling the problem and remove that ability to mirage cloak while cced you choose to Smiter's boon an entire elite spec but sure let's play that game:

Rev - everytime you swap legends while having less than 50% energy you begin with 0 energy.Holo - everytime you fail to hit with a forge skill your heat level rises 50%Sb - when you merge with your pet while having more than 2 boons, all boons are removed and your pet stats are subtracted from yours.DE - when you fail to evade an attack you're revealed for 3sec.

And so on.

Now everything requires a brain to play yay!

these are horrible

That was kind of the point.

@Master Ketsu.4569: 3 seconds of exhaustion for failing to evade an attack with Mirage Cloak? Careful there, your bias is showing.

[Ario.8964]

If you wanted to stop people from dodging while cced do what countless suggested: Remove the ability for mirage cloak to dodge while cced (outside of using EM), put EM on a 20 sec cd and remove the exhaustion, have the player's endurance bar turn blue when it's off cd so they can play around it. Could also put ambush skills on like a 5 sec cd for both the player and clones to prevent them from being spammed which reduces mirage damage output without actually gutting the spec. Ofc more changes are probably needed but I feel like this is a better way to address what you're trying to do with mirage.

[Burnfall.9573]

Derd-Simplicity would only work if past lessons were learned

-Learning Lessons= Simplicity-Apply Lessons-UnLearned Lessons= Repetition-History Repeat Itself

Have a good day everyone :)

[Mbelch.9028]

@Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Instead of tackling the problem and remove that ability to mirage cloak while cced you choose to Smiter's boon an entire elite spec but sure let's play that game:

Rev - everytime you swap legends while having less than 50% energy you begin with 0 energy.Holo - everytime you fail to hit with a forge skill your heat level rises 50%Sb - when you merge with your pet while having more than 2 boons, all boons are removed and your pet stats are subtracted from yours.DE - when you fail to evade an attack you're revealed for 3sec.

And so on.

Now everything requires a brain to play yay!

these are horrible

That was kind of the point.

@Master Ketsu.4569: 3 seconds of exhaustion for failing to evade an attack with Mirage Cloak? Careful there, your bias is showing.

Not saying I agree with it, but devil's advocate: How's it any less punishing than losing adrenaline + benefits from not triggering a full counter?

[otto.5684]

This is kinda difficult, cuz many changes are needed, but here is a shot:

Guardian: FB, reduce heal scaling of tome of resolve.

Warrior: increase viability of dagger off hand.

Rev: renegade, improve viability of summons by making them invulnerable (and change the daze).

Mesmer: limit the clone creation from GS and staff summons to 1.

Ele: not sure.

Necro: not sure. I think necro is in a good place. Maybe increase power scourge builds viability.

Ranger: soul beast, significantly lower boon stacking.

Eng: holo, significantly lower boon stacking, specifically quickness, protection and might.

Thief: deadeye, remove the invis on dodge. Create compensating mechanics as needed.

[Snellibee.2761]

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Rev - everytime you swap legends while having less than 50% energy you begin with 0 energy.

How to kill Revenant with one changeEDIT: Didn't see it was a joke

[Arkantos.7460]

Revenant core: switch between 3 viable legends

[storm.3120]

@Mbelch.9028 said:

@Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Instead of tackling the problem and remove that ability to mirage cloak while cced you choose to Smiter's boon an entire elite spec but sure let's play that game:

Rev - everytime you swap legends while having less than 50% energy you begin with 0 energy.Holo - everytime you fail to hit with a forge skill your heat level rises 50%Sb - when you merge with your pet while having more than 2 boons, all boons are removed and your pet stats are subtracted from yours.DE - when you fail to evade an attack you're revealed for 3sec.

And so on.

Now everything requires a brain to play yay!

these are horrible

That was kind of the point.

@Master Ketsu.4569: 3 seconds of exhaustion for failing to evade an attack with Mirage Cloak? Careful there, your bias is showing.

Not saying I agree with it, but devil's advocate: How's it any less punishing than losing adrenaline + benefits from not triggering a full counter?

You asking wrong question there. Why DE malice stay at full if you miss sneak attack and why its all being 'saved' on re-mark.If you want to compare ,compare similar mechanics,not evades. If we speak about evades. We can add 3s exhaust to every evade and 5s icd aegis re-applying effect. ;)

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

@Mbelch.9028 said:

@Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Instead of tackling the problem and remove that ability to mirage cloak while cced you choose to Smiter's boon an entire elite spec but sure let's play that game:

Rev - everytime you swap legends while having less than 50% energy you begin with 0 energy.Holo - everytime you fail to hit with a forge skill your heat level rises 50%Sb - when you merge with your pet while having more than 2 boons, all boons are removed and your pet stats are subtracted from yours.DE - when you fail to evade an attack you're revealed for 3sec.

And so on.

Now everything requires a brain to play yay!

these are horrible

That was kind of the point.

@Master Ketsu.4569: 3 seconds of exhaustion for failing to evade an attack with Mirage Cloak? Careful there, your bias is showing.

Not saying I agree with it, but devil's advocate: How's it any less punishing than losing adrenaline + benefits from not triggering a full counter?

Mirage Cloak is both a Mirage's dodge as well as one of its major attack mechanics by giving access to ambush skills. Mirages only have up to two dodges at any given time like every other spec except DD. They have one of the lowest vigor uptimes after nerfs (so actually OP's issue has already been directly addressed).

Because one of their biggest sources of pressure is tied to dodging, Mirages can't afford to waste them. No one dodges just because. They dodge because they think they're about to be hit and/or to use an ambush skill. OP's suggestion would end using Mirage Cloak just for the ambush. It would punish Mirages for dodging defensively, when no other spec is punished that way. And because the skill is a prerequisite for one of Mirage's primary attacks, the spec would be gutted.

However, that isn't a surprise based on OP's posts in the various nerf mesmer threads. This was supposedly a thread to suggest a change to each spec, but managed to be yet another thinly veiled call to delete Mirage.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

I remember when people on the mes forums were saying that elusive mind 3 second exhaustion nerf would smiters boon the spec. I just remembered how right they were and how mirage immediately fell to F-tier and totally did not remain S+ for another few seasons. You are all right. Mirage cloak is balanced and should see no changes.

[EpicTurtle.8571]

@Master Ketsu.4569 said:I remember when people on the mes forums were saying that elusive mind 3 second exhaustion nerf would smiters boon the spec. I just remembered how right they were and how mirage immediately fell to F-tier and totally did not remain S+ for another few seasons. You are all right. Mirage cloak is balanced and should see no changes.

No, they said it would smiter's boon the trait. Not the spec, the trait. You misrepresented two things in that post. The second is that people think Mirage Cloak doesn't need any changes, it needs to not be usable under CC. That's it.

[Ovark.2514]

Mesmer: Blinding Dissipation: Clones cause Blindness (3 sec) when they Shatter. (this can only activate once per shatter)Mirage: Infinite Horizon: The mirage cloak gained by clones does not make them invulnerable (they gain the icon though)Chronomancer: ChronoPantasma and Illusionary Reversion are now at the same tierThief: Flanking Strike: No longer un-blockableDaredevil: Distracting Daggers: This skill no longer has ammo. This skill has a it's recharge reduced to 3 seconds if your successfully interrupt a foe with a dagger.Deadeye: Silent Scope: You no longer gain Stealth in dodge. Death's retreat has it's distance reduced to 400 and it's initiative reduced to 3.Guardian: Judges Intervention: Now has a 1/2 sec cast time (with animation)Dragon Hunter: Hunter's Determination: (New trait) Becoming stunned while near a Fragment of Faith consumes it instead.Firebrand: Nothing is glaring atm... it's also late.Ranger: Protective Ward: Now has no ICD and activates each time you lose 25% of your health in a single strike.Soulbeast: Dolyak Stance: Remove the damage and condition damage reduction. Stability stacks reduced to three.Druid: Celestial Shadow: Super speed and stealth are now only granted to you and your pet.Necromancer: Each mark now has a unique animation of it being summoned on the ground (visual tell)Reaper: Chilling Nova: Critically hitting a chilled foe deals damage and chills non-chilled nearby foes (remove ICD)Scourge: Reduce visual noise somehow. . . it's too late i gtg to bed otherwise would figure it out.Warrior: Defy Pain: Is replaced with a different traitBerserker: Sundering Leap: CD reduced to 15 sec. Damage increased to 800. Applies 2 seconds of Immobilize.Spellbreaker: Magebane Tether: Pull now only activates if you are facing your foe.Elementalist: Blinding Flash: Now has a 1/2 sec animation and requires you to be facing your foe.Engineer: Elixir S: Now cancels StompHolosmith: Thermal Release Valve: Now only reduces heat when in Photon Forge modeScrapper: Shredder Gyro: Now regenerates health as it strikes foes.Revenant: Riposting Shadows: Now requires at least 30 energy but consumes all energy when used.Herald: Elemental Blase (consume): Now has a 1/2 sec cast time and deals 1/3 the damage it used to. This skill now deals 10% more damage for every 2 seconds of swiftness you have (max 200% more damage).Renegade: Summons: When summoned have 20% more health for each enemy within 1200 units.

[TorQ.7041]

@Odik.4587 said:

@Mbelch.9028 said:

@Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

@derd.6413 said:

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Instead of tackling the problem and remove that ability to mirage cloak while cced you choose to Smiter's boon an entire elite spec but sure let's play that game:

Rev - everytime you swap legends while having less than 50% energy you begin with 0 energy.Holo - everytime you fail to hit with a forge skill your heat level rises 50%Sb - when you merge with your pet while having more than 2 boons, all boons are removed and your pet stats are subtracted from yours.DE - when you fail to evade an attack you're revealed for 3sec.

And so on.

Now everything requires a brain to play yay!

these are horrible

That was kind of the point.

@Master Ketsu.4569: 3 seconds of exhaustion for failing to evade an attack with Mirage Cloak? Careful there, your bias is showing.

Not saying I agree with it, but devil's advocate: How's it any less punishing than losing adrenaline + benefits from not triggering a full counter?

You asking wrong question there. Why DE malice stay at full if you miss sneak attack and why its all being 'saved' on re-mark.If you want to compare ,compare similar mechanics,not evades. If we speak about evades. We can add 3s exhaust to every evade and 5s icd aegis re-applying effect. ;)

It doesn't stay at full. If you miss death's judgement you still lose all malice.

[TorQ.7041]

@Ovark.2514 said:Mesmer: Blinding Dissipation: Clones cause Blindness (3 sec) when they Shatter. (this can only activate once per shatter)Mirage: Infinite Horizon: The mirage cloak gained by clones does not make them invulnerable (they gain the icon though)Chronomancer: ChronoPantasma and Illusionary Reversion are now at the same tierThief: Flanking Strike: No longer un-blockableDaredevil: Distracting Daggers: This skill no longer has ammo. This skill has a it's recharge reduced to 3 seconds if your successfully interrupt a foe with a dagger.Deadeye: Silent Scope: You no longer gain Stealth in dodge. Death's retreat has it's distance reduced to 400 and it's initiative reduced to 3.Guardian: Judges Intervention: Now has a 1/2 sec cast time (with animation)Dragon Hunter: Hunter's Determination: (New trait) Becoming stunned while near a Fragment of Faith consumes it instead.Firebrand: Nothing is glaring atm... it's also late.Ranger: Protective Ward: Now has no ICD and activates each time you lose 25% of your health in a single strike.Soulbeast: Dolyak Stance: Remove the damage and condition damage reduction. Stability stacks reduced to three.Druid: Celestial Shadow: Super speed and stealth are now only granted to you and your pet.Necromancer: Each mark now has a unique animation of it being summoned on the ground (visual tell)Reaper: Chilling Nova: Critically hitting a chilled foe deals damage and chills non-chilled nearby foes (remove ICD)Scourge: Reduce visual noise somehow. . . it's too late i gtg to bed otherwise would figure it out.Warrior: Defy Pain: Is replaced with a different traitBerserker: Sundering Leap: CD reduced to 15 sec. Damage increased to 800. Applies 2 seconds of Immobilize.Spellbreaker: Magebane Tether: Pull now only activates if you are facing your foe.Elementalist: Blinding Flash: Now has a 1/2 sec animation and requires you to be facing your foe.Engineer: Elixir S: Now cancels StompHolosmith: Thermal Release Valve: Now only reduces heat when in Photon Forge modeScrapper: Shredder Gyro: Now regenerates health as it strikes foes.Revenant: Riposting Shadows: Now requires at least 30 energy but consumes all energy when used.Herald: Elemental Blase (consume): Now has a 1/2 sec cast time and deals 1/3 the damage it used to. This skill now deals 10% more damage for every 2 seconds of swiftness you have (max 200% more damage).Renegade: Summons: When summoned have 20% more health for each enemy within 1200 units.

There's literally no reason to nerf flanking strike. There is literally no 1 complaining thief is op. It's dps is laughable compared to other classes. The only good thing going for it is that it's a good clean up +1.

For DE's changes you should play DE to find that with out slient scope you basically just die. You should also find that a DE has zero swiftness and is dead slow.thats why deaths retreat is needed. This limits a DE to only shortbow as the alternate set. You are basically trying to make it a class that has zero defense and escape. So you can 1 shot it With out any means to escape by changing it's only 2 defensive traits.while arguebly slient scope needs to be removed. Something else defensive must replace it. Else it will just become a dead class.

[Swagg.9236]

ENGINEER[Holographic Shockwave]Activation: ¾ / Recharge: 15s

• Create a holographic shockwave that damages foes. If you are above the heat threshold, this attack launches foes upward.
• Number of targets: 5
• Damage: (1.0)
• Heat Gained: 25%
• Heat Threshold: 50
• Threshold Launch: 0
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Range: 300

THIEFSilent Scope (Deadeye Master Major)

• [Death's Retreat] is now a ground-targeted teleport skill with an increased initiative cost.
• Initiative cost increase: 1
• Teleport range: 600

This traited version of [Death's Retreat] would no longer function as a leap finisher.

GUARDIAN[Judge's Intervention]Recharge: 50sTeleport to the target location. If a foe is at the target location, you reveal nearby foes and create a Symbol of Protection.

• Radius: 180
• Number of targets: 5
• Revealed (3s): You cannot stealth
• Breaks Stun
• Range: 900

This is now a free-aim teleport with a 180 radius target reticle; the skill only applies revealed and creates a Symbol of Protection at the target location if the player manages to "hit" one or more foes with this target reticle.

ELEMENTALIST[Frozen Ground]Recharge: 30sTarget area removes defensive boons and inflicts chill. Foes in the area revive more slowly.

• Number of targets: 5
• Chilled (2s): -66% Skill Recharge Rate, -66% Movement Speed
• Boons Removed: Stability, Resistance
• Frozen Ground (1s): Cannot gain Stability or Resistance; -75% Revive Speed
• Interval: 1s
• Duration: 5s
• Combo Field: Ice
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
• Unblockable

RANGER

• [smoke Assault] no longer evades attacks.

WARRIOR[shield Stance]Activation: 3s / Recharge: 30sAt every interval, grant a barrier to yourself and adjacent allies. While standing still, you also taunt adjacent foes at every interval (foes cannot be taunted in this way more than once every 5 seconds)

• Number of allies: 5
• Barrier: 1428 (0.25)
• Number of targets: 5
• Stationary taunt (2s): Involuntarily attack foes.
• Interval: 1s
• Duration: 3s
• Radius: 180

Grants the listed barrier immediately, and then again at the end of each second throughout its duration (for a total of 4 packets of barrier and 4 chances to inflict taunt respectively).

REVENANT[infuse Light]Recharge: 30sLegendary Dragon. Consume. Consume Facet of Light to gain aegis and regain health over time.

• Aegis (3s): Block the next incoming attack.
• Healing: 1062 (0.12)
• Duration: 8s

Necro is kind of a mess, and I can't immediately be bothered to pin down any single thing to buff, nerf, or outright change (I could bring a bunch of stuff to the table, but no single thing). Same goes for Mesmer, but the the easy generation and baseline function of Mirage Cloak is the obvious point of contention (although Chrono CD reset and core stealth burst are respectively just about as cancerous, so it's kind of a heavy bag of nonsense for that class).

[NaiveBayes.2587]

I'm reading some of these suggestions and I can't tell if any of these are serious or not, if they are then I'm so glad (and hope) none of you are behind balance changes. I wish you could actually test these out so you could see just how stupid they would be in practice.

[anduriell.6280]

• Thief and Mesmer: while in stealth the thief evade all attacks. If you can see it you shouldnt be able to hit it
• Warrior: While execute any adrenaline attack the target enemy and any other foe within 1200 units is automatically taunted every second.
• Ranger and DeadEye: Get an scope effect and can hit with any ranged weapon at 3000 units.
• All players affected by torment won't stop whining.
• All players affected by confusion will randomly use the skill with the biggest CD available in to one ally, damaging them if it's an attack. And then say sorry.
• All players affected by burning will begin to jump and dance around incontrolably until the flames are extingish.
• Meteor shower will cause aditionaly to the damage knockdown.

This is all because RP reasons!! Fun fun fun!!

[Swagg.9236]

@"NaiveBayes.2587" said:I'm reading some of these suggestions and I can't tell if any of these are serious or not, if they are then I'm so glad (and hope) none of you are behind balance changes. I wish you could actually test these out so you could see just how stupid they would be in practice.

Mine are entirely just limiting or culling low effort, damage negation cancer. It's exclusively a "git gud and have fun" patch (only thing missing is mesmer nerfs). I'd test them out easy if anet wasn't so baselessly reserved with their assets. You'd think that they were the college of cardinals electing a pope or something with the way they sit silently while the PvP minigame rots for six years.