Balance Changes Upcoming

[Xstein.2187]

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

@Xstein.2187 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

• Magic Bullet: Stun duration for this skill has been increased from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
• Counter Blade: Daze duration for this ability has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.
• Mantra of Distraction: Daze time for this skill has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.
• Confounding Suggestions: This trait no longer increases daze and stun durations. Instead, Diversion stuns foes for 1.5 seconds and no longer dazes foes.

I mean, who really enjoys being able to control one's own character anyway? I'd rather just not be able to press buttons. That said, if these changes were made in order to maybe give more break bar pressure to random Mesmer skills, you really ought to just do something like standardize break bar damage across all instances of CC rather than just arbitrarily elongating stun and daze durations. Also, I'm sure everyone in PvP will really love another Signet of Mercy tier revive meme. And STOP ADDING AURAS (or at least change their disgustingly passive nature).

These are kind of weird. Power Mesmer, despite complaining about Blinding Dissipation came out really on top. Confounding was only JUST buffed to increase daze and stun durations. Like it was literally just October it was changed to lengthen Stun duration. But Arenanet figures out and implements a change to Confounding which changes the F3 into a stun which appears to have always been their intention with it and I personally think this is going to be an awesome buff on its own.... and then they just bake in all the placeholder duration buffs....?

What the . . . .? The old confounding suggestions trait wasn't buffed on October 2, 2018, it was nerfed. It used to stun with any daze on a 15 sec cooldown and before that in March on a 5 sec cool down. Almost everyone I knew and all the comments at the time this occurred viewed it as a nerf because stunning was so paramount on power in order to land damage. The new confounding suggestions is still not as good as the old one in pre-October because it doesn't pair with other daze skills like mantra of distraction and diversion is on a 38 sec cooldown. If you think that the October patch was a buff to power, than you are out of the loop with how power works or worked. Now, there was a semi-agreement in the mesmer community that confounding suggestions shouldn't be able to work with mantra of distractions even before the October patch hit. I'm not arguing the pre October patch confounding suggestions shouldn't have got nerfed, but calling this October change a buff is quite questionable, especially when it was released just now that they are going to change it to a weaker version of the pre-October patch trait. And you call it a buff and then another buff? This doesn't make any sense.

You already even mentioned yourself that you don't know weather or not the new blinding dissipation will pair with Ineptitude. If the new trait pairs with Ineptitude or even just multiple clones landing, then the new blinding dissipations trait is obviously a lot better with a condi build.

Why are you so committed to saying that power is in a better situation than condi? You don't even know how the new blinding dissipation will work. Do you think if you persuade the devs that power came out better this patch then condi then it will get a buff? This is unrealistic.

Condi got wrecked because it's only real power-hitter left was Confusing Images dealing something like 4-5 meteor's worth of damage (this on top of how it also lost a decent amount of passive condi generation via traits). Good riddance, but power was left untouched amid all of the random Mesmer nerfs, which means that the instantaneous, mantra-spamming, GS/blink spike just rises up on the ladder. Moreover, giving that build more hard CC is just going to make it even more obnoxious to fight.

And as for your assumption about a Diversion stun being a "nerf," did you consider that Diversion can hit up to 4 times? That that there was no detail which explicitly said how a Diversion-generated, passive stun had an internal cooldown? For all we know, it seems that Diversion can now passively stun for 1.5s up to 4 times in quick succession. Super fun and interesting gameplay for a class that is already shallow and annoying to fight.

What I meant was that confounding suggestions was nerfed to counter Mantra of Distraction stuns and was buffed to increase daze and stun duration rather than change dazes into stuns. Now that its changed to turn Distraction into a Stun which I think was what they really wanted with the trait, it's just odd that they rolled in all the duration increases from the bandaid version. That's all I'm saying.

gotcha, I guess I was just confused why you only used the term 'buff' before and are now using the terms phrase nerfed and then buffed to describe a one time patch change that overall was a nerf, as well as saying concretely that power came on top when we don't know how BD will work. However, regardless, I agree that the other daze duration buffs seemed very odd and somewhat out of place. I don't quite understand the concept of changing those durations since the old confounding suggestions didn't increase daze durations either. Was Counter Blade for PvE?

[Xstein.2187]

@Swagg.9236 said:

@Xstein.2187 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

• Magic Bullet: Stun duration for this skill has been increased from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
• Counter Blade: Daze duration for this ability has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.
• Mantra of Distraction: Daze time for this skill has been increased from 1 second to 1.5 seconds.
• Confounding Suggestions: This trait no longer increases daze and stun durations. Instead, Diversion stuns foes for 1.5 seconds and no longer dazes foes.

I mean, who really enjoys being able to control one's own character anyway? I'd rather just not be able to press buttons. That said, if these changes were made in order to maybe give more break bar pressure to random Mesmer skills, you really ought to just do something like standardize break bar damage across all instances of CC rather than just arbitrarily elongating stun and daze durations. Also, I'm sure everyone in PvP will really love another Signet of Mercy tier revive meme. And STOP ADDING AURAS (or at least change their disgustingly passive nature).

These are kind of weird. Power Mesmer, despite complaining about Blinding Dissipation came out really on top. Confounding was only JUST buffed to increase daze and stun durations. Like it was literally just October it was changed to lengthen Stun duration. But Arenanet figures out and implements a change to Confounding which changes the F3 into a stun which appears to have always been their intention with it and I personally think this is going to be an awesome buff on its own.... and then they just bake in all the placeholder duration buffs....?

What the . . . .? The old confounding suggestions trait wasn't buffed on October 2, 2018, it was nerfed. It used to stun with any daze on a 15 sec cooldown and before that in March on a 5 sec cool down. Almost everyone I knew and all the comments at the time this occurred viewed it as a nerf because stunning was so paramount on power in order to land damage. The new confounding suggestions is still not as good as the old one in pre-October because it doesn't pair with other daze skills like mantra of distraction and diversion is on a 38 sec cooldown. If you think that the October patch was a buff to power, than you are out of the loop with how power works or worked. Now, there was a semi-agreement in the mesmer community that confounding suggestions shouldn't be able to work with mantra of distractions even before the October patch hit. I'm not arguing the pre October patch confounding suggestions shouldn't have got nerfed, but calling this October change a buff is quite questionable, especially when it was released just now that they are going to change it to a weaker version of the pre-October patch trait. And you call it a buff and then another buff? This doesn't make any sense.

You already even mentioned yourself that you don't know weather or not the new blinding dissipation will pair with Ineptitude. If the new trait pairs with Ineptitude or even just multiple clones landing, then the new blinding dissipations trait is obviously a lot better with a condi build.

Why are you so committed to saying that power is in a better situation than condi? You don't even know how the new blinding dissipation will work. Do you think if you persuade the devs that power came out better this patch then condi then it will get a buff? This is unrealistic.

Condi got wrecked because it's only real power-hitter left was Confusing Images dealing something like 4-5 meteor's worth of damage (this on top of how it also lost a decent amount of passive condi generation via traits). Good riddance, but power was left untouched amid all of the random Mesmer nerfs, which means that the instantaneous, mantra-spamming, GS/blink spike just rises up on the ladder. Moreover, giving that build more hard CC is just going to make it even more obnoxious to fight.

And as for your assumption about a Diversion stun being a "nerf," did you consider that Diversion can hit up to 4 times? That that there was no detail which explicitly said how a Diversion-generated, passive stun had an internal cooldown? For all we know, it seems that Diversion can now passively stun for 1.5s up to 4 times in quick succession. Super fun and interesting gameplay for a class that is already shallow and annoying to fight.

I wouldn't worry about Counter blade as I haven't seen it used in PvP much at all or ever. Mantra of Distractions was installed to make up for the loss of 50% daze duration from the old CS. Did it need it? No. Would have I increased it? No, as I said earlier it doesn't make sense since the old CS didn't increase daze duration. However, it did work with daze. Overall the trait combined with MoD is still a nerfed version of its former October self and I would be highly, highly skeptical that an extra .5 sec of daze would buff a class more than loosing over 50% of its blind duration from blinding dissipation.

HOWEVER: If CS turns out like you suggest then I would be highly, highly against it. I hope that is not the case. 1.5 sec of stun per clone shattered would be astronomically insane. I did not even consider this, nor have I seen this considered by others until now. I am for making a power build more viable. However, I am against gimmicks like what this trait would be if it counted for each clone. I am also against overall too high of burst from power chrono since it leaves little counterplay. You can see that I made suggestions for nerfing it right here https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/70097/changes-to-improve-mesmer-buffs-nerfs-qol/p2

If the trait is like this than it would definitely be a win for power mes. However, it would be a win based on a gimmicky trait, which I would not agree with. All I want is a viable mesmer power build that is not too gimmicky. It would even be nice if it was good enough to be placed in the 'great' category of metabattle instead of the 'good' category without instantly receiving nerfs, or receiving nerfs while in the 'good' category. A meta build would be even better since there has not been a power meta build placed there since 4 years ago, not counting bunker (that's a long time). The old CS didn't work with every clone. However, it had an ICD. If they haven't thought this through, I really hope they put a short ICD on it before this patch hits. We just have to see what happens.

Soooo. What I said before was

1. Condi is not necessarily hit harder than power this patch. This is based on how BD works - and how CS works.
2. Even if BD doesn't work with Ineptitude, that doesn't mean power mes will definitely be in a worse place than power after the patch. It could, but I can't predict that. I also don't think either side will be very viable compared to some of the unnerfed specs in the game. However, I could easily be wrong. Best to wait and see. I'm just basing this on power mes being ranked in the 'good' category of metabattle and very possibly being nerfed again this patch if CS doesn't work with each clone. However, I realize metabattle isn't necessarily the best source. I just don't know what to use instead.
3. And yes, if Confounding suggestions hits per clone than power would come out ahead. I apologized, I never thought of this.

[mortrialus.3062]

Dark Aura doesn't make any sense.

So I'm not going to belabor the point that there is way too much condition hate in the competitive game at this point. I've gone over it plenty of times. But like, why does it reduce incoming condition damage by 20%?

But what I find very strange is that Light Aura already exists, provides Retaliation when struck and 10% Reduced Incoming Damage already.

Like right now Necromancers have a majority of the dark fields in the game. Rev and Thief have a couple and mesmer has one. So thematically dark field and dark armor are going to be associated with thematically nasty, unpleasant things.

And Dark is the opposite of light. So shouldn't Dark Aura have an opposite benefit than Light Aura? Something like "Outgoing Condition Duration Increased by 10%. When Struck you inflict 2 seconds of torment 2 seconds of torment when you are struck (1-second cooldown per attacker)"

I pick duration over pressure because a lot of necromancers with dark fields are going to be running Reaper and while they might not run full on condition damage fields they still gain a bit of benefit from Chill and Vulnerability as do other power builds that might utilize Dark Aura like Thief Rev or anything else.

So yeah, Dark Aura shouldn't reduce incoming Condition Damage, especially when Light Aura does the same and only for 10% and for thematic reasons Dark Aura should do the opposite of that.

[Aen Gelinor.4062]

Daredevil is going to lose dmg on aa, lose part of its mechanics (extra dodge) and has to play against itself by wasting all remaining dodges to do damage? Thats the trade-off??? At the same time Vault is still not affected by quickness because of screwed middair impact animation. I'm sorry but thats just stupid.

[PaladinVII.1647]

Thank you for communicating the upcoming changes. This level of communication is appreciated.

Function Gyro:

When it comes time to consider the trade off for the Scrapper, please consider that the function gyro is useless; I will explain why.

TL;DR: It is situational, it malfunctions, it is difficult to use / target, it is fragile, and it is just better to do the job yourself. Other classes got way cooler stuff, engineers got this?!

Explained in detail:

It is situational. Its use is limited to downed players, both friend and foe. In PvE, the scrapper only gets half the functionality of the function gyro as there are no downed enemies, only potential downed allies.

It malfunctions. Many times the gyro will spawn next to an allied player and do nothing. Not resurrect, not stomp. This happens with such frequency that it can not be relied upon to function even in ideal situations.

It is difficult to use. You must stop what you are doing, select a target, get within range, and use it. This is on top of an already cumbersome targeting system that often selects unintended targets.

It is fragile. It no longer can be traited to gain stability. A downed player is likely to receive a lot of crowd control skills AoE’d on top of them. It dies often to cleave damage.

It is easier to resurrect or stomp yourself. The scrapper is melee focused. That means for enemies they likely already next to you. You can stop faster than your gyro can. It is very useful, if you get it to work, to power resurrect players, however.

Other classes got cooler stuff in HoT. Berserk mode, reworked virtues, an F2 skill (rev), Celestial mode, an extra dodge bar, Overloads, an F5 time split, a reworked death shroud. Engineers got this clunky mess.

I recommend a complete rework of this elite specialization's “thing.” The scrapper is focused on melee, resurrecting allies, and stomping enemies; recently it had a rework to include barrier. It should have a “Purity of focus” on these elements. Perhaps gain barrier when using a toolbelt skill? Resurrect and stomp 25% faster? I really don’t know.

Other Engineer issues:

The Bulwark gyro is broken in two different ways. The barrier it provides is too powerful and using it around allies can be fatal. The last point encourages scrappers to stay away from allies when using it, which goes against the design of the skill. I recommend removing the damage share component and change the skill to a well that pulses barrier to both scrapper and allies in the effect. Perhaps a 1k barrier pulse?

Flamethrower 2. Sigh. I am convinced some developer hates me and my flamethrower build. This was nerfed into a soggy pasta launcher a few years ago. The tool tip is STILL incorrect as well! Currently it shows the pass through damage of the projectile, not the explosion. Also, I am convinced that if you check the DPS of this skill, it will show that the engineer does less DPS with this skill than just with flamethrower 1. The only benefit is the blast, and it is not even that good of a blast - it pales when compared to thief shortbow 2 or guardian hammer 2.

Sneak Gyro F5: Still has no use in PvE. It does not even reveal the few NPC’s that stealth in PvE, such as leopards or shelk. Not even the ones in WvW.

[MidnightX.6294]

omg. no mesmer glamour trait AGAIN ?! im so sick of this game

[Abelisk.5148]

@"Master Ketsu.4569" said:Read more in depth into the patch notes.

The good of the patch:-At least making some attempt at inner class balance with elite specs for PvP is good as it cuts down on the disparity between those who don't have all expansions.-Adding more animation tells is always better than nothing as this is a constant problem that many skills have yet to receive a balance pass on-Depending on the specifics, Berzerker rework could be fun.

The bad:-Way too many dartboard changes that won't change anything-Overperforming specs untouched. In fact you actually buffed chronobunk and scrapper slightly. It should be a common sense balance team rule to never buff something that is already considered meta.-If Berzerker reworks result in perma-zerker mode builds it could end up being OP.-There is zero sense in nerfing confounding suggestions only to make it baseline on certain skills.-Reworks to Revenant staff are bad and 100% should not be implemented. Staff is a weapon used on almost every Rev PvP build and changing it around just for ventari is shortsighted. Instead, keep staff as it is and then add a trait to salvation that makes staff skills drop healing orbs. This would make staff have synergy with ventari without screwing up the entire class.-Why you would nerf druid which is off-meta but leave Soulbeast untouched wins the mystery of the patch award. Soulbeast is slightly overperforming due to its ability to bounce stability back and forth between the pet and the player, while druid really isn't. This change would have made a lot more sense if the pet nerf applied to both SB and druid, because then we can say "Oh OK core ranger is balanced with its elite specs because you tradeoff some pet stats" but by making the nerf Druid-only it just seems arbitrary and strange.

You call destroying scepter 3 a slight buff? Keep dreaming. The build will die in favor of other bunks.

--Also lol at the claim Confounding Suggestions was nerfed. The trait in its current state is absolute garbage-i mean literal trash. Stun on Diversion is huge and may fix the stagnant state of power Mirages.

[Anchoku.8142]

+1000 for the change to dark fields.

They finally have use in all game modes.

[Klypto.1703]

They are mostly just nerfing things in wvw and pvp so badly so that there are very few classes that can compete in competitive. What this does is make it where they just balance those few classes and also makes it easier at the turn on a dime of throwing the game into a maintenance mode. They say one thing but their actions say another and for me even classes I do not play still unacceptable.

[Blocki.4931]

@Klypto.1703 said:They are mostly just nerfing things in wvw and pvp so badly so that there are very few classes that can compete in competitive. What this does is make it where they just balance those few classes and also makes it easier at the turn on a dime of throwing the game into a maintenance mode. They say one thing but their actions say another and for me even classes I do not play still unacceptable.

Nobody needs doomsayers.

Updating the game = maintenance mode. Flawless logic

[yusayu.3629]

If you're gonna take away stuff from Chrono to give it a "trade-off" the class will probably completely fade, a shame because then the support role will be only taken by 1-button-classes like alacrene and quickbrand. Ever since they changed alacrity to be a boon I really hoped they'd give chrono/mesmer their own unique buff.

[Vagrant.7206]

Wow, the negative overreactions are unreal on this thread. People are screaming the death of their chosen spec/profession.

@LucianDK.8615 said:

@stone cold.8609 said:Thank you for the early communication about the balance patch changes! I very much appreciate the transparency and hope this becomes the norm.

Also, thank you for making the Scrapper Gyros work underwater! After the most recent changes, Scrapper is actually viable in PvE. Good job!

The changes to Berserker look interesting as well. I look forward to trying a power Berserker build.

Viable in what way and role? So far ive not heard anyone speaking of them as a proper dps spec.

Scrapper has a pretty viable healer build in PvE. I haven't seen DPS builds for it in PvE though.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Sigmoid.7082 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@"kappa.2036" said:Speaking about "trade-offs"... where are the trade-offs on firebrand and chrono, for example? Firebrand gets 15 new skills just by choosing the spec, and also chrono gets the F5 without consequences. I don't understand honestly.Chronomancer is virtually a worse alacrity/quickness bot than renegade/firebrand and has the second lowest damage in the game after druid.

These are their trade offs. They give up being DPS specs (they even murdered power chrono DPS last patch) to become utility bots.

Due to design all guardian specs already fit the trade-off method.

When you look at chrono though...druid is similar but it still saw a trade off added. As it stands when you look at class mechanics, what they are targeting , chrono is still a straight gain above base mesmer. They just gain F5, nothing is lost at a class mechanic level.They are probably looking for a better way than making f4 CS instead of distortion when you pick the spec as that would case

SUCH

an uproar.

Well, base mesmer was irrelevant trash outside portal skips in PvE dungeons, so with chrono they tried giving mesmer a gain that might make them actually wanted for a group in HoT.

If chrono had not existed, mesmer wouldn't have seen the light of day until PoF with mirage.

Some core professions are way worse than other core professions. Ele and warrior and thief still work as core professions because they were always competitive DPS specs since core vanilla. Classes like core ranger/mesmer/necro/revenant were just gimmicks.

Core mesmer became irrelevant because both mirage and chrono are straight upgrades to core mesmer. There is no tradeoff to choosing these elite specs besides opportunity cost.

@"DeceiverX.8361" said:The opening talks about trade-offs, especially in relation to the elite specs, and yet I'm seeing none.

Almost none of these changes actually come with much of a real consequence. Like a few build concepts might get nerfed oh so slightly, but all that's really been done here is buff core a little in some areas where the scope of these changes will still have no effect.

Sorry, but these changes alone miss the mark entirely.

If you want to fix diversity and actually improve the game, the elite specs need to be downright kneecapped. All of them.

The preambles for a lot of these posts illustrate future changes they'd like to make. Reworking elite spec mechanics to have tradeoffs takes a lot more work than you might think. For example... scrapper's elite mechanic "function gyro" has no tradeoff, but the mechanic itself is also weak, so how do you make a tradeoff without rendering the mechanic useless?

@Twilight Tempest.7584 said:So... when do Soulbeast, Holo, Scrapper, and Spellbreaker get the Mesmer treatment?

When every single group in PvE and PvP requires them. :grin:

@mortrialus.3062 said:No Scrapper or Holosmith nerfs either. Spellbreakers will still be outrunning Sonic the Hedgehog. Sic Em Sniper and Unblockable Union are one of the most toxic interactions in PvP right now and both are still untouched. 30k rapid fires are A-Ok but 10k Confusing Image Crits are unacceptable.

Seriously though, the minor trait that reduces Berserker's Toughness while they're in Berserk Mode should also be put onto one of Holosmith's minor traits so that it forces them to be the high risk, high reward glass cannon they were designed to be as well now that we're crossing that threshold.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

Fatal Frenzy: This trait no longer gives boons. Instead, while in berserk mode, this trait reduces toughness by 300

Throw this on one of the Holosmith Minors, too.

I love being in your heart constantly. :heart:

@Adam.9572 said:Dungeon update when

Ah yes, the classic question when it comes to balance.

@incisorr.9502 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

• Confusing Images: The physical damage of this skill has been split and reduced by 50% in PvP and WvW.
• Evasive Mirror: Increased this trait's cooldown from 1.5 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP and WvW.

I never thought i'd ever see a game developer as biased as this.

In what world do you change a value by 50% or 600+% and sleep sound and safe at night?

Do you realize you nerfed a skill by 50% (half) and then nerfed another skill by increasing it's cd by 600%+?

Do you know if you went to any other game in existence and said that a weapon or a skill is getting nerfed by 600% that people would lose their sanity? Imagine if in league of legends or in counter strike they nerfed (or buffed) any existing ability by SIX TIMES ITS VALUE. SIX. TIMES.

You... do realize that exaggerating as heavily as you are doing weakens your point? Evasive mirror rendered range classes invalid against mesmer as long as mesmer had an evade (either dodge or evade frame). You apparently don't understand how powerful that is.

[Bunny.9834]

Since you’re nerfing the bajezus out of thief and mesmer, why don’t you guys nerf the crap out of soul beast? that spec has no tradeoff. these guys can snipe you and then ran away with their immune skill.

[VDAC.2137]

Thank you for the updates!

The changes to berserker seem interesting and I’ll be interested to see how it affects playing condi berserker in particular.

I must say that I am sad to see that Druid pets will be nerfed. As others have pointed out, you already sacrifice your DPS to take this traitline, further across the board nerfs seem unnecessary. Open world is slow going as a solo Druid as is. Now dropping Glyph of Empowerment I can understand as it was a unique buff and I’m all for a variety of support/healing builds being equally viable or different ones might be ideal for different encounters.

[Auburner.6945]

Druid GoE nerf didn't come from nothing. Why? Because the only thing setting other healers, especially Tempest from Druid was such offensive buff. Instead of giving Tempest an offensive buff, they removed Druid's uniqueness. Though I don't agree on the change as the spec barely sees the light in other modes and is already outshined in PvE by SB (god knows why this abomination still exists when others are falling like flies) for power and a mirage for condi.

[nthmetal.9652]

Mesmer traits that influence shatter skills typically affect all shatter skills[...]Confounding Suggestions: This trait no longer increases daze and stun durations. Instead, Diversion stuns foes for 1.5 seconds and no longer dazes foes.[...]Blinding Dissipation: This trait no longer blinds foes on the activation of each shatter skill. It will now cause Cry of Frustration to blind every target it strikes

So these changes appear in line with the design goal, however, traits only affecting a single skill are very likely not worth taking. Even if these traits are then stronger for that single skill, they can only be used for that single skill. This would make picking such a skill probably a hard choice over other, more general traits. To make up for the fact, that the trait only affects a singular shatter skill, their buffs would likely have to be even stronger to be made worth it

Other traits, which affect single skill bring something on top of that along, to make them worth it. For example:

Imagined Burden -> affects phantasmal berserker, but also generally other skills for greatsword in addition to bringing recharge reduction for the whole line of greatsword skills.

Generally I'm looking forward to the changes. I'm just not sure these single-power traits will be worth it.

[Nimon.7840]

@LucianDK.8615 said:I wonder if focus becomes stronger damage wise, that we might always take one over the nerfed warhorn and go for the trait that reduces axe and focus recharge, as well a flat +10% damage. Especially when combined with the second new trait adding +10% damage.

Well the new one will only increase dmg in a 300range radius

[Nimon.7840]

@"DragonSlayer.1087" said:Since you’re nerfing the bajezus out of thief and mesmer, why don’t you guys nerf the kitten out of soul beast? that spec has no tradeoff. these guys can snipe you and then ran away with their immune skill.

I think, some people might consider "not having a pet" a trade-off.

But I don't think that that's a real trade-off here. You can still use the pet, and when you don't have the pet, you get insane stats from it.

So yeah. I think as well, there's no trade-off, but if I did read this right, there might be tradeoffs coming in the future?!

[Wankeleh.8259]

I love the changes to berserker & rev. Can't wait.

[Bunny.9834]

Nerf Unflinching Fortitude!immune to attacksremoves movement condisstun breakfor 35s CD!?

Make this a 90s CD or decrease the duration.

[Methuselah.4376]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@"DragonSlayer.1087" said:Since you’re nerfing the bajezus out of thief and mesmer, why don’t you guys nerf the kitten out of soul beast? that spec has no tradeoff. these guys can snipe you and then ran away with their immune skill.

I think, some people might consider "not having a pet" a trade-off.

But I don't think that that's a real trade-off here. You can still use the pet, and when you don't have the pet, you get insane stats from it.

So yeah. I think as well, there's no trade-off, but if I did read this right, there might be tradeoffs coming in the future?!

On the contrary, by merging with your pet, you will have access to traits and skills that affected them directly, meaning you get a significant boost as you can control those traits/skills better than your pet. Plus you get to have a chance to avoid death if merged. The only trade off I can think in regards to Soul Beast is that in beast mode they don't have a pet to draw aggro.

[Methuselah.4376]

Mesmers are still OP in PvP even after last patch. The endless barrage of clones, target breaking, stealth, evades, invulnerability and then getting hit with massive damage while they're untouchable is ridiculous. So I don't much care for the boohoo mesmers crying their eyes out cause they got nerfed. Recognise the absurd advantages you have, have some maturity to admit it may be over the top and move on. This is what most Scourge players went through when it first came out. I myself admit it was fun to melt teams in 3 seconds, but realised it was too much and accepted the nerfs gracefully. Hopefully Soul Beast will get similar treatment and bunker scrapper toned down a bit. I don't mind a build being very difficult to kill, but if it requires 4 skilled players to take down, then that is going a bit too far.

On another note; anyone feeling that Anet is trying to mainstream dps in raids? Most dps is around 31-35k on small hit boxes, with the exception power Chrono (at least before this coming patch) doing 37k but has a very difficult "time gated" rotation and Deadeye rifle doing 38k but is impractical in most situations. Which is a good thing I believe as it does away with a lot of the class elitism we see. Heck power Reaper should now be in the 32k zone, which will put it on top of current power SlB, and only 1.8k less than current ele while being more naturally tanky especially with SE trait.

[LucianDK.8615]

@"Methuselah.4376" said:Mesmers are still cancer in PvP even after last patch. The endless barrage of clones, target breaking, stealth, evades, invulnerability and then getting hit with massive damage while they're untouchable is ridiculous. So I don't much care for the boohoo mesmers crying their eyes out cause they got nerfed. Recognise the absurd advantages you have, have some maturity to admit it may be over the top and move on. This is what most Scourge players went through when it first came out. I myself admit it was fun to melt teams in 3 seconds, but realised it was too much and accepted the nerfs gracefully. Hopefully Soul Beast will get similar treatment and bunker scrapper toned down a bit. I don't mind a build being very difficult to kill, but if it requires 4 skilled players to take down, then that is going a bit too far.

On another note; anyone feeling that Anet is trying to mainstream dps in raids? Most dps is around 31-35k on small hit boxes, with the exception power Chrono (at least before this coming patch) doing 37k but has a very difficult "time gated" rotation and Deadeye rifle doing 38k but is impractical in most situations. Which is a good thing I believe as it does away with a lot of the class elitism we see. Heck power Reaper should now be in the 32k zone, which will put it on top of current power SlB, and only 1.8k less than current ele while being more naturally tanky especially with SE trait.

Yep, class dps dramatically needs to be normalized, just too many outliers. And chronos and druids clearly have too high dps for being support specs.

[Derm.4932]

@"kappa.2036" said:Speaking about "trade-offs"... where are the trade-offs on firebrand and chrono, for example? Firebrand gets 15 new skills just by choosing the spec, and also chrono gets the F5 without consequences. I don't understand honestly.

The tradeoff for FB is that you lose your core virtues. It pretty clearly fits into their definition and examples they wrote:

To use the example of necromancer, by choosing an elite specialization, you lose access to your core Death Shroud abilities, but you gain different abilities. This is a clear trade-off.

Just because you get more abilities doesn't mean there wasn't a tradeoff. Its not a zero sum situation. Of course it's a tradeoff that is clearly in favor of firebrand, but you can say that about nearly every elite spec so...

[Lily.1935]

Alright a few things. I'm a necromancer main so I do agree that the reaper and scourge are in a fairly decent spot right now. Their DPS is good and scourge has a healing build. Great! You're not wrong about that.

However you are failing to pick up on some of the major issues with the core mechanic which is still quite lacking in its identity and utility. Death shroud is out of date. It's been out of date for years. And a it needs a good function overhaul to really clean up some of those issues.

I also feel that the core weapons need more of a pass over them than what we're seeing here. Although Axe has a decent skill 2, the other 2 skills aren't that good. Its auto could be greatly improved by making it a 3 strike chain with a pay off and the skill 3 could have its cast time cut down a bit.

Death magic has an identity crisis right now. Its going into multiple different directions with the only sure thing is its minions. It has some tanking stuff which is great. It also has a strong poison them which is fitting. Also a power theme out of left field for some reason? I really think the middle and bottom trait lines need to have a pass over as it is lacking.

Bone minions Specifically should be a minion skill that uses the charges system and has 3 minions as opposed to 2. Have a minion auto summon on a timed interval based on number of missing minions as long as there is at least 1. That's my suggestion at least.

Sand swell needs to have its cast time cut as well as its distance increased in my opinion.

I'm mostly interested in assuring that as as many builds are viable on necromancer and can be good. Minions is extremely popular but it's a build that needs a lot of work. Death could become an interesting spec used primarily by core necromancers but as it stands now both blood and soul reaping are superior to it in terms of defensive play and provide support and more offensive respectively. I feel like if you take nothing else away from my criticisms, death needs the most love from the devs.