Balance Changes Upcoming

[Blocki.4931]

@Simzani.4318 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Simzani.4318 said:Again a layer of powercreep that promotes a toxic environment instead of the huge nerf hammer needed. Well you decided to nerf my steal for no reason, bad job as usual.

Steal has needed nerfs since forever. Just not its range. Much like backstab, it needed a telegraph/cast time like the necromancer signet changes to allow for counterplay.

Not like it matters, thief will still be the undisputed king of escape and chasing and no class comes close to its mobility barring a warrior who still falls short.

I agree that it would have been a normal nerf on a general and much needed global nerf, it is just petty and strange to pass it in a patch that increases the toxic powercreep. For the mobility part, that's more an urban legend. It's true each 50 secs with shadowstep, meaning you don't use it in fight ; outside of that, I can't chase most classes using shortbow + dash.

What's getting powercrept this patch? All I see is people complaining that their class got nerfs and is shit now

[otto.5684]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 Not sure about the trade-offs. Is the objective to put core builds on par with elite specializations? If that is the case, this patch does not seem to do that (maybe with berserker? Will see) and, you guys have been targeting core skills for nerfs more so than elites. The last few patches further increased the gap between core and elites.

This reminds me with the boon stacking, where you guys said it was too much, and you will work on reducing them. 4 patches later, outside of minor changes to rev, SB and souls beast (and only in PvP), this issue is not only persisting, it makes several builds in PvP totally bonkers.

The story sounds cool, but seems more advertising than actual change.

[DeceiverX.8361]

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.

[Eramonster.2718]

Confounding Suggestions: This trait no longer increases daze and stun durations. Instead, Diversion stuns foes for 1.5 seconds and no longer dazes foes.Wonder if this means 1.5 second stun per clone or as whole?

[Twilight Tempest.7584]

So... when do Soulbeast, Holo, Scrapper, and Spellbreaker get the Mesmer treatment?

[Opal.9324]

Berserker rework? YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS! Can't wait to try this out.

[C Cspace Cowboy.5903]

Can you please stop nerfing eles defensives? Which we have very little of. And maybe buff us to other specs in pvp and wvw?

Getting out of hand to be honest.

Fix woven stride, for the love of god, its been two weeks.

Fix the weaver mount bug with warclaw, its been a month.

[Rageassassin.6714]

Wow these berserker changes look bad on first inspection. They removed 7% power/condi modifier and replaced it with 300power/condi which is a slight buff, and in exchange they removed normal f1's which is a big part of it's dps rotation, they increased the cd of berserk mode and lb f1 with smash brawler. They made the duration of berserk mode inherently unpredictable since you don't know when you will need to use elite for cc. They also added a cast time to berserk mode. I'm interested to see how this affects their dps, but at first glance it seems like a giant nerf to both it's damage and utility since the normal f1 was great for cleaving certain things in raids like gorseval orbs and dhuum spiders on reapers. But it seems like dps warrior might possibly be better off since it can take a bunch of utilities to increase uptime of berserk mode.

Edit: Oh yeah I forgot to mention that it makes berserker much easier and slower to play since the cd's are now longer and will indeed simplify the rotation even further. Can't wait for next patch when you only press f1 and no other buttons.

[Stallic.2397]

@Auburner.6945 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

• Fire Shield: This effect has been renamed Fire Aura.

Thought these were the only type of changes we will get and was about to say how you had me in the first half, but after I read the changes, you got me in both. This is so sad. Alexa!!! Play......

I was getting pretty excited when I heard about all the aura changes (Dark, Chaos, and Fire). I have a feeling all of this will play a big role in the next patch for ele's. Fingers crossed at least. It's a core mechanic of Ele and they could use a rework/buff

[Auburner.6945]

@Stallic.2397 said:

@Auburner.6945 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

• Fire Shield: This effect has been renamed Fire Aura.

Thought these were the only type of changes we will get and was about to say how you had me in the first half, but after I read the changes, you got me in both. This is so sad. Alexa!!! Play......

I was getting pretty excited when I heard about all the aura changes (Dark, Chaos, and Fire). I have a feeling all of this will play a big role in the next patch for ele's. Fingers crossed at least. It's a core mechanic of Ele and they could use a rework/buff

Sad we can't put out actual valuable fields. Light, Dark, Smoke, etc.

[Abelisk.5148]

@Menzo.2185 said:I'm worry about this change:

Punishing Sweep: This skill is no longer a sequence skill and has been renamed Mender's Rebuke. This skill's functionality has changed.Mender's Rebuke: This skill strikes foes in melee range, and then heals allies in the area after a short delay. The healing is increased by 50% if a foe was struck during the attack.

Changing 2 strikes 1k + Weakness & 1.5k + Daze, for 1 strike + Healing??? What the dmg of this ONE strike? 2500?

Punishing Sweep was trash anyways...

[Zephyra.4709]

"Additionally, berserk mode itself has been changed and will grant power and condition-damage bonuses in exchange for a toughness penalty. Those willing to take the risks should find higher damage output than other, more durable, warrior options."

4 pages in no one's complained about Gun Flame yet... (WvW pov) I am going to have an absolute blast with the extra power on this meme build not like losing toughness mattered when you've got x2 endure pain. Easily swap out dogged march for Cull the Weak and get that 7% dmg back? Much theory crafting to do.

I can see the QQ now....

"MUUUUM 25K GUN FLAME ONE SHOT PLZ NERF!!@!"

idk man the past balance changes have kept indirectly buffing this crazy build and I love it. (On My Mark becoming ammo system + Might Sig actually giving might on activation) lmfao.

[Bunny.9834]

@Doggie.3184 said:Hmm, so Pistol/Dagger Thief has been useless in both PvP and PvE since launch so lets focus on the skill that requires a Pistol with an empty offhand. Cool beanz.Lets make Melee Daredevil spec harder to get into Melee range. Neat I guess. Does Swipe do anything else? I don't get it.Lets continue to not add Ricochet back to the game to make dual pistols and rifle not the same exact weapon set just with different ranges.Nothing really interesting about the rest of the Thief stuff I read so whatever butters your muffins I guess.

So much this!What the kitten are they thinking with this 'Swipe' change. I mean, steal is such a crucial gap closer for WvW and even PvP. Staff doesn't even have a gap closer besides Vault, which doesn't have a long range. They're only cripple skill is melee range and also makes you evade backwards. D/P thief (which is the main DD build) doesn't have cripple either and relies on skill 3. Terrible...

[Fantasylife.7981]

Oh god this patch is going to break the game they are doing too much too fast yikes.

[Zenith.7301]

@Simzani.4318 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Simzani.4318 said:Again a layer of powercreep that promotes a toxic environment instead of the huge nerf hammer needed. Well you decided to nerf my steal for no reason, bad job as usual.

Steal has needed nerfs since forever. Just not its range. Much like backstab, it needed a telegraph/cast time like the necromancer signet changes to allow for counterplay.

Not like it matters, thief will still be the undisputed king of escape and chasing and no class comes close to its mobility barring a warrior who still falls short.

I agree that it would have been a normal nerf on a general and much needed global nerf, it is just petty and strange to pass it in a patch that increases the toxic powercreep. For the mobility part, that's more an urban legend. It's true each 50 secs with shadowstep, meaning you don't use it in fight ; outside of that, I can't chase most classes using shortbow + dash. It is even worse since warclaw.

D/P has stupid chase potential, staff not so much.

[Shroud.2307]

I'm crying tears of joy with these Reaper changes. I've never been more in love with my favorite profession <3.

[Meridian.9103]

It is so obvious that the devs have no clue what to do with thiefs. First, why shuffle the traits around like that? What do they want to achieve with this? It just seems like a brainless change for the sake of changing anything. Maybe they want daredevil to be a Vault spamming brawler, but without givig the tools to sustain, oh boy...Swipe will be so bad, 600 range kills a lot of its usability and being unblockable is completely irrelevant as long as trickery is mandatory for every competetive build. This will be the nail in the coffin for d/p daredevil, despite s/d core being already the superior (but more boring) option. Also it will of course not help staff thief in any way, a build that was always gimmicky and not optimal at all (except in GvGs, but that will also be gone with 600 range steal). And trying to push Daredevil even more into vault spammer is not a good direction at all, and definatly not what most thief players like about such a class.

[dnelsonn.7365]

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:Wondering if solo druid will still be playable in PvE with the pet nerf.

I'd say it would still be, but you'll probably have to focus on a more CC/tanky pet over a dps pet

[Dediggefedde.4961]

gyros now work underwaterGreat! Now I can feel useful in underwater fractall ;)

shredder gyro dmg increased by 30%How nostalgic. ^^

tradeoffs for choosing HoT/PoF specializationthis only affects berserker and druid, right? or did I overread something...

[Kitta.3657]

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:Following the previous gyro updates, we've had the opportunity to update gyros for underwater use as well.

• Gyros can now be used underwater.

Ok, where are my underwater mesmer wells? Both necros and engineers got theirs to work underwater, why can't mesmer too?https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wellwiki is not updated yet since the patch isn't live but you can see the only wells unusable are gonna be the chronomancer's with little to no reasoning on why there is a divide there so I think it's time for you to either tell us why it's not happening or that it is in the plans.

[Fulmine.7186]

Hi all!I hope spike trap skill in pve and wvw get same cooldown like in pvp.I wrote a post September 12, 2018 "Spike Trap skill CD"

[Asum.4960]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:The druid nerf is just... I can't even. It looks like it was tunnel-visioned on the way druids play in raids with no thought at all to how they are balanced in WvW or SPvP.

In WvW Druid is a low popularity roaming spec. It has no place in zergs. Those of us who roam with it do so because we like the mechanics, not because it is a strong spec. It's hard NOW to generate decent damage; if you are good at druid you can play full glass and have an ok chance against other roamers. Nerfing the damage even more just means retire your druid, Soulbeast outclasses it in every single possible way. You'll never kill anything, so unless all you want to do is tank up and drag out fights until the other player dies of boredom, druid is done.

sPvP is the same. I guess they are trying to force druids to only be dedicated healers and contribute no offense.

Non-raid PvE who cares, you can run almost any collection of random traits and gear and do fine. So I really don't understand why they decided to drastically limit the possibility of this "elite" spec in 2/3 of the game where it was unpopular to begin with.

To your point about Druid not having a place in zergs, as I understand it, Druid just got a better, group wide, Endure Pain, just for conditions instead of power damage.

Depending on the duration of this thing, stacking a few Druids in your Zerg essentially deletes Scourge and other Condi Pressure from large scale WvW, making Druid an absolute Pillar of Zerg vs Zerg in WvW.Really just depends on the numbers, but Glyph of the Stars could be pretty massive.

[Folsted.8647]

Personally, I like the changes (mechanic wise).But what I disagree with a lot is the damage and heal increases.. Anets approach seems to be balancing by buffing damage rather than nerfing damage.I had a revenant pull me off a mount (2-3k hp left on mount) and do 22k dmg to me in less than a second as I landed on the ground in a downed state. That is not what I call engaging gameplay.

[Curunen.8729]

Deciding to also post in this thread as I feel strongly about it:

Evasive Mirror is stupid in my opinion - without any UI visual indicator for icd display (same problem as most long icd effects...), at 10s in practice it's going to be impossible to regularly predict when the reflect will be available, on a conditional evade... so it's just going to boil down to luck based reflect that may or may not range from useless if proccing at the wrong time (in melee or no projectiles) to useful or even pivotal in a fight.

Utterly stupid trait with 10s icd as it's designed.

Get rid of all these conditional/contextual requirements and change it into something that can be used with some level of skill and prediction both for the player and opponents - rather than pure luck...

Duelling Adept and Master majors are all going to be "meh" aside from the weapon specific traits. Useless filler traits essentially, on the path to get a game changing grandmaster major trait like deceptive evasion...

[ROMANG.1903]

Ok, I must say I love your philosophy of updating older designs and giving trade-offs to elite specs. I can't wait for a potential Tempest update!