Upcoming Balance Notes

[Titan.8215]

God, this is by far one of the worst patches.

• Weaver nerfed again, and they still giving it 0 utility skills so they can't cc properly without losing dps, they can't sustain themself with aegis like DH (which is also nerfed), or any kind of healing, and now its the same sh1t but with less dmg.
• Chrono rework again on main skills and gameplay, im so tired of this, stop reworking this class, and make others equally powerful.
• DH nerfed, a good balanced class in dmg and utilities, no sense for me.

And I can continue but I feel it pointless. When are you going to give some advantages to classes that are not the best atm instead of nerfing it to hell?When are you going to put Spotter, EA, and other kind of buffs to 10 man, so we can get more diversity and more equally buffs for all?

Srsly, no words.

[nevermore.6193]

Yet another nerf to druid. How exciting :)

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

Thief

• Adept
  • Dagger Training: This trait no longer inflicts poison on dagger attacks.
  • Deadly Ambition: Inflict 2 stacks of poison for 3 seconds when striking a foe, with an internal cooldown of 3 seconds in PvE, 5 seconds in PvP. Gain +120 condition damage when this trait is equipped.

Also the hell is with this change? It completely guts D/D condi thief in ALL MODES, and it was barely hanging on as is in PvE or Pvp/WvW. Instead it buffs Sword/Dagger, which is a far more cancerous version of thief's condi specs. I don't understand this change at all and honestly, D/D Condi Thief needs some buffs after this change because the amount of consistent high condi application is 100% gone now.

[Zagerus.8675]

Liking the changes overall but slightly concerned with the Unstoppable Union change. From an SPvP standpoint this trait is along the lines of being as important as Fast Hands is for warrior. It is a critical part of the Soulbeast's burst to slide through all of the aegis/aegis on clones/projectile reflect at mid ect. Considering they have to sacrifice several skills to line up that burst. Maybe make it so that only Projectiles become unblockable for 4 seconds. I feel like for Soulbeast to still stay relevant in the meta they need to be able to poke through defenses and fish out those cd's - especially in mid fights.

[Handin.4032]

@"Chaba.5410" said:Thanks, reddit, for the laugh!

I think this image alone shows so much behind how anet deals with engis. The scrapper changes are nice, especially making Function Gyro actually worth being the main "thing" for an elite spec. But their changes and their explanation of what they wanted to change don't really match up. Removing the Pulse Detection from Sneak Gyro removes a huge use of the Sneak Gyro, especially in GvGs and WvW. Holo's get Prime Light, which is a HUGE damage output elite, compensating for the removal of the F5. Sneak Gyro though ironically, in WvW, may become even more strong because it's losing one of it's primary counters, so maybe it will balance out? The nerfs to Holo though seem very silly, and it's hard to see the motivation behind it besides someone who doesn't actively play Holo just "theorycrafting" numbers.

The thief portals though will definitely be a new major source of headaches in WvW for sure.... It used to be that if you had a thief bouncing around constantly stealthing and hoping around, but doing no damage, you could just shrug and ignore it. Now it could just hop around a lot in stealth until it can portal in a mesmer to get in a large group.

[Crystal Black.8190]

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

Thief

* _Adept_    * Dagger Training: This trait no longer inflicts poison on dagger attacks.    * Deadly Ambition: Inflict 2 stacks of poison for 3 seconds when striking a foe, with an internal cooldown of 3 seconds in PvE, 5 seconds in PvP. Gain +120 condition damage when this trait is equipped.

Also the hell is with this change?

It completely guts D/D condi thief in ALL MODES

, and it was barely hanging on as is in PvE or Pvp/WvW. Instead it buffs Sword/Dagger, which is a far more cancerous version of thief's condi specs. I don't understand this change at all and honestly, D/D Condi Thief needs some buffs after this change because the amount of consistent high condi application is 100% gone now.

How does sword dagger apply conditions?

[Fremtid.3528]

I mean yeah they removed the soulbeast buffs everyone complained about butBarrage: Reduced recharge from 30 second to 20 seconds. Lowered cripple duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. Increased damage by 25%. Damage floaters for this skill now show total damage instead of damage per hit. lullowered sic em dmg by 15% and increased barrage dmg by 25% THNX ANEToh and decreased barrage recast by 10 secs too :smile:

iloveranger

InB4 Everyone is complaining about ranger AGAIN in a few weeks/months. lol

[Joshewwah.2956]

I'm surprised that ANet has done nothing to improve Soulbeast dagger for wvw/spvp. It's a meme at this point

[Kylden Ar.3724]

@Fremtid.3528 said:I mean yeah they removed the soulbeast buffs everyone complained about butBarrage: Reduced recharge from 30 second to 20 seconds. Lowered cripple duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. Increased damage by 25%. Damage floaters for this skill now show total damage instead of damage per hit. lullowered sic em dmg by 15% and increased barrage dmg by 25% THNX ANEToh and decreased barrage recast by 10 secs too :smile:

iloveranger

InB4 Everyone is complaining about ranger AGAIN in a few weeks/months. lol

Rangers in WvW after the 16th;

I AM THE ARROW CART!

[Auburok.4518]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

Necromancer

While reapers were designed to be durable frontline fighters, the Soul Eater trait is providing a little too much survivability, so we're removing the ability for this trait to heal while in a shroud. We are also making some changes to core necromancer death shroud skills. These changes are aimed at improving the uptime of shroud skills to put them more in line with their elite specialization counterparts.

Yikes! You sure about that? It just sounds like you're limiting viable options for self-sustain, which is pretty much required when a reaper phases into their anti-heal bubble in battle. This has been suggested before, but: why not just half the healing while in shroud? Seems like a decent place to begin, rather than stripping it entirely. If this were to go forward: healing while in shroud would rely on Blood Fiend and Vampiric Presence.

[IDiivil.4176]

Noooo. Why are we nerfing elementalist even more? I hate that I feel forced to play sw/d weaver only. My reason for creating an elementalist was to feel like a mage, and staff weaver has been immensely fun for me in that regard. I'm so sad that it's becoming even less viable than it already was.

[Josiah.2967]

Seriously question... Has Arenanet ever been smart enough to listen to feedback and reverting a change that is bad for the game?

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Josiah.2967 said:Seriously question... Has Arenanet ever been smart enough to listen to feedback and reverting a change that is bad for the game?

Not that I can remember. Even when theres an out cry saying itl be a mistake they still follow thru. Cant admit a mistake and that players may be right.... right?

[Dreamreaver.4908]

@Josiah.2967 said:Seriously question... Has Arenanet ever been smart enough to listen to feedback and reverting a change that is bad for the game?

Yes. At one point, they changed Phase Traversal so it could no longer be used to chase down people outside of its range. The resulting feedback was a metaphorical launched nuke.

Also, Reaper shroud decay was twice what it is now, albeit very briefly.

[IDiivil.4176]

@Aerythia.6415 said:

@Dante.1763 said:

@DarkForcE.9210 said:Why don’t they just delete elementalist class out of the system if they are going to nerf every patch...

Why dont we take the class we advertised as being heavy hitters that are very fragile, and take all the damage they can do away from them but leave them just as fragile!<-- Anets balance team.

give it a few more patches, Ele will be left out of all content like ranger and necro used to be.

This. I don't understand - the only thing I as a Weaver, bring to the table, is damage. I don't offer any sort of utility or group wide buff, I haven't got any ways to look after myself except for my dodge key, I'm in light armour, and ultimately completely at the mercy of the support players within my group. Without them I'm dead.

In order to make it worth them taking and looking after me, I need to pump out damage, which if you look at benchmarks, is on par with many other power classes. Once upon a time Weaver damage was too much, and the spec received much needed nerfs. But it's not the case any more. A flat 10% nerf in fire, where a lot of my damage comes from, takes me below these other classes.

What is the point in playing this class any more? Please, I love my Ele, but it's getting to the point where people will wonder why bother to take them when you can choose other power classes which either have more armour, offer more the the group, survive longer etc. Or if you're going to take our damage away, give us something in return.

This x10000000

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

@Crystal Black.8190 said:

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

Thief

• Adept
  • Dagger Training: This trait no longer inflicts poison on dagger attacks.
  • Deadly Ambition: Inflict 2 stacks of poison for 3 seconds when striking a foe, with an internal cooldown of 3 seconds in PvE, 5 seconds in PvP. Gain +120 condition damage when this trait is equipped.

Also the hell is with this change?

It completely guts D/D condi thief in ALL MODES

, and it was barely hanging on as is in PvE or Pvp/WvW. Instead it buffs Sword/Dagger, which is a far more cancerous version of thief's condi specs. I don't understand this change at all and honestly, D/D Condi Thief needs some buffs after this change because the amount of consistent high condi application is 100% gone now.

How does sword dagger apply conditions?

Not the power build, the old condi one. Took Panic Strike (immob turns into poison), Bewildering Ambush, Lesser Caltrops, Lotus Training, Spider Venom. Essentially would just port in and out and immob you with sword 2, which would proc poison, steal would give confusion, dodging on top of the enemy would give bleeding and torment, and Spider venom would give more poison. And of course the constant porting in and out made it a super safe build to play, which is why it was kind of cancerous. Unfortunately, nerfs targeted at toning down S/D Condi over the years directly hurt D/D Condi. Also, Dagger Training doesn't interact with S/D Condi pretty much at all since it only has offhand dagger. Dagger Training was muchhh much better for D/D condi thief builds because every strike had a 33% chance to give poison. With this change, D/D thief gets left behind and loses a ton of its damage and S/D condi thief gets access to more poison. It's a really bad change for D/D condi, great for S/D condi

[ZhouX.8742]

@Vissarion.6509 said:Yeah let's nerf Eles even more, great changes!!!

Useless in PvP ✓Useless in WvW ✓Useless in PvE ✓

I don't like where this is going really...

Weaver useless in pve? what it has one ofthe highest benchmarks in pve lmao and will still be taken in raids

PvP it's actually good but people sleep on it

wvw is dead and a farm mode for keep rotation, nobody takes this seriously, for that matter nobody even takes pvp seriously

the one game mode that is relevant in this game weaver has one of the highest benchmarks

plus you got buffs lol i can't

i mean youre complaining about diversity, every class has this problem not just ele.... this is kind of a common theme now with every class.

[Kumouta.4985]

glad to see a core shroud buff, but it's far too small to have any impact. as for other classes i'll see those ingame later i suppose

[mindcircus.1506]

@Aerythia.6415 said:This. I don't understand - the only thing I as a Weaver, bring to the table, is damage. I don't offer any sort of utility or group wide buff, I haven't got any ways to look after myself except for my dodge key, I'm in light armour, and ultimately completely at the mercy of the support players within my group. Without them I'm dead.Elementalist has a decent kit at it's disposal for situationally mitigating damage.The fact that you aren't leveraging any of these is not a balance problem.

[Sugar Min.5834]

@Vissarion.6509 said:Yeah let's nerf Eles even more, great changes!!!

Useless in PvP ✓Useless in WvW ✓Useless in PvE ✓

I don't like where this is going really...

Not being meta does not mean they are useless.

[Alik.9651]

RIP the only useful skill Unyielding Anguish@Mallyx

[zealex.9410]

@Kitta.3657 said:I really like the idea of losing distortion for chronomancer as a tradeoff but losing illusionary persona baseline is way too far and ignorant to the days of not having this as baseline, when it used to be a trait that was mandatory on all mesmer builds because of how important it was. This is pushing the class more dependent to clones yet again which we've known is a pretty poor place for mesmer to be (and as is majority of classes that rely on AI). This is clearly a nerf that was imagined for sPvP but is BRUTAL in WvW. Why adding 2 downsides to being a chronomancer? Trying to split cast an important skill in a zerg with a clone is not realistic and basically relies on RNG or slotting an utility skill/weapon just to be able to do so... I completely disagree with this change and would rather see nerfs in actual problematic points of mesmer than this. I want the class to be in a good spot and fair but that's just not the right way to go about it. Meanwhile no fix to Lost Time....Losing distortion on the other hand is a perfect tradeoff though.

PS: Here's how to make Elusive Mind balanced and how I've said it should've been from the start: Remove the stun break entirely, remove exhaustion, make it 2 cleanses on dodge and if too strong like that; add a short ICD to it. Voilà! Now it has a decent position as a grandmaster and capable of competing with Infinite Horizon while not being disgustingly broken.

Preach.

[Bristingr.5034]

Welp. Mesmers are no longer needed in WvW. We can just thieve portal our way in.

[Auburner.6945]

@ZhouX.8742 said:

@Vissarion.6509 said:Yeah let's nerf Eles even more, great changes!!!

Useless in PvP ✓Useless in WvW ✓Useless in PvE ✓

I don't like where this is going really...

Weaver useless in pve? what it has one ofthe highest benchmarks in pve lmao and will still be taken in raids

PvP it's actually good but people sleep on it

wvw is dead and a farm mode for keep rotation, nobody takes this seriously, for that matter nobody even takes pvp seriously

the one game mode that is relevant in this game weaver has one of the highest benchmarks

plus you got buffs lol i can't

i mean youre complaining about diversity, every class has this problem not just ele.... this is kind of a common theme now with every class.

We got a 10% bonus damage completely removed off of Fire line replaced by a Condi trait when there is already a Condi trait within the same tier. This will affect Power Weaver's burst potential, the reason why it was taken, the long burst, now this is removed. 3% more damage from Swiftness + 90 Ferocity are at least 5% damage less, and 5% damage less is around 2k DPS loss power-wise. Condi Weaver is even tankier than the tank and loathes boons; the buffs mean nothing to Condi Weaver because the problem wasn't its damage. It's a huge nerf to DPS ele. Why a 30k+ Herald out of meta, because it lacks the burst even though it gives out tons of buffs. This will be Weaver, but it's a so selfish e-spec to even have things balanced out by dealing less burst.

The buff only improves Duelist Weaver, but let's be real, would you take a SpB/Holo for a node or a fight, or a Weaver even after this buff?

Staff Weaver got annihilated and this just makes it less powerful to Herald that can keep up perma Swiftness and Fury while dealing high damage with higher HP. Just because we had a thesis worth of buffs doesn't mean that they aren't summed up in DPS Ele is less viable... and only Jack of all trades Ele got buffed, but no one wants a master of none when high effeciency is required.

[TheJmandude.1548]

"We're putting the elementalist weapon skill cooldown traits on the minor trait slots"Woooo! Yeeesss! You're on a roll!"We're also nerfing the ferocity bonus from Raging Storm."...What?Also, why the HELL aren't conjures ammo based and instant cast yet? I hate having to travel half way across the map to pick up my second conjure which neuters my DPS.

Edit: I shouldn't be so hard. At least we now get a perma ferocity bonus from air that doubles when attuned, making it great for FA eles. Also I can now have air CDR along with Inscription so that's a bonus.