Potential Future Balance Changes

[foste.3098]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

• Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only.

I am against this, longbow is a part of the core ranger and was not an issue until soul beast came to the game.If a nerf has to happen then nerf only the damage at shorter ranges leaving the long range unchanged. This way longbow will still be deadly at long range but would be countered if the opponent charges at the ranger and gets in melee range.A change like this would emphasize longbow as a weapon best used when there is a great distance from the target and not as a shotgun, leaving the peak possible damage output of the weapon intact but only under the specific scenario of long range.

[phokus.8934]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048

From a Mesmer perspective your changes are again borderline random.

The mantra changes are fine and should work like that.

Illusion of Life: uhh... what? This is a joke, right?

Chaos Storm: this is a pretty big nerf to a long cooldown ability. If this change goes through (it shouldn’t) then reduce the cooldown dramatically and change the name to “Predictive Storm”. And maybe this would be fine if Stability was rare but it’s not.

Chaotic Interruption: kind of useless change to this considering we have weapon cooldown reductions. And knowing how things go, you’ll implement this with no ICD and when interrupt Mesmer becomes a thing you’ll just drastically nerf this as well. Give me something that actually punishes the target for interrupting them. I’d rather see some defensive option for CI than weapon cooldown reduction.

[Dawdler.8521]

@Vegeta.2563 said:I feel that maybe instead of 75 seconds, it should be placed at 60 second to be on par with Mass Invisibility from Mesmer?Mass invisibility can be traited for 48 seconds. Gyros cannot be traited for lower cd. I wish they would since Anet decided to make the scrapper traits worthless, but you get the idea.

If they really want to nerf it, just knock a pulse off or lower the stealth duration - or remove the smoke field on it. I'd rather have a competetive class on its own than maintaining a minstrel healbot for the sake of the zerg meta.

[adriansantos.1593]

Please, stop nerfing necromancers! It's already difficult to use it in pve because of its low healing and DMG numbers, and now the only thing (barriers) that are a little good at the profession is being nerfed, leave the numbers alone or perhaps turn up the second it stays up on the char, that way it compensates for the lack of condi DMG and raw DMG it has and provides more meaningful support.

[Virtuality.8351]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Engineer

• Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.I think it would be interesting for Scrapper to server again as both stealth and counter stealth roles. Definitely looking forward to it.
• Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.Just no. Leave it be. By doing so you are turning Scrapper into another Veilbot in terms of the utility it provides. The current cooldown is good for it makes Scrapper more versatile and irreplaceable in actual combat scene.

Engineer

• Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.Guardian
• Tome of Resolve, Chapter 2 - Radiant Recovery: The existing split from PvP of cleansing 2 conditions is brought to WvW as well. This ability would continue to cleanse 3 conditions in PvE.As far as I know, in terms of Condition management, only three classes would be taken into consideration: Firebrand, Scrapper and Scourge. To reduce the effectiveness of dedicated condition management roles will only make Scourge relatively more dominant in both ways, not only a source of Condition-to-Boon conversion but also vice versa.

Guardian

• Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.Certainly a buff while not enough to make it desirable enough for a utility slot. It's a light field, so maybe not a bad idea to make it pulse Blinding as well.

• Tome of Courage, Chapter 2 - Daring Challenge: This skill grants retaliation for 3 seconds instead of aegis.

• Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants aegis or retaliation.While ostensibly being a nerf to overall healing capability of Firebrand, which is not terrible to differentiate between itself and Scrapper, one might worry that, either A. the class would be even deeper locked in Mace and Shield for source of Aegis, or B. the nerf is actually directed to Pure of Heart, with already few means overall to apply Aegis. (I never liked that trait though, considering that it directly competes with Honorable Staff, which is also much healing-centric, making the choice entirely optimizational. In another post, I have written my take on optimizational decision making is not actually meaningful decision making, but that's another thing.)

Mesmer

• Illusion of Life: Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW.Just cannot help but wonder: has the skill ever been relevant? It only works when your group has downed a huge lot. I just cannot tell if it is worth a utility slot, before or after the nerf. People would probably be more happy to see themselves rallied from a Banner dropped by some Berserker in the group than this.
• Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
• Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.Good stuffs finally. Thank you. <3
• Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added skill fact to show chaos storm's duration.Caution: This is actually a buff, because staff is pretty much only taken for condition damage builds, and by removing daze from the random pool, you are actually in effect providing even more abundant and consistent cover-up conditions for Mesmer to counter-pressure their opponents. Be careful where you are leading this to.
• Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.I love the 'chaotic' aspect of its effect, but be cautious not to make the already bursty class even more so.

Necromancer

• Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
• Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.The change itself would probably be OK.

Just be careful how far you are taking this, because any reduction in condition pressure will only make Scrapper less desired. Less condition pressure means less demand in Condition Management/Healing, and thus less demand in Support role. Guardian will always be here to stay for Stability and Scrapper would be the first to take the hit.

• Sand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP.
• Sand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW.This will give pugs a better change to fight against organized groups. I would suggest lowering the Base Healing/Barrier Value even further and increasing the Healing Power Coefficient instead, to reduce the group sustenance of Power Scourge while retain a spot for dedicated Support/Healing/Screening Scourge, which is nowadays still not much seen.

Ranger

• Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only.Seriously, with such a small range of difference, just adjust the coefficient to 0.75 altogether instead to reduce server load. The change would not affect much in practice though. Only inexperienced players would camp in Longbow and AA after the initial burst in a proper fight against disengaging opponents instead of utilizing gap-closers and going for melee to secure the kill. The AA is only good for chasing people not interested in a fight and nothing else.

Revenant

• Coalescence of Ruin: This skill would no longer deals increased damage with successive impacts; instead it deals damage equal to what was previously the middle impact damage. Damage remains split between game modes. A red warning rectangle visible to enemies has been added to this skill.Personally I'd be sad to see this change implemented. The entire point of Revenant (or more specifically, Power Herald) in a group is its long range non-projectile damage pressure, with which nothing else comes close, and now you are killing it. Just do not touch it if you still want to see this class relevant.The red rectangle for better visual indicator would not help much in practice since A. the field does not pulse, B. there is only a one second time frame between the first impact and the third, C. the first and the second impacts in an actual combat scenario will be covered up by all other AoE flying all over, around and between, reducing it to mere visual noise, and D. it would look similar to Dragon Banner AoE, causing people to make wrong judgement.

• Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.Better tools to actively counter stealth and make the combat more dynamic instead of a one-sided hunt is always welcomed.

Warrior

• Charge: This skill would only removes movement impairing conditions and then increases the damage of affected allies' next 2 attacks by 25% in addition to its previous effects. Increase swiftness duration from 10 seconds to 15 seconds. This skill becomes a blast finisher.

• Call to Arms: Removes 3 conditions from affected allies instead of specific conditions. Grants barrier in addition to vigor.

• Quick Breathing: Thinking of kicking re-working it a bit to pair with the warhorn skill changes so they feel more cohesive. Continues to increase number of targets for warhorn skills from 5 to 10 and causes warhorn skills to grant an additional boon instead of reducing the cooldown (Fury for Charge and Resistance for Call to Arms). Grant +120 Concentration.Playing since launch, I'd be much glad to see the revival of Warhorn. Though even with these changes I am still skeptical whether a support Warrior would float to the top and actually compete with other support classes AND the highly effective dedicated damage dealing role a Warrior could afford to become. Probably combine it with reworked revive/healing capability in Tactics and other stuffs in Spellbreaker specializations? Nevertheless I think it is a good start.

• Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.Again, better tools to actively counter stealth and make the combat more dynamic instead of a one-sided hunt is always welcomed.

That's all for me in regard to the OP.

Also, I think it would probably be a good idea to simply acknowledge Guardian (Firebrand), Engineer (Scrapper) and Necromancer (Scourge) as the central setup of the current WvW scene, at least before next generation of Elite Specialization, because unless you nerf them to dirt, they will always be here to stay no matter what and will always be the de facto skeleton crew of every single organized group.

For other classes/elite specializations, find niches that they can serve as effective supplement in. For example, I like the current state of Berserker, Spellbreaker, Herald and Renegade in group fights, each brings something to the table, unique or not.

So, instead of to bring things in line, as @Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 stated in OP, to balance the three central classes against each other and to make proper supplemental roles out of the rest would probably be a better idea.

[Corazon.9315]

First of all: Thank you that you try to share your thoughts with us, so the community can have an influence on a hopefully joyful playstyle.The combat system of GW2 is centered around reactivity. Meaning, an action should allow for a reaction. This should be the core concept of every skill/playstyle in existence.For example, something that has way too much sustainability, that it becomes literally unkillable is non-interactive gameplay. Something that is so far out of range that you can not jump on it is non-interactive gameplay. Something (thief) that jumps out of nowhere and hits you with 35k (yes!) to just stealth again afterward is non-interactive gameplay. Not every class can reveal like Engi or Rev!In that sense, you did well to nerf for ex. the sustainability of Scrapper or that you partially tried to nerf one-shot builds (Chrono)(although it broke the class with the necessity to have clones up). But then again there are still many skills that leave no or little room for interaction.

I can't speak for every class but these are my thoughts. I am Mesmer-Main.General:

• EVERY skill should be line-of-sight on the cast.

• Condition Applications: Continuous horizontal (meaning high variety but fewer stacks) of conditions is depending on what classes you play a real problem. If you can react to lets say a max. of 5 conditions (by removing them (randomly!) through weapon swaps, conversions, etc.) but still, get another 5 applied and potentially burn is still on you, you can not react to that. I think it would be healthier to the game to narrow each classes conditions down to a few so you get a vertical application of conditions instead of horizontal.

• Boon Applications: While some classes do benefit heavily from Boons with Synergies in their trait lines such as Guardian or Weaver. I have the overall impression that the application of boons is way to common. 10 Stacks of stability alongside with another 5 boons? . . . I think Boons should be applied way more selectively. And Boon-Bomb utilities/train lines should be removed. An example would be the steal from Thief on Mesmer that applies pretty much EVERY BOON IN THE GAME! WHY?

• Stealth: Instead of cranking up all classes' reveal, maybe reduce the ability to stealth. Make it a scarce resource. There is no place in the game for non-interactive 15 secs of stealth. Especially so since not all classes can reveal. (Don't forget about roamers/duelists etc.) This would also help the problem of constant de-targeting which IMO is super annoying and not fun.

• Unblockable Skills: why does this still exist? Big NO NO! There is no interaction possibility.

• Mantra of Pain: This skills should IMO be reworked completely. You can deal dmg without the opponent being able to react to it, even if you have to face him.

• Illusions of Life: The skill in itself is not that OP if compared to other similar skills in the game. However: For the sake of interaction: make the cast visible. I am OK though with the shorter duration of the effect. In return leave the cd untouched.

• Chaotic Interruption: Is this a random weapon-skill reset? This would feel so clunky. (sorry)

• Axes of Symmetry: this skill makes it for newer players difficult to fight against Mesmers due to the constant (such a low cd!) de-targeting. This is probably also (paired with the high condi output) why everyone is constantly complaining about Mesmers being cancer.

• Reformed Mirage Mirror: This trait needs a nerf. It leads to mesmers being invulnerable for way to much time while dealing dmg. Invulnerability (in this high amount) is non-interactive. You can't do anything to react.

• Signet of Illusions: Maybe make it a Signet to reduce the cooldowns rather than resetting them completely.

• Chaos Storm: I do like that you do reduce the clunkiness of the skill with the daze. But again: Maybe think to reduce Boons and conditions.

To make up for all these nerfs I would increase the base dmg. I think then Mesmers would be at a pretty decent place in terms of interactivity and balance.

For other classes, I only do have a complaint about Longbow-Ranger, the rest I covered already above:

• The Range of these skills is so high that no other class can interact with it. Maybe reduce it to 1200 in PVP also!

Other than that I think the proposed changes aren't too bad. Some maybe not as necessary as others or not as impactful but not bad.

Cheers, Hope this helps

[Gamble.4580]

Didn’t like any of the changes. Don’t get why they nurf scourge pvp. I didn’t play it but I thought it was well balanced. Risky solo que good with duo but also risky as goes by team comp vs what. They didn’t buff underplayed classes. Nor look at holo or thf. Don’t get me wrong I think holo is ok just needs some shaving here or there. Thf needed a trait reset with condi but only the poison.

[Prinzsecond.4863]

Regarding Engineer Changes:

Purge Gyro: will you Keep the 5s ? So will it remove now 1 condition every 2 seconds? If it is changed to 3 condi clears, please Keep the 1s removal interval for 3s and just make the light field last for 6s instead.

Sneak Gyro: same here, as an Exchange for the longer CD, make the smoke field last for 1-2s longer.

[Bandurff.2169]

I played little WvW so I don't feel like I would have a good grasp of what skill balance can and will bring.However, I do have a different kind of suggestion - turning on player collision.Now hear me out: at least from the little I played WvW, there is little to no emphasis on positioning. It was mostly just "Stack on me" or "Stack on marker", "Everyone behind the corner".With player collision on, this would be more difficult: you could not hide 50 people in a tight corner, AoEs would be more difficult to land as would be granting barriers and such. Positioning would be more important - keeping melee classes in the front and ranged in the back, holding choke points would give more reasonable for smaller groups and I am sure there is more to think about.I feel like this would bring in a new level of thinking.There is also the question: turning player collisions on friendlies only, or even with enemy players?

[Hadi.6025]

PLEASE READ THESE NOTES Make Sight Beyond Sight blind immunity for set duration as well as all hits critical for duration. Kinda like Vision sigil but with a blind immunity buff. @Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 . Make the Rifle weapon Brutal shot more responsive with no delay to the evade backwards. Change Banners to make them more useful like a buff that is constantly on the player instead of placement. Kinda like Revenant Glint Facet skills. Change Signet of Rage from 60 seconds to 25 seconds, change duration of the boons if necessary , make rage signet give full adrenaline on use. Signet of rage needs an update in today's gameplay. You've changed every other elite , it's time to show Signet of Rage some love.

[Baldrick.8967]

@"Shiren.9532" said:Longbow ranger is already pretty weak in WvW and it is often ineffective against meta comps before the last round of nerfs, I don't know why you are doing more. If you want to spike someone down with a glass build, thief and mesmer are already far more effective than the stronger longbow builds (which have all their effectiveness restricted to a small burst window which has since been significantly nerfed).

Nerfing longbow again is beating a dead horse. Unlike sPvP, where projectile hate is limited to five possible enemy sources, a single revenant, guardian or warrior can almost completely shut down a longbow ranger's role in WvW with a single skill, and that is incredibly common in WvW with groups of 20+ players, any one of them can protect the rest of the group with projectile hate. Similar "pick" roles already outperform rangers due to no less reliance on projectiles, and often more useful abilities like boon rips (necros) or long range pulls (engineers). When trying to pick off someone in a group, these are by far the most useful abilities, which rangers do not have.

All ranger has is a short window of burst DPS on a glass build. Outside of that it has long range shot to sustain pressure but it no longer benefits from DPS buffs and is completely stopped by projectile hate because the unblockable buffs will wear off.

I'd also like to point out that a nerf to longbow is nerfing a core ranger ability when it's clearly the Soulbeast's ability to stack extra stats (from merging with a pet) that is causing the "problem". More nerfs to core ranger abilities (just like when spirits got nerfed because druid was too strong) will flow on to the rest of the profession's performance. Every build using longbow will suffer, when only the Soulbeast was the one pushing out the big numbers. Stop nerfing core ranger abilities to fix problems with elite specs.

I've played ranger since launch and a lot of that was in WvW. It's one of the most common complaints (at every point in the game's life) that a commander wants 0 rangers in their squad. The profession is one of the least wanted as an ally because it doesn't do all the things the more dominant professions (warrior, guardian, necromancer) do and even in its role (pick) it's less popular than the alternatives (mesmer, thief, engineer). Soulbeast was the first time ranger actually had smooth gameplay in WvW and it was worth bringing one over another profession (it had a small but fun niche - a brief window of burst DPS that could down a target but rarely finish them, but at least they had to stop to revive). Whenever you got too good at it, the enemy zerg gets two guardians to bring Wall of Reflect, or a rev maintaining Ventari bubbles and your ability to do anything with a longbow is massively reduced (this is before you even consider than the large health pools, defensive stats and endless barrier zerg groups have makes longbow burst at its best ineffective many times).

If this change goes through it will weaken an already weak build. Yes the build is strong against glass roamers, but glass roamers are incredibly strong against it (it doesn't have the escapes/stealths that mesmer and thief have and it doesn't have the durability of a tanky roaming build like druid or engineer). Ranger is already not welcomed by many zergs, nerfing one of the only viable group fight builds the profession has is just going to make it harder for rangers to do anything other than roam ineffectively or scout. It won't change the meta (the meta already ignores rangers) but it will make one of the nine professions much less welcome at all in WvW.

PvP is the only place longbow is good at anything. It's incredibly weak in PvE, you can't use it in raids or fractals, but in PvP it's the only place where a longbow ranger can accomplish anything competitively. If you really are going to keep hitting it like this you may as well remove it from the game because it usually doesn't have a meta role anywhere.

+1. It seems a lot of the players saying a nerf on LRS is a good thing haven't played ranger for a long time in wvw and don't realise how marginal it is- just every now and again they get caught out of position and pew pewed down and so they want it nerfed so they can ball up and spam.

[nthmetal.9652]

@"nthmetal.9652" said:I would like to add something: I am not 100 % sure how retaliation works, for example if it triggers when you block an attack, or if it triggers when taking 0 damage. If this is the case, the combination of Guardians and professions which can mitigate damage (like warrior) could with the proposed changes actually work to overcome the pirate SHIP. This would affect WvW gameplay in a big way.

Due to the fact, that barriers are less effective and aegis is harder to come by, retal is easier to come by, poefessions which can mititage damage could under the effect of retal push into the death zone. Thanks to less aegis and lower barriers, this could work to damage and break up the attackers through their own damage.

Sadly, upon closer examination, and after some discussion with a few guild mattes I will have to revise my statement on the warhorn shouts. The changes are rather small; although I appreciate getting rid of the cleansing of what feels like an arbitrary subset of cnditions on one of the warhorn shouts, replacing it with a true condi cleanse. However increasing the CD will surely not serve to make the shouts more relevant; neither will the handed out boon for either of the shouts. The changes are not impactful enough to likely cause any change in the meta or playstyle (for WvW) at least.

I'll also have to revise my statement about the changes to guards and retal:After a closer look at how retaliation works (see https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retaliation ) - the damage for WvW and PvP is calculated as follows:(0.050 * Power) + 133 damage at Level 80.

0.05 times the attacker's power. +133 flat. Nope. I don't think this change is going to affect the playstyle at all; so all in all this is just a debuff for guards, making fights harder / more one-push-y. Even if there would be 10 people at the same time being hit the same attacker, that would only amount to like 2000 damage. If. An advantage could only be brought to fruition, if these people would at the same time be able to mitigate most of the incoming damage. Unlikely.

So, if anything, the change, thanks to less aegis will only strengthen the current pirate ship meta all in all. :(I know it can be overcome with patience, good movement, good playstyle at least as long as the numbers of zergs are not vastly different, but it's hard. I find these changes disappointing.

As I said before, maybe I am thinking totally in the wrong direction and the goal you wish to achieve with these changes from what I imagine the achieved goals should be; as thus my evaluation might be way off. It's hard to tell without proposed goals.

[Flumek.9043]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Mesmer

• Illusion of Life: Increase the cooldown of this skill from 75 to 90 seconds in PvP & WvW and reduced the duration from 15 seconds to 8 seconds of its effect in PvP & WvW.
• Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
• Power Lock (Mantra of Distraction): This skill now requires you to face your target and respects line of sight.
• Chaos Storm: This skill now always dazes on the first strike but can no longer randomly daze on other strikes. This change also applies to Lesser Chaos Storm. Added skill fact to show chaos storm's duration.
• Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.

1) Ilusion of life -- A longer clear visible cast would be better for pvp to not make it too short to only relocate the rezz. For WWW I understand the rallybot race problem.2) Mantra -- finally some basic LOS "clunk" to these 0 counterplay skills. For pve its nice, but I dont think they should be doing the might+vuln+dmg with instant casts3) Chaos storm -- GREAT, less RNG. Always nice. BUT PLEASE NO DAZE ON MINOR. CC is powerfull and should only be on the big 40s skills, not on their 15s proc traits. Rangers muddy terrain is 120% bad design, defense which does offense, heal skills which punish melee aggression are stupid.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Necromancer

• Feast of Corruption: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
• Devouring Darkness: Reduce damage by 20% in PvP & WvW. The existing split from PvP of corrupting 2 boons is brought to WvW. This ability continues to corrupt 3 boons in PvE.
• Sand Cascade: Reduce the barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP.
• Sand Flare: Reduced the barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW.

1) Scepter --- yes the number of corrupts is the biggest in game. It will still be strongest and used. Hopefully less oppressive. The physical dmg nerf seems useless in PVP. Nothing wrong with a bit of hybrid dmg since the rest of skills have terrible scalling. The main problem of condi scourge is getting big procs on every small attack, instead of setting up bigger abilities.2) F3 BARIER --- uhm i dont know. Really not a problematic and a underperforming skill. The damage problem is again getting dhuumfire procs from a defensive skill. The raw healing is nothing special. THE BLOOD SIGNET TRAIT IS BUGGED AND DOES 5K HEALING , this and transfusion are bigger sustain problems if blood scoruge has 1.3) HEAL BARIER --- its ok its not in pvp, but in max. AOE scenario the numbers are big. For www healt i support the nerf

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Ranger

• Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.65-0.75 in WvW only.

1) AUTOATACK DMG --- I have no problem with glassy snipers. The problem is soulbeast isnt glassy. Muddy terrain on heal, mobility, decent evades...

[nthmetal.9652]

@"Bandurff.2169" said:I played little WvW so I don't feel like I would have a good grasp of what skill balance can and will bring.However, I do have a different kind of suggestion - turning on player collision.

While quite interesting, I doubt this is technically feasible or reasonable. The situation would become especially problematic when zergs collide. It would probably introduce a lot of lag.However, even it were feasible taking reasonable hardware, there are further conceptual problems. Suddenly "push" or "pull" becomes available by just walking into players. Immobilizing players might mean a lot less, when their blobmates could just shove them forward. On the other hand, if they'd stay rooted, immobilize would suddenly become super-powerful. Find a way to immbilize the frontline of a pushing zerg and then unleash huge bomb as the backline piles up.Aiming in combat situations might become impossible, as you get shoved around all over the place, the target you might have set your eyes on or you yourself might have been shoved out of the way. Powers, which rely on channelling without movement suddenly have you a lot more mobile thanks to blobmates ...All in all I think that's a terrible idea.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@fewfield.7802 said:Would your gameplay change as a result?

• not really
• the overall dmg may be still too high.

Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?

• This is a good direction to improve the state of the game. But i think we still need to tune down all the dmg sources such as Manifest Shade, Hammer's Rev, and Meteor. This is just for zerg fight aspect.
• I personally want the wvw zerg fight to last longer than we have right now. At this state, people have to much power and dmg, so everything ends too fast.

Are you looking forward to these potential changes?

• Ofc i am. I love to see this kind of info for my beloved game mode but thb this is not the most ideal change yet. Keep doing it! plz.

What are your concerns with this set of changes?

• My concern is that the overall dmg will be too high compared to the support skill nerfs.

Support skill nerfs? They are almost unmentionable. At least the guard ones.If you refer to engi, necro gets the corrupts gutted as well.If at all, I'd say boonspam is way too much.Removing a lot of it will also result in less dmg.And less survivability.Right now. Guard has way too many boons, that he can generate alone. Or support skills.

I think even if you would make guard only give stability, some protection, some regeneration and aegis, there would still be a guard mandatory in every single group.

What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?

• I expect that the fight would significantly last longer than before but i also expect you guys do something with Desert Shroud on Scourge. This skill is too good because it gives scourge and allies barrier, does massive dmg, apply condi, and can control a lot of spaces of fights.

Err what?1.Desert shroud doesn't give barrier to allies.2.Scourges dmg is already lower than rev and ele

And fights wouldn't last longer than now. If at all, they are even faster over due to less barrier.

The point I do agree with: less aoe spam pls.

Btw I really appreciate that the devs try to listen to the community. This might not be good yet but as long as we are working together, we will be good.

I really hope. These notes get adjusted due to the communities feedback.And not just go through without adjustments like all the patches before

ps. There are a lot of hard core wvw players out there that dont use the forum but discord. It would be great if you guys try to reach out to them.The truth might be hurt or even come with a little toxicity at first but plz, believe me, those people know a lot about wvw and balance :)

Scourges damage is pretty dam good when you add all the barrier and boon corrupts it does on top of that

[phoenixXx.9105]

Since ranger is barely touched here I'll add my own opinion about it, mainly focused on sPvP:

• SB: We need Unstoppable Union unblockable attack back to have a decent shot at breaking through the defenses of the current meta. It was a trait that rewarded smart playstyle and contributed little if the player didn't know how to use it.
• SB: Increased cooldown of stances in sPvP have made them useless, except elite. The cooldown could be 30-35s OR Leader of the pack major grandmaster trait could reduce the cooldown.
• SB: Dagger rework would be nice, but I don't think the condition theme is the right choice. Perhaps we can get an evade and a stun to make it somewhat viable.
• Druid: It's completely out of meta and needs some buffs. I won't pretend to know about the druid as I never liked to play it in PvP due to being too much focused on the pets to deal damage.

Overall, I think wee need more synergy between specializations and potential reworks/buffs to the signets or commands.

[Hesacon.8735]

For the necro changes with barrier application. I don't mind them so much, but moving the benefit from being on the skill to being supported by traits might be a better way to do it. Look at how druid's astral healing skills got reduced except if you spec'd into healing. The benefit is still there, but not out of the box, it has to be part of the build to work.

[Wounder.7526]

I agree that the scrapper has too much cleansing, but instead of nerfing the purge gyro, how about nerfing the anti-toxin? I propose you change the 6th bonus of Anti-Toxin runes to spread some of its personal buffs (reduced condi duration on self) to allies, for example "After you cleanse a condition on an ally, for 4 seconds new conditions applied to them have 20% reduced duration". That makes its utility more even across different condi distributions (30 cleanses of 1 each vs 5 cleanses of 6 each, within the same duration) and makes it less abusable by the scrapper, while making it a more competitive option for those classes with fewer instances of cleanse, like shout warr or firebrand.

Or you could change it to a tiny heal whenever you cleanse, to create more synergy within support builds.

[Straegen.2938]

FB and Scourge need far more adjusting downward as they have become far too essential in the meta. Warriors need better stab to make them more relevant in large scale again. Their bubble is fine but it is pretty much the only thing they bring to a large scale fight.

Mirage still has too much stealth, evasion, invuln for any one class which borders on OP in small scale. Few players like the massive stealth up time of thief, mesmer and engi. Stealth shouldn't extend beyond a couple seconds for any class.

Pew-Pew SB still needs to have a better offense v defense tradeoff or more complex game play. Currently the rotation is so moronically simple my dog can play the class effectively. Too much D on a class that can explode players from a very long distance. I am fine with the damage but they should be manhandled when they are caught as opposed to popping stealth, invuln, blocks, leaps, etc. Scrapper is a good example of a class that has to make huge sacrifices on one side of offense/defense to gain the other.

Those are the big offenders to me.

[Bazooka.3590]

We appreciate your effort to balance the game and it's a nice thing to ask the community.My suggestions for nerfs in order of importance:

HolosmithActivate/deactivate photonforge recharge from 6 to 9 (pvp/wvw only)Holographic Shockwave recharge from 15 to 25 (pvp/wvw only)Corona Burst recharge from 6 to 9 (pvp/wvw only)(if you don't want to increase recharge that much you can add additional Heat gain + some (a bit less) recharge time)

WeaverTwist of Fate recharge from 5 to 10 (pvp/wvw only)Aqua Siphon recharge from 15 to 20 (pvp/wvw only)

DaredevilWeakening Strikes recharge from 0 to 10 (pvp/wvw only)Impaling Lotus Bleeding duration from 10 to 5 (pvp/wvw only)Impaling Lotus Torment duration from 6 to 4 (pvp/wvw only)

Thank you.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Wounder.7526" said:I agree that the scrapper has too much cleansing, but instead of nerfing the purge gyro, how about nerfing the anti-toxin? I propose you change the 6th bonus of Anti-Toxin runes to spread some of its personal buffs (reduced condi duration on self) to allies, for example "After you cleanse a condition on an ally, for 4 seconds new conditions applied to them have 20% reduced duration". That makes its utility more even across different condi distributions (30 cleanses of 1 each vs 5 cleanses of 6 each, within the same duration) and makes it less abusable by the scrapper, while making it a more competitive option for those classes with fewer instances of cleanse, like shout warr or firebrand.

Or you could change it to a tiny heal whenever you cleanse, to create more synergy within support builds.Agreed about the purge gyro but you are really overcomplicating the anti-toxin issue. Just add an icd. That's enough.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

@Bazooka.3590 said:

WeaverTwist of Fate recharge from 5 to 10 (pvp/wvw only)Aqua Siphon recharge from 15 to 20 (pvp/wvw only)

Twist of fate is fine,

What's the problem with Aqua Siphon?

[Klypto.1703]

Just a few thoughts here all that the engineer ones will do is get people more frustrated and if you nerf the condi cleansing its going to just encourage condi spammers that much more and that is something that most players I would think agree on that those be useful but something more for pve which is what players do not want pve in wvw. The stealth changes just alienate the fights to the point you are going to double the wait time between pushes and just make things more boring than they already are. As well besides the warclaw the whole revealing thing to how its so passive the person doing the revealing is not giving up anything what so ever than the person is using to keep up their stealth. So there needs to be some kind of balance if you haven't noticed none of the roamers/havoc are even doing it anymore so its essentially killed the small scale fights all together which is the life blood of the game mode when the big fight guilds have ended their raids that is what it dwindles down too.

On another note I will point this out even though it will probably be disregarded when it comes to classes and specs that are forgotten or just not bothered to improve. The ranger and any spec that is based on ranger play style is pretty much not contributing to the whole or so badly in the case of dragonhunter traps and the kalla legend part of your balance problem is that these are not specs that in contention if any outside of blobs. Also you have ele which is trash doesn't matter what I am playing I know the only thing between a bad ele player a veteran who is good at playing ele its just going to be a matter of time until they just die. As well the kalla elite it performs kind of like a very very weak version of shades but shades aren't their heal, utilities, and elite. So if there was one thing besides ele that needs to be brought back to being able to play in wvw its the kalla legend it literally has no place outside of pve. All these other changes mentioned they aren't needed what we do need is to fix what NEEDS fixing. Even if its just a re-hash of how wells work for scrappers for how kalla works for renegade it would be a drastic improvement. Heck the best thing I could think of is make them work like ele attunements and engineering kits one new type of way. Where when you are using kalla you are attuning or swapping to a legion kit which determines what skills you have and not some stupid npcs that gets killed in one hit. Also ele is one of the classes I'm worst at but forgetting it to be killed by anything that comes along is not balance and is not fun for players who love ele.

The best suggestion I could get is if you actually got specific players who play the game mode to be part of the balance team. As some kind of GW2 partner thing that you all do because it just does not look like the insight that the day to day players have is being reflected each time more and more balance passes comes into play the rift between developers and players widens to the point that a lot of players do not think we are talking about the same game anymore. I used to do wvw on a daily basis but now its gotten so bad I mostly just go in when one guild does their raids and then not touch it afterwards its become so unplayable outside of that setting which literally is what keeps the game mode going is those small scale combat classes and playstyles that have been destroyed by the last 12 months of changes.

[Bazooka.3590]

@Mini Crinny.6190 said:

@Bazooka.3590 said:

WeaverTwist of Fate recharge from 5 to 10 (pvp/wvw only)Aqua Siphon recharge from 15 to 20 (pvp/wvw only)

Twist of fate is fine,

What's the problem with Aqua Siphon?

The problem any decent weaver can hold points vs2 forever and vs3 for minutes.My point is: no tank should have lasts for minutes vs3. At least not in pvp because it is harmful for the pacing of the game.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

@Bazooka.3590 said:

@Mini Crinny.6190 said:

@Bazooka.3590 said:

WeaverTwist of Fate recharge from 5 to 10 (pvp/wvw only)Aqua Siphon recharge from 15 to 20 (pvp/wvw only)

Twist of fate is fine,

What's the problem with Aqua Siphon?

The problem any decent weaver can hold points vs2 forever and vs3 for minutes.My point is: no tank should have lasts for minutes vs3. At least not in pvp because it is harmful for the pacing of the game.

Okay, so there are 2 builds weaver has, one you can just leave it and +1 elsewhere and the other you can kite it since it doesn't have alot of mobility.. Overall Ele is probably the most balanced class of all since it has strengths and obvious weaknesses

Still wondering why Aqua Siphon was mentioned since double attuning to water is not worth it