Potential Future Balance Changes

[miriforst.1290]

I was going to do a long detailed and analytical post, but i think i will just be talking to a wall. But i will say this (if you even read this):

Nerfing the scrapper instead of the toxin runes, after the last patches attempt at murdering the scrapper in spvp with the justification of "increasing build diversity" when scrapper is one of the rare changes in meta compositions and by all means a success story in "increased build diversity" at the meta level is so typical of what i have come to expect its both tragedy and comedy. You know what happens if you nerf scrapper untill the people playing it right now switch to something else? Those handfull of scrappers are replaced with..... (drum roll) yet more guardians or if we are lucky tempests like its HOT. Furthermore lets not go burn the candle at both ends with sneak gyro. You are reimplementing and boosting a lot of reveals so there actually is a counter to a very powerful mechanic, lets see what happens first before we increase the cooldown by close to 70%(!) on an elite skill that already lost a lot of its attraction with the removal of its toolbelt.

I was happy with the scrapper at POF release. We were left alone with a suboptimal but "consistent" (or as close as we were gonna be) design It had its gimmicks and fun little quirks. Scrapper right now is just ugly, it works but just because of a lot of duct-tape. It's going against your will of it being an offensive brawler by being a healer partly because it can not compete with holo in that regard and partly because even without holo it lacks the tools to do so. It's weapon says you are a tank, its utilities says you are a support and its traits say you are a glassy berserker. And its primary mechanic says-... Oh well lets not open that can of 2k hp worms.

Of course most engineers have given up discussion and will simply sit and be resentful and smug in the engineer subforum, not here where guardians and necromancers will tell everyone how utterly dominant and oppressing a handfull of scrappers are in wvw, as opposed to a perfect division of blue and green fighting each other. Some classes feels like there is genuine passion behind, and even if the don't turn out as well as expected there is still signs that it was someones Labour of love. In comparison the scrapper truly feels like frankensteins monster. It's a shambling abomination desperately wanting to be loved, with a maker revolting at and regretting its own creation. And so it wanders aimlessly through the world, with everyone telling it where it doesn't belong but never where it does belong. Just scraps stitched together to resemble a real elite spec. We laughed at "purity of purpose" because you never really bothered with purpose, and so it became more of a "lack of purpose". What did you take away from it? You made it into a joke trait which ironically is the best in slot meta alternative.

I will be honest i'm not really looking to contribute to a back and forth discussion so i'm not sure if i'm going to bother following this thread, im just venting steam at this point. But i have watched since the return of the nerfbat last patch, curious to see what lesson you took away from it. And it seems to be that there is one area of the game scrappers are good enough to still be a part of (emphasis on "part of") The Meta and that is a big problem.

Bah humbug!

[Naxos.2503]

I actually play all 9 classes, and generally freely change between them in WvW

EngineerChanging Purge Gyro Toolbelt to get Detection Pulse back is ... acceptable. It's not really natural, but alright.Dont diminish Purge Gyro's condi cleanse though. In WvW as it is, condis stack up at an Incredibly high rate, very quickly. Not having a proper condi cleanse option on any class is a death sentence.Engineer is in a very bad place at the moment, it doesn't perform effectively on any levels, and many of it's skills go unused because they are trivial to counter (Turrets) or lack proper focus (Elixir Gun, plus the fact that Bomb Kit and Grenade Kit are both effective as a condi, make bomb Power based give Engineer a Power kit weapon). Overall, I'd say that any effort to change Engineer should be focused on looking at unused skills, looking why they're unused. Look why they're they not viable and see what can be done.

WarriorThe changes toward a more teamplay oriented Warrior is good I feel, I just wish you would take a look at the properly Insane amount of blocks, invulnerability and evade warriors can benefit from, while retaining a very high amount of damage. They're almost impossible to kill 1v1 for that purpose, as it's impossible to properly tell when your attacks are going to fail, and you end up wasting your shots all the time, which makes you eligible for a curb stomp. No, we do not have the time to check for a small icon (among generally 15) that tell us this warrior is invulnerable. Give them a visual change on their character to show that there is an effect going on atleast when it comes to Invulnerability.

RangerI dont Believe the issue of Ranger damage comes from Long Range Shot, it comes from Rapid Fire. The damage+Range of that skill is where most of the HP loss comes from. Taking a few shots of that skill is enough for half of your health to go missing, and the skill last long enough to bypass normal evasion (You'll be hit regardless of how you dodge). The only counter there is to is block, which not all classes have. Maybe leave the damage untouched (or slightly decreased) but do decrease the range of it. It would work as a trade off where the ranger needs to get closer to launch a high damage attack, which to be fair is the case for many of the other classes.

RevenantI dont know about Coalescence of Ruin. Maybe ? the only benefit I see to it's current itteration comes from the fact that some sigils and hit-based traits may proc before the next hit, which to my mind makes for more interesting gameplay. It's not like the same target will get hit by all 3 strikes, or even 2 of them, it just is an efficient way to deal with clusters, which is Thematically appropriate for Hammer. If all damage is equally the same regardless of number of targets hit, it just means the first target is going to get hit for fair bit harder, and the last target be hit for quite a bit less. The area damage display is Absolutely fine though. But I'm not convinced by the damage mitigation. Makes the skill overall less interesting, ontop of less effective.

MesmerI dont think Illusion of life needs to be touched, at all. In fact Mesmer needs more way to properly support, after Chronomancer no longer synergize as well with other classes. It is rather trivial, and Illusion of life starts limited compared to other Revive skills. I'd rather this stay as it was, as it can Promote interesting tactics while not being broken.The other changes seem fine.

NecromancerI agree with any damage decrease from area of effect range skills from Scourge, as it stands, Scourge remain one of the strongest damage dealer due to those fields.I wouldn't touch barrier generations however. As mentionned with Mesmer, teamplay interraction should not be discouraged. Especially in WvW. What you want to achieve in WvW is a balanced squad, able to put up many different tactics, or a group of highly specialized class selected in order to get a specific result (5 deadeyes targetting the same player generally works as a full on Snipe nuke, but it requires those 5 deadeyes to coordinate, and specialize about it, it takes the utility they would bring elsewhere away in order to achieve that result). Similarly, large group barriering is more or less one of the biggest traits of a Scourge. You should Never Ever and I repeat Ever, discourage the main point of your class. Barriers already disappear quickly, and are limited to only Half of the player's health worth of False Life. It already has a limitation. (Want to stress : I dont routinely play scourge, but I know the effect of having a class's main trick being gutted, it feels questionable at best, or punishing for fitting the expectation of the class at worse, avoid doing that)

[Trigr.6481]

@"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) illusion Of Life : There's no real reason to mess with illusion of life, It's not even remotely broken in pvp, this feels like dartboard balance, just leave it alone.

2) Power Lock : Not good enough, there needs to be a tell on the ability like a well underneath an opponents feet that's a 1/4 second cast time before activating that's aoe, or make power lock into a projectile. Having you facing your target and respecting line of sight should have been common sense, now lets actually balance the skill.

3) Chaos storm : The daze shouldn't be on the first activation, personally I think it should be the following "In this order" Poisoned, Daze, Chill, weakness. Having the aoe daze is too much for first tick imo.

4) Chaotic interruption: Why change the functionality? Just reduce the immob to a second duration and call it a day, this required small tweaks. The problem that put CI in the spotlight in the first place was Mantra of Distraction, in which the changes you proposed aren't enough, above all else it needs a tell. But instead you're wanting to change this into some rng nonsense, nice.

[wombatpanda.8165]

-Scrapper cleanse dont need to be nerfed its the rune(antitoxin) that needs to be gone its too strong not only for scrappers-if you bring back old reveal which is good there is no need to higher the smokegyro CD anymore the problem with stealth is dealt with with aoe scrapper reveals id say keep the rev reveal same range not sure about tje warrior reveal could maybe even also stay same range, if reveals are strong enough again makeing the CD of stealthgyro higher would only take away gameplay opportunites-good necro ideas but dont nerf the barrier since it already scales really bad and is actaully a mechanic that only timed right is useful dont take that from them..also noone ever said "barrier is the problem about scrg"-warrior changes look itneresting maybe go more of the way in terms of make warrior a non-boon buffer(something like FB tome of courage #5 with the toughness buff or the rev dwarf elite dmg reduction buff ) instead of boons there is enough classes already pop out boons with everything they do....give the warrior strong but not as easy to use/time buff-playstyle to the team like the 2 attack dmg buff thingy you have in mind

• maybe take a look at illusion of Live in terms of the invulnerability after someone is illusioned might be good to lower that aswell since having someone be rezzed and basically being unhittable for mutiple seconds is kinda too much

overall good changes if implemented and some things tweaked a bit thats a start...now give us a 30+ instanced Obsidian sanctum accessable from bastion with team choosing like you already have in bastion/guild-hall

[Lexander.4579]

reversing deadeye nerfs when

[Fashion Mage.3712]

@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.

People actually used Illusion of Life? Especially in PvP?

Chaotic Interruption getting reworked from one of the best lockdown traits to some RNG nonsense.

What even is the role of mesmers anymore? The moment they have any sort of decent utility, it gets nerfed hard or pseudo-deleted.

[eyestrain.3056]

First, thank you for seeking feedback before making changes. Mass reveal is sorely needed now that mass stealth is so easy.Second, these mostly seem like fight guild meta skills but every fight guild I've been in in the last year has recently quit the game. There are too few even and engaging fights and too many players who will not engage without massively superior numbers. I fear balance changes focused on fight guilds will come to a game devoid of them.

Ps make rangers unable to pewpew from a wall and there will be no need for longbow nerf

[Axl.8924]

Im also concerned about the nerfs to mesmers, as they have been getting hit by the nerf bat a lot. I really hope they aren't nerfed out of meta in WVW and spvp.

I know i don't do much with pvp as Mesmer or at all, but i am concerned because ANET is responding with knee jerk reaction nerfs to the Q-Qs. I am concerned that they might demand a nerf to a class to the ground because some newbie didn't learn to counter and that's not right. I am no expert with mesmers but il leave it to you guys who are masters.

[Lazze.9870]

"We’re aiming to bring into line some of the more dominant builds and compositions of the current WvW meta so that new options can be brought to the table"

Then how is the only ranger change you're considering a nerf to its niche role and roaming builds? Nothing to try and make it more viable for actual squad play? Improving druid? Improving duration of shared stances on soulbeast? The profession is only worthwhile in smallscale play, or havocing outside a squad.

To answer a couple of the feedback questions...

Are you looking forward to these potential changes?No.Would your gameplay change as a result?No. My main profession would still be unwelcomed in organized squad play. I'd still be roaming, being at tad less effective at it than before due to a nerf.What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?People will still complain about ranger in some way or another, likeley its mobility. The same people won't suggest anything to make it feel welcomed in squads, nor recognize that ranger does in fact have underused weapons and traits - like all other professions - that you could take a look at.

And if I can add what I'd like you do look at: try and make the druid viable as a support spec for anything outside pve. You want to shake up a meta? Buff/change the dead support spec.

[Curunen.8729]

@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.

Thank you for putting these suggestions on the forum in advance and opening dialogue with us, it is appreciated.

Illusion of life - I believe it's fine as it is, and is good to encourage other styles and compositions of play. Need to be careful to not make it irrelevant again, so perhaps either reduce duration or increase cooldown but not both at the same time.

Power Break/Power Lock - sounds good.

Chaos Storm - I believe it should be guaranteed daze on the Second tick (not the first). And perhaps guaranteed on the last tick. However I believe if Chaotic Interruption no longer has immobilise it is easy for anyone to simply walk out of chaos storm such that the current rng daze procs would be negligable in terms of their impact, also bearing in mind if it remains at the base long 35 second cooldown.The guaranteed daze proc is more quality of life for the player to have some control as to when to use it. Perhaps it should be one single guaranteed proc either on first or second tick, and rng daze procs around that?

Chaotic Interruption - this could be a problem with some dangerous interactions through chain interrupts. Not sure if random cooldown reduction is the way to go here, may be better to look at other options.

[Sleepwalker.1398]

Thief used "Shadow Refuge" to hide himself and a buddy ele from being nerfed.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@blambidy.3216 said:If anything with mesmer you need to rework mirages confusion. I know your trying to nerf mirage, but the only way is to nerf confusion or Riddle of Sand, and nerf confusions movement damage.

sorry to break it to you but Confusion is the wors damaging condition in the game, and RIddle of Sand is not used by anyone ever becouse it sucks.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

I wonder why there aren't any holo nerfs (I actually know the answer).

Regarding mesmer, illusion of life will double nerf it into oblivion (if that's what you want - good job).Chaos storm and mantra are ok.And new CI is as useless as it can get, if you want to go down that route make it provide alacrity for x time(5sec cd equivalent) each interrupt .

How about start acknowledging your mistakes and revert some nerfs such as critical Infusion, nomads endurance, MC movement?

[Tao.5096]

I don't really get the hype for nerfing Necromancer in proposed areas.The class is pretty much the slowest from all classes and is heavily exposed to classes that utilize mobility, evasion, block, invulnerability, stealth, range attacks.

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.

This is a fair trade if you do nerf the boon spam on other classes like ranger, mesmer, warrior, thief, etc.You do not do that, and you are removing the "defense" that Necromancer has - yes, it's mitigating it's own weaknesses and oponenet's strength that comes from boons.For example:

• Warrior in Resistance build has a great upkeep of Resistance boon, but also access to might stacking and keeping it at 25 stacks all the time in fight. Fighting Warrior in such build as Scourge is a huge pain (as condition Reaper it's impossible) since the longer the fight goes on, the higher chance the scourge will lose, and warrior also has mobility that scourge doesn't. Power Repear also won't do, since it's squishy.

Similar cases go around other classes like Revenant, Soulbeast, Mirage, Holosmith, Weaver, etc.

And here I am speaking from 1v1 perspective.In mass fight, the boon spam is much higher due to boon share.

I propose personally:

• Remove Feast of Corruption and replace it with Devouring Darkness while keeping 3 corruption of boons in WvW
• Since Lingering Curse will no longer change the skill, add a Poison (single stack? for 3~5sec) upon landing on each target
• Since Lingering Curse is heavily viable anyway, buff Weakening Shroud to corrupt 2 boons instead of 1
• Since Lingering Curse is heavily viable anyway, buff Parasitic Contagion to 15%(or more?) for WvW and PvP

Why this?

• Necromancer is the class with lowest mobility
• It relies only on pure sustain by mitigating conditions on itself
• it's extremely vulnerable to CCs, range attacks, close-quarters with some mobility and fast attack speed, evasion (classes with high endurance regen due to vigor, skills, etc)
• It's the slowest class in a matter of attack speed (no quickness, no superspeed)
• It's the class that relies on conditions on itself to turn into boons
• It has no blocks
• it has no target breakers (including stealth)
• it has no invulnerabilities
• it relies heavily on line of sight
• it has no immobilize breakers except for condition cleanse

To do:

• rework signets (Locust could be a much nicer thing)
• minions need some adjustments
• rework skills that are no longer viable/used like Lich Form, Well of Darkness, Signet of Spite, etc.

I can fairly say, that Necromancer is the most balanced class from all, since it has great strenghts in certain areas, but a the same time, it's covered by weaknesses.

p.s. - in case someone jumps onto me, I do play most classes and very often play other classes as well, so it's not "do not nerf my class".

[cpts.9182]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Greetings fellow Tyrians,

We've been thinking about implementing the following changes and wanted to share them with you to hear your thoughts and feedback. We’re aiming to bring into line some of the more dominant builds and compositions of the current WvW meta so that new options can be brought to the table, so the bulk of the changes shared here are WvW-centric. This is not the full list of changes that are being considered for the next balance update.

This is not a call for general profession feedback. Here are a few questions to think about while looking over the potential changes:

• Would your gameplay change as a result?
• Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?
• Are you looking forward to these potential changes?
• What are your concerns with this set of changes?
• What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?

With those types of questions in mind here's some of what we're looking at.

Engineer

• Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.
• Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.
• Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.

Guardian

• Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.
• 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.
• 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.

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.

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.

Ranger

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

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.
• Gaze of Darkness: This skill would reveal stealthed enemies up to 600 range away in addition to striking enemies within its 360 radius.

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.
• Sight Beyond Sight: Increase the radius of this ability to reveal hidden enemies up to 600 range away.
• 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.

We look forward to seeing your thoughts and feedback!

Sincerely,GW2 Systems Team

So here are my thought for someone who was a WvW commander for a long time now (as much as that's worth)

Engi: sneak gyro makes sense, only issue is that nerfing Scrapper any further would make the class unplayable in roaming perspective. Over the years his nerds became unbearable to play and clunky. Instead have a look at the antitoxin rune with cleanse on protection application traitGuarding: the boon changes are slightly wierd, retal doesn't add much and won't change anything neither is 1 less cleanseThe sanctuary change is interesting, I wanted to ask if maybe you can make more things like those? More abillities with big CD's that can stop lots of people maybe that way better timed play and CC usage would feel and be more rewarding but if its only 20 people it might be overlooked (maybe make it moving channeled bubble until you drop it off for the rest of the duration? )Just a thoughtWarrior changes are nice, but people only use warriors for winds of disenchantment anyway so...

Revs changes are good, coalesence is way too strong and too sneaky. Thanks for that

Keep it up, better WvW spesific focus is important.Maybe also add an NPC or a tab that shows all abillity diffrences between WvW and other game modes

Thanks for your great game and hard work, keep it up ?

[bluberblasen.9684]

@Lexander.4579 said:reversing deadeye nerfs when

revert it when you remove that no brain condi / evade / stealth spam build..dead eye is the pure cancer of wvw at the moment.. good that only 5 % of the dead eyes knows about that condi spam build.

edit:

why are there NO holo nerfs ?Again ??This class ( HOLO ) not scrapper and NOT core engies ( only HOLOS ) are op in small scale.Not by large numbers, but it is better then every other class in small scale.You can choose what you want to adjust:

• reduce its damage ( holo mode only )
• reduce its range ( in holo mode )
• reduce its life gain ( after leaving holo mode )
• rework the most opver powered skill in the game ( elixier S ) but only when in Holo mode.

Holo players in WvW have:

• Best life gain
• melee ( up to 600 range and more / its kind of buggy sometimes )
• range ( 1200 range with Rifle )
• can engage and disengage fights ( because of stealth )
• have excellent condi clear
• have perma stabi ( holo mode ...-_-)
• have perma speed ( holo mode -_- )
• have the second best auto triggers ( multiple jail free cards )
• have the BEST invulnerable stomp ( elixier s )
• have the third best auto might gain ( after warrior and rev )
• have super easy access to perma Vigor and Quickness and 50 % Protection uptime... + perma Regeneration + Heat Therapy

Thank you for small adjusting in the next balance patch.

[peiper.2195]

imho, these changes will be a good start, mayhaps the skill lag will be affected in a positive way. Can these changes be rolled temporary over a weekend, to evaluate the impact and collect feedback?

What will positively change wvw and pvp is the following:

• no elite specs in wvw/pvp
• no expansion based armour stats in wvw/pvp
• no expansion based runes and sigils in wvw/pvp
• no mounts/gliding in wvwAs result balance will be easier to tune. I might have missed some points, feel free to add it.

[psizone.8437]

@peiper.2195 said:What will positively change wvw and pvp is the following:

• no elite specs in wvw/pvp
• no expansion based armour stats in wvw/pvp
• no expansion based runes and sigils in wvw/pvp
• no mounts/gliding in wvwAs result balance will be easier to tune. I might have missed some points, feel fee to add it.

Whilst it may be easier to balance, this would make the modes considerably less fun to play for me and I would greatly dislike seeing any of it taken into account.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Most of these changes still don't fix powercreep problem presented by HoT or PoF, so it's kinda meh in my opinion at most.Holosmith need a lot of nerfs to sustain and boon generation if it still want to have that high damage, there need to be some price for it after all. I'm not sure what to say about Scrapper though, kinda feels like damage should be reduced if it's "support" spec.In case of Firebrand, Tomes need some more harsh nerfs, abundant amount of boons and heals need to go away and Dragonhunter need a bit of shaves here and there (sustain, reduced range for True Shot to it's previous state is a minimum).Mesmer is really akward case, since doesn't matter how many nerfs it will get, someone will sooner or later come up with another broken build, IMO Chronomancer and Mirage need shaves in damage potential be it power or condition and a bit boosted utility skills.Core necromancer is mostly ok, probably few buffs here and there to it's survivability through life force generation would be nice, but Reaper form need shaves to it's damage by a lot and probably a bit of higher mobility or rather overall "speed". Scourge on the other hand need a nerf nuke from orbit, it's really unpleasant to fight this spec be it big scale, small scale, or solo, the amount of corrupts and conditions it does isn't fun at all. Via trait's it should pick if shades will only affect him and stuff around him, or it's only range type, not both at the same time, the possible damage should be shaved by a lot since it's "S U P P O R T" spec.Core Ranger is okish? mostly? Barely seeing them beside some bad condi abusers, same with druids. Soulbeast on the other hand need shaves in it's stances for sure and the amount of boons it can generate is very unhealthy to the game. I don't really think that nerf to Long Range Shot will affect their unpleasant damage at all, probably will need to check it when patch will be live.Now time for big bois very unpleasant to fight against. Revenant need a nuke from orbit as well to it's burst and damage overall, presented changes won't do much, it'll still hit far too high. Hammer skills need much more than just CoR "nerf", the animations are barely visible in bigger fights if ever seen at all, skills need cooldown increase: CoR - minimum 6s cd, Phase Smash - minimum 15s cd, Field of the Mists - 15s cd, Drop the Hamma - minimum 20s cd. It would be great aswell if you could rework sword skills since they're kinda RNG(sometimes they hit, sometimes they won't even activate properly, or focus on random things like supply depot...) aswell sword offhand need much lower damage, it can be fast and all, but not 10k+ dmg...Lastly presented Warrior... This class doesn't need any kind of buffs, it need nerfs. Amount of damage they can do while being near immortal isn't acceptable and fun to fight against. Stances from traits need to go and active ones need a bit of rework, being immune to raw damge or conditions isn't healthy at all, Endure Pain could be something like: Incoming damage reduced by 50%, if below 80% of hp incoming damage is furher reduced by 2% for each 1% missing of max health, Berserker Stance could work like: You burn 1 condition every 1 second for the whole duration of a stance, each burned condition gives you 5 adrenaline or smth.What is exactly a SpellBreaker though? For sure it ain't "Damage" oriented spec as Berserker, so why it can generate so much damage? Stacking might from Megabane Tether need a nerf. In case of Berserker, it looks like a solid spec with drawbacks, but there are few Primal Burst Skills that overperform like Arc Divider (still too high damage for that range...), it's range should start from 180, then 240 and finally 360... It's Melee skill afterall. Can't say much about other skills since I've never met a Berserker running something different than Rifle, Axe or Greatsword.Not mentioned Elementalist and Thief. I have no idea what to write about Ele since it's my main, it need nerfs for sure since fighting Sword/X is like fighting worse version of Druid and Thief combined(spamming damage while being on defense isn't good~).Core Thief looks mostly ok, but Deadeye and Daredevil need a look at, what they're supposed to be? Both of them are high damage speces, one abuses stealth and another evades. IMO in case of DD, it need nerfs to damage especially on Vault and Bound (they're evasion, why such high damage while being on defense?), something need to be done if the spec is focused on evasion it shouldn't do so much damage while doing so. Deadeye on the other hand have too high access to stealth, it wouldn't be that problematic if it wasn't for it's Elite that removes Revealed that is already VERY rare.Overall changes that need to be done for every class: Reducing condi application and their duration (removing cap of condis in WvW was one big mistake), reduced boon spammability (they should more rare and they shouldn't last so long), flat damage reduction on HoT and PoF kits.Now to answer your qeustions about yours proposed changes:

1. No, it won't.
2. Slightly improve, these changes barely touch powercreep.
3. I'm neutral about them at most.
4. My biggest concern about these changes it that they aren't fixing much if anything, there is still a lot of work to be done if you want to make this game more "fun' for people that actually want powercreep free gameplay, I'm fully aware it won't be easy since people got far too used to this powercreep and won't be happy if you try to take away that candy and suddently tell them to work for it.
5. None. Nothing much will change for sure, but I think that there someone will discover new unbalanced build for Mirage with these changes.

[AllNightPlayer.1286]

Warrior

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

• 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.

I’m in for the bonus on concentration, but leave the standard cooldown reduction, please! It’s always a nice feature, to be able to select a 20 % CD reduction for certain skills or weapon skills. I also want to add, that it’s a fact, that you always needed to/did adjust the CD of every skill, which didn’t have those possibility (anymore). Like Necros’ staff, Mesmers’ phantasms, Engis’ rifle/pistol. So, leave the CD reduction, but change the different effects.

Necromancer

Necromancers still need a reliable blast finisher on warhorn. Every other professions’ warhorns got a blast finisher retrospectively. A blast finisher would work on both Wail of Doom and Locust Swarm. I recomend Wail of Doom, since it would work out better in fight situations.

Guardian

I said it once and will say it again: Please make Shelter a Consecration. Reduce the unskilled block to 1 sec, so it will have a 3 sec block combined with Master of Consecrations.

Mesmer

Simular to Guardian: Please make Ether Feast a Glamour. Currently, the Glamour trait may have been deleted and it’s not possible to buff those skills now—but I still have my hopes up, that one day, there will be a trait for Glamour skills again. If you change the healing skill now, it won’t have any effects for the balance. But for the future, you may consider it for balancing reasons, since it’s still the best healing skill for Mesmers.

[hugo.4705]

Chemical Field: This skill is replaced by Detection Pulse (from the old Sneak Gyro elite toolbelt) as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro.Purge Gyro: Reduce the number of cleansing pulses from 5 to 3 in WvW.Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 75 seconds in WvW.

Detection Pulse for me is a better alternative, this skill is very helpful against stealth.But I disagree for the two others changes:Purge is very good for cleaning conditions, since we are facing ton of red circle of death from scourges spamming conditions, that skill is vital, and should be kept at 5.Sneak Gyro may need to stay as 45. It's already nerfed with only 1/2s duration instead of 3 in other modes!

About the global state:Who on earth think Engie hasn't been nerfed enough? Fix turrets, see that awesome post:https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/85768/the-turrets-of-the-future-a-comprehensive-rework-including-traitlines#latest

So, here are still things in need of buffs:

• Rifles (apart engie one, it's fine) so for deadeye/warrior
• Dragonhunter Bow
• Druid to become playable with dps or dealing decent damages
• Weaver sword/dagger, well glyphs cooldown are long, and the sword doesn't feel that strong.
• NERF TO THE GROUND scourge and their red circles of deaths AOE, nerf that skill! "Ghastly Breach"

[Silvery Shadow.5036]

Agreed I'm not savvy in WvW and don't have the best build for it...but then again already have a hard time with the Ranger long shot as it is now don't feel good with nerfing it

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

You are asking us about our opinion about possible balances in the near future, before the final decision on your side is made. This is pretty much what the community on these boards kept asking for years. Thank you for offering us this great opportunity, it is highly appreciated. I am very satisfied with the changes in communication you have made in the past months, but this is definitely the best thing I have read from the staff in years - although the ideas appear to disturb me.

• Would your gameplay change as a result?Engineer: I would abandon the Sneak Gyro completely and rely on combo-fields for reliable stealth again.

Guardian: I would use Sanctuary in huge zergs. I am not playing in squads, so I am probably not in the target-group.

Mesmer: I would continue to ignore Illusion of Life as a mesmer skill. I would also increase the number of CC skills in my build.

Revenant: The revel with 600 range would be a good reason to use Herald. If the build-templates arrive on time, I would have one build saved just for roaming & revealing.

Warrior: I would use Warhorn more frequently.

• Do you feel these changes would improve or worsen the state of the game?Engineer: Worsen.

Cleanses: Little impact. Improve.

Mantra LoS: Worsen.

Warrior: Call to Arms. Improve.

• Are you looking forward to these potential changes?Engineer: Purge Gyro toolbelt. Yes.

Warrior: Yes. Looks most promising.

• What are your concerns with this set of changes?Engineer: First you give us the ability to reveal, then you remove it, then you add it again in a weaker version. First you grant us the ability to stealth ourselves and our allies, using a gyro with broken AI that sometimes can be stopped by a sand grain on the ground. It also told every player our location, because the gyro was not invisible. Then you turn the Gyro into a well, which drasitcally improves its performance. Then you nerf the stealth duration, because you realize it is too overpowered in competitive. Then you nerf it even further? - The entire Sneak Gyro topic feels like a horrible roller-coaster ride.

Those ideas all go into the same direction: balancing stealth with the increase of reveal sources. Same answer as with the core-engineer nerfs in order to balance Holosmith, ignoring the problem does not solve it. Sooner or later you have to touch the stealth-mechanic and modify it, this is inevitable. Playing with reveal-balancing leads to short term successes, but one day the problems pile up. Then you should have found a real solution. I understand that you currently lack the resources required to rework the stealth-mechanic. So the reveal-modifications will work from my point of view. But in the end, you just purchase time. Hope your calculation works out.

Engineer: The toolbelt of purge-gyro is a joke at the moment. Scrapper has no active condition damage output, none of our traits support condition damage, but this toolbelt does condition damage. Adding a reveal to the chemical field would at least give the toolbelt a secondary/useful purpose. But the field has a short radius. I cannot say if it would work out well, would need to test it.

Cleanses: A lot of people do not run with condition cleanse options. They would die with and without the changes. The changes would boost the performance of condition builds slightly, but sooner or later you may have to reduce the number of conditions applied of several skills. That would be more work imho. You can reduce the performance of cleanses a lot better with cooldown-management. I would try that.

Necromancer: Barrier reduction. In WvW there are plenty of Necromancers in the zergs, too many to notice a real effect at the moment.

Mantras Line of Sight: WvW line of sight issues.

• What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?Engineer: People will ask you to remove the Sneak Gyro completely and replace it with something that does not bother you. Maybe another superspeed-source?

Stealth: Thieves will complain a lot, because their class feels unplayable once again. In addition, you may have to remove/nerf some of the reveals again /looking on Engineer with a worried face.

Necromancers: In the worst case, the already ridiculous number of Scourges in zergs would increase once again to compensate the barrier loss.

Cleanses: Slight increase in players using condition builds.

Mantras: A lot more "requests" to take care of the LoS issue in WvW and/or revert that change.

Warrior: More people trying out Warrior in competitive.

---

Thanks again for this next step of yours about working out balances. I tried to answer your questions as good as possible and not mix answers of different topics. While the balances appear to have drastic impacts on us - currently more in a negative way - I really appreciate your new level of communication. Keep up the good work!

[Fashion Mage.3712]

@Boase.6204 said:Anet really doesn't want support mesmer in WvW :( Now all we can do is pull,veil and kinda portal.

Doesn't seem like they want mesmer anything really.

[PeLi.5498]

The problem is not the Scrapper, is not the Purge gyro. The problem is the Antitoxin rune, my god. Dont nerf the Scrapper, balance that rune. Tempest support cleanses is insane too because this rune. Is the rune, not the proffesion.Mesmer dont need more and more nerfs

Would your gameplay change as a result?Yes

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

Are you looking forward to these potential changes?No

What are your concerns with this set of changes?I'm bored of meaningless changes

What consequences do you expect would come from these changes?We leave to play some proffesions and hate you more :)