Future Potential WvW-centric Balance Changes - September 13th 2019

[Lazze.9870]

@praqtos.9035 said:

@Blocki.4931 said:fact their auto attack is beyond overpowered either.With 2000 range, aned furiously ignore that, somehow.

And again, it's just like all other projectiles in the game.

[praqtos.9035]

@Lazze.9870 said:

@praqtos.9035 said:

@Blocki.4931 said:fact their auto attack is beyond overpowered either.With 2000 range, aned furiously ignore that, somehow.

And again, it's just like all other projectiles in the game.Post a proof that all projectiles has 2000 range or projectiles travel bonus 500 range upon reaching its maximum range, can you ?@Lazze.9870 said:Over several patches they literrally gutted an entire elite spec's presence in pvp/wvw, which just happen to be a support spec. And then people say that ranger doesn't offer anything. Well, duh. Perhaps suggest revitalizing that dead spec.I know druid is dead way longer than chrono but we are now in the same boat. Both are just dead for pvp/wvw. And they arent planning to change it \o/

[Lazze.9870]

@Inoki.6048 said:

@"Joshewwah.2956" said:So lets continue to nerf ranger in WvW when clearly they have no place in zergs? Great job!

Not every class is meant for zerg fights. And just because it's in the game it doesn't mean it has to have a spot in large groups. No. Ranger is a duelist class.

You can still make yourself useful to groups, once you figure out how.

I will just direct you to the comment right above you.

And also add that being a "duelist class" hasn't stopped other classes from having decent zerg builds.

[Adamsdjr.1350]

Firebrand: These changes just make it so we'll need 2x the amount of firebrands to make wvw playable/not frustrating. If 1 firebrand can't give STAB to the party he/she is in, then you'll need two firebrands in that party. To be fair, firebrand is clearly overpowered, so the other changes make sense, but I would revert the stab changes until you can figure out how to give other support classes a reliable way to generate stab.

Scourge: The shade changes don't really make sense on paper. Every scourge will still take the 1 large shade trait and play exactly the same, except now the power builds will just do less damage, so what? As it currently stands nothing can fill the role that scourge currently does. It does everything on top of being extremely easy to play. Sand Shield is too strong, I'm surprised that isn't being addressed. Scourge bombs were overkill anyway, so the damage nerf hardly matters, and scourge's will still use big shade to bomb on pushes even if theyre running into a group. Scourge makes sense thematically as a boon-corrupt utility support class at least in wvw context, that's where the design focus should be.

Rangers: I wish Anet was clear about this type of stuff. Is every class supposed to be wvw viable by design? Is that something the balance team strives for? Should every class have a zerg option? should every class have a roamer option? What's the design philosophy here? pewpewpew needs to be nerfed it's very anti fun but without it, what are rangers supposed to do? Long Bow 5 and run?

Mesmers: I guess this class is just done with. Are we not trying anymore? Is it REALLY that hard to just give chrono some of its wvw power back in zergs? There's seriously no good zerg builds for Mesmer aside from the occasional pug commander running full minstrel Mirage just so he doesn't die.

Engi: The rune changes pretty much take scrapper out of the meta, so we're going to back to pirate shipping until one group gets bored enough to run into the other team's 40 Revs. Idk which one is more mind numbing.

Overall this does very little in the way of balancing anything. Stability as a concept needs to be looked into. Increasing stability access for other support classes is tricky because if there's too much then CC means nothing. My only suggestion would be to heavily nerf the duration of stability while improving stability access for other classes and/or improving access to boon ripping and boon corruption on classes where it makes sense (give chrono a boon-ripping niche in wvw zerg fights, boom useful). These changes are going to take us back to pirate shipping, a meta that no one enjoys.

[Sandwich.8173]

To add on what a lot of people already said:The direction of the necro changes that are supposed to be focused on WvW seem as if they are focused on making whatever PvE Farm is currently the best even easier. The reason scourge in dominating in terms of meta is simple: It spams more AoE than any other class, deals high damage and boon strips on top of that letting you deal 'more damage' (by stripping protection).The second issue with scourge is that you do not have to think about whether to place a shade or not thanks to the power-creep and amount of people you (can) stack in WvW - just drop them when you get in range. Why? At the moment the more aggressive zerg wins every fight, given that both zergs are roughly equally skilled and neither do something stupid, like fully pushing a choke - for example.The same goes for revenant. Due to low CD's on hammer and an insane damage potential Hammer-Revs follow the same line of thought.

Yes, at this point neither would be deadly, because you can foresee when your opponents will try to deal their damage. The issue starts once your commander and/or your zerg is capable of counting to two or maybe even three and have the dps (rev & necro, as the most reliable) smash their keyboard at the same time.While coordination should be rewarded, the level of coordination - have six people press one button at the same time - is disproportionate to the reward. Two or Three Revenants and 4 Necros are enough to provide reliant boonstrip and a spike that one-shots up to 5 players at 900-range. This is why WvW is dying. The low CD's on both Scourge and Rev paired with their strong impact damage wise (AoE) make it way too hard for new players to get into the game-mode. After-all, to them it seems as if they are dying randomly. Especially mid-way through the fight.So instead of making it worse, reduce the target cap and imo that does not only go for scourge, but basically every Range Dps. Interestingly enough Warriors as melee dps have a target cap of 3 on most of their Greatsword skills, while ranged dps classes do have a target cap of 5.

The increase about the duration of scourge shades is also worrying to say the least. Two problems immediately come to mind. The first is that you will have more AoE's being placed which is for two reasons horrible: Firstly, the servers are struggling enough already, to put it kindly. Secondly, you will have effectively more AoE's zoning movement. The second problem about the change is that it furthermore results in making the game-mode harder for beginners: Even more red AoE's that are all over place. While veterans and experienced players would suffer from it as well. And lastly: Debunking what you stated earlier yourself:

This creates a choice of whether to be the focal point for your shade abilities by not summoning a shade or to place a shade at a distance and focus on your shade's positioning relying on distance as your safety.That would align the cooldown of the ammo-system per shade with the duration it's present in the game.

Something that has not been addressed, but should so imo is Winds of Disenchantment. It has two major flaws that bugger both warrior players and those up against a warrior. The first major flaw is that it deals ~300damage on most power builds. It's bad for two reasons: The first being you receive damage from retalation... 10 targets that you hit twice a second for up to 5 seconds. With retalation dealing roughly 200-300dmg on you. By doing the basic math behind it and being optimistic warriors deal 10(targets)2(intervall)5(duration)*200 (damage)=20.000 Damage to themselves, by doing their job. You are basically killing yourself if you do not use your deffensive cooldown(s) or sacrifice your auto-Endure Pain when using Winds of Disenchantment. If you do not want Warriors to use the skill while stealthed add the revealed status on starting the cast, but take away the damage. Lastly, yes it does strip boons - yet with all the boonstacking these days it happens rather frequently that you lose half HP to only using Winds of Disenchantment, Auto Endure Pain at least helps you with the second half.The second is issue the channel of said skill. You either just walk around (nearly killing yourself...) and denying boons or you start channeling and one, up to 4 scourges actually stop you from your channel by using Devouring Darkness on you. The old implementation was way more interesting and thought-through. You had to cast and drop Winds of Disenchantment in a beneficial and strategical position, to not just be relevant for the first second after it being dropped. At the same time you could also kite it off. Why do I mention the last bit? These days you can only rely on a few scourges to target the warrior and corrupt his stability into fear.

The Sight Beyond Sight change will not have any impact. The reason it is not in the slightest bit viable is partially, because of the radius - yes. The other bit is that this skill does not offer anything else and after both groups drop out of stealth you rarely enter stealth again, thus you'ld use it at the beginning of the fight and then it's just a wasted utility. One crit and curing blindness in a game-mode that is dominated by ranged AoE-Spam and AoE boonrip/corrupt will have zero impact. Sigil of Vision does offer the critting aspect and better. I would propose an immunity to blindness and dropping the one crit aspect for either Superspeed or maybe a slight damage buff against the targets you revealed.

On a side-note about the two biggest problems in WvW these days:General target cap and power-creepFollowing the same rule of thumb for the amount of players you need to one-shot 5 players: a guild-group with between 15-25 players gets completely annihilated by a pug zerg of 40+, because at least half their numbers will just be AoE bombed and one-shot'ed. While at the same time they are only able to take a maximum of ten. Why is that an issue? Guilds have fewer numbers, you might think. To get the elephant out of the room, the game is called Guild Wars. Guilds were always playing more coordinatedly than pugs, raid(ed) to improve as a group and had more understanding of the game-mode than pugs do and did. Yet the encouragement to invest time (and effort) into the game has been basically removed. Plus: guilds are what always kept WvW interesting and what defined open tags. The better guild backing an open-tag decided who won the fights. These days its just: Everybody can one-shot anybody and the differences in 'skill' are neglectable thanks to the AoE and Damage Spam.Yet with the possibility of going head to head in an outnumbered fight gone, for various reasons, it only encourages Guilds to fight Guild vs. Guild only, for which there is sadly no support planned.

[Leledinn.2971]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Engineer

• Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 60 seconds in WvW.
• Corona Burst: The existing split from PvP of reduced might gain is brought to WvW. Reduced the damage of this ability by 20% in PvP and WvW.
• Holographic Shockwave: Reduced range from 600 to 300.
• Impact Savant: Reduce the vitality loss of this trait from 300 to 180. Unfortunately it doesn't look likely we'll be able to get this trait to work with conditions for the next balance update, but we'll keep investigating other options.
• Detection Pulse: This skill returns as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro, replacing Chemical Field. Its radius is reduced from 1200 to 900 and its targeting is improved for large group situations so it can't fail where there are many nearby enemies and stealthed foes are slightly further away.

Everything except Impact Savant change looks ridiculous.LEAVE ENGI AS IT IS NOW. PLEASE. Focus on scourge. Engi is nerfed enough.Thank you.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

• Detection Pulse: This skill returns as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro, replacing Chemical Field. Its radius is reduced from 1200 to 900 and its targeting is improved for large group situations so it can't fail where there are many nearby enemies and stealthed foes are slightly further away.

I've already stated on the other thread this was a bad idea. You are returning a valuable ability to WvW (a good thing) by removing a decent ability, while at the same time removing a decent ability in PvE and replacing with a completely useless one. Unless a reason/purpose for Detection pulse is introduced to PvE, this change punishes any PvE Scrapper for slotting Purge Gyro by essentially removing a toolbelt ability.

Game Devs aren't doctors, I get it, but "first do no harm" is a solid philosophy to live by.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

• Scourge: Shade abilities only affect the area around you while you do not have a shade active in the world. This creates a choice of whether to be the focal point for your shade abilities by not summoning a shade or to place a shade at a distance and focus on your shade's positioning relying on distance as your safety. It also offers more distinct styles of gameplay where you may want to close with enemies and avoid having to place shades while being exposed in melee or placing a shade farther away to gain ranged offensive options at the risk of not having shade defensive benefits at your location (unless you place another shade beside you). To address the loss of some of the target cap, the number of targets affected by shade abilities will be increased from 3 to 5.
• Manifest Sand Shade: The duration of sand shades in WvW & PvP has been increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.
• Sand Savant: Increase the number of targets sand shade affect from 2 to 5, so that when traited you either affect up to 10 targets around you or have a single shade which affects up to 10 targets rather than the current incarnation where you've got a shade that affects 5 targets and you affect 5 targets near you.

Many have already commented on this, but I'm equally dumbfounded. If I understand this correctly, you're now allowing Scourge to remain at 900 range and hit the same amount of targets that once required them to be in melee range. Yes it opens up a window where while the shade is active, they cannot do any damage around themselves, so smart players will exploit that to push when they know a scourge has all shades on cooldown, but overall this just means they do more damage from farther away.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

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

Is there any chance of adding a visual tell to show the radius affected by this ability, like the wave you see with detection pulse?

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

• 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.

I take this to mean that no matter how far away the target is, they will take the same amount of damage? I think that's a fair change, as now the top end damage is shaved a bit while a Rev isn't at a disadvantage using CoR in melee range.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

• Inspiring Reinforcement: Increased pulsing stability duration from 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased initial stability duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Increased the speed at which the road is built by 100%. Increased road length from 600 to 900.

Unexpected but welcomed improvement.

[praqtos.9035]

@Leledinn.2971 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

Engineer

• Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 60 seconds in WvW.
• Corona Burst: The existing split from PvP of reduced might gain is brought to WvW. Reduced the damage of this ability by 20% in PvP and WvW.
• Holographic Shockwave: Reduced range from 600 to 300.
• Impact Savant: Reduce the vitality loss of this trait from 300 to 180. Unfortunately it doesn't look likely we'll be able to get this trait to work with conditions for the next balance update, but we'll keep investigating other options.
• Detection Pulse: This skill returns as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro, replacing Chemical Field. Its radius is reduced from 1200 to 900 and its targeting is improved for large group situations so it can't fail where there are many nearby enemies and stealthed foes are slightly further away.

Everything except Impact Savant change looks ridiculous.LEAVE ENGI AS IT IS NOW. PLEASE. Focus on scourge. Engi is nerfed enough.Thank you.Dont nerf busted holo, leave it as it is, year ago it was nerfed, no more plx. - Ridiculous

[lostinoz.8659]

Pretty disappointed that condi-scrapper gets kicked down the road. It was the sole bright spot that had me really looking forward to the patch. Hope there are some decent changes to core engi in the not discussed section. Save 1200 health its just more nerfs, 3rd patch in a row :-(

[supreme.3602]

Still waiting for information about Elementalist, again.

[Riba.3271]

Lot of suggestions here about ranger in WvW:

The fundamental issue is that ranger has no good weapons for Zerg fights. And yes sorry, your bow is infinitely worse than elementalist staff. You should be suggesting weapon changes for ranger. Druids and Soulbeasts already have plenty of unique support in form of buffs/boons/superspeed/stealth/ressing but the fact that you're not doing anything when your stances/allies don't need heals is an issue.

For example: Imagine Worldly impact, one of the easiest to hit ranger melee skills. It has only 240 radius. Compare this to likes of Necromancer axe 3 that has 600 radius and covers 6.25 times more area which still doesn't hit targets for majority of the fight. Essentially it is near impossible to hit more than 1 target as a ranger close range and you're stuck running a bow. Of course you can combo the skill with a leap but then you're just running poor mans earth shaker from a warrior hammer.

Now ranger needs a largescale weapon rework to be viable in WvW. Similar to a treatment Guardian Mace and Shield got but even on a grander scale.

[yumee.1405]

The scourge change just don't make any sense at all.

First of all, you're not a support you just bring a bit of barrier on F3 and heal mainly.

• if you stay at range, you don't need much the barrier, your guard and engi will do the job just fine to keep the whole party alive. But you'll have a UP in target on your shade, something ... that we don't need or want.

-if you're in melee, it won't change either, if you shade is place you move it closer and get the barrier and it's not activated you get the barrier. So again, it UPs the targettime, something we don't need or want.

The only moment where you use both at the same time it's when a second group impacts you or when are warrior or a thief come close range alone. You'll have now to choose between punishing him or continue to focus on the rest of the group, wich makes it less brain dead.

It feels like you don't even understand how the party are even made nowadays so I'll just recapitualte.Basically have 1 firebrand for stab, aegis, protection, heal, condi cleanse, other defensive boons.1 scrapper for cleans condi and heal.1 herald for offensive boon keep up (mainly) and high damage at range and cc.1scourge for boon rip and damage and eventually as a bonus some barrier.Last spot is a dps spot with spellbreaker, staff thief, weaver or a extra scourge or herald.

You're mostly running with already 2 sup in good time, your scourge just gives something extra, it's not gonna change much if we can't have the barrier from F3.

On an other note, I'm really sad to see that after a lot of people asked for changes on chrono that is broken and on tempest to make them reliable 2nd sup possobilities and be a competitive choice against scrapper, you still don't plan on changing anything :/

[Moonlight.1985]

Scourge changes are disgusting deleting it from pvp and just straight up buffing it in wvw. Holo barely touched please reduce the healing from heat therapy and get rid of elixir U stab. Staff acro thief unaddressed and warrior Rampage still needs toning down. Oh and the kitten burn ele build not addressed at all xD.

[Me Games Ma.8426]

Hey Irenio, can you make the Mantras not consume charges when they fail to activate due to facing issues?

[Mini Crinny.6190]

@"Dahir.4158" said:Still waiting for information about Elementalist, again.It's probably best if anet just leaves it as it is

[Ok I Did It.2854]

So no change to mesmer clone spam, or perma invis thief who can 1 shot you from invis, ok then.

Oppressive Collapse: This skill will require line of sight on the activation. <----- care to explain why this change Anet.

Really, this was used to kill siege on a wall or hit someone on a wall, we necros get pushed back more, yet ele's can spam meteor shower and cover the entire wall, or a bow ranger can stand and spam barrage, with no Line of sight needed, in the past you changed the necro elite Plague into a static skill that enemies can easily avoid making it useless, why do all necro skills need Line of Sight, even the so called teleport skill needs it, yet you just give the perma invis class a portal like mesmer, make the necro portal like that also then, level the playing field some..

Then warrior got Winds of Disenchantment which allows them to run threw an enemy zerg stripping boons and denying boons, so what gives, why is it some classes are allowed to freely spam and do mass AoE and you suppress others to much that the skills they have are completely useless.

Ranger

Long Range Shot: Reduce the damage range of this skill from 0.7-0.9 to 0.6-0.8 in WvW only.

Oh come on, they are massively overpowered boon bots that have insane survival ability while also packing a massive damage burst, yet this is all you do, does no one on the balance team ever played against a boonbot soulbeast.

At this point id rather prefer it that instead of the nerfs to some and massive buffs to others you just introduce the PvP build system to WvW, and do a proper balance, instead of forcing classes out of the game mode completely with repeated nerfs.

[Sandwich.8173]

Then warrior got Winds of Disenchantment which allows them to run threw an enemy zerg stripping boons and denying boons, so what gives, why is it some classes are allowed to freely spam and do mass AoE and you suppress others to much that the skills they have are completely useless.

How is that spamming? You use a 90sec CD and deffensive cooldowns, while still being vulnerable to being interrupted.

At this point id rather prefer it that instead of the nerfs to some and massive buffs[..}Which class is supposed to get massive buffs? Exactly none.

What you are saying doesn't make any sense and feels more as if you are upset about receiving a nerf as a scourge player, when the vast majority asks for nerfs in a gamemode that is dominated by AoE Spam.

[Kassablanca.5821]

change meteor shower plz its redicules u see 1 meteor shower animation but u are already been hitted 3 times.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

@Limodriver.4106 said:change meteor shower plz its redicules u see 1 meteor shower animation but u are already been hitted 3 times.

It also has a large AoE circle and the ele is standing still for 3 seconds to land it all, you can dodge out of it to avoid getting hit 3 times as it's your bad positioning that is getting you killed

G'day

[DaniDemulator.2581]

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048"My Idea for Scourge:Keep Scourges Shade mechanic like it is right now,If you "shadespike" someone -> Support aka cleanse and barrier instant | Damage pulsing!

So if you press f1-f45 + 5 barrier instant5 + 5 condi convert instant5 + 5 Fear&Dmg instant

HOWEVERFor each Shade Skill you use, you add another pulse to your pulse counter:Again, if you press from F1-F4: (0s = 0 second since you started casting; 1s = 1 second)

0s - Manifest Sand Shade + F2 + F3 + F41s - 1st Damage Hit (since it has cast time)2s - 2nd Damage Hit3s - 3rd Damage Hit4s - 4th Damage Hit

So basically that if kinda works like the current desert shroud, which pulses every second and now you add another pulse on top.The problem are NOT the targets NOR the damage. The problem is the Spike!

The you can experiment with 10man shades too. Since the damage comes delayed, it isnt going to be a buff to the spike scourge, which is heavily used in wvw.

[subversiontwo.7501]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Hey again all,Welcome back, and thanks for this continued trend of engaging with your community like an MMO developer should.

Engineer

• Sneak Gyro: Increase the cooldown of this ability from 45 to 60 seconds in WvW.
• Corona Burst: The existing split from PvP of reduced might gain is brought to WvW. Reduced the damage of this ability by 20% in PvP and WvW.
• Holographic Shockwave: Reduced range from 600 to 300.
• Impact Savant: Reduce the vitality loss of this trait from 300 to 180. Unfortunately it doesn't look likely we'll be able to get this trait to work with conditions for the next balance update, but we'll keep investigating other options.
• Detection Pulse: This skill returns as the toolbelt skill for Purge Gyro, replacing Chemical Field. Its radius is reduced from 1200 to 900 and its targeting is improved for large group situations so it can't fail where there are many nearby enemies and stealthed foes are slightly further away.Most of the Engineer stuff looks fair now. I am still lacking the motive behind changing sneak gyro. I understand that it is apart of an attempt at adressing stealth on a broad level (and possibly reducing the need of outside effects like NPC marked debuffs to balance stealth) which overall is a good initiative. At the same time, the kind of stealth that people complain about is the continous reset stealths that Engineers does not have any of. Raising the gyro cooldown will not affect gameplay very much, just cause longer downtimes spent waiting so it's more a jab at QoL and enjoyment than having any actual impact on balance (or adressing malbalance).

I've seen the proposed changes catching some flack in PvE and from certain Holos but as objective as I can be in this most of this seems fair. The 600 shockwave was a mechanical anomaly that shouldn't ever really have been and while I can understand that losing chemical field does affect build-diversity, people elsewhere have alot of trouble understanding how many times and how much WvW have had been forced to stand back in the past and how much build diversity has been slaughtered there. The loss of the chemical field affects diversity in WvW too, but it is a ridiculously minor loss in all game modes compared to eg., detection pulse. Obviously things had been better had this attempt at creating drawbacks to make place for core builds not been approached the way it has, but since that is already in motion now, this is certainly a far less painful ill (even for other options that could have hurt PvE).

Guardian

• Stand Your Ground: Reduce the stacks of stability granted by this ability from 5 to 3 in WvW.

• Tome of Courage, Chapter 5 - Unbroken Lines: This skill no longer grants retaliation.

• 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.

• Sanctuary: Increase number of enemies that can be knocked back by this skill from 10 to 20 before it expires.The Guardian stuff is the stuff that still seem the least thought through. The first proposition felt like changes for the sake of changing and these feels like watered down changes for the sake of change with little to no motivation, reasoning or finger-on-the-pulse about them. In WvW we have had 2.5 years now of continued ranged metas because there is not enough free movement (and too high ranged damage) so players are scared to venture into the reach of the opposing players and groups. It is a game of cowardise where taking risk is not rewarded and that makes important players, who wants to make things happen, quit. That is very bad for the mode. The game does not need less stability, it needs more normative mobility and stability is important for that with such overabundant crowd-control we have. We need less crowd-control, like knockbacks from Sanctuary, not more. These are all still mostly changes that will make WvW worse, not better. They compound broad problems, not mitigate them.Mesmer

• Illusion of Life: Reduce the invulnerability period on revived allies from 5s to 1s. Improve the smart targeting on this skill so it can't fail in big group situations where there is someone downed and lots of people near them.

• Chaotic Interruption: This trait has been re-worked and now reduces the cooldown of one of your weapon abilities that is already on cooldown by 5 seconds when you interrupt a foe.

• 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.I wasn't too fussed about these changes before and nore am I now. The only comment I have to give goes beyond these proposed changes. I am not a fan of resurrection skills like Life because they create snowball effects with inherent cross-scale balance issues (ie., making it harder for the small to engage the large). However, from a class perspective I think you should be careful with the Mesmer class overall because there have been negative nips in quite alot of places and recent patches and they risk falling out of roles in different modes. With future changes to this class I think you need to sit down and find a clearer path for what you want to do, what you want the class to do and so forth. It is becomming very bland and you keep cutting back on that bland. Think more about what you want it to do and adress its balance in line with that.Necromancer

• Scourge: For a long time, Scourge has been a strong elite specialization on the basis of its area coverage. With some of these changes we're looking to re-focus their gameplay around their unique elite spec mechanic, shades. These changes also open up space for improvements to the Scourge's kit in the future as the conversation has been dominated by Scourge's coverage.

• Scourge: Shade abilities only affect the area around you while you do not have a shade active in the world. This creates a choice of whether to be the focal point for your shade abilities by not summoning a shade or to place a shade at a distance and focus on your shade's positioning relying on distance as your safety. It also offers more distinct styles of gameplay where you may want to close with enemies and avoid having to place shades while being exposed in melee or placing a shade farther away to gain ranged offensive options at the risk of not having shade defensive benefits at your location (unless you place another shade beside you). To address the loss of some of the target cap, the number of targets affected by shade abilities will be increased from 3 to 5.

• Manifest Sand Shade: The duration of sand shades in WvW & PvP has been increased from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.

• Sand Savant: Increase the number of targets sand shade affect from 2 to 5, so that when traited you either affect up to 10 targets around you or have a single shade which affects up to 10 targets rather than the current incarnation where you've got a shade that affects 5 targets and you affect 5 targets near you.

• Oppressive Collapse: This skill will require line of sight on the activation.

• Sand Cascade: Reduce the base barrier granted by this skill by 33% in WvW & PvP, increase the healing power contribution by 20%, as the healing coefficient is already pretty strong.

• Sand Flare: Reduce the base barrier granted by this skill by 25% in WvW, increase the healing power contribution by 33%.

• Desert Shroud: Increase the base barrier granted by this skill by 10%, increase the healing power contribution by 15% and reduce the damage inflicted by this ability by 20% in WvW.

• 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.Others have already said it in this thread, I said it in the past thread (and have made plenty of comments on it for the past year), and these suggestions still feel like an odd combination of reinventing the wheel while only shifting goalposts. If this is supposed to be a 10-target bomber it will continue to dominate and anchor the stale ranged meta. You need to find it a better balance in what classes do in the meta at different scales. The addition of shade changes here will mostly just affect small scale where scourges may offensively get ontop of players to stack effects, and while there are balance concerns to be mindful of there, those builds are not exactly a menace of the small-scale world. At large Scale however, well, Garfried pretty much already struck the nail on the head.

I would still maintain that such a simple suggestion as reducing the base range to 600 so the radius only extends to 900 is a much more effective and better balanced solution over the different scales. Even at large scale, certain Scourge builds can be strong if a group moves into melee but that is not the broad mode-impacting problem with Scourges, the problematic aspect of them is how they discourage melee classes to get into melee in the first place and how exclusive that makes the meta in terms of classes and builds (considering how many more melee builds there are and considering how range is still a thing in a melee meta but melee is not a thing in a ranged meta).

Ranger, Rev and Warrior, same as before, same as Mesmer in some cases. Still not a fan of further nerfs to Ranger but the auto nerf is not really a problem on its own, it's more of a role and overall place in the world problem - Ranger has like Mesmer seen so much stripped away though that there isn't much left and there have been problems for them finding a place in the WvW mode since inception. Not letting Rangers into squad has been a meme since vanilla. On Rev, dealing with CoR is good. The Warrior stuff doesn't look very impactful but perhaps they're not a focal point this time around.

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

@Blocki.4931 said:I like the direction Scourge shades went, but I'm really torn. Sand Savant sounds like you'd just never use shades in zergs to continue being a moving red aoe bomb field at all times. Might not be very ideal to basically forego a large part of the spec in never placing shades. At the same time all the other damage nerfs and changes seem very solid. I'm just worried that this might be a net gain in the end though with those big shades. Bombing becomes even stronger that way too.

Also thanks for clarifying that this isn't every single change that's planned!

In the update before this it sounded like they also wanted to reduce the DPS of the Scourge a little bit but now its sound like they increase it by 40%. Scourge main dominance come from its abilities to lay aoe freely and those aoes doing a lot of conditions + the barrier. When you tone both down FB and Scourge it works but when you reduce condi cleans & heal from the support and increase dps and condis(indirectly because the number of targets increased) on the other side this will be a mess.

And yeah but Scourge heal increased I noticed that but that means you can run 4 scourge and 1 engi in a group or what? It the opposite direction people want it to be.

[Serenity.6304]

The scourge changes are clearly focused on WvW and not on PvP. Please rethink the consequences for PvP.In PvP we don't have 10 targets, so those changes regarding that are unncessary.

For this specific rework, in order to play, we need a "dismiss all sandshades"-button!

As scourges, we already don't have that much mobility or flexibility, with this rework it's getting worse. This button is required to at least change from melee to range in a shorter time. Since many classes have instant teleports, the fight switches between melee and range often. So this button is definitely needed. You know how scourge is THE target number one in PvP and if properly focused instantly melts? Cause we don't have any blocks or reflects?
We need F2, removing conditions, and F3, barrier, frequently for ourselves in order to survive. This kind of button would be necessary.

[Lala.8752]

if we can't delete our shade as scourges it's completely stupid.

[Kassablanca.5821]

everyone should be able to hit 10 targets or none should be, I seriously doubt ur server can handle scourge zerg all hitting 10 ppl.