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

[Vegeta.2563]

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:

Necromancer

• 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.

This is going to take some getting used to.

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

Good Good.

• 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.

I feel like Sand Savant should have its recharge increase part removed in order to help with the changes. Otherwise is going to be very limited on how often shades can be placed, and won't feel great to play. I do agree that you should have to choose where you want the aoe damage to be instead of it being on both user and target range, but with increased time on shades it's going to feel like trash. ~~ No way to unsummon a shade in order to use the abilities around your character instead. Otherwise us scourges will have to run over to our shade to do damage, which is not cool. ~~Right now scourges rely on the shade placed away from them, and the aoe near them. This is why the increased shade timer worked for when it was at 2 different locations. Now that it's being limited to either range, or point blank aoe. Having a bit of relief with shorter recast shade charges would help with this. It should still have the limit 1 active shade, with the 5 target increase. Just not increased shade recharge.

After talking with other scourge mains. The increase timer seems fine, but what we are concerned about is that we won't get the barrier benefit from the shade skills if its at range. This also includes any condition clears from our small shades. I know the idea is to limit damage at 2 different locations, but can we leave the defensive part of this active at 2 locations? Also needing to wait 15 seconds for a shade to disappear in order to clear conditions is going to be quite a pain.

[Sir Scuttles.1205]

• 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.

I know I'm too late for comment but I feel like you missed the mark here and made it just less fun to play. If you need to nerf it, Just simply have the shade abilities activate on the shade only. It makes more sense and is way less complicated. I also felt that sand savant behavior was wrong from day 1, let me explain in a Jerry Seinfeld sketch:

Jerry: What's the deal Scourges?George: What do you mean Jerry? Searching in Jerry's kitchen for food and grabs a can of peanutsJerry: It's the Sand Savant trait George, it doesn't make any senseGeorge: jump on Jerry's couch and puts his feet up Sand Savant? What's wrong with that? I always run it on my necro, hell even Kramer uses it and he barely plays the class. Everyone loves Sand Savant!Jerry: That's just it! Everyone loves Sand Savant! It's TOO good! Bigger radius, always max shades AND reduced cooldown!George: So? Opens can and starts eating peanuts Whoa! Jerry these peanuts are really good!Jerry: So?! have you tried playing without it?!George: No, didn't like it. continues eating peanuts with astonishmentJerry: Of course you didn't. You need to place 3 shades down to get the full benefits, but when you do you can't place a new one if the mob moves out the way dramatically moves hand from one side to the other because it's on cooldown! If you place all three you can place one new one before they disappear but that's it!George: Where did you get these peanuts Jerry!?Jerry: They're just normal peanuts George, the same kind I always get. dismissively swipes he hand downward The Sand Savant trait is so good I never get to use the other grand master traits! It's always so big and if I need to move it, I do, because the cooldown is so low. All the benefits and none of the drawbacks.George: No no, no these are not normal peanuts Jerry. These are amazing, these are... a gift from God!Jerry plops down next to George with a heavy sighGeorge: So what would you differently?Jerry: Well I don't know.. I would probably make the reduced cooldown for the little shades and the longer cooldown for the big shade. ponders for a bit and grabs some peanuts or just make the cooldown the same for both, somewhere in the middle between longer and reduces cooldown. Eats some peanuts These ARE really good!

[praqtos.9035]

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:MesmerChronomancer will get any "rework"? Its unplayble in PvP/WvW.Thanks for deleting CI/mantras /s

[FireSword.3062]

Can you please make Vigorous Shouts on war increase number of target from 5 to 10 ? to be align with warhorn

[HoneyBadger.5691]

The guard changes still are bad.Makes fb less survivable (doesn't need to be nerfed lol).Changing SYG stacks does nothing but hurt small scale.Courage w/o aegis on ch2 will make surviving while in tome way too hard for small scale.Also scourge shade, is not good to remove shade from the scourge even momentarily.You are better off not touching that yet if you can't change target cap to 5 with function as-is, and dropping target cap later if you can find a way to code it.

tl;dr, drop all the guard changes, drop the shade change for now, drop mesmer changes besides CI, consider reverting Fgyro and toolbelt skills.

For the sake of good balance & class design.

[Delofasht.4231]

I still disagree with the change to Mantra of Distraction, it was only overly strong when it could pair with the existing Chaotic Interruptions Immobilize effect. The latter element is already being changed, and would not create situations where it would be completely overpowered by any means... a semi reliable way to generate a lower cooldown.

I realize these notes are incomplete, but I am understanding the change to Chaotic Interruptions to mean that the immobilize is being taken off and the cooldown reduction trigger added, and not that the boons and conditions added by the trait are being removed. If this turns out to just be 5 sec CD redux in place of everything that the trait currently applies, then it will be not Chaotic at all, but just a very consistent way to reduce cooldowns of a specifically used set of skills only and at a very slow rate compared to what other professions get for cooldown reducing traits. Functionally it would die as a trait, being weaker than any other Grandmaster trait (besides Elusive Mind which seems like should add a few seconds of Superspeed for how long the exhaustion is on for).

[praqtos.9035]

@Delofasht.4231 said:I still disagree with the change to Mantra of Distraction, it was only overly strong when it could pair with the existing Chaotic Interruptions Immobilize effect. The latter element is already being changed, and would not create situations where it would be completely overpowered by any means... a semi reliable way to generate a lower cooldown.Agree with that.Mantra of pain could be a fast moving projectile and give less mights, like 6 and nerf the damage in pvp/wvw but not mantra of distraction. Both mantras always respected LoS, why its even mentioned all the time?I said in previous thread, its nothing but a dead trait (abit better than EM lol). They could at least leave the boons which previous trait had.

[Delofasht.4231]

@praqtos.9035 said:

@Delofasht.4231 said:I still disagree with the change to Mantra of Distraction, it was only overly strong when it could pair with the existing Chaotic Interruptions Immobilize effect. The latter element is already being changed, and would not create situations where it would be completely overpowered by any means... a semi reliable way to generate a lower cooldown.Agree with that.Mantra of pain could be a fast moving projectile and give less mights, like 6 and nerf the damage in pvp/wvw but not mantra of distraction. Both mantras always respected LoS, why its even mentioned all the time?I said in previous thread, its nothing but a dead trait (abit better than EM lol). They could at least leave the boons which previous trait had.

My hope with CI is that they are leaving the boons and conditions on interrupt in addition to the proposed cooldown reduction... if not, then I guess it was good that I had gotten used to Bountiful Disillusionment.

Making both Mantra of Pain and Distraction a very fast moving large bolt (near instant at anything less then 600 range and almost unable to miss at 800 range, but dodgeable at 1200 range) would be a far better solution than requiring facing. It would allow for the existing gameplay, but shift the AoE effects to being a wide line shot useful for any game mode, and I could not see a bolt style skill becoming too strong anywhere. Facing as a restriction is just a boring solution that makes the Mantra usage feel awkward and unwieldy.

[Xacafu.2941]

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

Do they mean hits? For ex, 5 of doble axe hit 15 times to 5 enemies, but is still 1 ability/attack. And if they are hits, 2 hits per player? there is not any specific explanation...

[Grimjack.8130]

You're trying to change WvW gameplay with the Shades, but this change will only lead to stronger Scourges, the AOE around the Scourge didn't do too much in WvW, however this will completely delete Scourge from PvP no questions asked.

You did nothing you intended to with these Scourge changes, do not release these changes with how they are now.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

I am really excited to play with Inspiring Reinforcement. This is a big buff to the skill, but I admittedly do worry that the potential stab duration for it will be too high. However, it will be nice to have access to a more reliable source of stab and hopefully have it valued more. Pretty big news for me to see this change listed. Thanks for updating it.

Do you have any intention on re-implementing group regeneration access to Salvation or Ventari? It doesn't feel the same to be so reliant on Glint for it. The healing orbs occupy a significant amount of traits in Salvation and some of them feel like filler traits. Vigor is a nice boon to have access to, but it doesn't make sense to me to strip the traitline of its access to regen, considering it is the healing line.

[wombatpanda.8165]

Overall the direction is goodTo scrg: It is a good idea to give the scrg 2 playstyles and if they dmg nerf to f5 is big enough the 10 target change aint too much of an issuewhat IS and issue tho imo is that there is little incentive to use your shades now. Shades got changed over the time and have delays /red circles/red pulsing on them everything to make em dodgeableAnd now there is a possebility to just not use them and still deal insane amount of dmg with just pushing into the enemy while also support everyone else the same way that pushes with you and you dont even have to think about positioning...not to mention that if you use shades you cant really deal dmg for at least 15 sec while if you just smash face first 24/7 into the enemy you canMaybe think about a hefty CD increase for shade skills when you dont have a shade on the field and remove the supporting capabilites from shadeskills when there is none on the field or something

And also maybe dont increase the revenant road to 900and maybe also not the 3sec stability pulsing for the road

[Photoloss.4817]

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 said:Mesmer

• Power Break (Mantra of Pain): This skill now requires you to face your target

Once again DO NOT DO THIS IN PVE!!! It will be incredibly annoying especially underwater and unlike actual stat nerfs cannot be split across game modes either.

[DaZzius.4753]

I am really disappointed to see a condi thief playable but not that strong getting nerf. At least, you leave spellbreaker, metabeast, unchanged and overpowerful ! Great

[santso.9201]

Scourge is just gona feel worse to play but nothing changes in terms of meta. As long as you are able to do dmg with big shade you are going to pick that trait over other 2 gm traits.

[Syanur.2635]

Players: “we want you to nerf Scourges in WvW”Anet: “We listened to players and we increased the number of targets you can hit to 10! Because the meta right now is a range meta so nerfing melee is totally relevant! So now Scourge is even stronger! See we listened!”

Ok buddy.

[Nimon.7840]

@Grimjack.8130 said:You're trying to change WvW gameplay with the Shades, but this change will only lead to stronger Scourges, the AOE around the Scourge didn't do too much in WvW, however this will completely delete Scourge from PvP no questions asked.

You did nothing you intended to with these Scourge changes, do not release these changes with how they are now.

I do think the same here. With these scourge changes I feel like we are getting a hard pirate ship meta back for wvw.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Syanur.2635" said:Players: “we want you to nerf Scourges in WvW”Anet: “We listened to players and we increased the number of targets you can hit to 10! Because the meta right now is a range meta so nerfing melee is totally relevant! So now Scourge is even stronger! See we listened!”

Ok buddy.

The main issue is that players were saying that the scourge issue was it's coverage which is what they "address". Is it the wrong way to address it? I totally agree with you that it is the wrong way, but in a way they do address the complains of the players since the scourge will have it's coverage effectively halved.

Players will just find that the issue wasn't coverage and will complain about number of target hit after the patch, they might find another "fix" to this new problem afterward but they won't go back on what they will have done.

The consequence is that the scourge which isn't really over the top anywhere else than in the specific WvW zerg environment will experience a loss of global effectiveness out of the zerg microcosm. Scourge players will complains and be complained about. ANet devs will then rack their brain to satisfy the scourge players (probably by reducing demonic lore ICD in PvE... Well, yes sweet dream never end, I shouldn't put the bar that high) while enduring WvW players complains until they decide to touch again scourge with a WvW perspective and break things in another totally inapropriate way.

[Blocki.4931]

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

They don't have a place in zergs because they favor aoe and boon priority. Ranger offers hardly any of that and doesn't need boons. It's self sufficient. Doesn't change the fact their auto attack is beyond overpowered either.

[Garfried.7295]

Many of these comments adress the feeling that a 10man big shade will make scourge stronger. I agree, but I miss discussion about how this idea came around.The devs decided to try and nerf it by making you make a choice with placing shades. Either you place shade in range, which will deny you acess to cleanse and barrier, but you gain a ton of offense potential. Or you self cast which will give you all the effects but around yourself. Here is why that is not an actual tradeoff.Typically, wvw builds are made with giving a class a niche role that allows the player to focus on peforming that role as optimal as possible. For scrapper it is cleansing and healing, for revenant it is high impact ranged damage and passive boon generation etc. For scourge, it is boon corruption and spike damage. Making a change that makes it easier for the scourge to perform that role will be a buff, no matter what tradeoff there is. The lack of barrier amd cleanse can easily be compensated by the classes that are supposed to focus on this (guard, scrapper, tempest). If you want to make a tradeoff for scourge, make the tradeoff focus on different applications of the scourges offensive roles. E.g., you could make sand savant decrease the dmg output of shade skills (when used in range). Or make it corrupt less. This is the direction that should be considered by the balance team.

[Sandzibar.5134]

Back in yee olden times you used to balance effectiveness based on range and targets effected.

So you'd essentially get:Singletarget Melee as the highest avg dmg output.Then Cleeving/Cone MeleeThen PBAOEThen Ranged SingletargetThen Ranged Cleeve/ConeThen Ranged AOE as the least effective.

Then you'd fine tune based on other factors like mobility/stealth/attack speeds etc.

When did game design move from this fairly logical pattern?

Is Scourge an exercise in Subverting Expectations? I know its all the rage these days....

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

• 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.So condi scrapper keeps getting shafted and this patch will only bring more nerfs, sigh. It was once a competetive elite. Never more. The "other options" will never materialize, I have zero doubts about that.

[Lazze.9870]

@Blocki.4931 said:

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

They don't have a place in zergs because they favor aoe and boon priority. Ranger offers hardly any of that and doesn't need boons. It's self sufficient. Doesn't change the fact their auto attack is beyond overpowered either.

Ignoring the fact that "hardly offers anything" is false, this is such a close minded approach to it.

It has one elite spec with shared stances, among them one of the best stability sources in the game. The other elite spec is literally a healing spec. There is a lot of potential to bring ranger closer to group play. The only worthwhile boon that druid doesn't offer is stability. So add some stability to it. Do some staff changes so the weapon is zerg worthy. Rework traits, the only one they need to keep for the one role it has in this game (raids) is Grace of the Land.

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.

[praqtos.9035]

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

[snh.7091]

@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.