Upcoming Balance Notes - 10/1/2019

[Nimon.7840]

@Lilyanna.9361 said:God those tempest changes made me sweat a little. Can I actually play dps tempest or some form of ele build now in competitive?????

I really want to, but dear god I don't feel like this is enough.

It seems like some elite specs aren't allowed to be played as DPS.Why should tempest be any exception? It's meant to be the support spec of ele!

[Dixie Cougar.2415]

Scourge already suffers in spvp from the current power burst meta. No idea why a nerf would be warranted there.

[Zephyra.4709]

@Eramonster.2718 said:One shot warrior, here i come :grimace:.

LOL I'm glad I'm not the only one that's thinking this... time to go duck hunting. Hint hint.

[ScyeRynn.4218]

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

Ranger

In this update, we're making a major change to sword skills in order to better improve their flow during combat. Monarch's Leap, Hornet Sting, and Serpent's Strike are all shuffling around into new slots, which should make the weapon a little easier to understand. We're also including some enhancements for the off-hand dagger, which has been a pretty weak weapon that hasn't kept up with the pace of the game very well. Finally, we're simplifying the greatsword's Counterattack skill and taking some power out of the chain-attack sequence. We hope these changes will make the weapon feel a little smoother while removing some of the frustrating random dodges that happen when fighting against it.

• Stalker's Strike: Base damage of this attack has been increased by 200%. This attack now deals double damage and inflicts 2 additional poison stacks if it strikes a foe with a movement-impairing condition.
• Counterattack: Removed the Crippling Throw follow-up skill. This skill no longer automatically uses Counterattack Kick when blocking a foe within the range threshold. Instead, blocking any attack flips the skill to Counterattack Kick for 5 seconds. Increased the number of targets for Counterattack Kick from 1 to 3. Counterattack Kick now evades for its duration and activates faster.
• Power Stab: This skill no longer evades for its duration. Its name has been changed to Enduring Swing. This skill now grants 15 endurance if it hits.

(Stalker's Strike isn't good because the extra 300 range it got from traiting "Off-Hand Training" was removed.)

Okay... I don't know what you guys were thinking going into this but if these changes go through, you will have singlehandedly removed all of the skill and depth involved with playing greatsword ranger at a high level. Whoever thought of removing Crippling Throw and Power Stab needs to have a serious talk with some top tier ranger mains. Hopefully, these changes didn't come from the same person that completely butchered Druid in PvP.

First of all, the removal of Crippling Throw is extremely disappointing. Here's why:

• Ranger greatsword has an extremely hard time sticking to targets for a melee weapon. Swoop is pretty clunky for chasing. Hilt Bash will miss on a target running directly away from you. Maul and the auto attacks have a very short range as well.
• Crippling Throw's cripple gives us the ability to slow our target in order to actually be able to chase and deal damage at the cost of our block. This added strategy and depth to the playstyle.

Second, and I cannot emphasize this enough, DO NOT PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THE EVADE FROM POWER STAB.

• The evades on Power Stab are NOT random. There are two regular hits, then the evade. It is the same sequence every single time. There isn't any randomness involved. Good players can (and do) easily interrupt the first two attacks to cancel the chain.
• The evade has existed since GW2 release. Removing it has disappointed myself and
  every
  single ranger I know by a lot. It's extremely disheartening and I'm actually very sad that this is in the patch notes.
  Out of all of the nerfs over the years, the beatdowns Druid has received, I have never,
  ever
  been as unhappy as when I read this change.
• Even on greatsword, rangers still lose in melee range against almost every other class. If we trade with holos we lose, warriors kill us, mesmer clones with IH will now be able to completely nuke us with condis without the ability to greatsword auto evade them while cleaving. We will also lose the ability to stand in team fights because of how squishy we are. The 15 endurance gain on hit is just rubbing salt in the wounds.

  ---

My suggestions (please, I'm begging you, please take them)

1. Keep Crippling Throw in the game and have
   this
   skill flip to counterattack when we block an attack in melee range.
2. Leave Power Stab alone.

Yeah the Power Stab skill is key. This will be hard to adjust to it is the highlight of the Ranger GS skills for me. I love having that evade come in and not have to always dodge out of my position to evade. I want to stay where I am. The griffon evade has this, but it's not part of an attack so it doesn't have the same fluidity.

[Dawdler.8521]

Have 20,000hp and 5hp barrier from doing pathetic power damage with condi pistols

Warrior does 50% more damage

Someone over at Anet clearly mains warrior and everybody else failed a sanity check.

[Nimon.7840]

@"MethaneGas.8357" said:No one:

Anet: "Scourge: Shade skills no longer affect the area around the scourge while they have a shade present in the world. Increased the number of targets affected by shade skills from 3 to 5."

Literally NO ONE is okay with this change. But hey, maybe the aim IS to nerf Scourge to the ground, in which case this accomplishes that brilliantly.

But only accomplishes that in pve, where scourge (or better to say Necro in general) already wasn't doing as good as other classes.For spvp I don't know. Not a good game mode in my opinion.Wvw it seems to be a buff

[XECOR.2814]

They fixed blood bond lol which was the only thing making necro sustain just a bit in roaming. Ripperoni. Also the dm traits are cool and all but i see no use of them in wvw. Scg got gutted and the utility they talk about is rip too. All the utility skills need massive buff in sustain and mobility now.

[Simzani.4318]

Annnnnd still no balance patch on sight. See you in 4 months with another round of nothingness, made in a week by a lonely dev that lost a bet.

[Sindrener.1592]

Are you planning on nerfing condi thief anytime soon? S/D lotus pretty much is the lowest form of skill as it is rn

[Evilliquorz.1360]

Scourge : I can't play this game anymore for those upcoming nerf !Chronomancer : I know you feel bro..

[Virtuality.8351]

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:Greetings all! As before, here are the planned Balance update notes for next week's release! We look forward to your discussions and theorycrafting.

~GW2 Systems Team

---

Between the previous announcement and this one:

1. In your announcement on Sep. 13th, following changes were mentioned:

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.

However they are not present in the current version. Instead, to solve the problem of overabundance of Barrier in WvW we get Warrier's Cunning, a brand new trait that assigns Warrior to the role of Anti-Barrier Specialist, which may or may not be actually taken by the players at the cost of the trade-off of either Strength, Defense or one Elite Specialization, each being essential for the now prevailing builds. I am not certain if the offensive capability offered by Tactics is worth such a trade-off.

2. The reduction in Stability stacks of Guardian's 'Stand Your Ground!' previously announced is cancelled. On the other hand, we have the practicality of one of the secondary sources of group Stability, Inspiring Reinforcement, improved (though hardly a 'buff', I'd say). Maybe also improvement for other group Stability of other professions as well, such as Warrior's Warhorn (Charge) and Tempest's Overloading Earth?

[Flandre.2870]

xxxxxxxxxx

[Suraci.1642]

Awesome rework on ranger sword, have been waiting for this for a long time, interesting changes to Death Magic as well, I have different ways to build my necro now, overall everything is good, but can we atleast keep Holographic Shockwave 600 range in PvE only? and 300 in PvP and WvW, It would be a big shame to not see the skill as it always used to be, Holographic Shockwave is a beautiful skill and many people love holo for it, Its completely reasonable to nerf this skill against human players, but for open world PvE holosmith is honestly not really that good and I think keeping the skill in its former glory wouldnt hurt anyone, holosmith would provide better cc to help allies against large group of monsters.

[Nexxus.5347]

Nerfing the scourge just gives me another reason to join the WoW classic exodus bandwagon... Everyone can share alacrity... everyone has barriers... what was the point of the elite if you just give it to the rest of the professions.... RIP Scourges... RIP GW2... no more money for GEMS from me.

[Zahrak.6382]

All nerfs on this patch are well deserved. Everyone saying otherwise are just defending their mains. Git gud and adapt.

Glad Anet is starting to put PoF specs on the same line with other specializations.More work is needed though.

[cobbah.3102]

Hmmm read and reread this but still cannot see the delete stealth ,was this missed unintentionally?? or do they really not give a kitten about the game , hmm answered my own query sighh.

[Marxx.5021]

@Flandre.2870 said:Don't go through with the scourge changes or this game will die

I don't remember they have ever changed something already announced. Blood sage will die in PvP.Imagine no F4 fear to help with reviving / interrupting. No F5 to run to a to team member and give it barrier. No self sustain support by shade skills when reposition.

[Xervite.5493]

And dragonhunter bow gets ignored yet again :/

[RedShark.9548]

Love the warrior changes, big buffs to my worker warrior <3

The only thing im missing is the adrenalin gain from warhorn, since it has been removed from shouts, why also from warhorn?And i still dont like the 120 concentration, id much more prefer the 20% cooldownreduction.

The rest looks awesome, just need to see actuall numbers for heals and barrier gains etc.

[Catchyfx.5768]

Elementalist-well I call it quality of life changes.Nothing big. like that.

Engineer-Well holo is not going to accidentaly knock down other ppl while fighting one so its good for me.And buff to scrapper party wide.Love this.

Guardian-Crippling guard monopoly in keeping party alive. Still be great but not that strong. Sword changes and Stoic Demeanor looks cool.

Mesmer-well not much here. I hope chrono will get something not gamebreaking that will make it little bit more fun.

Necromancer- Here Im curious how will Scourges be working in and outside of WvW. Deathmagic looks pretty cool on "paper".Overall downed AoE corrupt and condi preasure which is good.

Ranger-not playing so no comment

Revenant-Well is it enough to make Jalis and Mallyx on par with Shiro? We will see. Hammer nerf is perfect(no much change here).Forced Engagement well If hit it could be pretty strong right now. IR thaaanks, CD and energy improvements. TY devs.

teef- same as petpewpew

warrior-Im afraid of this

Leg Specialist: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now also grants a 7% damage bonus against foes suffering from a movement-impairing condition. The cooldown on this trait is now calculated per target.+Warrior's Cunning: This new trait increases damage by 25% against foes with health above 90%. Additionally, it increases damage by 50% against foes that have barrier. These bonuses do not stack.+RampageI think new meme is created :D Warrior even before have ability to 1shot or 2 shot ppl. this will be just another lvl:D

But maybe im wrong.We will see.Great patch!

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

To people that comment here asking for buffs for whatever reasons:Think twice before posting, because it seems like you only care about yourself. What will change if they "buff DH"? How will it affect other classes? What will happen if they nerf current overperforming speces, will it be overperforming aswell after buffs? What kind of changes you want? etc. etc. Guys, really, start using brain. Knowing you, you want enough big buffs to compete with powercreeped classes, which is not healthy for the game in the long run.To ArenaNet:What are elite specializations to you? What kind of role each specialization should focus on the most?Like Thief elite specializations, what are they supposed to be in the long run? It looks to me like both DD and DE are both made for "offence", can you make them fill a specific role? Why the only counter to stealth, "revealed", have it's own counter via Shadow Meld?What about Engineer specializations? If you want Scrapper to be "support", why buffing damage on hammer instead of increasing it's defences/support capabilities? If you want Holosmith to be "offence", why it still have access to survivability near that of a support spec? etc. etc.About balance:Changes to core elementalist skills (SoA, GoR, etc) are overall good in long run, still I don't think I've seen even once someone with Glyph of Renewal. Are you sure about Imbued Melodies though? There is something called "Fresh Air", so if I'm not mistaken, this can be pretty much uphold 24/7. Removal of "autocast Lesser Sand Squall" was rather bad IMO, after all it saved Ele from time to time(very rarely though).Unnecessary buffs to weapon skills on hammer Scrapper, it's "support" spec(atleast that's how it feels to me). Nerfs to Holosmith are far from "enough", still it'll have crazy sustain and damage, there could be nerf to Holo Leap by reducing dmg and increasing cd a bit. Rest of changes seems "ok".The guardian changes look okay, though I still think that access to additional 15 "utility" skills via Tomes without penalty is a bit too much for elite spec.Mesmer changes look sweet.Increased number of targets on Shade skills is a nono in WvW, it can even be 20 for NPC's, but 5 on players? Very bad change, promoting stacking and killing even more servers. Good change on Oppressive Collapse, no skill should be allowed to do something like that.(Yes my dear players, it shouldn't be allowed). Rest of changes seems okay, though will need to run some tests on Death Magic when it'll go live.Change to LB autoattack won't do much in the long run, the amount of stackable dmg% from skills, traits, etc. is still too much. Rapid Fire could get some shaves here and there and it would be nice if Barrage would respect LoS or it would have reduced damage by 33% if it ignores LoS. You could also remove "Evade" from autoattack chain on GS, IMO no AA should have any kind of iFrames, be it invuln or evade. The rest of changes look good.Revenant hammer skills will still do a lot of damage(far too much) thanks to dmg% and stacking boons. CoR need even lower damage and longer cooldown (10k+ spike on like 4s cd? No? Same goes for Phase Smash damage wise?). Beside that, all of hammer skills need animation rework atleast(barely visible or not visible at all) and damage reduction aswell. Red warning rectangle isn't enough in big fights. Rest of changes look good.Expected nerfs to condi Thief, not buffs, beside that, looks like good changes.The warrior changes are... Well, for sure I won't fight any warriors in 1v1, not interested in fighting unkillable tanks that hit like a truck. I wonder if someone will come up with "heal warrior", looks pretty possible.

[Konrad Curze.5130]

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:We're also reducing scepter damage and increasing sword damage in PvE as the best melee damage option should not be a ranged weapon.

• Orb of Wrath: Reduced damage by 10% in PvE only.

Im not even sure what this tries to address. was scepter guardian doing too much dps? I find that hard to believe. is this just a philosophical change to make a melee weapon "better" than a ranged one? In that case let me tell you that all you have achieved is an epic failure.

want me to melee more with guardian? bump its base hp to medium and give me one of those hilariously overtuned sustain traits like Invigorating Precision, Soul Eater, Heat Therapy or Parasitic Contagion, then I might consider going melee with guardian like I do with other classes that can actually stay in melee under pressure without slowly dying

Nerfing his last usable ranged dps weapon (staff and lb still utterly suck for dps, great job, as per usual) wont make me melee more, it'll just make me quit the game, congratulations.

With the myriads and myriads of mediocre-to-useless skills and traits that have been plaguing guardian screaming for a rework for years, you thought that this was the most productive use of your time, ANet? Really?

• Zealot's Defense: Increased PvE damage by 20%.

It'd have been much better if you simply removed the root and increased the speed of projectiles. That's the issue with sword, compounded with the above, that guardian has the lowest hp pool and zero good sustain traits that dont cost you half of your damage , which makes meleeing undesirable compared to range in OW.

A dps buff to sword is cool but largely unneeded, too bad its on a whooping 15s cooldown and we cant trait for it because the sword trait is in the radiance line, which basically guarantees it'll never be picked because there are only 3 things sure in life: death, taxes, and that power guardian goes radiance 333 and nothing else, ever, ever, ever if you want to do any dps at all.

as for the rest of changes.....good golly. ANet please, outsource balancing to another company

[miriforst.1290]

Just so you know. Warriors cunning is essentially "50% more damage against scrappers". Thank you for impact savant. Such a lovely mandatory trait. Well worth giving up health for i would say. And you know actual good traits like rapid regen and adaptive armor.

[Zetsuei.8942]

As others have said I really don't understand the shade change. We're the only profession who has to choose if we want to be strong at range or strong at melee, while being weaker to one of those as a trade off. No other profession has restrictions like this. This also makes for yet another clunky mechanic being attached to Scourge. If shades are such a problem I would rather see something else, not making the class horrible to play. Also lets not forget Scourge F1 abilities already have a invisible 0.25 cast time. Now we have to dance on our shades AND have a cast time on those abilities.

I always welcome balance changes but you're about to make Scourge one of he most unfun, frustrating classes to play and its not because of nerfs, just horrible restrictions being added.

[Virdo.1540]

Love the changes of the necros incoming <3btw have u maybe thought about nerfing maul from the Rangers?Cuz being Stealth, Invuln and doing +20k on a loooow cooldown while being supportive,tanky ,having a massive range and a pet is kinda too much. Maul is too strong for the low cd