Potential Future Balance Changes - PvP

[Arheundel.6451]

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Fire weaver does not use dagger offhand and Lightning flash. It also uses air much less often in fights, so it cannot build up as much swiftness which is then only usable for unpressured movement between points - and rarely for escaping, because you will have to switch to other attunements (most often). Fire weaver is slow, as long as you don't change the build/runes to more mobility and away from fighting capabilities.

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Landahar.5196 said:As a necromancer player ( 30k HP with Carrion Amulet), elementalist can kill me in 1 second.Some mesmer build can does it too. Do you think game is balanced?

My opinion, if ANY character dies in less then 3 second is a proof of unbalanced game

You are 6 years too late to complain about ele...it has been nerfed to irrelevance with only couple of poor man gimmicks left...nerfing those will change absolutely nothing as the class is dead already and should be deleted

Seriously? U sound like mirage players saying their class has been nerfed to uselessness. Weaver is definitely overperforming on some builds just like the rest of the classes are. Stop pretending their weak cuz their obviously far from it.

Actually no, we have FULL right to say this because our damage has been based one ONE TO TWO traits at most. Fireweaver is only relevant because of Sunspot. Fresh Air ele, and Weaver are being held up only becaue of well, Fresh Air.

You tell me what we have left if you hit fresh air and Sunspot. Go ahead. If you say tempest, I'll laugh, because Six out of the Nine classes checks auramancer tempest with their power builds.

All I kno is I've seen many weavers in last few month doing crazy condi burst with equal crazy sustain. No class should be capable of both no matter how much ele's try to pretend the class is still the same as it was in 2017-18. I definitely is not

The problem with fire weaver is they have very easy burning burst combos that have minimal telegraphs, on top of very good sustain with healing, cleansing and evades. The only thing keeping them from being more op is their low mobility. Sunspot can add a lot to their burst with the burning rage trait, but they still have a lot of damage and fire aura uptime without it.

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Is this the kind of feedback the devs need? Players asking for nerfs when they don't even know the build they're up against

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Fire weaver does not use dagger offhand and Lightning flash. It also uses air much less often in fights, so it cannot build up as much swiftness which is then only usable for unpressured movement between points - and rarely for escaping, because you will have to switch to other attunements (most often). Fire weaver is slow, as long as you don't change the build/runes to more mobility and away from fighting capabilities.

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Landahar.5196 said:As a necromancer player ( 30k HP with Carrion Amulet), elementalist can kill me in 1 second.Some mesmer build can does it too. Do you think game is balanced?

My opinion, if ANY character dies in less then 3 second is a proof of unbalanced game

You are 6 years too late to complain about ele...it has been nerfed to irrelevance with only couple of poor man gimmicks left...nerfing those will change absolutely nothing as the class is dead already and should be deleted

Seriously? U sound like mirage players saying their class has been nerfed to uselessness. Weaver is definitely overperforming on some builds just like the rest of the classes are. Stop pretending their weak cuz their obviously far from it.

Actually no, we have FULL right to say this because our damage has been based one ONE TO TWO traits at most. Fireweaver is only relevant because of Sunspot. Fresh Air ele, and Weaver are being held up only becaue of well, Fresh Air.

You tell me what we have left if you hit fresh air and Sunspot. Go ahead. If you say tempest, I'll laugh, because Six out of the Nine classes checks auramancer tempest with their power builds.

All I kno is I've seen many weavers in last few month doing crazy condi burst with equal crazy sustain. No class should be capable of both no matter how much ele's try to pretend the class is still the same as it was in 2017-18. I definitely is not

The problem with fire weaver is they have very easy burning burst combos that have minimal telegraphs, on top of very good sustain with healing, cleansing and evades. The only thing keeping them from being more op is their low mobility. Sunspot can add a lot to their burst with the burning rage trait, but they still have a lot of damage and fire aura uptime without it.

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Is this the kind of feedback the devs need? Players asking for nerfs when they don't even know the build they're up against

Actually when the weaver was buffed few months back sword dagger was used as a option sooo not everyone uses the exact meta build and were u there during my fights to kno their builds? Honestly U are the exact player the devs should ignore basing all u spout on assumptions at best. Ur exactly the player who will never look past thier class and admit broken shit about it, there u go a assumption from me :) guess its teue

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Fire weaver does not use dagger offhand and Lightning flash. It also uses air much less often in fights, so it cannot build up as much swiftness which is then only usable for unpressured movement between points - and rarely for escaping, because you will have to switch to other attunements (most often). Fire weaver is slow, as long as you don't change the build/runes to more mobility and away from fighting capabilities.

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Landahar.5196 said:As a necromancer player ( 30k HP with Carrion Amulet), elementalist can kill me in 1 second.Some mesmer build can does it too. Do you think game is balanced?

My opinion, if ANY character dies in less then 3 second is a proof of unbalanced game

You are 6 years too late to complain about ele...it has been nerfed to irrelevance with only couple of poor man gimmicks left...nerfing those will change absolutely nothing as the class is dead already and should be deleted

Seriously? U sound like mirage players saying their class has been nerfed to uselessness. Weaver is definitely overperforming on some builds just like the rest of the classes are. Stop pretending their weak cuz their obviously far from it.

Actually no, we have FULL right to say this because our damage has been based one ONE TO TWO traits at most. Fireweaver is only relevant because of Sunspot. Fresh Air ele, and Weaver are being held up only becaue of well, Fresh Air.

You tell me what we have left if you hit fresh air and Sunspot. Go ahead. If you say tempest, I'll laugh, because Six out of the Nine classes checks auramancer tempest with their power builds.

All I kno is I've seen many weavers in last few month doing crazy condi burst with equal crazy sustain. No class should be capable of both no matter how much ele's try to pretend the class is still the same as it was in 2017-18. I definitely is not

The problem with fire weaver is they have very easy burning burst combos that have minimal telegraphs, on top of very good sustain with healing, cleansing and evades. The only thing keeping them from being more op is their low mobility. Sunspot can add a lot to their burst with the burning rage trait, but they still have a lot of damage and fire aura uptime without it.

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Is this the kind of feedback the devs need? Players asking for nerfs when they don't even know the build they're up against

Actually when the weaver was buffed few months back sword dagger was used as a option sooo not everyone uses the exact meta build and were u there during my fights to kno their builds? Honestly U are the exact player the devs should ignore basing all u spout on assumptions at best. Ur exactly the player who will never look past thier class and admit broken kitten about it, there u go a assumption from me :) guess its teueIt's actually kinda pathetic u think people don't notice certain fire weavers bursting them down than using water attunment etc to basically heal up most dps taken while having 4 dodges if the so chose before swapping back for another burst or I'm sry me and other posters I've seen saying same shit imagined it. Ele may have been underperforming in past but fire weaver and some hybrid builds are not. How long are ele's gonna cling to the were weak for?

[Arheundel.6451]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Fire weaver does not use dagger offhand and Lightning flash. It also uses air much less often in fights, so it cannot build up as much swiftness which is then only usable for unpressured movement between points - and rarely for escaping, because you will have to switch to other attunements (most often). Fire weaver is slow, as long as you don't change the build/runes to more mobility and away from fighting capabilities.

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Landahar.5196 said:As a necromancer player ( 30k HP with Carrion Amulet), elementalist can kill me in 1 second.Some mesmer build can does it too. Do you think game is balanced?

My opinion, if ANY character dies in less then 3 second is a proof of unbalanced game

You are 6 years too late to complain about ele...it has been nerfed to irrelevance with only couple of poor man gimmicks left...nerfing those will change absolutely nothing as the class is dead already and should be deleted

Seriously? U sound like mirage players saying their class has been nerfed to uselessness. Weaver is definitely overperforming on some builds just like the rest of the classes are. Stop pretending their weak cuz their obviously far from it.

Actually no, we have FULL right to say this because our damage has been based one ONE TO TWO traits at most. Fireweaver is only relevant because of Sunspot. Fresh Air ele, and Weaver are being held up only becaue of well, Fresh Air.

You tell me what we have left if you hit fresh air and Sunspot. Go ahead. If you say tempest, I'll laugh, because Six out of the Nine classes checks auramancer tempest with their power builds.

All I kno is I've seen many weavers in last few month doing crazy condi burst with equal crazy sustain. No class should be capable of both no matter how much ele's try to pretend the class is still the same as it was in 2017-18. I definitely is not

The problem with fire weaver is they have very easy burning burst combos that have minimal telegraphs, on top of very good sustain with healing, cleansing and evades. The only thing keeping them from being more op is their low mobility. Sunspot can add a lot to their burst with the burning rage trait, but they still have a lot of damage and fire aura uptime without it.

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Is this the kind of feedback the devs need? Players asking for nerfs when they don't even know the build they're up against

Actually when the weaver was buffed few months back sword dagger was used as a option sooo not everyone uses the exact meta build and were u there during my fights to kno their builds? Honestly U are the exact player the devs should ignore basing all u spout on assumptions at best. Ur exactly the player who will never look past thier class and admit broken kitten about it, there u go a assumption from me :) guess its teue

Before firebuffs, they were using mender weaver which 1)had no burst and 2) were still using off hand focus when not playing against golem level players. I don't need to make assumptions...you're a living proof , you have no idea what the build is in front of you therefore you are in no position to give any educated balance suggestion

[Arheundel.6451]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Fire weaver does not use dagger offhand and Lightning flash. It also uses air much less often in fights, so it cannot build up as much swiftness which is then only usable for unpressured movement between points - and rarely for escaping, because you will have to switch to other attunements (most often). Fire weaver is slow, as long as you don't change the build/runes to more mobility and away from fighting capabilities.

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Landahar.5196 said:As a necromancer player ( 30k HP with Carrion Amulet), elementalist can kill me in 1 second.Some mesmer build can does it too. Do you think game is balanced?

My opinion, if ANY character dies in less then 3 second is a proof of unbalanced game

You are 6 years too late to complain about ele...it has been nerfed to irrelevance with only couple of poor man gimmicks left...nerfing those will change absolutely nothing as the class is dead already and should be deleted

Seriously? U sound like mirage players saying their class has been nerfed to uselessness. Weaver is definitely overperforming on some builds just like the rest of the classes are. Stop pretending their weak cuz their obviously far from it.

Actually no, we have FULL right to say this because our damage has been based one ONE TO TWO traits at most. Fireweaver is only relevant because of Sunspot. Fresh Air ele, and Weaver are being held up only becaue of well, Fresh Air.

You tell me what we have left if you hit fresh air and Sunspot. Go ahead. If you say tempest, I'll laugh, because Six out of the Nine classes checks auramancer tempest with their power builds.

All I kno is I've seen many weavers in last few month doing crazy condi burst with equal crazy sustain. No class should be capable of both no matter how much ele's try to pretend the class is still the same as it was in 2017-18. I definitely is not

The problem with fire weaver is they have very easy burning burst combos that have minimal telegraphs, on top of very good sustain with healing, cleansing and evades. The only thing keeping them from being more op is their low mobility. Sunspot can add a lot to their burst with the burning rage trait, but they still have a lot of damage and fire aura uptime without it.

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Is this the kind of feedback the devs need? Players asking for nerfs when they don't even know the build they're up against

Actually when the weaver was buffed few months back sword dagger was used as a option sooo not everyone uses the exact meta build and were u there during my fights to kno their builds? Honestly U are the exact player the devs should ignore basing all u spout on assumptions at best. Ur exactly the player who will never look past thier class and admit broken kitten about it, there u go a assumption from me :) guess its teueIt's actually kinda pathetic u think people don't notice certain fire weavers bursting them down than using water attunment etc to basically heal up most dps taken while having 4 dodges if the so chose before swapping back for another burst or I'm sry me and other posters I've seen saying same kitten imagined it. Ele may have been underperforming in past but fire weaver and some hybrid builds are not. How long are ele's gonna cling to the were weak for?

You still fail to realize how wrong you are.....ele sword doesn't burst..you go hug him while his stances are up or fail to see the active glyph which clearly hung on above the skill bar...and the build got only a single stunbreak with 2 counts, the other if present is used offensively....you lack the knowledge to beat a decent ele, you don't know the build......again swapping to water won't heal the fire weaver...because it's not treated , they have riptide..which again you believe to count for an automatic water heal

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Fire weaver does not use dagger offhand and Lightning flash. It also uses air much less often in fights, so it cannot build up as much swiftness which is then only usable for unpressured movement between points - and rarely for escaping, because you will have to switch to other attunements (most often). Fire weaver is slow, as long as you don't change the build/runes to more mobility and away from fighting capabilities.

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Landahar.5196 said:As a necromancer player ( 30k HP with Carrion Amulet), elementalist can kill me in 1 second.Some mesmer build can does it too. Do you think game is balanced?

My opinion, if ANY character dies in less then 3 second is a proof of unbalanced game

You are 6 years too late to complain about ele...it has been nerfed to irrelevance with only couple of poor man gimmicks left...nerfing those will change absolutely nothing as the class is dead already and should be deleted

Seriously? U sound like mirage players saying their class has been nerfed to uselessness. Weaver is definitely overperforming on some builds just like the rest of the classes are. Stop pretending their weak cuz their obviously far from it.

Actually no, we have FULL right to say this because our damage has been based one ONE TO TWO traits at most. Fireweaver is only relevant because of Sunspot. Fresh Air ele, and Weaver are being held up only becaue of well, Fresh Air.

You tell me what we have left if you hit fresh air and Sunspot. Go ahead. If you say tempest, I'll laugh, because Six out of the Nine classes checks auramancer tempest with their power builds.

All I kno is I've seen many weavers in last few month doing crazy condi burst with equal crazy sustain. No class should be capable of both no matter how much ele's try to pretend the class is still the same as it was in 2017-18. I definitely is not

The problem with fire weaver is they have very easy burning burst combos that have minimal telegraphs, on top of very good sustain with healing, cleansing and evades. The only thing keeping them from being more op is their low mobility. Sunspot can add a lot to their burst with the burning rage trait, but they still have a lot of damage and fire aura uptime without it.

Low mobility? I always did decent with d4 on elect, sword 2 tele, the teleport utility etc as well as swiftness on element switch which could be basically perma swiftness. They seemed to have above avg mobility to as well but again that's my opinion and I'm not a great ele player so lol

Is this the kind of feedback the devs need? Players asking for nerfs when they don't even know the build they're up against

Actually when the weaver was buffed few months back sword dagger was used as a option sooo not everyone uses the exact meta build and were u there during my fights to kno their builds? Honestly U are the exact player the devs should ignore basing all u spout on assumptions at best. Ur exactly the player who will never look past thier class and admit broken kitten about it, there u go a assumption from me :) guess its teue

Before firebuffs, they were using mender weaver which 1)had no burst and 2) were still using off hand focus when not playing against golem level players. I don't need to make assumptions...you're a living proof ,

you have no idea what the build is in front of you

therefore you are in no position to give any educated balance suggestion

First of all ur going on about not knowing the build in front of me like that's sopose to change anything. If I'm using a toon with good sustain and cleanses getting burst by a weaver in seconds barely keeping enough cleanses going though somtimes u cant than watching the weaver shrug off ur bursts like nothing continually using water atunement etc to the point needing two players to down at that point u dont need to know the exact build ur fighting to kno that if its continually bursting u hard with high sustain throw healing and resistances that it's broken and thirdly the builds I was playing may not be the meta ones played now nor ever that means absolutely nothing because coming from playing basically all other class I noticed fast on the builds I was playing that I had great burst, sustain and mobility and was far from weak. Was I one shotting no but I'd burst groups in mid quite hard than with 2 extra dodges and tele(yeah my prefered elite not meta) I'd port and water attune up way easier than say I could on my so broken godly OP thief lmaoI'm done arguing as it's no different than a scourge saying they were fine in wvw or that burn guards calling other condi builds op or holo's saying shockwave was fine and that holo forge just needs slight shaves or fb saying their not OP in team settings. It's all the same from the community as everything's op until it's their class build In question lol

[saerni.2584]

@RedShark.9548 said:Great changes so far, but can we pls change thief venoms in a way that when i avoid attacks with venoms active, he actually loses those stacks? Right now hes coating his wepon in venom, throws it at me, i dodge or block it and he has tge same amount of coated weapons, yay, its hard to counterplay that kitten

That’s actually how thief venoms work right now. The stacks disappear if you block or evade.

Only time they don’t is when you hit an invulnerable target, afaik.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

First of all ur going on about not knowing the build in front of me like that's sopose to change anything.

That's all I and rest need to know..have a good day

[miguelsil.6324]

@Cal Cohen.2358 said:Hi Everyone,

We’ve done some work on the next balance update and wanted to share some of the potential changes for discussion and feedback. As a reminder, this update is intended to be smaller but more targeted to address major issues within the game mode as we work toward some major changes in a future update. This is also not the full list of changes for the update, just the ones targeted at PvP.

The goal of this update on the competitive side is not to nerf everything that deserves a nerf, but to bring overperforming builds back in line. There are aspects of every meta build (and even some non-meta builds) that could reasonably be nerfed, but since we’re already looking ahead to a major shakeup we’re more focused on balancing around the current power level for now.

In particular we’re looking at:

• Condi Thief
• Holosmith
• Condi Mirage
• Rampage
• Warrior’s Cunning
• Revisiting Staff Thief

General

• Sigil of Agility has been removed from the PvP build panel

This came up again as we were looking at holosmith quickness but is something we’ve been considering for a long time. Quickness in general is something that we’re looking at for the future update, but in the short-term we feel that this sigil is too easily accessible for the power it provides.

Condi ThiefThe main issue we’re looking to address with condi thief is the initial burst potential. Long term there are definitely questions about how this build is applying conditions, but for now we want to push it more toward a grindy build than a bursty one.

• Spider Venom: Reduced poison duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only
• Serpent's Touch: Reduced poison stacks from 2 to 1 in PvP only

HolosmithHolosmith quickness has been a big point of feedback and we’re planning to make some adjustments there. Removing Sigil of Agility was part of this, and we’re also looking at a minor nerf to Kinetic Battery.

This leaves Elixir U. We’re considering a quickness reduction here as well, but are currently leaning toward an interesting change that’s worth discussing. That change being a heavy reduction of the stability granted. The goal of this change is to leave U as the big quickness skill, but also open the door for more counterplay. This would give opportunity to avoid Corona Burst and then CC the holosmith instead of just getting run over by quickness.

• Kinetic Battery: Reduced quickness duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only
• Elixir U: Reduced stability duration from 6 seconds to 1 second in PvP only

Condi MirageWe understand that Mirage Cloak is a big point of contention and we’ve been having discussions internally, but it isn’t something that we’ll be ready to action for this update. As we get closer to our desired solution we’ll start to talk about it more with you all, but in the meantime we’re looking at some more general changes. Primarily toning down clone generation and reducing some damage potential of staff, pushing it more toward a utility kit.

• Illusionary Counter: Reduced the number of clones spawned on block from 2 to 1 in PvP only
• Phantasmal Warlock:
  • Reduced the number of warlocks spawned from 2 to 1 in PvP only.
  • Increased the vulnerability applied per hit from 2 stacks to 4 stacks in PvP only
• Chaos Vortex:
  • Reduced bleed duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only.
  • Reduced burn duration from 2 seconds to 1 second in PvP only.
  • Reduced Torment duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only

RampageRampage has been overperforming since the initial change that brought its cooldown to 90 seconds, and continues to with the cooldown at 120 seconds. Rather than just bumping up the cooldown again, we’re looking to address an underlying issue: hard CC skills also doing large amounts of damage. This is something that we’re looking to do across the board for the future update, and we see Rampage as a good opportunity to see the idea in action.

• Rampage skills have been adjusted as follows
  • Kick: Power coefficient reduced from 1.2 to 0.01 in PvP only
  • Throw Boulder: Power coefficient reduced from 2.0 to 0.01 in PvP only
  • Seismic Leap: Power coefficient reduced from 1.6 to 0.01 in PvP only

Warrior’s CunningWe’re making an adjustment to bring Warrior’s Cunning more in-line with other damage traits.

• Warrior's Cunning: Reduced damage bonus against targets above 90% health from 25% to 7% in PvP only. Reduced damage bonus against targets with barrier from 50% to 10% in PvP only.

Staff ThiefAs mentioned the other day, we want to revisit the recent change to Debilitating Arc for the next balance update. There are still concerns about putting it back to 4 initiative, but it doesn’t really make sense for it to coexist with Vault at 6. We’re reducing the cost to 5 while making some minor adjustments to Quick Pockets and Staff Master.

• Quick Pockets: Reduced initiative gained on weapon swap from 3 to 2 in PvP only
• Staff Master: Reduced endurance gain per initiative spent from 2 to 1 in PvP only
• Debilitating Arc: Reduced initiative cost from 6 to 5 in PvP only

Remember that these changes are not locked down and we still have time to iterate. We look forward to your thoughts and feedback.

-The Systems Team

Cal can we have these changes for wvw too please?

[Shaogin.2679]

I keep checking for a dev comment in this thread besides the original and am seeing nothing. I see the balance patch feedback threads pop up, and notice that they seem kind of pointless. It feels like this is more just an early notice thread really. If no dev ever comes back on this thread to discuss the player's concerns, and the patch goes through as planned regardless of the feedback that is provided, then what is the point of this thread?

[killerito.7629]

Anet I appreciate your commitment but until you understand that in pvp, the only class that needs radical changes is the ranger, the game will remain little followed and abandoned to itself, each class needs a minimum percentage of combos or burst to do so much damage to knock down an opponent, the ranger is the only one that any skill presses without logic, even with a single attack he can put the opponent in difficulty, this causes the fact that if the ranger concentrates his gameplay in escaping his pet will make the average of 3k / dps unblockable with stun annex preventing the opponent every move for the next 30 seconds of combat, to balance everything, we must first make the pet of the ranger a support animal and not to level of a normal player in attack, decreasing his every attack by about 90%, then it is mandatory to balance the stability of the ranger to the level of that of the other specializations, and not 10 15 stacks every 20 seconds, after which you can talk about fixing and making the game more competitive and fun.

I play in top 50 since 2017 and all season reached always plat3/legendary rankBut in the last year I noticed that the ranger is without any doubt superior to any other class without requiring a minimum of skillif you do this, you can start adding pvp modes in single or in minor groups of 2 3

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@Shaogin.2679 said:It feels like this is more just an early notice thread really.

That is precisely what it is, they want people to discuss the changes here to see what needs tweaking/addressing

If no dev ever comes back on this thread to discuss the player's concerns, and the patch goes through as planned regardless of the feedback that is provided, then what is the point of this thread?

We can cross that bridge when we come to it. Give them time to discuss what they are doing; Its been less than two business days since the thread started.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@killerito.7629 said:Anet I appreciate your commitment but until you understand that in pvp, the only class that needs radical changes is the ranger, the game will remain little followed and abandoned to itself, each class needs a minimum percentage of combos or burst to do so much damage to knock down an opponent, the ranger is the only one that any skill presses without logic, even with a single attack he can put the opponent in difficulty, this causes the fact that if the ranger concentrates his gameplay in escaping his pet will make the average of 3k / dps unblockable with stun annex preventing the opponent every move for the next 30 seconds of combat, to balance everything, we must first make the pet of the ranger a support animal and not to level of a normal player in attack, decreasing his every attack by about 90%, then it is mandatory to balance the stability of the ranger to the level of that of the other specializations, and not 10 15 stacks every 20 seconds, after which you can talk about fixing and making the game more competitive and fun.

I play in top 50 since 2017 and all season reached always plat3/legendary rankBut in the last year I noticed that the ranger is without any doubt superior to any other class without requiring a minimum of skillif you do this, you can start adding pvp modes in single or in minor groups of 2 3

You can kite pets. Rock Gazelle hurts but I don't think ranger is as egregious as you're claiming now, especially with the unblockable synergy soulbeast had being trimmed.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

@killerito.7629 said:Anet I appreciate your commitment but until you understand that in pvp, the only class that needs radical changes is the ranger, the game will remain little followed and abandoned to itself, each class needs a minimum percentage of combos or burst to do so much damage to knock down an opponent, the ranger is the only one that any skill presses without logic, even with a single attack he can put the opponent in difficulty, this causes the fact that if the ranger concentrates his gameplay in escaping his pet will make the average of 3k / dps unblockable with stun annex preventing the opponent every move for the next 30 seconds of combat, to balance everything, we must first make the pet of the ranger a support animal and not to level of a normal player in attack, decreasing his every attack by about 90%, then it is mandatory to balance the stability of the ranger to the level of that of the other specializations, and not 10 15 stacks every 20 seconds, after which you can talk about fixing and making the game more competitive and fun.

I play in top 50 since 2017 and all season reached always plat3/legendary rankBut in the last year I noticed that the ranger is without any doubt superior to any other class without requiring a minimum of skillif you do this, you can start adding pvp modes in single or in minor groups of 2 3

You can kite pets. Rock Gazelle hurts but I don't think ranger is as egregious as you're claiming now, especially with the unblockable synergy soulbeast had being trimmed.

Did you notice the part where he claims ranger has access to 15 stacks of stability every 20s ....? No need to tell you more..

[Atronach.8520]

@killerito.7629 said:Anet I appreciate your commitment but until you understand that in pvp, the only class that needs radical changes is the ranger, the game will remain little followed and abandoned to itself, each class needs a minimum percentage of combos or burst to do so much damage to knock down an opponent, the ranger is the only one that any skill presses without logic, even with a single attack he can put the opponent in difficulty, this causes the fact that if the ranger concentrates his gameplay in escaping his pet will make the average of 3k / dps unblockable with stun annex preventing the opponent every move for the next 30 seconds of combat, to balance everything, we must first make the pet of the ranger a support animal and not to level of a normal player in attack, decreasing his every attack by about 90%, then it is mandatory to balance the stability of the ranger to the level of that of the other specializations, and not 10 15 stacks every 20 seconds, after which you can talk about fixing and making the game more competitive and fun.

I play in top 50 since 2017 and all season reached always plat3/legendary rankBut in the last year I noticed that the ranger is without any doubt superior to any other class without requiring a minimum of skillif you do this, you can start adding pvp modes in single or in minor groups of 2 3

Can I have some of that please?

[Iann.3491]

I just hope that someday Renegade will be looked upon in PvP. The bow is just broken (SB2 skill can be evaded by walking...). And now with Agility gone, Comboing Soulcleave with Icerazor's Ire will take 3 sec again...

Edit: I know most ppl dont play Renegade (Herald is way stronger in PvP) and so they dont care; But as a main Bow/Kalla Renegade i'll continue to pursue my dreams!

[killerito.7629]

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:You can kite pets. Rock Gazelle hurts but I don't think ranger is as egregious as you're claiming now, especially with the unblockable synergy soulbeast had being trimmed.

you can't, cuz if you use all your breakstun or dodge on pet or only one too, ranger instakill you with 15k damage with 1 skill, and you miss the part where 3k/dps by pet are 30k every 10sec, my idea is only for introduce new radical changes with new mode, but this is impossible if exist a class that cant die 1v3 and have a pet that can kill heavy class with 1 hit, in a 2v2 or 3v3 all can go ranger and this is not funny i think, in a normal 5v5 match ranger can escape from 5 opponent easy and 1v1 can easy win vs all other class, this is the reason that led the game to die leaving it with less than 300 online in the pvp section

[coro.3176]

@"Twilight Tempest.7584" said:

The problem with Holosmith isn't so much its damage, or its stability up time, or its quickness up time (though these contribute). It's that it doesn't at all play according to its concept of being a high-risk, high reward glass cannon. Overheating should be the "high-risk" part of the equation but it is entirely missing because it is so easy to avoid. Meanwhile, it has some of the best self-healing (as broken down numerous times by people on this forum) courtesy of Heat Therapy, Healing Turret with water field finisher, and high stealth and quickness up-time to execute and cover it. It really, truly has it all: sustained damage--check, burst damage--check, CC--check, boon spam--check, stealth--check, sustain and resustain--check. It's been said that the only thing Holo lacks is long cooldowns.

I don't understand why they keep making adjustments to core skills in order to nerf elite specs when it's clearly the elite spec that enables this gameplay.

Please give photon forge a real trade-off. Either make overheating a real risk that is likely to happen, nerf the sustain from heat therapy, or else nerf the damage + CC available from what is essentially a free kit on the f5 skill.

[Itz Jay.8941]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

General

• Sigil of Agility has been removed from the PvP build panel

^ Not sure if that is a wise idea

right now.

A lot of the balance that we actually do have, is because of this single sigil. This very important single sigil, is what allows certain attacks from certain classes to be viable at all. If this sigil is removed, it will greatly effect the performance of certain build archetypes that utilize slower attacks during bursts, due to the sigil of agility. Some of these attacks that have honed in the balance structures of certain builds, have done so only due to the sigil of agility. I suggest maybe lowering the quickness uptime from 2s to 1s or something like that. But I believe that removing it entirely at this point, may cause more problems than it would solve. It's going to be a situation where, if it is removed, certain build archetypes will still survive because their animation times are juuuust fast enough to remain viable and practical, but certain other build archetypes which were already utilizing slower animation frames, will become too slow to be practical. When that happens, it is likely that the meta will flip flop all over the place again, and builds that were once balanced due to sigil of agility will become unviable, and builds like Holosmith that never needed it to begin with, will prosper in its absence, despite the incoming nerfs to Holo quick uptime.

Condi Thief

• Spider Venom: Reduced poison duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only
• Serpent's Touch: Reduced poison stacks from 2 to 1 in PvP only

^ I believe the nerf to Spider Venom will effect Condi DrD much more than most people are realizing right now. This nerf should be adequate.

Holosmith

• Kinetic Battery: Reduced quickness duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only
• Elixir U: Reduced stability duration from 6 seconds to 1 second in PvP only

^ It's going to need more nerfing than that. This spec's overperformance is currently disgusting. You certainly should nerf the quickness on U as well. But it seriously needs to lose the sustain from Heat Therapy and Forge needs to be put on a 9s CD just like everything else in the game has. If you don't go deep on this one, it's going to keep driving off player base as people are REALLY getting tired of dealing with a class that is both easy & powerful for new users to use AND has a high skill ceiling for veteran players. It's too much.

Condi Mirage

• Illusionary Counter: Reduced the number of clones spawned on block from 2 to 1 in PvP only
• Phantasmal Warlock:
  • Reduced the number of warlocks spawned from 2 to 1 in PvP only.
  • Increased the vulnerability applied per hit from 2 stacks to 4 stacks in PvP only
• Chaos Vortex:
  • Reduced bleed duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only.
  • Reduced burn duration from 2 seconds to 1 second in PvP only.
  • Reduced Torment duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only

^ I believe this all very unnecessary. The only thing it needs, is a shift on some of its damage from clone ambush, onto shatter play. This way the Mirage has to be offensive to deal the same level of damage, rather than be allowed to 100% defense while spamming clone ambush damage.

Rampage

• Rampage skills have been adjusted as follows
  • Kick: Power coefficient reduced from 1.2 to 0.01 in PvP only
  • Throw Boulder: Power coefficient reduced from 2.0 to 0.01 in PvP only
  • Seismic Leap: Power coefficient reduced from 1.6 to 0.01 in PvP only

^ Oh that'll definitely be a strong nerf, maybe a bit too strong.

Warrior’s Cunning

• Warrior's Cunning: Reduced damage bonus against targets above 90% health from 25% to 7% in PvP only. Reduced damage bonus against targets with barrier from 50% to 10% in PvP only.

^ Hrm, I think it would be more reasonable to go maybe: above 90% health is 10% damage, and then when opponent has barrier is 25% damage. Not sure it needs that big of a nerf.

Staff Thief

• Quick Pockets: Reduced initiative gained on weapon swap from 3 to 2 in PvP only
• Staff Master: Reduced endurance gain per initiative spent from 2 to 1 in PvP only
• Debilitating Arc: Reduced initiative cost from 6 to 5 in PvP only

^ The Staff Thieves out there would give better feedback than me, but I think it's mostly important that the animation exploits are fixed.

You mean that

sigil of agility

has removed counterplay from many skills whose big dmg was justified by their slow animation/cast time...in that regard the removal of the sigil is simply a

brilliant idea

P.S Holosmith is tolerable right now and not really that OP compared to the status quo, the reduction in quickness rather than sustain nerf at this point is again a brilliant idea , holosmith is a bruiser and to keep up with the current trends in power dmg/PvE and WvW..their sustain is justified, with the reduction of the dmg and less access to quickness...they become tolerable

No, that's not what I meant at all. What I meant was exactly what I said.

Holosmith is in no way tolerable, as indicated by 99.9% of the community feedback. You are actually the first person I've seen say anything at all to defend it or attempt to water down opinions of its clear overperformance. In fact, I think that "Holosmith being grossly overpowered in its current state" is the first thing I've seen everyone in this forum actually agree on, to the point that Holosmith mains don't even argue against that opinion, but rather show up in-thread and agree with everyone, while honestly trying to help better the flow of suggestions on how to fix it. So we can INB4 this "Holosmith isn't that strong" thing you got going on here.

Also, I was actually the first person to suggest quickness nerfs to Holosmith as a suggestion to bring down its overall DPS factor, as well as its capability to abuse water field blasting/leaping. It was posted in a thread several months ago, which ended up becoming a popular opinion. But what I'm telling you now, is that these quickness nerfs to Holosmith won't be enough to effect its performance vs. other classes/builds if Sigil Of Agility is removed along with the direct Holosmith nerfs. The removal of Sigil Of Agility and the nerfs to Holo Quickness will nerf the Quickness uptime of a Holosmith, but he'll still have quite frequent Quickness application nonetheless. However, the removal of Sigil Of Agility will actually remove MOST if not ALL of the Quickness application for other classes/builds. This will result in an effect where the Holosmith will remain just as proportionately powerful in the next meta, as he is now in this meta. If Sigil Of Agility were to be kept upon this next patch, then the Quickness nerfs to Holo would be adequate to bring Holosmith down to the level of other specs.

Note that I never vouched for or against Sigil Of Agility. I said that: "It might not be a good idea to remove it right now" as in, wait for a better patch to release the removal of the sigil. Cal had already stated that this next patch was going to be sort of a "fit in the quick stuff that is easy to do" kind of thing. Removing the Sigil Of Agility is not going to be a "Quick Fix" kind of thing. It's going to come with significant disproportionate changes & shifts to the existing balance that we have now. It is not going to lower the power creep in equalized balanced ways amongst every class. I believe it would be a better idea to wait for a larger and more organized patch to remove the sigil, one that will be able to compensate for the lopsided varying differences in balance effects that it will make vs. every class individually. IE: Removing Sigil Of Agility isn't a big loss in Quickness uptime for a Holosmith, but it is the only Quickness uptime that a Core Guardian has for his burst at all.

If you still aren't able to "See" what I'm trying to explain here, I'll just say that: You should be careful what you wish for.

The only really good builds that weren't using it were Condition Thief, Fire Weaver, and Condition Mirage.

Not arguing with you, I'd like to see the rune go away myself. I just want to see it happen later, when it won't create a bunch of balance issues when it happens. I think that the game has been being indirectly balanced around the Sigil Of Agility for a lot longer than we've all previously noticed. I believe the removal of the Sigil Of Agility is going to have wonkier effects than any of us are quite identifying at the moment.

What you said here in the bolded is what I mean. Removing the Sigil Of Agility won't effect those builds at all, but it will greatly effect the performance of certain other builds that are only viable to keep up with Condi Thief/Fire Weaver/Condi Mirage due to the Sigil Of Agility. This shows that the removal of the Sigil Of Agility is not lowering creep in a proportional way amongst all classes/builds, but rather removing it has no effect on some class/build performance but greatly effects the performance of others. This works against the idea of "Bringing the power levels and viability of all classes/builds towards the median" and instead begins to push them away from the median because the change creates decline in some build's performances, but doesn't effect other builds at all. Core Guardian again as one example, is currently viewed as counter play against things like the aforementioned classes, but the Core Guardian will likely drop out of viability completely when he's dealing half the DPS on his burst that he is now, after Sigil Of Agility is removed.

Really, the more I discuss this the more it's brought up, the more I realize that removing Sigil Of Agility is going to be effecting the power based builds that are in play right now. When power bursting on swap goes to literally half the DPS that it is now, due to the removal of Sigil Of Agility, in addition to the nerfs being laid down on Holosmith and Rampage, we'll probably be seeing a new condi meta roll in. Power based builds are going to be taking an enormous hit to their damage potentials & practicalities to land the hits on the weapon swap, in addition to rather large trait/utility nerfs. The current condi builds however, are seeing only shaves to their current performance, and Weaver at that, isn't being touched at all.

I'm worried that this is what we'll be looking at:

• Not the balancing of currently dominant power specs, but the falling out of those power specs.
• Fire Weaver side node dominance. Without power builds that are capable of pushing out enough DPS to actually have kill potential 1v1 against Fire Weaver, Fire Weaver will become dominant on side nodes. Then of course condis aren't that threatening to the Weaver. The Fire Weaver is going to be unkillable in 1v1s. Nothing in the game will be able to get it off a node unless the difference in the two player's skill levels is large where, the attacker is a good player and the Weaver is a bad player. The condis of course punished Herald to begin with and now Herald is losing quick uptime = loss in DPS. Rampage was the only way for a Warrior to secure a kill on a good Weaver, which now Rampage is being nerfed damage wise and Warrior is losing quickness uptime to land these kinds of hits to begin with. Holosmith is losing A LOT of quickness uptime to the point that it's not going to be realistic for a Holosmith to push out enough raw DPS to land kill opportunity on a good Fire Weaver. Then of course Staff/Staff is getting gutted. And then all other power specs were already losing to Fire Weaver, except in the case that the players on those specs were just better players than the Fire Weaver. Those specs that were already losing are going to have it even worse when that burst potential on swap is removed when we see Sigil Of Agility go.
• Condi Mirage & Condi Thieves will be the runners up for side node dominance, 2nd only to the Fire Weaver because their condi damage can't provide realistic kill potential vs. a good Weaver. On top of that, Condi Mirage & Condi Thieves will both be seeing some damage shaves. Condi Mirage & Condi Thieves will begin to clearly dominant everything other than Fire Weavers in 1v1 situations, for all of the same reasons already listed above.
• The most annoying and boring part about the above ^ is that those 3 classes won't actually be able to kill each other in side node battles. 9/10 times the fights will result in stalemates or someone just running away if they are losing.
• Scourge will definitely come back with the nerfs to Warrior's Cunning, the lack of power CC play, and with all of the cover condi spam play that is going to begin happening, to create even more condi cover spam play in team fights. Core Necro may become a REAL thing due to its resistance vs. conditions.
• All of the cover condi spam play is going to make Sage FB an undeniable must have MVP in any team comp. In fact, it will more than likely be a great idea to always run two of them, not only for the obvious condi cleanse & other support, but also for those AoE burn stacks amongst all of the condi cover.
• Core War & Spellbreaker after nerfs, Core Guard after Agility is gone, Herald with its condi vulnerability, Holo after nerfs with its condi vulnerability, and Reaper, are going to be completely #$%^ out of luck in a new approaching sheer condi meta. And the nastiest thing here is that if those builds try to stat for more resistance vs. condi, they'll lose too much damage potential to be viable at all. Well Herald could get away with it while using Shao's build but that's about it, and then we'll be seeing a lot of Mallyx in play to add to the condi meta. The other classes can't stray from their current build structures without becoming completely unviable off-meta garbage.
• Power Rangers & Deadeyes on the other hand, will see increased representation due to their extreme ranged to stay away from condi mess to begin with, and the lack of the presence of their normal power based counters.

^ If my forecast is even roughly accurate, that meta is going to kitten everyone off far far worse than the meta we have now. You're talking nothing but messy condi AoE splashing with little to no tell animations, and high power damage ranged all over the place that not many classes/builds in play will even be able to chase. These are the two things that we have by far seen complained about in the forums more than anything else.

I think that Arenanet needs to seriously evaluate the decision to make all of those class nerfs at the same time they want to remove Sigil Of Agility. In my opinion it would be wise to either do the class nerfs as is listed and leave Sigil Of Agility in play, or remove Sigil Of Agility and lighten up on those class nerfs. But removing the sigil at the same time they deal out these heavy handed nerfs, while NOT touching things like Weaver, is going to push condi to the top, which in turns pushes other certain things out, which in turn allows weird things to come in with presence that were not present before. AND YES, the removal of the Sigil Of Agility will effect the game's dynamic every bit as much as it did when Sigils Of Blood and Sigils Of Leeching were removed.

I guess to me, the question is really this, and this question has no right or wrong answer:

Although the removal of Sigil Of Agility may be healthy in the long run, is it worth doing right now? Are players ready to deal with the shifts & consequences for the next 2 or 4 or 6 months until they can be compensated for, through Arenanet's patching schedules?

You've said some stuff in the past trevor but I agree this will likely bring a condi meta. It will be one of the craziest most un-enjoyable metas ever.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@killerito.7629 said:

@Azure The Heartless.3261 said:You can kite pets. Rock Gazelle hurts but I don't think ranger is as egregious as you're claiming now, especially with the unblockable synergy soulbeast had being trimmed.

you can't, cuz if you use all your breakstun or dodge on pet or only one too, ranger instakill you with 15k damage with 1 skill, and you miss the part where 3k/dps by pet are 30k every 10sec, my idea is only for introduce new radical changes with new mode, but this is impossible if exist a class that cant die 1v3 and have a pet that can kill heavy class with 1 hit, in a 2v2 or 3v3 all can go ranger and this is not funny i think, in a normal 5v5 match ranger can escape from 5 opponent easy and 1v1 can easy win vs all other class, this is the reason that led the game to die leaving it with less than 300 online in the pvp section

Ok

[Geriatrics.5823]

Overall the changes and reasoning seem solid. I do think some of the changes are too targeted at specific cases without considering the consequences for others.

Mesmer Staff's clone generation is really only a problem when paired with Mirage's Infinite Horizon. While Staff Mirage is out of line, I'm not sure it's necessary to nerf Phantasmal Warlock which hurts all Mesmers when the damage nerf may be enough on its own.

Debilitating Arc's removal of the animation cancel is probably enough of a nerf due to the aftercast, but if you keep the initiative change to 5 at least update the tooltip with Staff Master to reflect the change (it still says 8 instead of 12 Endurance).

Quick Pockets is barely used - as others have mentioned, it should just not give initiative unless swapping to a DIFFERENT weapon. This is the initiative nerf you should do for Staff/Staff thief, not Debilitating Arc/Quick Pockets' value which have a niche.

Similarly, Staff Master is not the problem on its own. Staff/Staff lets you combine it with Sigil of Energy and Quick Pockets for extra initiative and endurance beyond the norm for the weapon set. Remove the incentive to use two of the same weapon, and the problem mostly goes away. Nerfing this trait would not be necessary and only hurts those who don't stack it with other sources of endurance/initiative like the Acrobatics line.

On that note, if you're removing Sigil of Agility you really should remove Sigil of Energy. It is top-tier for literally every build and has abusive interactions with almost every spec you acknowledge as too strong. Mirage/Holosmith/Daredevil all get significant benefits from the bonus endurance which is already an incredibly strong Sigil effect.

[lucied.7526]

maybe im the weird guy, but im platinium with my core granadier engenier, elixir u stab is what let me fight other specs, specially necros and holos, if you are going to nerf the quickness ok but please dont nerf the stab, it hurts the class in general, and is the only reason i dont play elixir s, if you are going to put stab on 1 sec is like no stab at all thx for asking for feedback

[RedShark.9548]

@saerni.2584 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:Great changes so far, but can we pls change thief venoms in a way that when i avoid attacks with venoms active, he actually loses those stacks? Right now hes coating his wepon in venom, throws it at me, i dodge or block it and he has tge same amount of coated weapons, yay, its hard to counterplay that kitten

That’s actually how thief venoms work right now. The stacks disappear if you block or evade.

Only time they don’t is when you hit an invulnerable target, afaik.

They do? Mhh my bad, was under the impression they didnt, probably because stealth definately works like that. When i manage to anticipate the backstab and dodge or block it i get the dodge/block note but thief is still stealthed

[mortrialus.3062]

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

General

• Sigil of Agility has been removed from the PvP build panel

^ Not sure if that is a wise idea

right now.

A lot of the balance that we actually do have, is because of this single sigil. This very important single sigil, is what allows certain attacks from certain classes to be viable at all. If this sigil is removed, it will greatly effect the performance of certain build archetypes that utilize slower attacks during bursts, due to the sigil of agility. Some of these attacks that have honed in the balance structures of certain builds, have done so only due to the sigil of agility. I suggest maybe lowering the quickness uptime from 2s to 1s or something like that. But I believe that removing it entirely at this point, may cause more problems than it would solve. It's going to be a situation where, if it is removed, certain build archetypes will still survive because their animation times are juuuust fast enough to remain viable and practical, but certain other build archetypes which were already utilizing slower animation frames, will become too slow to be practical. When that happens, it is likely that the meta will flip flop all over the place again, and builds that were once balanced due to sigil of agility will become unviable, and builds like Holosmith that never needed it to begin with, will prosper in its absence, despite the incoming nerfs to Holo quick uptime.

Condi Thief

• Spider Venom: Reduced poison duration from 6 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only
• Serpent's Touch: Reduced poison stacks from 2 to 1 in PvP only

^ I believe the nerf to Spider Venom will effect Condi DrD much more than most people are realizing right now. This nerf should be adequate.

Holosmith

• Kinetic Battery: Reduced quickness duration from 5 seconds to 3 seconds in PvP only
• Elixir U: Reduced stability duration from 6 seconds to 1 second in PvP only

^ It's going to need more nerfing than that. This spec's overperformance is currently disgusting. You certainly should nerf the quickness on U as well. But it seriously needs to lose the sustain from Heat Therapy and Forge needs to be put on a 9s CD just like everything else in the game has. If you don't go deep on this one, it's going to keep driving off player base as people are REALLY getting tired of dealing with a class that is both easy & powerful for new users to use AND has a high skill ceiling for veteran players. It's too much.

Condi Mirage

• Illusionary Counter: Reduced the number of clones spawned on block from 2 to 1 in PvP only
• Phantasmal Warlock:
  • Reduced the number of warlocks spawned from 2 to 1 in PvP only.
  • Increased the vulnerability applied per hit from 2 stacks to 4 stacks in PvP only
• Chaos Vortex:
  • Reduced bleed duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only.
  • Reduced burn duration from 2 seconds to 1 second in PvP only.
  • Reduced Torment duration from 8 seconds to 4 seconds in PvP only

^ I believe this all very unnecessary. The only thing it needs, is a shift on some of its damage from clone ambush, onto shatter play. This way the Mirage has to be offensive to deal the same level of damage, rather than be allowed to 100% defense while spamming clone ambush damage.

Rampage

• Rampage skills have been adjusted as follows
  • Kick: Power coefficient reduced from 1.2 to 0.01 in PvP only
  • Throw Boulder: Power coefficient reduced from 2.0 to 0.01 in PvP only
  • Seismic Leap: Power coefficient reduced from 1.6 to 0.01 in PvP only

^ Oh that'll definitely be a strong nerf, maybe a bit too strong.

Warrior’s Cunning

• Warrior's Cunning: Reduced damage bonus against targets above 90% health from 25% to 7% in PvP only. Reduced damage bonus against targets with barrier from 50% to 10% in PvP only.

^ Hrm, I think it would be more reasonable to go maybe: above 90% health is 10% damage, and then when opponent has barrier is 25% damage. Not sure it needs that big of a nerf.

Staff Thief

• Quick Pockets: Reduced initiative gained on weapon swap from 3 to 2 in PvP only
• Staff Master: Reduced endurance gain per initiative spent from 2 to 1 in PvP only
• Debilitating Arc: Reduced initiative cost from 6 to 5 in PvP only

^ The Staff Thieves out there would give better feedback than me, but I think it's mostly important that the animation exploits are fixed.

You mean that

sigil of agility

has removed counterplay from many skills whose big dmg was justified by their slow animation/cast time...in that regard the removal of the sigil is simply a

brilliant idea

P.S Holosmith is tolerable right now and not really that OP compared to the status quo, the reduction in quickness rather than sustain nerf at this point is again a brilliant idea , holosmith is a bruiser and to keep up with the current trends in power dmg/PvE and WvW..their sustain is justified, with the reduction of the dmg and less access to quickness...they become tolerable

No, that's not what I meant at all. What I meant was exactly what I said.

Holosmith is in no way tolerable, as indicated by 99.9% of the community feedback. You are actually the first person I've seen say anything at all to defend it or attempt to water down opinions of its clear overperformance. In fact, I think that "Holosmith being grossly overpowered in its current state" is the first thing I've seen everyone in this forum actually agree on, to the point that Holosmith mains don't even argue against that opinion, but rather show up in-thread and agree with everyone, while honestly trying to help better the flow of suggestions on how to fix it. So we can INB4 this "Holosmith isn't that strong" thing you got going on here.

Also, I was actually the first person to suggest quickness nerfs to Holosmith as a suggestion to bring down its overall DPS factor, as well as its capability to abuse water field blasting/leaping. It was posted in a thread several months ago, which ended up becoming a popular opinion. But what I'm telling you now, is that these quickness nerfs to Holosmith won't be enough to effect its performance vs. other classes/builds if Sigil Of Agility is removed along with the direct Holosmith nerfs. The removal of Sigil Of Agility and the nerfs to Holo Quickness will nerf the Quickness uptime of a Holosmith, but he'll still have quite frequent Quickness application nonetheless. However, the removal of Sigil Of Agility will actually remove MOST if not ALL of the Quickness application for other classes/builds. This will result in an effect where the Holosmith will remain just as proportionately powerful in the next meta, as he is now in this meta. If Sigil Of Agility were to be kept upon this next patch, then the Quickness nerfs to Holo would be adequate to bring Holosmith down to the level of other specs.

Note that I never vouched for or against Sigil Of Agility. I said that: "It might not be a good idea to remove it right now" as in, wait for a better patch to release the removal of the sigil. Cal had already stated that this next patch was going to be sort of a "fit in the quick stuff that is easy to do" kind of thing. Removing the Sigil Of Agility is not going to be a "Quick Fix" kind of thing. It's going to come with significant disproportionate changes & shifts to the existing balance that we have now. It is not going to lower the power creep in equalized balanced ways amongst every class. I believe it would be a better idea to wait for a larger and more organized patch to remove the sigil, one that will be able to compensate for the lopsided varying differences in balance effects that it will make vs. every class individually. IE: Removing Sigil Of Agility isn't a big loss in Quickness uptime for a Holosmith, but it is the only Quickness uptime that a Core Guardian has for his burst at all.

If you still aren't able to "See" what I'm trying to explain here, I'll just say that: You should be careful what you wish for.

The only really good builds that weren't using it were Condition Thief, Fire Weaver, and Condition Mirage.

Not arguing with you, I'd like to see the rune go away myself. I just want to see it happen later, when it won't create a bunch of balance issues when it happens. I think that the game has been being indirectly balanced around the Sigil Of Agility for a lot longer than we've all previously noticed. I believe the removal of the Sigil Of Agility is going to have wonkier effects than any of us are quite identifying at the moment.

What you said here in the bolded is what I mean. Removing the Sigil Of Agility won't effect those builds at all, but it will greatly effect the performance of certain other builds that are only viable to keep up with Condi Thief/Fire Weaver/Condi Mirage due to the Sigil Of Agility. This shows that the removal of the Sigil Of Agility is not lowering creep in a proportional way amongst all classes/builds, but rather removing it has no effect on some class/build performance but greatly effects the performance of others. This works against the idea of "Bringing the power levels and viability of all classes/builds towards the median" and instead begins to push them away from the median because the change creates decline in some build's performances, but doesn't effect other builds at all. Core Guardian again as one example, is currently viewed as counter play against things like the aforementioned classes, but the Core Guardian will likely drop out of viability completely when he's dealing half the DPS on his burst that he is now, after Sigil Of Agility is removed.

Really, the more I discuss this the more it's brought up, the more I realize that removing Sigil Of Agility is going to be effecting the power based builds that are in play right now. When power bursting on swap goes to literally half the DPS that it is now, due to the removal of Sigil Of Agility, in addition to the nerfs being laid down on Holosmith and Rampage, we'll probably be seeing a new condi meta roll in. Power based builds are going to be taking an enormous hit to their damage potentials & practicalities to land the hits on the weapon swap, in addition to rather large trait/utility nerfs. The current condi builds however, are seeing only shaves to their current performance, and Weaver at that, isn't being touched at all.

I'm worried that this is what we'll be looking at:

• Not the balancing of currently dominant power specs, but the falling out of those power specs.
• Fire Weaver side node dominance. Without power builds that are capable of pushing out enough DPS to actually have kill potential 1v1 against Fire Weaver, Fire Weaver will become dominant on side nodes. Then of course condis aren't that threatening to the Weaver. The Fire Weaver is going to be unkillable in 1v1s. Nothing in the game will be able to get it off a node unless the difference in the two player's skill levels is large where, the attacker is a good player and the Weaver is a bad player. The condis of course punished Herald to begin with and now Herald is losing quick uptime = loss in DPS. Rampage was the only way for a Warrior to secure a kill on a good Weaver, which now Rampage is being nerfed damage wise and Warrior is losing quickness uptime to land these kinds of hits to begin with. Holosmith is losing A LOT of quickness uptime to the point that it's not going to be realistic for a Holosmith to push out enough raw DPS to land kill opportunity on a good Fire Weaver. Then of course Staff/Staff is getting gutted. And then all other power specs were already losing to Fire Weaver, except in the case that the players on those specs were just better players than the Fire Weaver. Those specs that were already losing are going to have it even worse when that burst potential on swap is removed when we see Sigil Of Agility go.
• Condi Mirage & Condi Thieves will be the runners up for side node dominance, 2nd only to the Fire Weaver because their condi damage can't provide realistic kill potential vs. a good Weaver. On top of that, Condi Mirage & Condi Thieves will both be seeing some damage shaves. Condi Mirage & Condi Thieves will begin to clearly dominant everything other than Fire Weavers in 1v1 situations, for all of the same reasons already listed above.
• The most annoying and boring part about the above ^ is that those 3 classes won't actually be able to kill each other in side node battles. 9/10 times the fights will result in stalemates or someone just running away if they are losing.
• Scourge will definitely come back with the nerfs to Warrior's Cunning, the lack of power CC play, and with all of the cover condi spam play that is going to begin happening, to create even more condi cover spam play in team fights. Core Necro may become a REAL thing due to its resistance vs. conditions.
• All of the cover condi spam play is going to make Sage FB an undeniable must have MVP in any team comp. In fact, it will more than likely be a great idea to always run two of them, not only for the obvious condi cleanse & other support, but also for those AoE burn stacks amongst all of the condi cover.
• Core War & Spellbreaker after nerfs, Core Guard after Agility is gone, Herald with its condi vulnerability, Holo after nerfs with its condi vulnerability, and Reaper, are going to be completely #$%^ out of luck in a new approaching sheer condi meta. And the nastiest thing here is that if those builds try to stat for more resistance vs. condi, they'll lose too much damage potential to be viable at all. Well Herald could get away with it while using Shao's build but that's about it, and then we'll be seeing a lot of Mallyx in play to add to the condi meta. The other classes can't stray from their current build structures without becoming completely unviable off-meta garbage.
• Power Rangers & Deadeyes on the other hand, will see increased representation due to their extreme ranged to stay away from condi mess to begin with, and the lack of the presence of their normal power based counters.

^ If my forecast is even roughly accurate, that meta is going to kitten everyone off far far worse than the meta we have now. You're talking nothing but messy condi AoE splashing with little to no tell animations, and high power damage ranged all over the place that not many classes/builds in play will even be able to chase. These are the two things that we have by far seen complained about in the forums more than anything else.

I think that Arenanet needs to seriously evaluate the decision to make all of those class nerfs at the same time they want to remove Sigil Of Agility. In my opinion it would be wise to either do the class nerfs as is listed and leave Sigil Of Agility in play, or remove Sigil Of Agility and lighten up on those class nerfs. But removing the sigil at the same time they deal out these heavy handed nerfs, while NOT touching things like Weaver, is going to push condi to the top, which in turns pushes other certain things out, which in turn allows weird things to come in with presence that were not present before. AND YES, the removal of the Sigil Of Agility will effect the game's dynamic every bit as much as it did when Sigils Of Blood and Sigils Of Leeching were removed.

I guess to me, the question is really this, and this question has no right or wrong answer:

Although the removal of Sigil Of Agility may be healthy in the long run, is it worth doing right now? Are players ready to deal with the shifts & consequences for the next 2 or 4 or 6 months until they can be compensated for, through Arenanet's patching schedules?

I think you underestimate the Mirage Staff Ambush nerf. That's going to be huge. A massive, massive hit to Mirage's capacity to soften a target up before going in for the kill with Pistol. I think you'll see a very noticeable migration away from staff and onto power gs.

Fire Weaver is definitely the big winner if these notes go through. It's two biggest competitors both suffered serious nerfs and it saw none. If it doesn't have claim to being the best build for 1v1s before, it probably does after these changes.

Condition thief will be strong but the patch does shave it's damage a bit. While sword 2+ dodge combo isn't fixed and the way it gets a lot of it's condition damage is unhealthy in general, steal going down from an 8k poison bomb down to a 4k actually feels merciful.

Holosmith remains the best build for ranked. I think with Holosmith there is just so much fundamentally power crept about Holo and engineer, it that you can make a clear argument for nerfing. Forge Auto damage, Forge Auto range, Holo leap cooldown, heat therapy, Vent Exhaust heat reduction nerf, add self revealed on Prime Light Beam, Toss Elixir S duration cut down to 2s, Healing Turret, Purity of Purpose base duration nerf, anti corrosion playing ICD, on top of Elixir U and Kinetic Battery.

That's how much is out of line on Holosmith and you can do probably 75% of those changes all at once and that would take Holosmith down from being the best ranked build down to just good. Thats how ridiculously the two most popular Holosmith builds are.

And the nerfs they propose just miss completely miss the mark. Holosmith will still be the best build for ranked if you push them onto Gadgeteer and Rocket Boots. Holosmith will still be the best build for ranked if you push them off Elixir U into another defensive Utility and onto the Adrenal Implant trait. Holosmith cared less about agility sigil than other builds to the point where a lot of rifle holos didn't even use that sigil.

You look at the Mirage 50% Chaos Vortex Nerf and the Warrior tactics Nerfs and the Nerfs to Rampage? Those are real nerfs that are going to have serious ramifications on Spellbreaker and Condi Mirage capabilities going forward.

The only change you're going to see for Holosmith you've pushed them from 2 components of the build onto two other options that are almost just as good and might lose them 1 game out of 20 that they would have won pre-nerf. Or you push them more into Prot Holo.

I really do have to wonder how many winning MAT teams, and God's of PvP either have to win the title on said build or swap to that build for Arenanet to actually do something substantive to it. It's cliche to say, but it really does feel like there's someone on the balance who feels like Holosmith is their baby, that the player base pointing out it's the best ranked carry build by far, that it's great in ATs too, he just doesn't believe them. He thinks "Holo is fine L2P" and that's why Holo has gone an entire year without an actual serious nerf the way you see other classes get nerfed.

Condi Weaver will go up. Condi Daredevil will weather the minor nerfs. Maybe drop Spider Venom at the most extreme.

Warriors of all types will noticably drop pretty hard. Condition Mirage will largely migrate to Power and a small minority might drop staff for axe. Nothing else is going to change.

[Marxx.5021]

Holosmith seems again to come out with a white card. Proposed changes wont make much of a difference. With the nerfs to the other overperforming traits it may just dominate everything alone when this goes live.