Preliminary feedback on the mega balance patch (WvW perspective)

[Adzekul.3104]

First impressions:1) Larger groups always seem to win, even with careful selection of Squad classes + gear. Not sure if this is intended (hopefully not) and it is difficult to know if this will change as the meta evolves. I will say that it feels frustrating that half-blobs have zero chance. And so small-scale play only seems to work versus other groups of comparable sizes, and Zone blobs will always fancy their chances versus not-full squads.2) There is a hilarious bug with the new warclaw implementation. Not going to spoil it just yet though.3) Killing tower and keep lords is horribly slow and their health pools probably need to be reduced. If you want to defend a tower or keep, all you have to do as a defending team is show up and scale up the fight, so the attackers have practically no chance. This is an effect of the damage nerf, of course, and it seems to have been overlooked.4) The speed nerf and evade nerf to warclaw feels bad. Without the overall damage nerf to classes, I would have been afraid that this would just empower ganking. But the damage nerf helps to lessen the blow. In the end, it still feels bad though. The area buff that gives a boost to unmounted people feels good, but I cannot imagine a significant portion of the population (enough to justify the time and effort to make this change) still lacks the warclaw. Maybe people are desperate to hope for more population to join the game mode, but I fear the price of the new reward track is going to undo any good will from the community.5) The price of the new reward track should allow me to repeat it some number of times. I have suggested a max of 5 or 10 in another thread. The rewards are not interesting except the 7 clovers. Everything else is beneath notice.6) The armour skins are an interesting addition, in that you get one per week at the bronze chest. Not sure this was the best implementation, because those of us who completed Diamond on the weekend are behind the curve on collecting them (first world problem? Maybe, but it feels bad). The fact that the pieces are exotic is fine, but I wonder what I will do with them 18+ weeks from now. This may have been designed to gear up new players faster, but it still takes 6 weeks. Can they be vendored for gold?

Please add your feedback, constructively.

[Cyninja.2954]

Overall the mood was quite positive in my WvW guild. We have a new setup to run, but will only be able to try it tomorrow since we don't run on Tuesdays (though many are on atm). The reduction in damage is appreciated, the lack of condi re-balance is noticeable (making condis overperform atm).

Most players have not adapted their builds and the general map chat in WvW suggests pure chaos. Most players in squads run outdated builds and try to make ends meet. Only most dedicated guilds are running new setups and even those setups are not set in stone or final. This reminds a lot of HoT and PoF launch. For any open minded player, it's heaven.

Some patch issues are present, for example golems being sped up by the warclaw mount. The are speed is a nice way of addressing the issue for new players and even open up some tactical approaches for guilds/squads. Keep some players mounted for speed, while being able to apply boons while running.

Overall it seem blasting correct fields might become more important again. We shall see.

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

The warclaw aura shouldn't apply to Golems probably...unless ANET really wants to increase Karma training.

D:

[Wraistlin.6072]

My initial thought is the power reduction has worked to make fights last longer. I've quickly participated in a few roamer fights after patch and there wasn't instant downing which was great. Made the fighting much more interesting than just spamming all the big instant dmg skills as most roamers do. So far I'm enjoying the change.

The tower and keep lord health though......that is amusing and was certainly missed, maybe they intended them to be raid boss fights :)

I also think this will be good for new players, or old vets who haven't played in years. The fact that the fights last longer give more opportunity to learn counterplay. Hard to do when the game evolved to instant downing when caught unaware.

[XenesisII.1540]

I see some rangers crying about one pet and longbow nerfs, when I've also seen 12k worldly impact and maul still, and barrage hits near 3k per while not needing los.Burning still hitting for near 5k per tick, load up on it.Mirage probably done(yay everyone rejoice!), mirage cloak or infinite horizon should have been nerfed in a different way, forcing a spec to play with 1 dodge is madness.

[Dawdler.8521]

@Wraistlin.6072 said:The tower and keep lord health though......that is amusing and was certainly missed, maybe they intended them to be raid boss fights :)Or maybe people are just shit at dps. I've noticed zero difference killing tower lords (or guards) at least, didnt engage a keep lord.

Also I find it funny people are complaining about the dodge and speed nerfs on the mount, when that was the primary and very loud complaints before, to the point where people claim it's killed the game. Now I guess Anet double killed the game.

What's next, people complaining that the mounts have too little hp, lol (did anyone notice?)?

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

well, my first impressions of the patch are quite positive. Fights against larger numbers are easier to pull off, fights are taking longer and firebrands get hit with the humility hammer. So that's good.

Meta will change a lot, so we will have to see how it turns out.

A lot more people would have joined wvw if the track was not so expensive. 200g? For a skin? A useless pass? Some scraps? Yeah - not really going to pull numbers. Oh well.

[Luranni.9470]

Some random shiz so far:

Stolen ele skill "ice shard spike" (thief) has some serious damage multiplier issues, I have been hitting upto 12k with this and an 8k was in celestial against a target with boonsRanger maul: 15k hit on celestial with protection up and no vulnerabilityWarclaw maul: Is critting for a lot of damage on impact, I've hit between 6k-10k on this and pre-patch this didnt happen for me (although I had been hit by a warrior using mount 1 for 8k pre-patch)

[DeceiverX.8361]

@"Luranni.9470" said:Some random kitten so far:

Stolen ele skill "ice shard spike" (thief) has some serious damage multiplier issues, I have been hitting upto 12k with this and an 8k was in celestial against a target with boonsRanger maul: 15k hit on celestial with protection up and no vulnerabilityWarclaw maul: Is critting for a lot of damage on impact, I've hit between 6k-10k on this and pre-patch this didnt happen for me (although I had been hit by a warrior using mount 1 for 8k pre-patch)

Currently it's the hardest-hitting skill on thief and the best way to play it; its coefficient was doubled game-wide to be about 80% of an old backstab, and it deals more damage than everything else on the class by a pretty significant margin, and for no initiative.

[Gwaihir.1745]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:Larger groups usually win unless it's a smaller guild vs pugsThe speed nerf was unnecessaryThe reward trak includes 2 week bastion pass 10 ticket scraps so 30g and many other things so it can't be repeatable.The map isn't overrun by pver due to the 200g pricetag but it ends up being 90g for the mount/bl key/arm pass if you place value on clovers

Most wvw players are so overstocked on clovers they have no value. Ive made 6 legendarys and working on armour now and I have well over a stack.

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@"Luranni.9470" said:Some random kitten so far:

Stolen ele skill "ice shard spike" (thief) has some serious damage multiplier issues, I have been hitting upto 12k with this and an 8k was in celestial against a target with boonsRanger maul: 15k hit on celestial with protection up and no vulnerabilityWarclaw maul: Is critting for a lot of damage on impact, I've hit between 6k-10k on this and pre-patch this didnt happen for me (although I had been hit by a warrior using mount 1 for 8k pre-patch)

Currently it's the hardest-hitting skill on thief and the best way to play it; its coefficient was doubled game-wide to be about 80% of an old backstab, and it deals more damage than everything else on the class by a pretty significant margin, and for no initiative.

This is kinda hilarious. Maybe this is ANet's way of saying that ele's aren't meant to be roamers xD

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:

@Gwaihir.1745 said:

@Jayden Reese.9542 said:Larger groups usually win unless it's a smaller guild vs pugsThe speed nerf was unnecessaryThe reward trak includes 2 week bastion pass 10 ticket scraps so 30g and many other things so it can't be repeatable.The map isn't overrun by pver due to the 200g pricetag but it ends up being 90g for the mount/bl key/arm pass if you place value on clovers

Most wvw players are so overstocked on clovers they have no value. Ive made 6 legendarys and working on armour now and I have well over a stack.

I did say if. Then your mount skin will cost 125g as I say they worth 5g ea and yes I have a stack as well but I never know if I will make new legendary's and need them. Like the 2 Armour sets I don't have heavy and medium would take 180 but yeah might never make.

I don't have many clovers, but I have legendary armor and 4/6 of the thief weapons as legendary already. Not much need to make more atm.

[ArchonWing.9480]

The only real difference I've seen is that there are some warriors that didn't get the memo and still try to yolo in with a bubble. I find that pretty funny.

Also not buying into the condi hype; still seems like big groups can clear pretty easily so still have my grieving inscriptions and insignias on standby.

Oh yea and they're weirdly named: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Intact_Mosaic (both for weapons and armor). Funny enough they're probably the cheapest to make.

[Famine.7915]

As the days go on, bunker condi with bunker support groups are beginning to take hold. Overall I agree with all of OP's points, but I don't think I can agree with mounts. But I've been anti-mount since before they were even out so, eh.