Upcoming Balance Notes

[bluberblasen.9684]

Thank you for the Elem buffs.....oh wait ..

thank you for nerfing my core elem even more with removing my fury buff in fire trait....thank you for buffing fgs ( cooldown down to 72 seconds ) .. oh wait .. -_- ..

thank you for the condi rev nerf in wvw .. oh wait..thank you for the core necro nerf in wvw .. oh wait..thank you for reducing immob duration to 1 second on some classes.. oh wait...

thank you for reverting ele main hand dagger air 1 to its old range.. oh wait ...

lost faith in the balance team.. maybe time to play valorant :)

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

@bluberblasen.9684 said:Thank you for the Elem buffs.....oh wait ..

thank you for nerfing my core elem even more with removing my fury buff in fire trait....thank you for buffing fgs ( cooldown down to 72 seconds ) .. oh wait .. -_- ..

thank you for the condi rev nerf in wvw .. oh wait..thank you for the core necro nerf in wvw .. oh wait..thank you for reducing immob duration to 1 second on some classes.. oh wait...

thank you for reverting ele main hand dagger air 1 to its old range.. oh wait ...

lost faith in the balance team.. maybe time to play valorant :)

You forgot to mention Meteor Showers 'Damage Reduction per Hit: 10%'. <3

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@aymnad.9023 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:The 10s CD will make Brave Stride very bearable trust me. That and stability can still be corrupted by classes that have access to that. You also have to take into consideration that they also majorly buffed Mending, which makes Peak Performance even more important to take so Brave Stride might not even be taken that much more often that it is now.

Now if that ICD on Brave Stride were shorter, then yeah you'd see it get run in a heartbeat. Truly a shame that took such a nice idea that come up out of the warrior forum and slapped too long of an ICD on it.

I think it fits perfectly warrior. In its current state, I am not worried it will break anything. I did not consider mender at all. To be honest I forgot it was physical. So you are most likely right.

What I had in mind is that warrior can already be a hard to lock profession, especially once you go with spellbreaker. It is probably safe to say the same skills working for warriors sprint are going to work here (which there is a good amount). While using axe 3 on necro during a rampage is super satisfying, professions who do not heave those corrupt / removal just get an extra layer to get through feeling sometimes random (I wonder if it pops during or after the skill) which is what I described as frustrating. (again not too strong because of the lack of damage)

Yes and no. That takes dedicated weapons and skills that are known and stale. This will proc off of all movement skills yes, but if it procs after skill use then it will be useless.

[Mahou.3924]

@"Sailorz.5426" said:" we are being a little aggressive with the changes, but we'll be watching to see if they become overbearing." Are you kidding lmao, yeah ill let u know if that stability is overpowered, thanks for everything... LMAO just delete warrior you have no respect for the class anyway

Pro tip: Using lmao too often, like you do, does nothing to help you make a case or makes you look funny, snarky, sarcastic or whatever else you intended.

[Abyssisis.3971]

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Abyssisis.3971 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Abyssisis.3971 said:

@"Fire Attunement.9835" said:

Ranger

Damage-build soulbeasts have been unleashing numbers that are higher than they should be. This is on a broad level rather than being tied to particular weapons or utility skills. As such, we're tapping the power and condition damage bonuses they gain while merged with deadly and ferocious pets for some reductions. In competitive game modes, druids have been seen significantly less use for their supportive abilities, so we're tuning those up to encourage bringing the affected traits and glyphs.

• "Protect Me!": Fixed a bug that prevented this skill from granting barrier while the ranger was merged with their pet as a soulbeast.
• Viper's Nest: Increased the duration of poison inflicted from 4 seconds to 8 seconds, and reduced the stacks per pulse from 3 to 2.
• Deadly Archetype (Soulbeast): Reduced the condition damage increase gained while merged with this Deadly archetype pets by 25% (200 to 150 at level 80) in PvE only.
• Ferocious Archetype (Soulbeast): Reduced power increase gained while merged with Ferocious archetype pets by 25% (200 to 150 at level 80) in PvE only.
• Seed of Life: Increased number of conditions cleansed from 2 to 3 in PvP and WvW.
• Lunar Impact: Increased healing coefficient from 0.72 to 1.0 in PvP and WvW.
• Vine Surge: Increased immobilize duration from 1.5 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Grace of the Land: Increased might stacks from 2 to 3 in PvP and WvW.
• Glyph of Rejuvenation (non-celestial): Increased base self-heal from 4,860 to 5,589 in PvP and WvW. Increased base heal for allies from 1,950 to 2,535 in PvP and WvW.
• Glyph of Rejuvenation (celestial avatar): Increased base self-heal from 1,950 to 2,535 in PvP and WvW. Increased base heal for allies from 4,860 to 5,589 in PvP and WvW.

Why the nerf to viper’s nest?Fully consistent with their longer-duration-less-burst changes on condi. 100% more duration and 33% less stacks is also a net buff...

The only reason to slot viper’s nest is the trait interaction with predators cunning, its a nerf in that regards. More duration won’t make it more appealing, especially with all the condi cleanse flying around.I explained

why

, whether its appealing or not is irrelevant. Be lucky they didnt nerf predators on top.

Early days on the listed changes, it isn’t a complete list so more ranger nerfs might be in there that haven’t been added to this quick release update.

[Sailorz.5426]

@Mahou.3924 said:

@"Sailorz.5426" said:" we are being a little aggressive with the changes, but we'll be watching to see if they become overbearing." Are you kidding lmao, yeah ill let u know if that stability is overpowered, thanks for everything... LMAO just delete warrior you have no respect for the class anyway

Pro tip: Using lmao too often, like you do, does nothing to help you make a case or makes you look funny, snarky, sarcastic or whatever else you intended.

maybe because i was being SaRCaStIC, LMAO.

Also I have no reason to prove my case, they don't care about warrior, they're doing things in this patch that make no sense/ will probably help NOTHING. If I actually thought they would do something productive with warrior I'd say something productive, and I'm not saying that because they didn't buff warrior to the stars I'm saying this because they seem to have no clue what to change with warrior just look at the patch notes. The only thing semi-helpful is the stability on movement abilities but guess what, its still pretty useless because whos going to take that over the reduction/dmg increase on physical abilities. PRO HINT: No one with half a brain cell.

The fact they think buffing useless off-hands to semi-useless will fix warrior is baffling. And then to say, "WE KINDA GOIN OVERBOARD WITH THIS ONE, WATCH OUT FOR THESE MASSSSSSIVVEE BUFFS"

But yeah, go after me for being upset they can't bring themselves to help warrior out in the slightest as a warrior main, might wanna wipe that who know who's-you know what off ur nose.

[Obtena.7952]

@Josiah.2967 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@Josiah.2967 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@Taril.8619 said:

@ollbirtan.2915 said:

@Taril.8619 said:

@"MisterDapper.5984" said:What are you on? Have you seen the benches?

Have you?

If you look at Snow Crows benchmarks:

Golem DPS

Unless you're talking about the small hitbox golem benchmarks... But if we're going to look at that, why not look at actual boss benchmarks to see how many have small hitboxes as well as performance in actual fights when played well:

Vale Guardian

Gorseval

Sabetha

Slothasor

Matthias

Keep Construct

Xera

Cairn

Mursaat

Samarog

Deimos

Soulless Horror

Dhuum

Conjured Amalgate

Twin Largos

Qadim

Cardinal Sabir

Cardinal Adina

Qadim the Peerless

I don't know about you, but I see a lot of blue here. With only 2 fights having Elementalist featured (Sabetha and Conjured Amalgate)

Which, if they were going on benchmarks, would suggest a nerf to Guardians...

Since when are we 'balancing' the game after a handful of try -hards? Not saying that the patch is good --- it's kitten garbage, but your way of thinking is really not helping.

They're not. That's literally the point I was making.

Someone said they were balancing around benchmarks, but the benchmarks clearly point at Guardian being the top dog for DPS and have received little in the way of nerfs.

Virtues is kind of a Golem meme though which won't reach those numbers (and 100% Unscathed Contender uptime) in any real scenario.It's pretty much the opposite Scourge, which benches awfully on a Golem and Golem like Bosses, but scales much better the more complex the actual real fights gets, while Virtues Guard drops off.

Guard is mainly taken for Utility, not DPS, and Feel my Wrath stacking is, at least from what I know, a pretty niche strategy, although I haven't pugged in ages.Chrono, Weaver, Tempest, Soulbeast, Mirage, Holo, Renegade and now Berserker all pull higher numbers than DH or FB.

Boss bechmarks disagree. The utility only pushes guardian to the must have territory which is unhealthy.

It isn't a must have though, plenty, if not the vast majority, of groups don't stack Guards with FMW, but instead run dedicated Quickness supports leaving the DPS slots open for w/e, a capacity in which the named DPS's can easily outperform Guardians.

If you are referring to the "numbers to aim for" section on SC, they generally only list the Specs which are contained in the "recommended" comp, except for some cases with some old left overs and aren't anything to go by in that regard. On top of that Comps are even acknowledged to not have been updated in half a year, since when Guard has been nerfed while others spec received buffs.

I know a lot of raid groups stacking guardians to bypass mechanics. Benchmarks speak for themselves. Guardians are viable (top tier) for every mode. Not everyone wants to play Guardian Wars 2.

While these things are true, none of them are an indication Guardians are a 'must have' like you claim. That's just sensationalism. It's simply not true to begin with ... no class is a MUST have ... and the game is designed as such.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Hey, balance team, why not swap Brave Stride into another trait's slot?

[blackheartgary.8605]

It's a funny thing. when a game "you" play makes changes that benefit "you" specifically, all is right with the universe.When there are changes that "you" specifically do not like take place however, the very game "you" praise for the "right choices" becomes the game "you" condemn for the "wrong choices"."you" is in quotation marks because i am not targeting anyone.Also? i would like to think that the Developers of a Game actually do know what they are doing, and therefore should not receive the amount of venom being seen here.Keep up the good work, Anet. Make those changes. we will adjust accordingly, as you stated in your post.

[Black Storm.6974]

About the necromancer changes: please, don’t forget to update the underwater version of those skills :)

[biff.7209]

warriors will still be bottom of the barrel by far in pvp it looks like

[Roci.4638]

Lost all hope in any form of balance in this game at this point.

Can't even for a second see their perspective for balance or what they are working towards.. just appears to be pure garbage. They must find some satisfaction in not listening to anyone but themselves.

Just a heads up balance team.. but you really don't know best.

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

@Taril.8619 said:

@DNSshadow.4167 said:Again the necromancer loses a support option = /bye bye protection for allies = (welcome to Grand Master property useless blood bankHow should one turn healing into barrier when healing is also a Grand Master trait?

Better yet, how should one turn healing into Barrier, when the entire class is pushed into being in Shroud for as long as possible and you literally cannot get healed while in Shroud (Which is actually one of the concerns for PvE balance due to there being times when being healable is important. It also completely kills any potential for current Necro to be used as a Tank, even if Death Magic can provide a ton of free Toughness)

Dunno man, Blood Bank, Parasitic Contagion and Rune of Sanctuary should make a Support Scourge pretty damn tanky without toughness or Death Magic.

[GummyBearSummoner.7941]

I wish I could thumbs down this post so many times. These changes are a joke

[Axl.8924]

Basically kicking tempest while it was down setting it back to a time where it was worse off ICK and limiting choices and nerfing from what i heard fury which from what I remember in pve loss of might and or fury from wind hurts.

Plus bigger changes to onyx skin and mist form whats the obsession with adding huge CDS? these are oh shit buttons that else need to escape what gives?

As for ranger changes I dunno guess spamming immob is gonna be the thing now? so what is the vision for druid? a offensive attacker then in PVP who annoys people with immob and part time condi cleanser?

[Zee.1294]

Net people...
When are you planing to change the sound of Guardian scepter ?.....people are asking for this in what?.....8 years......YES the sound is just annoying !Speaking about scepter......#1 skill should be a chain light..... just saying...
....I dont even want to start about the DH..... that will take another 5 years.....

[Memento Mori.1326]

@"Shiyo.3578" said:Hi, I main thief and stealth is out of control. Shadow arts tree is too strong and it's too easy to run around perma stealthed in SPvP. I thought the entire point of stealth in GW2 was that it was in-combat and limited? As in you could stealth a few times, but NEVER sit in stealth forever. However, now you can due to all the changes over the years and the buffs to the SA tree making it a good tree for damage(better than deadly arts and crit strikes because...???). Trickery is also more DPS than our DPS trees. At this point, you might as well make stealth only usable out of combat like other MMORPGS since it's basically perma AND you can use it in combat, making it the strongest stealth I've ever seen in a MMORPG.

You really needed to nerf stealth uptime on thief, damage on the shadow arts tree, and holosmith in general(especially grenades).

"oops my entire teams dead to a grenade barrage" is boring at this point.

^This

[Hohenheim.8154]

I have been doing some research around what I commented some days ago and watching footage of WvW, so I would like to add and specify some things.

@Hohenheim.8154 said:For Warrior, there is only one thing I would like to ad and it's about knockback and knockdown balance. Warrior has three knockbacks and all of them are kind of AoE (Kick affects three targets, Stomp affects five, and Staggering blow affects also five), and has also three knockdowns but only one of them is AoE (which is Tremor, the 5th skill of the mace). I would like to see added an AoE knockdown to Bull's charge or to Backbreaker (5th hammer skill) in order to profit from Merciless hammer and Unsuspecting foe traits more widely.

Warrior's Bull's charge is great and useful as is, so I don't think it needs any modifications at all. Nonetheless, Backbreaker could use a minor change along the lines of what I said earlier: maybe adding 3 targets for the damage and the knockdown instead of one (just like Kick) and amplifying the range to 150 (like Fierce blow, Hammer's 2nd skill) could make more justice to its heavy-slam-like animation. That could be just added to Hammer's 5th skill on itself or tied to Merciless hammer trait (Strength) to make it more attractive to players in comparison to Berserker's power trait.

@Hohenheim.8154 said:For Guardian, I would like to see some changes to the Longbow and the Hammer:(...)

I would like to add some things to what I said about Guardian's hammer: apparently, the only use that it's got on Raids and Fractals is to use Writ of persistence trait (Honor) and only (and I can't stress that enough) using the auto in order to keep the Symbol of protection up for the other team mates. Is even suggested that Guardians doesn't use any other hammer skill since that would break protection's boon uptime. That can't be healthy for the game, nor for your fingers. So... yeah, I don't think there is need to change Guardian's hammer's animations, just to work around them and modify some of its effects in order to rework it.

As I also play with the Engineer, specifically with a CC Scrapper, I am really excited for the changes announced for System shocker trait which has been, until now, a difficult trait to use consistently and even to understand, but sill useful once you got the grip on it. Anyway, that extra bit of survivability will surely become handy even if that means swiftness, dazes and vulnerability combo-effects will last slightly less. And I'm also excited to the changes made to Speed of synergy minor: although I will have less superspeed from now on, tying it to healing skills and healing tool-belt skills will make it easier to trigger and taking advantage of, not just as an offensive tool, but also to move in the open world and running away from foes. So I think ArenaNet is indeed trying to balance things up.

Once again, thanks.

[Dinko.4839]

Hardly any nerf to absurd ranger damage. They can start firing at a range no one else can while still pumping out 3k auto attacks. If you get anywhere near them greatsword will smash you back down while their pet is a constant menace and dealer of high damage. Don't even consider trying to stomp one if you aren't a tanky class; their down state dmg is immense meanwhile their pet knocks you down constantly. Don't even get me started on the pet resurrecting the ranger. That's all even before you consider their immense toughness stats, making any burst class' life almost impossible.The easiest class in the game seems to be forever remaining the strongest in wvw roaming (along with thieves, being able to run out of combat at a moments notice) and yet STILL we see no nerf in sight.Shambolic to say the least.

[Smoosh.2718]

To make Hammer a little more inviting if you're not wanting to do any big changes to really spice things up ( which is needed )

Hammer 5 could be a 3 target cone AOE to knock down.That would make the hammer a little more appealing for both the PvP market and the PvE market.

[Vegeta.2563]

Blood Bank: This new trait replaces Vampiric Rituals in the Blood Magic grandmaster slot. It causes healing over your maximum health amount to be converted into barrier. Regeneration effects do not trigger this trait.

Abrasive Grit: Granting an ally a barrier removes conditions afflicting them and grants might. This effect only occurs with barrier from scourge skills and traits.Vampiric Presence: You and your nearby allies siphon health with attacks. This effect increases while in Shroud

Auto attacking (if at full health) removes conditions?? oh boy :joy:

[Kodama.6453]

@Vegeta.2563 said:

Blood Bank: This new trait replaces Vampiric Rituals in the Blood Magic grandmaster slot. It causes healing over your maximum health amount to be converted into

barrier

. Regeneration effects do not trigger this trait.

Abrasive Grit: Granting an ally a barrier removes conditions afflicting them and grants might. This effect only occurs with

barrier from scourge skills and traits

.Vampiric Presence: You and your nearby allies siphon health with attacks. This effect increases while in Shroud

Auto attacking (if at full health) removes conditions?? oh boy :joy:

Doesn't seem to be how this works.

Abrasive Grit specifies that it just works with barrier from scourge skills and traits. Blood Bank is neither, it is a necromancer trait, not a scourge trait.

[Vegeta.2563]

@Kodama.6453 said:

@Vegeta.2563 said:

Blood Bank: This new trait replaces Vampiric Rituals in the Blood Magic grandmaster slot. It causes healing over your maximum health amount to be converted into

barrier

. Regeneration effects do not trigger this trait.

Abrasive Grit: Granting an ally a barrier removes conditions afflicting them and grants might. This effect only occurs with

barrier from scourge skills and traits

.Vampiric Presence: You and your nearby allies siphon health with attacks. This effect increases while in Shroud

Auto attacking (if at full health) removes conditions?? oh boy :joy:

Doesn't seem to be how this works.

Abrasive Grit specifies that it just works with barrier from scourge skills and traits. Blood Bank is neither, it is a

necromancer

trait, not a scourge trait.

This is anet though, it will probably be one in the same.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Vegeta.2563 said:

@Kodama.6453 said:

@Vegeta.2563 said:

Blood Bank: This new trait replaces Vampiric Rituals in the Blood Magic grandmaster slot. It causes healing over your maximum health amount to be converted into

barrier

. Regeneration effects do not trigger this trait.

Abrasive Grit: Granting an ally a barrier removes conditions afflicting them and grants might. This effect only occurs with

barrier from scourge skills and traits

.Vampiric Presence: You and your nearby allies siphon health with attacks. This effect increases while in Shroud

Auto attacking (if at full health) removes conditions?? oh boy :joy:

Doesn't seem to be how this works.

Abrasive Grit specifies that it just works with barrier from scourge skills and traits. Blood Bank is neither, it is a

necromancer

trait, not a scourge trait.

This is anet though, it will probably be one in the same.

Calling it. Scourges will now remove condis while auto attacking. In WvW they will have Anti-toxin runes and double that condi removal.

[Virdo.1540]

Guardian:Leap of Faith: Increased base healing from 234 to 1,053 in PvP and WvW.

For real? This skill has damage, cleaving, combo, a bit heal & mobility on short cooldown&cast.And its getting buffed this hard?