6/30 Notes: The Cool, the Awful, and the Boring

[Swagg.9236]

Just noticed that a thread for upcoming changes existed, and it was a hilarious read. It's somehow still so discouraging to see glimmers of interesting changes, though, because they're often utterly drowning in a swamp sop of milquetoast number shifts and genuine head-scratchers.

The Cool

• Persisting Flames: This trait no longer grants fury when using a blast finisher with a fire combo field. Instead, this trait will now grant the elementalist an additional 1% damage for 15 seconds for each target struck with a fire field. This effect stacks up to 10 times.

  It's actually SUPER BASIC and sort of utterly boring, but it does technically give the Elementalist a self-boost to juggle (even if maxing this out and maintaining max stacks probably isn't any more difficult than walking in a straight line). Point is, focused interaction and rewards based on certain skill usage is a good way to promote gameplay engagement.

• Pyromancer's Puissance: In addition to granting might for each ability used while in fire attunement, this trait will now trigger Flame Expulsion when leaving fire attunement or finishing a fire overload.
• Flame Expulsion: After a brief delay, the elementalist releases a fiery explosion at their location that removes up to 10 stacks of might from them. Allies are granted might for 15 seconds based on the amount of might that was removed, while the damage of the explosion is increased by 10% per stack removed.

  It has a delay, it uses a stacking mechanic as if it were a proper resource, and it rewards people for engaging with said stacking mechanic; this is basically the best sort of mechanic package that this game could ever hope to ship in a patch. You almost can't ask for anything more considering GW2's engine and gameplay. I'm not saying this is revolutionary, but it's really good; and it would be best if this sort of thing were spread across the rest of the classes in a way (even if it were just via might stack manipulation because everyone just runs around with billions of might stacks without even doing any combos anyway).

• Split Second: Damage reduced by 33%. This skill no longer deals bonus damage to slowed foes. Instead, it strikes twice with a 1-second delay between strikes. Note: Shatter traits only affect the first strike.

  It's pretty neato while also managing to be flavorful. Normally this game's playerbase and its designers compromise balance and design for flavor's sake rather than the other way around. This is cool, but also stylish; very defining.

• Phantasmal Swordsman: The phantasm is now summoned based on the target's location rather than the mesmer's.

  Shocked that they actually did this. Phantasms would be so much better if they were just ground-targeted abilities that, if they successfully struck a foe, granted Mesmer a short buff to the tune of "The next time you directly strike a foe, you summon a clone which attacks them," or something, but at least Phantasmal Swordsman isn't utter trash except against PvE bosses now (Probably?).

• 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.

  Not that this isn't kind of cool, but I'm more shocked that somebody was able to even code this properly. I mean, logically, it shouldn't be hard at all to do something like this; I'm just surprised that it exists in GW2.

The Awful

• Static Shield: Increased the block duration of this skill from 2 seconds to 2.5 seconds. Improved the tooltip for better clarity.

  I don't care how short it is or how probably nobody will really use it anyway, stop artificially making combat longer with simple button presses. It's so horrific to make a video game and then just randomly rob players of their agency for arbitrary amounts of time during every single encounter. This wouldn't be so bad if all professions had consistent access to something like a baseline charge-up attack that couldn't be blocked (for punishes and reads), but unfortunately GW2 is mega jank, so this sort of change is inherently bad.

• The main change for mesmers in this update is the restoration of self-shattering for chronomancers.

  Remember when Revenant was only supposed to wield 1 weapon set because it had swapping Legendaries baked into its bars? Point is, anet caves to a playerbase that can't take trade-offs like actual people who play games. Instead of improving Chronomancer traits, weapon skills or utilities, they just sutured the self-shatter meme back onto the spec and called it a day. You don't have to homogenize everything into the same grey mush, but unfortunately it takes effort to make genuine roles and meaningful trade-offs; and anet doesn't put in effort.

• Shade Skills: These have been changed back to triggering at both the necromancer's location and their shade locations with each use.

  k but y tho

• Druid buffs

  Druid is THE MOST BORING spec in the game. It's core Ranger (an already BORING class) with an extra button that just lets them heal back up to full so that they can go back to being boring again with few consequences. It's so much sparkle for such little substance. Nobody is going to use those glyphs; people are just going to take the only Ranger build that anybody uses and debate on whether or not they want to trade off some passives for a shiny button that saves their butts every 15s.

• With this update, we're looking to improve [Thief] condition builds in PvE while reducing more egregious condition builds in PvP and WvW.

  Barring how conditions and power are both effectively just the same kind of un-typed damage and how this game only needs one (1) type of un-typed damage rather than two competing instances, how are those two changes supposed to affect anything? In any mode? At all?

• Bro, PLS use Spellbreaker in PvE! It's sick now! BRO!!

  You're asking people to menu. Considering how inconsistent "Destroy enemy boons for [bonus]," is in PvE, what you're effectively asking people to do is run a generally effective build all of the time, and then menu Spellbreaker into their skill bars when they see or anticipate boons on PvE enemies. NOBODY likes menu'ing, mainly because it's not gameplay. Why not just make Spellbreaker meaningful instead of a shallow reference to a popular chinese cartoon with all of its value concentrated into a single, baked-in button?

• Brave Stride: This trait has been reworked. It now grants 1 stack of stability whenever the warrior uses a movement skill. Stability duration is 5 seconds in PvE and 2 seconds in competitive modes. This trait has a 1-second cooldown in PvE and a 10-second cooldown in competitive modes.

  I nearly contracted a disease reading this. Warrior now effectively, at all times, gets a free rush-down on any target. That's adorable. Downplay a 2s duration all you want, but because it's tied to a movement skill, it means that it's going to get a Warrior to exactly where they want to be at any give time. A 10s cooldown is entirely inconsequential considering how well that slots into any sort of Warrior rotation sprinkled with the basic movement skill buffet. It's possible to argue that this trait might often just "waste" the stability at the beginning of a fight when a Warrior just blows a random GS spinny spin, but again, the 10s cooldown is going to loop back very quickly into the fight's equation (especially considering that that's either shorter than or around the same duration as many common Warrior movement skills).

The Boring

EVERYTHING ELSE. I can't believe how consistent this is: 85% of GW2 patch notes have always been just complete gloss-overs not worth anyone's time. People crying about one second here or 3 seconds there are just worrying about their muscle memory in Simon Says (raids). The rest of these "balance adjustments" will change nothing: PvE metas will re-stabilize in half a day, and nobody will use the new and improved Engineer shield in PvP anyway. Also, get ready for people getting gibbed from 33% HP by Cyclone Axe lmao (I mean, maybe not, but that sounds like a good meme to try out in PvP for a hot second).

[Leonidrex.5649]

Imagine thinking revert to IP for chrono is bad idea, could the balance chrono without ip? propably.if you were to buff wells by 200%+ I could see it not being a troll pick.... maybe.Just play some chrono games before its changes, so you get the full chrono experience, and tell me how to fix it without disort and IP.

[Shao.7236]

Nice of you to think bug fixes are useless.

[Shiyo.3578]

More superspeed, when we need less.More immob on druid, when it already perma-immobs you.No nerfs to actual things that need to be nerfed, instead BUFFS to holo(hello? am I living in the same dimension?)Buffs to scourge in WvW that no one wants.No removal of flamethrower from the game(perma stab + high dps literally autoattacking)

I don't understand this ""update"". More like downdate.

[Ovark.2514]

@Swagg.9236 said:

I nearly contracted a disease reading this.

LMAO. I feel like that was what Mukluk was feeling as well when he read it.

[Swagg.9236]

@Shao.7236 said:Nice of you to think bug fixes are useless.

Four minor fixes, and one of them was related to tool-tip text. If anything, bugs shouldn't have to wait to get lumped in with some big patch (and, generally, they aren't anyway; you can see plenty of examples of bug fixes in other updates which have nothing to do with PvE). Moreover, considering how old some of those skills' iterations are, odds are that some random new gem store item's addition broke the spaghetti code somewhere and ended up generating a bug in a handful of skills somewhere. We're talking about the game that, at one point, suddenly, and without explanation, let a class separate its hurt box from its hit box and then roll through PvP with impunity. GW2's code is in a constant state of burning down.

Bug fixes aren't useless, but considering how they're in every patch, it's disingenuous of you to say something like this. Nobody in PvP is debating over bug fixes.

[Swagg.9236]

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:Imagine thinking revert to IP for chrono is bad idea, could the balance chrono without ip? propably.if you were to buff wells by 200%+ I could see it not being a troll pick.... maybe.Just play some chrono games before its changes, so you get the full chrono experience, and tell me how to fix it without disort and IP.

You cannot conceive the amount of work would be required to make Mesmer into a fun class with a unique role. It's not just a Chronomancer thing; it's the whole class in a lot of ways. It's work that anet is not willing to do, and it's work that nobody in GW2's playerbase is willing to imagine in any concrete terms. It's certainly possible--without a doubt--however the Mesmer that you would get out of this process would not be one that you would be willing to play considering how you, in this particular situation, so quickly assign paramount worth to a myopic measuring stick like "baked-in IP."

[Shiyo.3578]

Mesmer was fun in Vanilla but has been butchered by the skills team these past 4-5 years.

[Tycura.1982]

Nice of them to look at warrior OHs after this many years but it had to happen when warrior is in the dumps? Can we get buffs to more than meme stuff? Dagger F1 buff is good, Axe 2 and 3 buff is good. Mending to 5 is probably going to need to be nerfed. Everything else is meh. Brave Stride won't beat out Peak Performance. Nobody will use mace OH.

I say buff GS with baby steps like in 7% increments
OrGive tether 2 stack pulses backOrTake away the CC from Full Counter and give it damageAndPlease care about your game.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Swagg.9236 said:

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:Imagine thinking revert to IP for chrono is bad idea, could the balance chrono without ip? propably.if you were to buff wells by 200%+ I could see it not being a troll pick.... maybe.Just play some chrono games before its changes, so you get the full chrono experience, and tell me how to fix it without disort and IP.

You cannot conceive the amount of work would be required to make Mesmer into a fun class with a unique role. It's not just a Chronomancer thing; it's the whole class in a lot of ways. It's work that anet is not willing to do, and it's work that nobody in GW2's playerbase is willing to imagine in any concrete terms. It's certainly possible--without a doubt--however the Mesmer that you would get out of this process would not be one that you would be willing to play considering how you, in this particular situation, so quickly assign paramount worth to a myopic measuring stick like "baked-in IP."

its not about role friendo, its about the fact that chrono is useless.1 It cant use its mechanic at all ( IP lets you at least USE the mechanic )2 Chrono cant defend itself ( IP back helps with that somewhat with F3 daze shatter )3 Wells are fucking horrible to the point where overbuffing them by 4x still would not make chrono worth picking due to the fact chrono just dies.Sorry to be that guy but chrono has a role, it just cant perform it because it can be denied easy peasy, and it dies to a tickle, so unless you wanna go and up the wells by several hundred % and up chronos sustain to crazy numbers like holo can put out all the while retaining all the things they have now it wont work.Even with IP thief will still single-handedly make the spec unplayable.people will try, have fun, then get shit on by thief and stop.same old story, nothing new to see.

[Dadnir.5038]

I don't think the elem fire traits change are "cool", especially in sPvP. Another %age damage increase on elem is boring in itself, losing yet another source of fury as a trade off put it in the "awful" category. As for the delayed proc, it's bound to be complained at in sPvP. I mean people already complain that using a engi heal skill proc damage, how can you expect people to stay calm in front of a proc when leaving fire attunment? Both belong to "Awful".

I don't think Chrono change are "awful", I'd put them into a neutral category. It's a solution to the chrono plight in sPvP at the very least. I wouldn't say it's the best solution thought.

PvP wise, I'd put Blood Bank into the "boring" category. How I see it, it's yet another meaningless attempt at taking advantage of dagger main hand's life siphon. The uncertainty of the specificity of the trait is such that it might or might not end up becoming a huge issue in sPvP/WvW. Only at release will we see the damage of such a trait on the game.

[Atille.5047]

@Swagg.9236 said:

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:Imagine thinking revert to IP for chrono is bad idea, could the balance chrono without ip? propably.if you were to buff wells by 200%+ I could see it not being a troll pick.... maybe.Just play some chrono games before its changes, so you get the full chrono experience, and tell me how to fix it without disort and IP.

You cannot conceive the amount of work would be required to make Mesmer into a fun class with a unique role. It's not just a Chronomancer thing; it's the whole class in a lot of ways. It's work that anet is not willing to do, and it's work that nobody in GW2's playerbase is willing to imagine in any concrete terms. It's certainly possible--without a doubt--however the Mesmer that you would get out of this process would not be one that you would be willing to play considering how you, in this particular situation, so quickly assign paramount worth to a myopic measuring stick like "baked-in IP."

Yeah, because we liked our mesmer the way it was, not by your notion of "fun". We had fun. No class main ever liked lacking IP, which is why it was always taken in mesmer ever since game's launch, and you stating that you don't mind it just makes you an outlier. If mesmer wasn't "fun" to you, you shouldn't be giving suggestions on how to make it so for you - and in effect, ruining it for those who had fun with it. Play another class and don't ruin ours, for god knows they listened to wrong people for too long.

I'll also say that I seriously disagree with your "cool" and "awful" evaluations, because you got it backwards. Phantasmal swordsman shall remain only usable in PvE. New Split Second is an overall nerf, yet again, to a class that needs nerfs the least at the moment. Return of IP for Chrono makes it at least mechanically usable, because it actively made you bad in any scenario that wasn't a golem/raid rotation, for instance, any competitive mode, fractals (too slow AND weak of a DPS to be viable in 5man, too weak to compete with Firebrigade as support).

[Cyninja.2954]

@Gogdarth.6741 said:

@Swagg.9236 said:

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:Imagine thinking revert to IP for chrono is bad idea, could the balance chrono without ip? propably.if you were to buff wells by 200%+ I could see it not being a troll pick.... maybe.Just play some chrono games before its changes, so you get the full chrono experience, and tell me how to fix it without disort and IP.

You cannot conceive the amount of work would be required to make Mesmer into a fun class with a unique role. It's not just a Chronomancer thing; it's the whole class in a lot of ways. It's work that anet is not willing to do, and it's work that nobody in GW2's playerbase is willing to imagine in any concrete terms. It's certainly possible--without a doubt--however the Mesmer that you would get out of this process would not be one that you would be willing to play considering how you, in this particular situation, so quickly assign paramount worth to a myopic measuring stick like "baked-in IP."

Yeah, because we liked our mesmer the way it was, not by your notion of "fun". We had fun. No class main ever liked lacking IP, which is why it was always taken in mesmer ever since game's launch, and you stating that you don't mind it just makes you an outlier. If mesmer wasn't "fun" to you, you shouldn't be giving suggestions on how to make it so for you - and in effect, ruining it for those who had fun with it. Play another class and don't ruin ours, for god knows they listened to wrong people for too long.

This.

The revert to include IP has not to do with balance, but how the class plays. It's been a stable and necessary pick on almost every build since launch because otherwise the class feels and plays to clunky without it. Every single mesmer was immensely happy when IP was made baseline back with HoT because it finally freed up 1 trait line which was a must pick.

The good here is, with this experiment done, it's become clear that mesmer balance should be done with baseline IP in mind.

[otto.5684]

For me, the chrono rework and renegade SB 7 shot are the only good things. Everything else... does not matter much. Scourge return to AOE nuking is a major no. It needed a buff, but this is not it. This is just as lazy as one dodge on mirage.

[Leonidrex.5649]

My thoughts on the patch.

Engi.holo nerfs -> where are they loladdition of new traits is cool and welcome, im sure people will have fun trying them out and making new builds, I dont know if they will end up being good but having new fresh things is nice.thief -> no changes... they are waiting for the last day to post it, so they cant be changed, and they we will be stuck with them, for better or for worse.mesmer -> chrono changes, BIG plus, IP was needed, chrono will be much more fun to play, pve wise its amazing, pvp wise they will still suck, but hey, its a step in the right direction.no core/mirage changes yikes.Necro -> scourge buffs, PUKE, please no god no not again ;pI bet the new trait that recharges shroud 3 will work on illusion kills, fun for sure.Rev -> From what little I know about revs I dont think it will be enough, but time will tell. In 6 MONTHS.Ranger -> druid, cant wait for more degenerates taking this build, going on sides and cc spaming you off node as their entire strategy.ranger/sb -> no real changes :/Warrior -> where the buffs at bro? mending didnt need buffs, other things did.ele-> no clue about this class so no opinionguard -> fb nerfed ( fuck fb ), core buffed I think? nothing major to even think about really

[HeadCrowned.6834]

Imagine thinking that Druid CA's "shiny button" has a 15sec cooldown.

[Tanbin.2436]

"Druid is THE MOST BORING spec in the game. It's core Ranger (an already BORING class) with an extra button that just lets them heal back up to full so that they can go back to being boring again with few consequences. It's so much sparkle for such little substance. Nobody is going to use those glyphs; people are just going to take the only Ranger build that anybody uses and debate on whether or not they want to trade off some passives for a shiny button that saves their butts every 15s."

Except going to CA doesn't save your ass anymore, sure when HoT dropped and CA was actually busted and you could go offensive amulets and be a pure support on top of it, you'd have a point. But it's been nerfed multiple times since then and without literally putting your rune , amulet and trait setup to specifically enhance your healing effects of CA form then it's basically an ALMOST useless "shiny button" every 15s... There's a reason people run tempest over druid, it's just better EVEN with all of that shit you have to do to make the healing effects relevant.

Also keep in mind, if you want CA to be good at healing (lingering light) then you lose ancient seeds otherwise the heals don't even warrant specific CA usage, it's better off as a invisibility / superspeed option for teammates and hitting 5 with some extra bit of condi cleanse from 2 -> 3. I think without the annoying-ness of ancient seeds , druid is basically useless compared to a support like tempest.

Also, you say boring, but supporting with druid as of right now is way more interactive than sitting far on decap ranger which is the ranger's current meta option. So if you want to actually point to the boring stuff, then you might want to look at other specs.

The only actually fun spec is soulbeast burst spec with berserker amulet, and it's not meta nor is it a pug carry like nade holo and also if you get focused you're basically put out of the fight almost instantly or dead.

[Axl.8924]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:My thoughts on the patch.

Engi.holo nerfs -> where are they loladdition of new traits is cool and welcome, im sure people will have fun trying them out and making new builds, I dont know if they will end up being good but having new fresh things is nice.thief -> no changes... they are waiting for the last day to post it, so they cant be changed, and they we will be stuck with them, for better or for worse.mesmer -> chrono changes, BIG plus, IP was needed, chrono will be much more fun to play, pve wise its amazing, pvp wise they will still suck, but hey, its a step in the right direction.no core/mirage changes yikes.Necro -> scourge buffs, PUKE, please no god no not again ;pI bet the new trait that recharges shroud 3 will work on illusion kills, fun for sure.Rev -> From what little I know about revs I dont think it will be enough, but time will tell. In 6 MONTHS.Ranger -> druid, cant wait for more degenerates taking this build, going on sides and cc spaming you off node as their entire strategy.ranger/sb -> no real changes :/Warrior -> where the buffs at bro? mending didnt need buffs, other things did.ele-> no clue about this class so no opinionguard -> fb nerfed ( kitten fb ), core buffed I think? nothing major to even think about really

The nerfs to onyx skin and mist form were pretty bad.

from 60 seconds to 75 seconds for a sustain tool that helps them escape death. I think 60 sec was already enough

The other stuff well il let more experienced eles talk about that in pvp since i mostly do pve on ele,.

[Stallic.2397]

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:My thoughts on the patch.

Engi.holo nerfs -> where are they loladdition of new traits is cool and welcome, im sure people will have fun trying them out and making new builds, I dont know if they will end up being good but having new fresh things is nice.thief -> no changes... they are waiting for the last day to post it, so they cant be changed, and they we will be stuck with them, for better or for worse.mesmer -> chrono changes, BIG plus, IP was needed, chrono will be much more fun to play, pve wise its amazing, pvp wise they will still suck, but hey, its a step in the right direction.no core/mirage changes yikes.Necro -> scourge buffs, PUKE, please no god no not again ;pI bet the new trait that recharges shroud 3 will work on illusion kills, fun for sure.Rev -> From what little I know about revs I dont think it will be enough, but time will tell. In 6 MONTHS.Ranger -> druid, cant wait for more degenerates taking this build, going on sides and cc spaming you off node as their entire strategy.ranger/sb -> no real changes :/Warrior -> where the buffs at bro? mending didnt need buffs, other things did.ele-> no clue about this class so no opinionguard -> fb nerfed ( kitten fb ), core buffed I think? nothing major to even think about really

The nerfs to onyx skin and mist form were pretty bad.

from 60 seconds to 75 seconds for a sustain tool that helps them escape death. I think 60 sec was already enough

The other stuff well il let more experienced eles talk about that in pvp since i mostly do pve on ele,.

They nerfed sustain as you mentioned which hits core and Tempest the most. Weaver's sustain is off regen and barrier, so they won't take a hit. Why would Anet nerf core and Ele, you ask? Who knows. Either specialization can die easily to Focus. Problem is, people don't put in the effort. "OMG, I got stunned by Electric Aura! Guess it's time for me to give up now".

Fury got nerfed and now is best accessible in air. Which is silly because any Ele who takes air is a sitting duck for one shots and focus targeting by the opposite team. It's easier to create a bruiser build with fire and arcane rather than a burst build with air because, unless you're a weaver, it's not worth the risk. Kitten, there's a better burst scepter build using Fire/Earth and throwing out condi's rather than taking air.

Also, to add. Air only offers fury for 2 sec on a 3 sec ICD proc if you crit. So even if you try to min max fury procs, you're still gonna spend a third of your time without it. Fury on Auras is only good with Fire traitline to get multiple auras procced. But Air and Fire together no longer work because as mentioned above, there's so many nerfs to sustain. Two damaging traits don't go well together unless you want to spend all your time dead.

All of this sounds silly to those who don't play Ele. But without fury, that limits builds. Not only do you have to spec into vitality, and power, and healing power to get maximum heals, you also have to spec into high precision in sPvp just to get 50% crit rate. Ele is such a stat dependent class and the lack of versatile fury just exacerbates the problem.

Most of the other changes are insignificant for PVP. Staff is still useless in high ranked.

[Shiyo.3578]

You don't need to use a healing amulet anymore to have decent sustain on a tempest dps build. Issue is thieves and power revs eat you alive and you can't do anything.