May 11 Guild Wars 2 Skills and Balance Update Preview

[ovalle.4163]

the real loser in this balance update is mesmer's mantra heal skill mantra of recovery->power return. removing the preparation of the mantra from this skill makes it so much worse.
not only did the preparation give a much heftier self heal than the ammo charges, the preparation had a 10s cd while the ammo has a 20s cd on it.
with the preparation you could get a 3275+2*1640(2620 if below 50%) on a 10s cd in exchange for a long cast time but now you will only get a really mediocre heal on a 20s cd

[Sobx.1758]

58 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Except you didn't offer any valid reasons other than hitting your shift key.

 

Pretty sure there were reasons given and if there weren't, there's still plenty in the warrior subforum. But then the bottom line will still be "because I want to" with anything written against that idea left pretty much without a response. Don't turn another thread into FH debate, uh -especially when there's really nothing new added.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[ZDragon.3046]

My personal quick thoughts on just a few things overall

 

Giving condition 2x damage during end game content when a defiance bar is broken while leaving power based options at 33% is insane to me. Make them both 33%. If condition must be higher perhaps shoot for 66%  but 100% seems down right insane.

 

Wondering how resistance is going to work with Necro fears that are traited to deal damage now?

Will the player be able to ignore the cc portion of the fear while it still deals damage to them?

Or if the fear is trait enhanced to deal damage will it simply still cc them as it is now a damaging condition like bleeding etc and thus ignores resistance?

This is likely something a lot of necro mains will want to know the answer to.

 

Additionally 

Skills like the mallyx stunbreak will likely need a total functionally change as the change to resistance just over cooked it in competitive or even pve play.

Warriors zerker stance utility skills will likely need a resistance duration increase and possibly need resolution added to them to compensate entirely as you just made them considerably venerable to almost any condition build in the game.

 

 

 

 

[Renny.6571]

I made a post in the engi forum to try and save a trait, near and dear to many scrapper players, from needless slaughter.

 

 

Edited May 1, 2021 by Renny.6571

[Lily.1935]

You know, speaking of mantras and how recasting them in the middle of combat isn't fun. You know what else isn't fun? Recasting our minions in the middle of combat. Especially since its counter intuitive with the way bone minions work now. Of course Flesh wurm can't really function like that so why not cut the cast time?

[DKRathalos.9625]

6 hours ago, JSmooth.7654 said:

Axe Mastery is pretty much required for ... Axe wielding Berserker Warriors. This nerf just makes it even harder to reach the crit cap. Please reconsider this change.

 

If you want to make other train-lines viable for Berserkers, you could make one of other weapons (1hs/2hs/mace) a competitive DPS alternative.

You might mistaken? Axe Mastery grants Ferocity which grants Crit DMG not Crit Chance.

Precision grants Crit Chance and yeah warrior definitely need extra flat crit chance.

[Jski.6180]

How do you guys keep making the worst chose and ignore every thing from your community. The least used classes and skills where not even touched in this update the very reason you suggested for having the update in the first places. If any thing this update actively makes the lesser used classes and skill use even less.

[Alik.9651]

Torment change, killed torment in PvP and WvW

Split the additional dmg for PvE using the new way, PvP and WvW using the old way

Resistance change, killed Pain Absorption even the all of the Demon Stance

Minor trait on Corruption to let resistance apply from traited Rev in-effect to all condition

Kitten change, killed the forum

Beyond saving ...

[Angoril.2179]

This patch right here is yet another time that you show you don't really play or, even worse, understand your own game. Some of the things you say are so out of touch with reality that surprises me how you came to those conclusions. Oh well... nothing I wasn't expecting out of the current team. 

[DKRathalos.9625]

2 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

How do you guys keep making the worst chose and ignore every thing from your community. The least used classes and skills where not even touched in this update the very reason you suggested for having the update in the first places. If any thing this update actively makes the lesser used classes and skill use even less.

Because they don't play the game themselves Jski. They just use imagination of what happened in game not exactly experiencing it directly in game.

[Alquinon.2957]

Quote

The Exposed effect that is placed on many boss enemies when their defiance bar is broken has been adjusted. It now increases power damage taken by 30% and condition damage taken by 100%.

 

Hello ArenaNet, this is a very bad idea. I will explain why. In this game there are 2 different types of damage, physical damage and condition damage. Power builds do physical damage, and condi builds do condition damage. Physical damage happens instantly as the enemy is struck, and most power builds have a rotation where they do a pretty big burst of damage. One such power build is the power soulbeast. It is great that you guys recognized how strong the burst of power soulbeast is and have brought it more in line. (Hopefully power soulbeast will receive adequate damage in return in the form of sustained dps.)

 

Condition damage, on the other hand, happens over time. Conditions such as burning, bleeding, poison, and torment are applied to the enemy when they are hit, and each stack of those conditions will deal a certain damage every second. That is why condition damage takes more time to "ramp up" compared to physical damage. However, not all conditions are created equal. Bleeding and poison do less damage each second, but they last for more seconds. Burning, on the other hand, do more damage every second and they are generally shorter in duration. That is why the "ramp up" time for burning is much shorter than the other conditions.

 

Condi firebrands are the only condi class that deal the majority of their damage in the form of burning, while the other condi builds such as mirage, scourge, renegade, and soulbeast deal their condition damage with conditions such as bleeding and torment. That is why naturally condi firebrands have a much shorter "ramp up" time than other condi builds. In fact, their "ramp up" time is more comparable to power classes than condition classes.

 

Therefore, with this proposed change, condi firebrands will outclass all the other condi classes in fractals. I assume your original intent with this change to encourage more condi builds in fractals, in reality they will be left in the dust by condi firebrands. Furthermore, for your average fractal group that is not able to hit the tight breakpoints before condi firebrands overtake power classes, this change will also catapult condi firebrands beyond all the other power builds in fractals (especially with the nerfs to power soulbeast and such). Now I wouldn't think that will make for a very great build diversity in fractals when there is already an abundance of condi firebrands as the other posters have mentioned (or if you just check the fractals of the mist section in the lfg). After this proposed change, even more people will stop playing other dps builds in fractals in favour of condi firebrands.

[Jski.6180]

Just now, DKRathalos.9625 said:

Because they don't play the game themselves Jski. They just use imagination of what happened in game not exactly experiencing it directly in game.

But it just sooo bad i mean this is beyond not playing your game this is out right ignoring reality. Are anet devs in such a crazy bubble that they do not read any thing that moderated by there forms admen reviews first?

[Aussiemon.7418]

Warrior:

• The change to Doubled Standards ruins the viability of Tactics Banner Warrior. Players will be forced to take Discipline now.
• The loss of precision from Doubled Standards is also bad because Warrior was already one of the hardest classes to crit-cap on.
• Peak Performance didn't need a nerf. It was already underused.
• Light fields on banners is bad. Their blast finisher let players keep up marginally better might. Light fields just get in the way of damaging combos in organized groups.

 

Revenant:

Any skill that takes condis from allies will murder you with this resistance change.

 

Torment:

The torment change is good for stationary bosses, but it hurts the viability of scourges in a lot of places it was previously good. Wargs on Escort, Soulless Horror, Largos Twins, etc.. I think a better change would've been to have torment ramp up by a set amount the longer it's on you. 100 damage for 10s ends at 200 ticks or whatever. That would fix it for PvE and it'd still be viable for PvP formats when people leave it on them or run out of cleanses. I also agree with the previous poster: extra damage on stationary targets means the playstyle  of scourges (fears and kiting to move enemies around) now works against you rather than with you. Staying rooted in place to keep the enemy from moving is not fun gameplay.

 

Exposed Debuff:

This would be better balanced if the lesser damage increase applied to both power and burning, with other condis seeing the greater damage increase.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Aussiemon.7418

[xXxNikiGoesWildxXx.3678]

18 minutes ago, Alquinon.2957 said:

 

Hello ArenaNet, this is a very bad idea. I will explain why. In this game there are 2 different types of damage, physical damage and condition damage. Power builds do physical damage, and condi builds do condition damage. Physical damage happens instantly as the enemy is struck, and most power builds have a rotation where they do a pretty big burst of damage. One such power build is the power soulbeast. It is great that you guys recognized how strong the burst of power soulbeast is and have brought it more in line. (Hopefully power soulbeast will receive adequate damage in return in the form of sustained dps.)

 

Condition damage, on the other hand, happens over time. Conditions such as burning, bleeding, poison, and torment are applied to the enemy when they are hit, and each stack of those conditions will deal a certain damage every second. That is why condition damage takes more time to "ramp up" compared to physical damage. However, not all conditions are created equal. Bleeding and poison do less damage each second, but they last for more seconds. Burning, on the other hand, do more damage every second and they are generally shorter in duration. That is why the "ramp up" time for burning is much shorter than the other conditions.

 

Condi firebrands are the only condi class that deal the majority of their damage in the form of burning, while the other condi builds such as mirage, scourge, renegade, and soulbeast deal their condition damage with conditions such as bleeding and torment. That is why naturally condi firebrands have a much shorter "ramp up" time than other condi builds. In fact, their "ramp up" time is more comparable to power classes than condition classes.

 

Therefore, with this proposed change, condi firebrands will outclass all the other condi classes in fractals. I assume your original intent with this change to encourage more condi builds in fractals, in reality they will be left in the dust by condi firebrands. Furthermore, for your average fractal group that is not able to hit the tight breakpoints before condi firebrands overtake power classes, this change will also catapult condi firebrands beyond all the other power builds in fractals (especially with the nerfs to power soulbeast and such). Now I wouldn't think that will make for a very great build diversity in fractals when there is already an abundance of condi firebrands as the other posters have mentioned (or if you just check the fractals of the mist section in the lfg). After this proposed change, even more people will stop playing other dps builds in fractals in favour of condi firebrands.

So overall i agree with you that some condis ramp up slowly and burning ramp up quickly. However in fractals low health makes power instant burst to be more viable than condis. So it is kind of understandable why such change is there for "exposed" effect. What is not understandable are raids and open world where health pools are much larger and as all builds do like 30 to 40k dps(both power and condi builds) giving condi build more damage makes no sense. 

I think it should be changed depending on boss health pool or mechanic rather than being global effect to every boss.

Also it should be changed for each damaging conditions, like instead of 100% it should be like 40% for burning as bonus as example while 100% should be kept for bleeding. Other words, depending on what is more bursty should get lower bonus from it and what is less bursty higher bonus.

[Stavros.8249]

I like the mirage changes. The 3 sec alac can go to 4s in fractals with agony and chaos passive concentration, so we can go full cdps. I don't think it will compete with alacrene, cause now in fractal usually the last spot we wait for alac. The build I think will be used will be 3 clones out, no shatters and  staff/staff with energy sigil. 

[ThomasC.1056]

12 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

I feel like this Torment change completely breaks Scourge design - which is all about forcing movement (Fears) and kiting, while applying Torment and Bleeds. 

 

Fearing enemies now essentially grants them 50% damage reduction against your main damage Source, if they aren't moving already as is the case for most things save for some static bosses - where Necro still likely won't be able to compete with Renegades and such, not to speak of PvP where you never want to stand still in the first place.

 

Insidious Disruption is especially ironic, applying Torment - a condition which now primarily does damage to Targets standing still -  on CC, which in the case of Necro almost exclusively is Fear, a condition forcing movement.

 

Just seems like Scourge lost what made it good in Dynamic Fights, while likely still underperforming in Static Fights, been completely deleted from PvP, and it's synergistic Design of Fear + Torment got turned around into a counter intuitive gameplay loop of your own tools reducing your own damage.

Never forget the video when devs introduced the scourge. They well insanely laughing while burning those golems to ashes using the big shade and condi bombs. They were so proud and happy. Who could have expected, at this time, that this could only lead to a disaster in WvW, and that the elite spec would eventually be mowed to uselessness...

[Rubby.1694]

A lot of these changes are okay but many of them absolutely terrible and show a complete lack of understanding of the state of the PvE meta across every gamemode. The person who thought the exposed change would be a good idea should get their brain checked for tumors.

[Archangel.3508]

For what little it is worth:

 

I am generally positive about them.

 

Happy to see that Anet is trying to do something about the stuck-in-combat issue although I hope that they haven't just limited their work in this area to just condis. About a year after launch I had an issue where I was stuck in combat, running at a snail's pace, on one of the wvw maps for over half an hour - I had to logout and back in to resolve it. More recently I have had other issues where the game has decided I am still in combat with nearby enemies even if I have killed everything I can see. You can move a shortish distance away and it will remove it but that is not alway possible - on the Desert Highlands map I was stuck in combat in one of the underground ruins areas in an area where I couldn't reach the enemy, they couldn't reach me and I need a mount in order to get out of... but of course I couldn't mount up - I hope ANet have addressed this as well.

 

Generally happy with the proposed balance changes; particularly:

• Celestial armour - I have a couple of characters who run celestial ascended armour (so that they can provide support and a bit of damage output as well) and it is a bit underwhelming. I am therefore pleased that the missing stats are now buffed.
• Mirages - I am glad that they are having some of their nerfs rolled back. I still hope that Anet will give them back their normal endurance bar because it is a bit ridiculous that they are the only profession where they have only a single dodge in WvW.
• Happy too that retaliation (which is just crap at the moment) is being changed.
• Pleased to see changes with the mantras as those were just frustrating.
• Pleased to see changes to the Renegade as it was just playing second fiddle to the Herald.
• Spellbreakers were hit ridiculously hard with the nerf hammer previously - hopefully this will now be corrected and Anet at least have acknowledged the issue.
• Chronomancers needed a tweak so I will see how this plays out.

 

Missed opportunities:

I wish that Anet had done something about WvW. The current meta is ridiculous. Years ago Anet nerfed aoes as they felt that hitting everyone was OP... we now have the ridiculous situation of mass stacking of players to limit damage absorption (due to the target cap) and mass stacking of buffs. You also cannot charge in amongst the enemies because they drop damage in the centre... this is a joke. IMO there are two solutions - "friendly fire" where both friendly spells/abilities and offensive spells/abilities affect enemies and allies alike (so an enemy charging in when you are buff stacking benefits from the bonuses too or dropping damage affects your allies) or removing the damage limits on aoes so that everyone is hit, forcing groups to spread out more - the latter option would probably necessitate smaller aoe effects for necros and eles etc.

 

WvW has been blighted by hackers recently to the point where I am no longer certain whether some of the enemies I am facing are cheating or not. Some of it is obvious but a few weeks ago I encountered a ranger who unleashed a series of combos where every hit was a critical strike, including from a full barrage burst - I have no idea whether this was legitimate good fortune coupled with skills or not.

 

In the same vein as above there are a number of absolute cunts who are using macros and running into walls to farm contribution points in WvW. These cunts mean that other players sometimes cannot join the maps and legitimate players are being prevented from getting outnumbered buffs etc. They have been reported but Anet's inaction on this is really frustrating as the same offenders keep coming back!

 

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

4 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

But it just sooo bad i mean this is beyond not playing your game this is out right ignoring reality. Are anet devs in such a crazy bubble that they do not read any thing that moderated by there forms admen reviews first?

The problem is this all started when they stopped talking on the board or reddit around 2018 . The patches got increasingly worse when most of the senior staff left  at the end of 2019 . I think there were some informal talk to some guilds but the problem with those is they can only give your their biased POV on the game mode they play with their 'meta'.

 

Because of this people suggested long ago public test server so you can filter what is nonsense on the board replays to the things they test.  Yes that they also post them 2 weeks earlier before lunch does a smiler thing but from experience most of it is already set in stone at this point.

 

What really confuse me is their lack of knowledge about the state of the meta on different classes and the state of the meta in the game in general

[Drascious.5714]

I feel like this read like maybe less than half of what should have been on the table for the pre-EoD balance so i'm just hoping there's more. A few of my major sticking points.

 

- While giving scrapper quickness is great, there just doesn't seem to be a particularly functional or competitive build to actually take advantage of it when compared to quickbrand, healbrand or quick chrono. I think there needs to be a few more changes to either make a functional scrapper dps build that grants quickness, or a better design to the scrapper heal build to better function in group pve.

 

- several skill lines in some classes see very little use and could do with some tweaks/redesigns, ie. turrets, gadgets in engineer

- likewise there are some traitlines that could benefit from redesigns in the same way chaos just received one, ie. tools on engineer

- There are some glaring omissions of individual things that really need to be addressed for the good health of certain aspects of the game, ie. purity of purpose is still ridiculous, in general boon corruption and condition conversion probably need to be less prevalent in general, aegis is still largely only on guardian and it seems awfully wrong to have a boon held so tightly by one class

- core classes need to not continue to be second class to elite specs for many classes.

 

I'm confident that we will see more changes before EoD and I'm also confident that there will be further changes that are more reliant on the release of the expansion to work in context down the line, this is a good start but it didn't really make the waves that i feel the game needs right now. I remember GW1 balance patches to consistently alter the meta and make for alot of exciting build craft.

[bambi.6214]

A kind reminder to ArenaNet, that Engineer is able to **not** take an elite specialization line and, just like any other profession, use a core spec.

[Phobia.9651]

Let me say this upfront the preview window of 2 weeks is excellent, thank you for that.

 

With the changes to Zeal, Virtues, Tactics, Discipline among others it is time to ask yourself the question should a core specialization support both a power and a condi playstyle or just one of the two? And I don't mean to sound pedantic or patronizing.

Cause in my opinion the 5th specialization (Invocation/Discipline/Virtues/Tools/Trickery/Beastmastery/Illusions/Arcana/Soul Reaping) was intended as the Utility specialization not another DPS specialization. When you allow both the 1st and 2nd specialization (Devastation+Corruption/Strength+Arms/Zeal+Radiance/Explosives+Firearms/Deadly Arts+Critical Strikes/Marksmanship+Skirmishing/Domination+Dueling/Fire+Air/Spite+Curses) to be the DPS specs that both support power AND condi simultaneously (Elementalist probably being a bit of an oddity in that regard) it kind of becomes self explanatory what belongs in those specializations and what doesn't.

In summary if you stick to the mantra of DPS/DPS/Support/Support/Utility for the 5 core specializations balancing things will be that much more simple and logical.

Alternatively if you want the first two core specializations to only support EITHER power OR condi playstyles you could sacrifice the 5th specialization for being that amplifier that serves both styles.

For all the talk of purity of purpose I think this is the most essential thing to ask yourself as a balance team: how do you want your 5 core specializations to line up. And stick to that decision for all 9 professions, cause right now it's absolutely inconsistent.

 

PS. Could Revenant get a logical reordering of the specializations in the Hero panel, ie. Devastation/Corruption/Retribution/Salvation/Invocation in that order?

[FtoPScrub.5476]

I main guard and consider myself to be a fractal "enthusiast". In regards to fractals, the changes here today will probably result in the worst meta the gamemode has ever seen. I'm talking 4x CFB for all fractals, even 5x CFB on certain fights. CFB currently, prepatch, is already incredibly strong. Aside from being meta in 100CM, it has fast and high burst, making it exceptionally competitive in nearly every fractal, especially in pug scenarios.

 

 

Condi is inherently weak outside of 100CM, so wanting to buff condi via exposed changes is completely understandable, but the problem is that CFB is a current outlier that legitimately competes with pDPS in all but static-level groups. So when you baseline buff all condi, you're indirectly giving CFB a huge leg up, when it was already very strong. At the same time you're nerfing power dps both by decreasing exposed damage as well as individual targeted nerfs to classes. CFB also received a number of nerfs, but these nerfs do not target the most egregious aspects of CFB(F1 tome 5) and pale in comparison to the massive buff it received via exposed changes. As a result, CFB emerges even stronger than it was pre patch, and even moreso relative to the now nerfed power builds. The only logical conclusion is that we can expect CFB to be so dominant that stacking it will be the best way to clear fractals.

 

Again, condition classes in general are weak in fractals, and buffing their exposed damage is a decent way to help them without breaking balance in other gamemodes, but unless CFB is changed in such a way that it cannot ramp damage as quickly as it does now, the changes to exposed are going to make fractal balance unbearable for the coming months. Please reconsider, because I legitimately love this game mode and don't want to see class diversity ruined in favor of one build, even if that build happens to be the one I play.

Edited May 1, 2021 by FtoPScrub.5476

[Noodle Ant.1605]

6 hours ago, Aussiemon.7418 said:

Exposed Debuff:

This would be better balanced if the lesser damage increase applied to both power and burning, with other condis seeing the greater damage increase.

this is not a good idea as someone best put it: ‘not all condition builds are created equal.’ your main target is cfb, but you also hit condi zerker and condi not-arcane ele (any spec) whose ramp times are pretty ‘average’ vs other condi builds. in the background you have condi venoms thief (any spec) who, using mistlock shenanigans, can currently theoretically stack 100 poison ~3s into fight

 

meanwhile the main targets to supposed benefit from this change are DoT(^3) ramp builds like condi scg, who stacks minimal condis into initial breakbar and frankly wont benefit from this change at all. better to just have nerfed both power and condi to 30% as it draws out the fight which makes condi more useable regardless

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

There is no progress without drastic changes. I've read through the notes a few times. Most of the well-designed-builds should be able to handle it without much trouble. We will have to make adjustments to almost all builds for sure, but especially the meta may prevail almost untouched - as with all the previous game-breaking/game-changing/world-ending balance-patches. 

 

Some players here have gotten their wishes granted, so I am curious if they can live up to their part of the bargain too. None of my stuff to be honest, but I think I can get things working in my favor. Already ran a few theory-crafts and analysis, now I want to run field tests. Looking forward to the patch.