May 11 Guild Wars 2 Skills and Balance Update Preview

[ProfBits.3716]

Please don't forget about the Raidbosses affected by retaliation changes.

If the Retaliation boon is also changed on Qadim (W6), Cardinal Adina (W7) and Qadim the Peerless (W7), fights become segnivicantly easier. This is because these fight were designed with the Retaliation damage on the Players in mind as a mechanik to pressure the group.

 

So please also update these fights to retain the old mechanik of retaliation or add a other effect in place of the old retail to keep the fight the same and not break them.

Edited May 2, 2021 by ProfBits.3716
Fixed typo, Added Quadim the Peerless

[Black Storm.6974]

I don’t really like the changes to the Exposed phase and I think would be better letting it at 50% for both Power and Condition damage.

 

Most groups are not able to rapidly CC and phase a Fractal boss, and in these groups, people with power builds, can not properly take advantage of the Exposed phase, their burst won’t be aligned and waiting to burst is a DPS loss already.

Now, with Power damage being less effective and Condition damage far more effective during the Exposed phase the situation could be like that:

Power DPS players want to instant CC, but it will be even more of a problem, cause Condition players want to wait until they stack enough ticks. That will punish even more Power DPS, while Condition DPS won’t be affected at all, they will just get what they need, while also having a far higher damage boost during the exposed phase.

 

I don’t see people talk about that often, but Conditions already have the advantage, in high level Fractal, to ignore the high toughness many enemies have (which increase with Fractal levels). In addition to that, their damage can ignore the Protection boon on the enemies.

 

Conditions will simply become the far easier, ignorant way to clear Fractals in pugs and any other group who is not very efficient (and I am not taking into account Condition Firebrands thinking at the “efficient groups”, nor thinking at the “inefficient groups”).

[ZDragon.3046]

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

 

Right about what? Minions not being invincible (because if they're not, you'll always need to re-cast them)? Or skills having cast time?

 

Having to summon minions mid fight or after a gg. 

I wish they would not (just die) if I happen to get fixate from samarog or sacraficed by matt. 

Basically they at least need to give the the mount code treatment where they just vanish during those times when you are pinned and come back after you are saved from such mechanics. 

 

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

I've thought about something like this before, but then that sounds less like actual minions and more like regular skills with some kind of "minion-looking particle effect", right? Personally, I don't see the point -might as well just use different group of skills.

Having to summon minions mid fight or after a gg. 

Basically you know how mesmer phantasom utility works right? 

You press the button > mild cast time > your summon pops up and does a powerful active effect > despawns. 

 

I wished minions kinda worked like this if they did they would be warranted to have a stronger active than they do right now. They would also be less passive and more active which most people generally want I would think in both pve and pvp. 

People generally dont like being killed by passive AI and think its skillful in anyway.

[mixxed.5862]

The mantra changes don't seem good at all. I understand why you didn't like them in PvE, but for competitive game modes the design was sound. Why didn't you just reduce the cast times in PvE and make the final charges better? It's such a boring excuse of a "fix" to just remove their core functionality. The design wasn't the issue, the balance was. 

 

Why aren't there any meaningful balance changes for PvP and WvW? As the balance team you should make changes with all game modes in mind. All you will achieve with the current changes is cripple build diversity and exacerbate existing problems. 

 

What about the pas.sive traits that were (rightfully) put on 300 second cooldowns? Are there any plans for all the subpar specializations and weapons in PvP?  How do you intend to fix the very restrictive and boring meta in WvW?

Edited May 3, 2021 by mixxed.5862

[cgMatt.5162]

Please make Resolution/Retaliation do at least 1 damage non-crit for support players in WvW so they still get kill credit for being a damage sponge.

 

Can't screw over Mallyx Revs (Corruption traitline) too much with the Resistance change. Other classes and runes should probably be updated with Resolution too.

 

With the Resistance change, it now overlaps with how Superspeed mitigates movement impeding conditions (slightly).

Edited May 2, 2021 by cgMatt.5162

[Jski.6180]

8 minutes ago, cgMatt.5162 said:

Please make Resolution/Retaliation do at least 1 damage non-crit for support players in WvW so they still get kill credit for being a damage sponge.

 

Can't screw over Mallyx Revs (Corruption traitline) too much with the Resistance change. Other classes and runes should probably be updated with Resolution too.

 

With the Resistance change, it now overlaps with how Superspeed mitigates movement impeding conditions (slightly).

There are 5 counters to soft cc and only 3 to hard super speed comply counter movement effects but for root.

[Lily.1935]

11 hours ago, ZDragon.3046 said:

I didnt even think about this but honestly you are right. That said I still wished Minions worked like phantasom summons where they show up do a strong effective and active thing then go away on a ammo system or something. 

 

What I dislike is on certain boss mechanics, in raids for example, if I run flesh golem/blood fiend etc doing certain types of mechanics (often left to dps roles to fill) or getting hit by certain mechanics at random auto kills my golem because the mechanic causes me to transform flipping my skill bar to empty slots.

 

Just to name a few of the common ones off the top of my head

Shrooms on Sloth (wing2)

Getting sacrificed by Matt at random (wing2)

Getting jumped on by Samarog (wing4)

 

This kills them and puts them on full cooldown which is always frustrating especially in fights where the overall group cc is kinda low and depend on having a spice golem get 4-5 knock down hits through a large hit box like samarog's.

 

But generally yes having to re summon them after every gg is also kinda dull.

 

As many others have pointed out its a bit of a similar case for druid too with having to have someone gg or having to re summon spirits over and over. (bring back mobile spirits 2021) lol

 

I think you might be on to something there with the Phantasms, however I'd say we could do something a bit more necroish and a bit more fun that could solve the passive farming problem that minions have now which a charge system would harm.

This might be a bit complex but I'll try to explain my idea to the best of my abilities and you've kinda given me a "Eureka!" moment.

So lets cut the cast time and cooldown of the minions by quite a bit. Lets have all of them have charges to use them quickly. All minions degenerate health over time, even the flesh wurm. Change their skill activation ability for some such as Rigor Mortis or haunt then the skill summons these minions as its activation and goes on cooldown for a bit. While that's occurring the minions slowly lose health but once the skill is up again you can summon another minion of that type you had previously. In addition to this you would have a cap of how many Utility skill minions you can have at once. With Flesh Golem and Wurm maintaining priority. Flesh wurm could summon itself in an attack and using its skill to teleport would work the same though the wurm would be on a timer. Flesh golem would be the unique one in this batch in that it doesn't degen health over time.

So My idea is that for Bone Minions these would also function like this but be summoned at the location of your choosing and cause some damage on summoning, minor damage but damage none the less. With this idea a savy necromancer could actually build multiple types of Minion masters using the minions they like and using their skills to try and maintain their favorites. Like a bone fiend build where you just have them.

The last part to this is I'd like them to scale on your stats.

I hope this all makes sense it might sound a bit convoluted. But I really would hate to lose the summoner aspect of Necromancer. Its too important a feature to give these skills the spirit weapon treatment.

[Nebilim.5127]

I'm on the group that completely abhor these mantra changes, not only you removed a deep playstyle from said classes, you also dumbed down the game in favor of simpler play. Has anyone ever even complained about the things you guys mentioned? The animations for the mantras and all the lines too, just gone, removing a huge flavor from firebrand. Please, revert these changes, there are  lot of other ways to achieve what you guys said without just turning mantras in shouts with different names. Someone posted a thread about charging the mantras to make them more powerful by holding a button, it is a great idea

[kenny.7236]

Would + condition duration runes & sigils be affected?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

36 minutes ago, kenny.7236 said:

Would + condition duration runes & sigils be affected?

up to the new cap but no more.

[Mesis.2951]

I wish they would make more ovehauls to core and elite specs, but not like this.
Instead making mantras a glorified shouts. I would like more skills, more complexity not less

[Ragi.7291]

I am so happy to have patches like that with a vision and scope, I want it every 6 months  😃
 

Having a max limit on buffs and conditions and stacking them is very good because currently it was a mess, some had max times, some stacked 5 times, some stacked 9 times, some at the time you want. 👍

It's very good, but I think that speed should haven't limit because for players without a mount the speed is a great comfort of play.

But I think there is a problem with fear and taunt should not be influenced by expertise, we should not be able to dispell them because it is a CC.
Currently a 3s stun, you can counter with 3 choices : a breackstun, aegis or stab.
a fear / taunt of 3s, you can counter it with 6 choices : a breackstun, aegis, stab, resistance and dispell / conversion.
The stun/ knock/ ... prevents you from moving so help you and your allies to dps with Aoe.
The fear/taunt makes your opponent move so the spell of your aoe and those of your allies.
There is a problem.
_______________________________________

Now on  Torment it's a good thing for the WvW, less pressure of necros, it's a good thing for the PVE since you manage the moobs.

On the other hand it is a nonsense for the necro class which uses fear and torment so every time you fear, you lose more than 50% of your torment dps which is absurd.
And in PvP since you move all the time all classes using torment are nerfed more than 50% of their dps.
Renegade needs a huge nerf on the damage and torment stacks it puts in PVE with your patch, as it already superforms too much.
_____________________________________

The 10s cap of non-damaging condi is fine for us in PVE openworld. 😀
On the other hand on the other players in PVP or moob in PVE it's a huge nerf on some class that do more damage depending on the number of condition / or / with a specific condition on the enemy.
Example :  necromancer with "target the weak" or  chrono with "danger time",  reaper with "cold shouder", ...

there is a lot of balancing to do!

___________________________________
Resolution

For the redesign of  retaliation, I find it good, it will allow to have less pressure of conditions.
Then we'll see who can put it and balance the dispells accordingly.

Don't forget all the traits and runes that had an interaction with the retaliation.
After the only thing that stopped the builds with perforation and rebound in WvW was the retaliation if there is put, I'm very afraid.

___________________________________
For mantras it's great! 👍
I hope you will do something for the pets of the necro because it's the same problem when you change map, when you die, when you are CC (by samarog) or transformed you have to reinvoke them, ... 😥
And at the same time fixed the AFK farm with reaper and pets which is a plague on this game.

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%.  

It's a very good thing for condi builds excluding those that use a lot of burn and torment.
There is going to be a HUGE problem with firebrand and renegat, it overdominates the meta we only see that now with our patch there will be more than that 2 classes in the game, goodbye diversity, if there is not a huge nerf of that 2 classes.

____________________________________
 

• Quote

  The Celestial stat combination on gear now also increases concentration and expertise. The per-stat values have not been decreased.

   

if you don't reduce a bit the other stat, there will be more than celeste stat in WvW, I'm afraid.

___________________________________

Mesmer:
huge power chrono, and quick chrono nerf

Quote

 

Illusionary Riposte: This skill no longer displaces the player when summoning a clone.

Illusionary Counter: This skill no longer displaces the player when summoning a clone.

•  Restorative Mantras: Heal allies around you when activating a mantra. Reduced healing amount by 50%.
    Mantra munitions

 

So Happy for that 😍

___________________________________

Necromancer :

• Quote

  Soul Barbs: This trait now increases all damage dealt, not only strike damage.

  only thing that will increase our damage in condi on your archetype. 👍
  
   

• Quote

  Barbed Precision: Increased duration of bleeding inflicted from 2 seconds to 3 seconds in PvE only.

  It's not an up but a rebalance because we will mechanically lose % of crit with "target the weak" because of the 10s cap for non-damageable alterations. 
  So the trait proc less often.
  I'm sad that there is no redesign of the scourge utilities which are useless and a redesign of  pets as mantras.
  We were also told that we would change the toughness on the death magic branch, 1 year ago.
  With  resolution + the 10s cap maybe review  Epidemic would not be bad because -50% and 3 condi is very hard with this patch.
  
  ___________________________________
  
  War :
  On the other hand I am extremely disappointed with the Spellbreaker which will always be useless except for his bubble which debuffs.
  I hope a redesign with the expansion with a real role defined, because debuff the renegade, the chrono, and the necro do it much better.
  Can't wait to see a war support / heal with all these changes for the next specialization.
  
  ___________________________________
  
  Guard :

  reduction of the CD dps and CC, change of the mantra thus buff + the increase of the 100% of the damages condi after a CC.
  There will be more than firebrand everywhere because no one will be able to compete with the dps and their utility stab/egide/resistance/dispell/healing increase, anti-projectile bubble, quick buff, CC.
  he needs a condi damage nerf, actuelly he does more burst damage than most of the power dps in the game, which is absolutely not normal.
  Still no counterpart for firebrand though you said you wanted every specialization to be a counterpart!😰
  But I'm thrilled for  draconer's bow.👍
  
  ___________________________________
  
  Ranger :
  I think there was no need for another CC on  warhorn of ranger, it has already quite a few.
  There is a need for a burst power soulbeast nerf and the fact that the more soulbeast "share stance" there is the more it increases its damage.
  But it seems to me a bit much. 🤔
  I'm glad that the double arc build mi-power mi-condi is nerfed.
  
  ___________________________________
  
  Thief :

  Why nerf boon thief which is useful in 4 fights in the whole game! 😭
  It's a great way to bring diversity to the game, as the heal / support can play other classes or other traits.
  And you don't take a boon thief only for quickness, it's for all the buffs,  resistance, 25 power, fury,  protection, +  fact that it has a lot of CC.
  If you do that just you will kill more diversity in the game.

  
  After the buff of condi makes me afraid in roaming in WvW, it will be a massacre, I think.
  He already inflicts a lot of condi and CC and is buffed in 3s in WvW, I specify well.

  
  ___________________________________
   

Revenant :

• Quote

  Destructive Impulses: This trait now increases all damage dealt rather than strike damage only.

  The renegade's life steal is already the best of the game why strengthen it again, it absolutely doesn't need it.
   

Malyx heal if not reworked will be a succide.
Despite the nerve of the torment duration of some skills, I fear that it is not enough in PVE.
huge nerf of  revenant dps condi in PVP because of the torment.
I would have liked a redesign of the healing with ventari.

___________________________________

Ingineer :
Scrapper an interesting to heal and quick  for 2 or 3 bosses (desmina, sloth, xera), but it will still lack something to compete with the FBheal.

___________________________________

I would have liked to have a big animation on the signs that rez of  elem / necro and guard. 
Between him and his target on the ground.
Whether it is for the PVE or PVP for more clarity.

____________________________________

Interesting patch.
But that will be summarized in PVE by an impoverishment of the meta with Full FB with 1 alac renegade maybe 1 BS for fractal.
And in Raid Guard / Renegat with 1 BS, and 1 druid.

In PVP, with  10s condi cap and 30S for buff + resolution + reversal torment.
I don't see how mirage, renegat and scourge will come out.

sorry I'm not English I did what I could in Yoda mode.👽

Edited May 3, 2021 by Ragi.7291

[ZDragon.3046]

4 hours ago, Lily.1935 said:

I think you might be on to something there with the Phantasms, however I'd say we could do something a bit more necroish and a bit more fun that could solve the passive farming problem that minions have now which a charge system would harm.

This might be a bit complex but I'll try to explain my idea to the best of my abilities and you've kinda given me a "Eureka!" moment.

So lets cut the cast time and cooldown of the minions by quite a bit. Lets have all of them have charges to use them quickly. All minions degenerate health over time, even the flesh wurm. Change their skill activation ability for some such as Rigor Mortis or haunt then the skill summons these minions as its activation and goes on cooldown for a bit. While that's occurring the minions slowly lose health but once the skill is up again you can summon another minion of that type you had previously. In addition to this you would have a cap of how many Utility skill minions you can have at once. With Flesh Golem and Wurm maintaining priority. Flesh wurm could summon itself in an attack and using its skill to teleport would work the same though the wurm would be on a timer. Flesh golem would be the unique one in this batch in that it doesn't degen health over time.

 

I dont think this would solve the farming problem completely. So long as minions exists in the world for any amount of time longer than say a few seconds farming will always be an afk option. Making them degenerate health will probably help a tiny bit but makes them a pain to use for active players in the long run which wouldn't be fun in most cases.

 

This is kind of complexed and I'm not sure how I feel about degenerating health even more so if it means I have to now break rotation simply because a key minion died from passive health loss, im more likely just not going to run the minion at all. For example, Golem dies from hp loss right before a phase where cc is need = bad time.

 

Additionally from a competitive standpoint minions there don't have damage reduction in these modes and adding health drain overtime ontop of incoming player damage = effectively useless even if it does solve the brain dead bunker minion master builds anet is struggling to balance at the moment. I like things to still be optionally usable as someone who plays both modes. 

 

Wurm would need a functionality change altogether, likely it would need to become an instant teleport (breakstun) skill that now shadow steps you to a new location and summons the wurm in your previous position. The wurm then attacks targets from that position before its death where it would explode or something like that nature. (perhaps you have a time limit where you can teleport back to it optionally)

 

The reason I proposed an ammo count system is because it out right makes them more active. Even if every minion had 2 charges it wouldn't exists in the world for more than a few seconds at a time which likely eliminates most options for passive afk farming as a whole(even more so if anet makes these skills require a target to use). On top of that the active effects like Golem charge, Haunt, etc could be buffed as they are now active skills instead of having their effects and damage shaved the way they are now due to having a totally passive component. 

 

If anything all anet would need to maintain a slight summoner feel is make it so that after your minion pops up, performs a skill, and dies a lesser thing spawns from it and perhaps that could be the only passive minions you have much like how mesmer phantoms become clones after they use their active ability, Maybe after the active minion despwans it summons a lesser bone minion which would stay with you and chase targets (but not attack them) if you have the bone minion skill on your bar it auto flips over to the explode command so long as you have at least 1 lesser bone minion available and only becomes summon bone minion if there are none available (but summoning them has a cast time of its on obviously) which would promote using other  active skills to build your army of explosive pets. If you didn't have the skill on your bar then the minions simply explode when  they lose all of their hp from taking damage.

 

Quote

So My idea is that for Bone Minions these would also function like this but be summoned at the location of your choosing and cause some damage on summoning, minor damage but damage none the less. With this idea a savy necromancer could actually build multiple types of Minion masters using the minions they like and using their skills to try and maintain their favorites. Like a bone fiend build where you just have them.
 

 

I think that this would be a cool idea but would likely require forced death magic reworks and traits to even make it a possibility To be honest designing something like this is more like making a new elite spec rather than just reworking utility. You would need an effect to count how many potential minion slots you can have and how many points each type of minion consumes from that counter based on its strength.  Its just not something I can see anet doing unless they commit to doing it for EoD as a new elite.

 

Like this would really really really be cool but i think it would require a massive overhaul to death magic (not saying my idea wouldnt either)

 

Quote

The last part to this is I'd like them to scale on your stats.

I hope this all makes sense it might sound a bit convoluted. But I really would hate to lose the summoner aspect of Necromancer. Its too important a feature to give these skills the spirit weapon treatment.

Yes I agree that minions should scale with caster stats 100% if you are glass your minions should hit like you are glass if you are a tank they minions should deal almost no damage.

 

I like the idea of a summoner aspect of necromancer (in some cases) but I dont see any version of it that wouldn't allow afk farming of some kind. Even as of this moment they are struggling to balance minion master in pvp let alone how to deal with afk farmers.

Sadly there may not be an easy way to deal with it entirely but all we can do is keep tossing up creative ideas.

Edited May 3, 2021 by ZDragon.3046

[pakkyun.9321]

On 4/30/2021 at 8:06 PM, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

General

·         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%.

•  

 

5 cfb + 1 alacren now the meta for high fractals for a full year before the next large class balance update right? Sweet, must be nice for the Guardian maining devs.

 

On 4/30/2021 at 8:06 PM, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

Mesmer

Chronomancer has been steeply overperforming in a damage role in all content, leading to an environment in which the best way to tackle almost any challenge is to throw more Chronomancers at it. On the other hand, Mirage hasn't been performing at the level we'd like it to; it's been relegated to a damage role in only a few specific boss encounters in which confusion is particularly potent.

Chronomancer

• Danger Time: Removed the critical-damage bonus.
• Chronophantasma: Resummoned phantasm damage is now 75% in PvE only.
• Seize the Moment: Quickness duration per clone shattered has been reduced from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvE only.

 

"Mirage hasn't been performing at the level we'd like it to; it's been relegated to a damage role in only a few specific boss encounters in which confusion is particularly potent."

 

Looking at the Mirage's traits that synergize only with condition damage and not with power I'm truly shocked that it's utilized only in content where said condition damage is good. Is the ambush damage supposed to be that good that you'd pick a condition elite specialization just to play power with it rather than using Chronomancer? I don't get it.

 

A tiny portion of old neckbeard players are stacking Chronos to speedclear raids so the whole elite specialization gets hammered to kingdom come, I wonder if EoD will let Mesmer players finally use a elite specialization to play Power and not Condition damage. How long has core shatter been the conquest go-to for Mesmer again?

 

On 4/30/2021 at 8:06 PM, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

Renegade

• Soulcleave's Summit: Life stealing can now trigger a maximum of once per second for each affected target.

 

Hey at least some good news. I'll take all and every nerf I get for condi shortbow revs that can solo legendary bounties by sustaining with battle scars even if it's just this. Should probably switch the class names with this and necromancer for PvE because the other that's supposed to be king of sustain clearly isn't. 😂

 

Edit rant:

I really dislike pet classes which is why when I started this game in 2012 I mained Thief and later Mesmer. After a few breaks when I came back to the game it really pained to see both of them thrown into the trash like that, I really enjoyed the allure of Mesmers of having PvE mobs aggroing the illusions and phantasms instead of the character so I could play glass.

 

Later on I rerolled into a reaper and made a condi ren as well and can just faceroll with full berserker's / viper's through mostly everything alone and just have fun without going down.

 

What even is having fun on Mesmers outside of the feeling of power when giving Portals to new players? Every gear and cog in the machine is attempting to force a trailblazer's mirage for soloing (Not that it's an issue for Mesmers alone, the Trailblazer's stat combination for soloing is broken when compared to any of Power variants and hardly no one is addressing it, what even is build diversity when the most logical choice is most likely Trailblazer's).

 

It feels like a half or a slight margin over it of players I see in the open world with mastery points of 350 and over are either DHs or FBs which makes me wince hard knowing that once again Guardians are getting pampered.

Edited May 3, 2021 by pakkyun.9321
Additional comments

[xXxNikiGoesWildxXx.3678]

There should be a huge buff to classes that doesn't provide utility to allies with their condi build and very big nerf to classes that does. 

Condi soulbeast dps-no utility=buff dmg,
Condi weaver dps-no utility=buff dmg,

Condi firebrand dps+utility=dmg nerf,
Condi renegade dps+utility=dmg nerf,
NEW* Alacrity mirage dps+utility= dmg nerf,

So Mirage could provide 25 might and fury anyway to 10 targets if all orbs pass trough them from Chaos vortex. So it is understandable why its dps is lower currently. I think with such changes it will be overbuff to its dmg and i bet it will deal more than 30k dps on golem. 

Firebrand and Renegade are not such a case, their dps is very high with ability to share quickness and alacrity. Those really needs to kiss a hammer of justice. Too much is too much, just cut their dmg by half, let other condi builds to shine. 

There is also a condi berserkers with banners but i think power version of it is better or mix. Overall its dps is too high if we keep in mind its utility with banners. 

There is also "healer scourge" which grants barriers to allies, so there should be also careful to not make its damage too high.

What is really good is seeing condi thief hitting a buff with its dps as it doesn't provide any utility to allies, it seems as great change, good direction of changing/reworking/buffing the class.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

so: 

 

Celestial armour now includes concentration and expertise, as does Sigil of the Stars. 

 

How about the celestial runes" like Divinty, Herald, Tempest, etc...? will they also gain concentration and expertise?

 

sorry if it's been mentioned before...

[Jijimuge.4675]

3 minutes ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

so: 

 

Celestial armour now includes concentration and expertise, as does Sigil of the Stars. 

 

How about the celestial runes" like Divinty, Herald, Tempest, etc...? will they also gain concentration and expertise?

 

sorry if it's been mentioned before...

Runes like Divinity etc already have concentration and expertise as part of the stats they boost 🙂

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

it seems as though i forgot about the change back when... i claim BDD: Bacon Defeciency Disorder. and lack of kittens. 

[Sniper.5961]

On 4/30/2021 at 7:06 PM, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

Soulbeast

• One Wolf Pack: Increased cooldown from 60 seconds to 80 seconds in PvE only.
•  

This is the wrong way to nerf the skill, because the rotation will be frustrating to play, because OWP will not line up with every 2. sic em burst phase anymore and in addition will not line up with bossphases like it used to be. If the Trait has to be nerfed, please either prolong the internal cooldown for the individual hits or nerf the damagemodifier a bit. Either of these nerfs would have the same effect over time and even tune down the burst phases even more, (wich is the intended goal of this nerf) but would still preserve the timing of the rotation, bossphases and thus the enjoyability to play the class.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Sniper.5961

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

On 5/1/2021 at 7:15 PM, Jski.6180 said:

This is why you have to effectively spam in game chats with the balancing problems of the game its such a bad system we have now with these forms (not the forms set up but the lack of any thing getting though to the devs.)

 

I know for a fact at least one dev (dose not work on balancing sadly) knows of my views of ele and knows of a lot of the problems with wvw balancing. But even the devs who do play the game see to not to be able to communicate to the balance devs. So they ARE in a massive bubble in what seems to be all parts of there life.

 

Maybe gw2 community needs to do an intervention with these devs and there life chose if they are just that discontented from the words reality?

Well I also play ele to sum it up you force your way into high endcontent but it is in no way part of the meta  there any more to say it how it is in compare what they say. Also roughly saying if you do more then less then 10% less then the best build you aren't played any more .e.g  DH did in fractals often only 5% less dmg then Weaver before the last nerf 2020 probelme is DH is super tanky and super easy rota like all guards builds, so the changes pushed power Weaver to the side while it was already was hanging by a thread. Berserker Warrior is smiler as pure DPS build it can even out performance both .. since then I had many encounters where warrior wouldn't take banner with them .. which can make sense considering how they nerfed banners.

 

In general you could see this coming there are some nerfs which are justified here like Soulbeast, CFB Condi Chrono but the general problem for Gw2 is :

A) Lack of new content

B) Balancing patches which force a major shift in the meta outside of Add-ons as well really pressing players out of the game  or gamemode which results in players number drops. (because they can't play their main any more in the favoured mode)

C)Bugs I mean major bugs which doesn't get fixed like the attunment problem when your weapon bar is replaced.

 

Because of this  most of the players I know don't see a future for this game far behind the next add-on which resulted in the prices for legendary mats to increase a lot. You can see how this effected gw2 also by going to side which show "mmo population" in terms of active player base gw2 was once number 2  after WoW now number 10 and this hasn't anything to do with age . Runescape(2001) is on place 5 and Final Fantasy (2014) is in the west now on the same level as WoW

[Flani.3468]

Please don't get rid of the flavor of mantras.

 

The animations, the voiced lines that are unique to each one, the theme of the firebrand ones being casted upon settling on the spinning symbol that holds all of the words. Taking all of that away and then giving us a bland, simplified instant cast cone skill is super lame. While yes, it does get rid of the PvE problem that makes using the final charge feel like a mistake, at what cost?

 

Why do you do this, ArenaNet? You put work into animations and voiced lines and then trash them?

 

Look, instead of turning mantras into soulless ammo skills, why don't you actually work on improving the final charges so that they're worth using? Or adding traits that actually reward using the final charge? Or even affecting other skills (cooldown reductions, damage increases, bigger heals, etc) upon using the final charge?

 

Please, don't throw away what makes mantras cool.

[Asum.4960]

13 hours ago, Svez Poizon XD.5268 said:

There should be a huge buff to classes that doesn't provide utility to allies with their condi build and very big nerf to classes that does. 

Condi soulbeast dps-no utility=buff dmg,
Condi weaver dps-no utility=buff dmg,

Condi firebrand dps+utility=dmg nerf,
Condi renegade dps+utility=dmg nerf,
NEW* Alacrity mirage dps+utility= dmg nerf,

So Mirage could provide 25 might and fury anyway to 10 targets if all orbs pass trough them from Chaos vortex. So it is understandable why its dps is lower currently. I think with such changes it will be overbuff to its dmg and i bet it will deal more than 30k dps on golem. 

Firebrand and Renegade are not such a case, their dps is very high with ability to share quickness and alacrity. Those really needs to kiss a hammer of justice. Too much is too much, just cut their dmg by half, let other condi builds to shine. 

There is also a condi berserkers with banners but i think power version of it is better or mix. Overall its dps is too high if we keep in mind its utility with banners. 

There is also "healer scourge" which grants barriers to allies, so there should be also careful to not make its damage too high.

What is really good is seeing condi thief hitting a buff with its dps as it doesn't provide any utility to allies, it seems as great change, good direction of changing/reworking/buffing the class.

While that does sound reasonable design in theory, in practice slashing damage in half for those basically just means the deletion of those builds (and Hybrids as a whole) because they do happen to provide some Utility - which while often nice, largely is redundant and can be covered by supports instead. 

 

It's essentially what kept Necro from viability in endgame content for years. "It has Utility/survivability with Shroud, so it can't have damage". Yet no one really cares about that Utility. It's not needed to stay alive in instanced group content with supports, and everything else isn't remotely challenging enough to warrant it either.

Sure, if it performed exactly the same or better DPS on top of that extra Utility, that would be too much - but it's really not worth trading off anything more than a very minor DPS loss (and should be a choice in the first place). 

 

What you want design wise is not to just blanked nerf damage of professions with Utility somewhere, but design them in such a way where the profession provides a choice between personal performance or providing that Utility, at some cost to that.

If anything, Firebrand and Renegade are poster children for that and should guide future profession/elitespec (re)design. 

 

Heal Scourge losing 2/3'rds of it's damage arguably is too much already, and what condemns it to a very niche hard carry role (since currently specs need to either provide high pure Heal+Boon Support, high DPS+ medium Boon Support, or very high pure DPS, for viability).

 

I think there is room for both hybrid comps where most everybody provides some Utility while doing reasonable DPS, as well as comps with pure DPS's, performing slightly higher individually, but having to give up a slot or two for pure supports - roughly evening out.

 

TL:DR;

The only problems are when Utility comes at zero cost to personal performance, when Utility is baked-in in such a way that it doesn't provide a choice between personal performance and providing it, and when a profession sacrifices way too much just because it has some Utility somewhere, especially if as above, it can't choose to not do so for personal performance gains.

[Asum.4960]

10 minutes ago, Jovel.5706 said:

Please don't get rid of the flavor of mantras.

 

The animations, the voiced lines that are unique to each one, the theme of the firebrand ones being casted upon settling on the spinning symbol that holds all of the words. Taking all of that away and then giving us a bland, simplified instant cast cone skill is super lame. While yes, it does get rid of the PvE problem that makes using the final charge feel like a mistake, at what cost?

 

Why do you do this, ArenaNet? You put work into animations and voiced lines and then trash them?

 

Look, instead of turning mantras into soulless ammo skills, why don't you actually work on improving the final charges so that they're worth using? Or adding traits that actually reward using the final charge? Or even affecting other skills (cooldown reductions, damage increases, bigger heals, etc) upon using the final charge?

 

Please, don't throw away what makes mantras cool.

I don't think the primary problem was the last charge (aside from it bugging frequently on FB, displaying 2/3 charges and then going on full CD upon use), but the charge up mechanic. 

As much as I like those animations and all, when you play frequently and charge those things 20+ times every daily Fractal run, every time you respawned in PvP, every OW map change, every Story instance etc., for years, it get's really, really old. 

 

As much as I like the Mantras, I can say I genuinely started to despise having (to have) them on my bar years ago. 

Not sure if I want to how how many genuine hours I've spent combined just standing around charging them since PoF launch.

 

As a sidenote, FB already has a Trait rewarding the use of the final charge, and outside of clutch situations in PvP when FB was still viable there, it didn't make enduring the full Cooldown and charge up again any more appealing either. 

 

As much as I agree with your sentiment, I think it's a good change for the game.

[TheGrimm.5624]

Will have to see how it plays out in WvW but with a 3:1 ratio in duration between boons and condis still seems that boonball meta will have the advantage. Would be nice if this is reviewed in the future after some play thru. Right now those that stack tightest have the advantage. Also will be fun to see if the warrior once more has a rifle build to be able to use. Is it 5/11 yet?

[xXxNikiGoesWildxXx.3678]

12 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

While that does sound reasonable design in theory, in practice slashing damage in half for those basically just means the deletion of those builds

Well they provide aoe utility, indirectly buffing dmg/sustain or w/e of other allies, that is where their damage is, from allies. There is no need for such classes to also deal more damage than classes that are purely meant to be dps dealers and only that. Quickness, might, fury and alacrity. Anything that provides those boons/buffs/support needs to have halved or even less dps than real dps class.

Condi firebrand is everywhere, the best role. They needed to split roles in same specialization, it can't be done now as they put everything in same class, so the only way is to gut its dps by a lot, so we can say: fine, it provides healing and quickness but nothing else more, so you won't see 4 firebrands in fractals but 1 or none. Same for any other playmode.