Follow Up to May 11 Balance Preview

[Nauda.3678]

Quote

Purging Flames: Reduced radius from 240 to 180. This skill no longer burns foes that cross the outside of the field. Instead, it now applies one stack of burning with a 4-second duration on foes inside the radius when cast and again on each pulse for the duration of the effect. Cooldown reduced from 35 seconds to 25 seconds in PvE only.

I think "Purging Flames" should keep the 240 unit radius in WvW and PvE. It's still supposed to be a support skill after all, even if it now stacks burning quite well. A 180 unit radius is to small to be of any use as a support skill.

I can see that "Purging Flames" might have to be smaller in PvP in order to ensure that it doesn't cover a node completely, but that change is not warranted for WvW and PvE.

[Kodama.6453]

8 hours ago, Nauda.3678 said:

I think "Purging Flames" should keep the 240 unit radius in WvW and PvE. It's still supposed to be a support skill after all, even if it now stacks burning quite well. A 180 unit radius is to small to be of any use as a support skill.

I can see that "Purging Flames" might have to be smaller in PvP in order to ensure that it doesn't cover a node completely, but that change is not warranted for WvW and PvE.

In PvE, at least in the content that matters in terms of difficulty (raids, strikes, etc.), people are stacking for boon sharing anyway, so it having a smaller radius doesn't really matter that much there.

 

In WvW, staying in the zone for condi cleanse isn't going to happen, since a zerg will not keep standing in an area to cleanse, making them vulnerable for AoE nukes. It's offensive power for AoE burning application is most likely the bigger factor here than the supportive value of the condi cleanse.

[Xaylin.1860]

On 5/5/2021 at 11:24 PM, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

A message from the Guild Wars 2 Systems Team:

 

Last week we posted a preview of the May 11 Skills and balance update and have since been keeping a close eye on the discussions (and memes) regarding the planned changes. Now that we’ve had time to read and discuss your feedback, we want to share some of our observations and the changes we’re making as a result. This goes without saying, but we do truly appreciate the feedback and your passion for the game!

 

Good thing, thanks. As others mentioned, I'd also like to know more about your plans for Mesmer Mantras considering that the earlier Information basically only focussed on FB. As it stands now, Mesmers will yet again lose interesting and unique effects on their Utilities? Or will the effects be incorporated differently (e.g. via trait or through "-×% F3 CD per usee Charge" on MoD?)

 

On 5/5/2021 at 11:24 PM, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

• Weighty Terms: Now occurs on any Mantra use, not only the final charge. Now inflicts Slow instead of Immobilize. (1.5s, 10s ICD)
• Stoic Demeanor: Now also procs on inflicting Slow.

Soooo... applying Slow will apply even more Slow? Is this intentional or an oversight?

[dexteerz.1753]

On 05/05/2021 at 18:24, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

Uma mensagem kitten equipe de Guild Wars 2 Systems:

 

Na semana passada, postamos uma prévia kitten atualização de habilidades e equilíbrio de 11 de maio e, desde então, estamos de olho nas discussões (e memes) em relação às mudanças planejadas. Agora que tivemos tempo de ler e discutir seus comentários, queremos compartilhar algumas de nossas observações e as mudanças que estamos fazendo como resultado. Nem é preciso dizer, mas realmente apreciamos o feedback e sua paixão pelo jogo!

 

Mais notavelmente, vimos preocupações de que Firebrand afetará negativamente a diversidade kitten composição do grupo - especialmente em Fractais. Também observamos que Condition Firebrand é um outlier como uma condição construída com a capacidade de causar dano de explosão quase tão rápido quanto o aumento de potência, em grande parte devido à funcionalidade atual de Ashes of the Just, o que levaria a um 'mergulho duplo' das mudanças para o debuff do chefe exposto. Finalmente, houve algumas boas perguntas sobre como o traço Firebrand 'Termos Pesados' funcionará com mantras, 'Clarion Bond' do Ranger, e preocupações sobre a construção de Condição Revenant superando em PvE com as mudanças em Torment.
 

Depois de investigar essas questões, preparamos as seguintes alterações e esclarecimentos para a atualização do saldo de 11 de maio.

Guardião

Tição

• Cinzas dos Justos: Agora só pode ativar e consumir uma pilha com um intervalo de uma vez por segundo.
• Capítulo 2: Explosão de ignição: Alterações apenas no PvE - Pilhas de queima aplicadas reduzidas de 2 para 1. A duração base kitten queima aumentou de 5 segundos para 10 segundos.
• Termos Pesados: agora ocorre em qualquer uso do Mantra, não apenas na carga final. Agora inflige Lento em vez de Imobilizar. (1.5s, 10s ICD)
• Comportamento estóico: agora também procs em infligir Slow.

 

Corrupção Revenant

• Invoke Torment: Torment stacks aplicados reduzidos de 2 para 1 em PvE apenas. Isso corresponde ao número de pilhas aplicadas em PvP e WvW.
• Diabolic Inferno: Poison and Burning stacks aplicados reduzidos de 2 para 1 em PvE apenas. Isso corresponde ao número de pilhas aplicadas em PvP e WvW.
   

Mace

•  Angústia: Reduz a duração do tormento de 5s para 3s apenas no PvE.
• Misery Swipe: Reduz a duração do Torment de 5s para 3s apenas no PvE.

Postura do Demônio Lendário

• Absorção de dor: agora também aplica resolução ao lançador com duração de 5 segundos.

 

guarda

Pontaria

• Clarion Bond: Lesser Call of the Wild não atordoa os alvos.

 

Continuaremos monitorando o equilíbrio entre agora e o Fim dos Dragões e faremos ajustes adicionais conforme necessário.

 

Até a próxima vez,

 

- Equipe de Guild Wars 2 Systems

 

Could you look at the Druids with more love? This class being effective only for RAIDs, and one of the reasons is that the Spirits are the strongest of the class, being bad because they have a low interval and a very high CD.

[Nauda.3678]

3 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

In PvE, at least in the content that matters in terms of difficulty (raids, strikes, etc.), people are stacking for boon sharing anyway, so it having a smaller radius doesn't really matter that much there.

 

In WvW, staying in the zone for condi cleanse isn't going to happen, since a zerg will not keep standing in an area to cleanse, making them vulnerable for AoE nukes. It's offensive power for AoE burning application is most likely the bigger factor here than the supportive value of the condi cleanse.

 

While the skills is certainly limited in it's possibilities it still works decently enough when dropping it into a push or on the point of clash. The new pulsing burning will still not be bad enough to warrant such a small radius in WvW and really doesn't matter in PvE (if it doesn't really matter if it's smaller it also doesn't matter if it stay at the same size).

[Noah Salazar.5430]

Can Scrapper get 3s Quickness in pve only?

 

it's bit hard to apply with that hight cd on skills with only 2s (1 skill is used to ress ppl and it cd change despening how many ppl you ress) 

 

Also 2s of fury on https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/HGH culd be nice to buff aoe fury as altertative to rifle turret https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experimental_Turrets

 

Eventualy https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Recovery_Matrix insted of https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Expert_Examination

 

And insted of barrier-> 3s Quickness on heal 

 

Edited May 10, 2021 by Noah Salazar.5430

[Virdo.1540]

Wheres the Permastealth fix for thief?

 

Wheres the global shroud cooldown for core necro? 

An 20sec cooldown after shroud is gone  +  passive shroud can only be activated if F1 shroud isnt on cooldown. This would be an perfectly fine nerf.

 

Why can Dead pets from Rangers still rez?  

 

All those things can exploit,destroy or simply bypass game mechanics

 

 

Edited May 10, 2021 by Virdo.1540

[Dadnir.5038]

4 hours ago, Virdo.1540 said:

Wheres the Permastealth fix for thief?

 

Wheres the global shroud cooldown for core necro? 

An 20sec cooldown after shroud is gone  +  passive shroud can only be activated if F1 shroud isnt on cooldown. This would be an perfectly fine nerf.

 

Why can Dead pets from Rangers still rez?  

 

All those things can exploit,destroy or simply bypass game mechanics

 

 

 

Those are arguable points and your issue is obviously "sustain".

 

The thief's design make a fix to "permastealth" a difficult endeavor. The design choice when ANet's devs created the thief make such objectif gamebreaking for the profession.

 

The necromancer have been pushed to a state where he is supposed to spend 10s in shroud and then leave the shroud for 10s in a repeated cycle. Slapping a 20s CD on that would be against this design philosophy. The truth is that the CD isn't the issue and has never been. The issue is that pre overall damage nerf in competitive environment the amount of health shield that the shroud offered was barely enough as a mean of sustain while after this nerf the health shield ended up being to strong. (The solution to the issue is and have always been to reduce the LF pool by 30% in competitive modes.)

 

As for ranger, it has always baffled me that the pet don't stop rezing despite being interrupted or even killed. I believe, this is a long lasting buff that the devs like to ignore by regard to how poor the pet mechanism is as a whole.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Another way to mitigate Shroud being too strong is to reduce it's damage reduction. It is currently 50%, and should be reduced to 33% reduction instead.

[Jski.6180]

16 hours ago, Noah Salazar.5430 said:

Can Scrapper get 3s Quickness in pve only?

 

it's bit hard to apply with that hight cd on skills with only 2s (1 skill is used to ress ppl and it cd change despening how many ppl you ress) 

 

Also 2s of fury on https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/HGH culd be nice to buff aoe fury as altertative to rifle turret https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experimental_Turrets

 

Eventualy https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Recovery_Matrix insted of https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Expert_Examination

 

And insted of barrier-> 3s Quickness on heal 

 

Quickness boon is going to do real dmg on wvw and spvp so i am all for keeping it to pve.

 

I like to see throw elixirs lose there randomness (i did not know about that comply) and have them just all of the  boons in all game types.

[Kodama.6453]

2 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Quickness boon is going to do real dmg on wvw and spvp so i am all for keeping it to pve.

 

I like to see throw elixirs lose there randomness (i did not know about that comply) and have them just all of the  boons in all game types.

He meant to keep the 2 seconds quickness duration in WvW/PvP and up it to 3 seconds in PvE, in case you meant that you want to prevent scrapper completely from getting quickness.

[Jski.6180]

10 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

He meant to keep the 2 seconds quickness duration in WvW/PvP and up it to 3 seconds in PvE, in case you meant that you want to prevent scrapper completely from getting quickness.

I hope not throwing quirkiness that freely in wvw is game braking. Anet even went out of there way to nerf the quirkiness eng core could give to other ppl as it was doing too much already.

 

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2018-12-11#Engineer

 

"Elixir U's tool-belt skill was providing too much quickness, so it's been replaced with group superspeed"

 

3 sec of quickness was too much so i am not sure what going on with giving quirkiness to scraper in an environment where balancing is more important then say pve.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Jski.6180

[Kodama.6453]

6 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

I hope not throwing quirkiness that freely in wvw is game braking. Anet even went out of there way to nerf the quirkiness eng core could give to other ppl as it was doing too much already.

What do you expect this new grandmaster trait to do in WvW/PvP then? Or are you proposing that they just completely disable the trait there so you can't take it? Because that is not going to happen.

 

Scrapper will provide AoE quickness in WvW,  just accept it.

[Jski.6180]

6 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

What do you expect this new grandmaster trait to do in WvW/PvP then? Or are you proposing that they just completely disable the trait there so you can't take it? Because that is not going to happen.

 

Scrapper will provide AoE quickness in WvW,  just accept it.

Its already a know problem in wvw though pop and now getting quirkiness from an effect it spams that already is a very strong effect is out right oppressive for both other classes and trying to play another type of eng.

 

[Heika.5403]

@Fire Attunement.9835

 

• "Diabolic Inferno: Poison and Burning stacks applied reduced from 2 to 1 in PvE only. This matches the number of stacks applied in PvP and WvW."

 

Are you going to move "Diabolic Inferno" to a master trait at least?  Now it doesn't  seems a Grandmaster. It's too weak now.

 

• "Fiendish Tenacity: Increased resistance duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only."

 

Fiendish Tenacity due to the change made to the resistance also lose a lot. The heal over time is not as strong to define it as a GrandMaster trait with the new resistance. 

 

Corruption seems now weak against other trait lines.  

 

Pain Absortion will kill people more frequently that some imagine. 

 

I cannot understand why you rework and change some unused skills and traits to make it more appealing and useful when, at the same time, you do the opposite with others making them undesirable now.  It has no sense.

 

[Virdo.1540]

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

 

 

 

The necromancer have been pushed to a state where he is supposed to spend 10s in shroud and then leave the shroud for 10s in a repeated cycle. Slapping a 20s CD on that would be against this design philosophy. The truth is that the CD isn't the issue and has never been. The issue is that pre overall damage nerf in competitive environment the amount of health shield that the shroud offered was barely enough as a mean of sustain while after this nerf the health shield ended up being to strong. (The solution to the issue is and have always been to reduce the LF pool by 30% in competitive modes.)

 

Wouldnt it be better than if the shroud auto-deactivates after 10 seconds?

Edited May 10, 2021 by Virdo.1540

[Mik.3401]

When does the patch go live?

[Touchme.1097]

@Fire Attunement.9835

Please can you communicate to the balance team and tell them that heal tempest and healing scourge as support builds need to be balanced in order to compete with the current Meta of druid/HFB/RevHeal?

I would like to remind you that Longbow Dragonhunter is still performing poorly in PvE and it's outperformed by power Reapers. Dragonhunter was designed around the Longbow, this hasn't been addressed by the balance team yet.

Another thing to address is the expensive collection for ascended profession related HoT weapons requiring a lot of mystic coins. PoF weapon specialization collections are way cheaper than the HoT counterparts and should be addressed as it's cheaper to craft an ascended weapon with a crafting discipline than completing the full collection.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Touchme.1097

[LadyKitty.6120]

35 minutes ago, Touchme.1097 said:

@Fire Attunement.9835

Please can you communicate to the balance team and tell them that heal tempest and healing scourge as support builds need to be balanced in order to compete with the current Meta of druid/HFB/RevHeal?

I would like to remind you that Longbow Dragonhunter is still performing poorly in PvE and it's outperformed by power Reapers. Dragonhunter was designed around the Longbow, this hasn't been addressed by the balance team yet.

Another thing to address is the expensive collection for ascended profession related HoT weapons requiring a lot of mystic coins. PoF weapon specialization collections are way cheaper than the HoT counterparts and should be addressed as it's cheaper to craft an ascended weapon with a crafting discipline than completing the full collection.

Well, Kitty did address that in her looong list of suggestions in the original thread's last page. 

However, on top of lacking boons to share (though it can provide might for 10. Kitty's mathed and tested.), raid community itself has been one of main enemies of heal/boon scourge. On top of recommending the pure heal stats (full Magi's or Marshal/Shaman's with a dagger, which by itself is bad option with condi stats, instead of Harrier's pretty much all other healers use to get the boon duration), they keep on saying "scourge can't boon boohoo :'(" while heal scourge can actually bring that 10-target might and plenty of regen with proper stats, build and some basic lifeforce management skills. What it sorely needs is a source of fury that literally every other healer has as an option (well, excluding chrono...) as well as some protective boons maybe? And shades' normal target cap returned to 5 if they've actually dropped it to 3 after Kitty last played the build.

This is the proper mightbot/heal scourge build that Kitty's using: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSwAg+ZlNwSYgMI2IWsS1vKA-zRJYqRHfZkaFUdK47s8/mF-e

 

And tbh, Kitty usually simply refuses to play that build. While it brings all the might needed for whole squad while quickbrands have dealt with fury, it's already been capable of ridiculous hardcarrying the squad almost anywhere. Since Kitty often leads training raids, using that build would teach nothing about the bosses. Carries too hard. 😡

[Dadnir.5038]

8 hours ago, Virdo.1540 said:

Wouldnt it be better than if the shroud auto-deactivates after 10 seconds?

 

Who know? What's sure is that it wouldn't solve your issue with core necromancer, I'm pretty sure it would even make it worse.

 

Death shroud skillkit in itself is pretty bad and that's even considering the endless amount of traits that try desperately to make it usable. The only thing this transformation skill got is the amount of health shield it offer in small scale PvP due to the relatively low damage output there.

 

Fact is that nobody cared about the core necromancer's survivability in competitive modes prior to the feb 2020 patch. When ANet's devs announced the Feb 2020 change some players including me warned that the necromancer's survivability would shot up dramatically in a low damage environment. Warnings that were ignored until released of the patch proved them true.

 

Anet's devs thus pleased the sPvP crowd by reducing the LF source until they simply couldn't reduce them anymore without breaking the dynamic of the profession. Yet, the survivability powercreep is still there. Reducing the LF pool by 30% would have effectively reduce the amount of sustain from every single LF source by 30% and would have brought down the necromancer's health shield to pre feb 2020 patch level of efficiency without affecting the dynamic of the necromancer. The only unknown would have been scourge since it would have made it's shade skills less spammable (not a bad outcome balance wise in my opinion).

 

[AoiKazumi.9652]

On 5/5/2021 at 11:24 PM, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

A message from the Guild Wars 2 Systems Team:

 

Last week we posted a preview of the May 11 Skills and balance update and have since been keeping a close eye on the discussions (and memes) regarding the planned changes. Now that we’ve had time to read and discuss your feedback, we want to share some of our observations and the changes we’re making as a result. This goes without saying, but we do truly appreciate the feedback and your passion for the game!

 

Most notably, we’ve seen concerns that Firebrand will negatively impact group composition diversity – especially in Fractals. We’ve also observed that Condition Firebrand is an outlier as a condition build with the ability to deal burst damage nearly as fast as power build, largely due to the current functionality of Ashes of the Just, which would lead to it ‘double dipping’ from the changes to the Exposed boss debuff. Finally, there have been some good questions about how the Firebrand trait ‘Weighty Terms’ will function with mantras, Ranger’s ‘Clarion Bond’, and concerns about Condition Revenant builds outperforming in PvE with the changes to Torment.
 

After taking the time to investigate these concerns, we have prepared the following changes and clarifications for the May 11 Balance Update.

Guardian

Firebrand

• Ashes of the Just: Now may only activate and consume a stack with an interval of once per second.
• Chapter 2: Igniting Burst: PvE only changes - Burning stacks applied reduced from 2 to 1. Base duration of Burning increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
• Weighty Terms: Now occurs on any Mantra use, not only the final charge. Now inflicts Slow instead of Immobilize. (1.5s, 10s ICD)
• Stoic Demeanor: Now also procs on inflicting Slow.

 

Revenant
Corruption

• Invoke Torment: Torment stacks applied reduced from 2 to 1 in PvE only. This matches the number of stacks applied in PvP and WvW.
• Diabolic Inferno: Poison and Burning stacks applied reduced from 2 to 1 in PvE only. This matches the number of stacks applied in PvP and WvW.
   

Mace

•  Anguish Swipe: Reduce Torment duration from 5s to 3s in PvE only.
• Misery Swipe: Reduce Torment duration from 5s to 3s in PvE only.

Legendary Demon Stance

• Pain absorption: Now also applies resolution to the caster with a duration of 5 seconds.

 

Ranger

Marksmanship

• Clarion Bond: Lesser Call of the Wild does not Daze targets.

 

We’ll continue to monitor balance between now and End of Dragons and make additional adjustments as needed.

 

Until next time,

 

-The Guild Wars 2 Systems Team

?? Still looking for the scourge nerfs. Do you realize how broken that still iss. Nerf their sustain or condis... Thanks to you now theres 2 scourges in every game, and prob tomorrow everyone gonna run still scourge in2v2 as well. it can carry matches too much, and it can even carry mediocre players.

Edited May 11, 2021 by AoiKazumi.9652

[Hikosama.2971]

I think Boon cap and Condition cap make Concentration and Expertise investment take some disadvantages. So I just suggest some changes that  can considered below:

·        Boon duration capacity: Now considered as a stat. So make it function that incoming boons (which listed by dev or all kind of boons as possible) received cannot be longer than the your current capacity. If there are longer incoming boons, automatically apply the duration for incoming ones equal the capacity if they're longer. Therefore, this stat only affects the incoming ones we received. Then, in some situations, the current affecting boons if there are more longer duration still remain as they are and are not affected by the capacity. Nerf the standard volume to 20s.

·        Condition duration capacity: Now considered as a stat. So make it functions that output controlling conditions (which listed by dev or all kind of conditions as possible) cannot be longer than the your current capacity. If there are longer output conditions, automatically apply the duration output equal the capacity. Therefore, this stat affects the sources’ output not the receiving. Nerf the standard volume to 5s.

·        Concentration: Reduce effect’s volume that increase your boon duration output by 33% but now it also increase your own boon duration capacity you can receive.

·        Expertise: Reduce effect’s volume that increase your condition duration output by 20% but now it also increase your own condition duration capacity you can output.

[DKRathalos.9625]

The fact that they just go with what they posted from april and didn't even listen to any input shows that they didn't really care about our opinion, so sad.

[Obtena.7952]

37 minutes ago, DKRathalos.9625 said:

The fact that they just go with what they posted from april and didn't even listen to any input shows that they didn't really care about our opinion, so sad.

Except that's not true. 🤷‍♂️

[Astralporing.1957]

20 hours ago, Heika.5403 said:

@Fire Attunement.9835

 

• "Diabolic Inferno: Poison and Burning stacks applied reduced from 2 to 1 in PvE only. This matches the number of stacks applied in PvP and WvW."

 

Are you going to move "Diabolic Inferno" to a master trait at least?  Now it doesn't  seems a Grandmaster. It's too weak now.

 

• "Fiendish Tenacity: Increased resistance duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds in PvE only."

 

Fiendish Tenacity due to the change made to the resistance also lose a lot. The heal over time is not as strong to define it as a GrandMaster trait with the new resistance.

You do realize that this difference (Adept vs Master vs Grandmaster) had only any meaning in the original trait system, where you could pick incomplete traitlines, and slot lower tier skills into higher tier slots? Now, when you use the whole traitline, and can pick only traits with that tier, it no longer matters whether the trait is adept, master or grandmaster. All that matters is how strong it is compared to other 2 skills in the same tier of the same traitline.

 

In other words, there's no point in considering whether Diabolic Inferno and Fiendish Tenacity are "worth being a grandmaster trait". What should be considered is how they compare to each other, and to Permeating Pestilence. And, of course, whether they are worthy of being a trait at all.