mortrialus.3062

> @"Axl.8924" said:

> > @"Bazsi.2734" said:

> > Necro is a funny one. It's the simplest, easiest to play profession, yet one of the hardest to balance. All the other professions can play around with mobility and try to disengage/reset losing fights, necro can hardly do that. So necro has a huge healthpool and shroud to make up for the lack of mobility, and here comes the problem: if it has enough sustain, it's an unkillable tank, if it lacks sustain, literally anything can whittle its health down little by little, and it ends up losing to anything.

> >

> > This is less of a problem in 5v5, where you can compensate with rotations, but in 2v2 all these differences which come from class design are amplified. Good luck to the balance team figuring this out!

>

> I remember in wow warlocks were complaining a bout a boring with lack of mobility and escapes and only being able to stand there and die if they get surrounded, reminded me of necro, except necros aren't neigh invincible, but they have few if any escapes and are very vulnerable to CC.

>

> Once it got nerfed, warlocks became free kills, and they complained and asked for mobility back along with escapes. I have seen some necros here ask for mobility and ability to negate dmg, seems like it mirrors wow.

>

> @Axl.8924 said:

> Show footage pls.

> https://imgur.com/gallery/EIMNGYU

> thats from like 15 min ago

>

> I wanted to see video footage pls showing how it plays so we can see it. also is there any way to actually magnify the image?

Guild Wars 2's necromancer is heavily inspired by WoW's Warlock. In Vanilla WoW a max level mage might have 2,900 HP. A max level Warlock would could have over 4,500. And the divide between Necromancers/Elementalists/Mesmers is almost exactly like Warlocks/Shamans/Mages.

Warlocks have the most health, they also have access to fear and minions and tons of devastating dots. They are also the slowest, will almost no additional mobility and very susceptible to CC.

Shamans aren't very mobile either outside of Spirt Wolf Form, but they have really solid access to movement speed debuffing with Frost Shock. They can do solid magic damage if Elemental spec, and solid melee damage if Enhancement Spec. They're never the biggest damage dealers though as they are always hybridized with their healing capabilities as well which is what gives them a serious edge in battle.

Mages can do serious damage, they kings of kiting with a plethora of ways to slow down opponents while they batter them from range as well as Blink to break stuns and create distances and Iceblock as an emergency invulnerability cooldown. They're comparatively very fragile and they don't have any capacity to heal themselves.

Like, literal mirror image of Necromancer/Elementalist/Mesmer. Like the only real difference is that Mesmer isn't the squishiest by default and while it has very below avarage self healing compared to other builds, it's still has healing.

Just accept it, the player base does not want mirage in PvP and if it's going to exist they want it to be a free kill.

The new developers are obliging. And people who don't play mirage are all cheering.

I've written plenty about how poorly thought out all the trade offs have been since Arenanet got this bug put their ass for whatever reason, not just chrono and mirage but other classes as well. This is like if Daredevil got -50% reduced Endurance regeneration as the "trade off" to having a third dodge roll bar. It just doesn't make any sense for what Mirage's strengths and weaknesses are supposed to be.

Overall, I think it's best to make peace with it and move on. Maybe enjoy some PvE for a bit or something, or take a break and enjoy another game. Anet hasn't reversed course on any of their other decisions regarding trade offs, even when they completely dumpstered certain builds like Druid who still don't see play anymore.

In the meantime all the other classes who wanted Mesmer and Mirage gone can go enjoy their unkillable core necro bunker meta.

> @"Anput.4620" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > > @"Anput.4620" said:

> > > Then why is that "time" so short on Mirage.

> > >

> > > Pls help i haven't figured this one out yet.

> >

> > These are some damage per second numbers I calculated a while back;

> >

> > Condition Mirage Pistol 4 in to Staff 3 Clones Ambush Spam: 2465

> > Fire Weaver Lava Skin Into Fire Attunement Glyph of Elemental Power and Primordial Stance: 3279

> >

> > vs

> >

> > Photon Forge Corona Burst Might stack into quickness autos: 4468

> > Ranger Quickening Zephyr into Maul into greatsword autos with Rock Gazelle: 4452

> > Sic Em Soulbeast Merged Quickening Zephyr Rapid Fire into autos: 5232

> > Reaper's Shroud Reaper's Onslaught Autos: 4436

> > Reaper's Shroud Soul Spiral into Autos: 5822

> > Herald Phase Traversal into Sword 4+5 then Auto Attacks: 5882

> > Herald Phase Traversal into Auto Attacks with Impossible Odds: 6576

> > Core SA Thief Assassin Signet into Backstab+Steal into Auto Attacks: 8612

> > Daredevil Pistol Whip Spam with Lesser Haste Proc: 4361

> > Deadeye Binding Shadows into Mark into Three Round Burst Spam: 7162

> > Warrior Bull's Charge into Frenzy Arcing Slice then Hundred Blades then Whirlwind Attack Right Before the knockdown ends: 7714

> >

> > Power damage has significantly higher burst than condition builds, literally anywhere between 33% higher to over 250% higher burst DPS. Even when comparing the burstiest condition classes using their burst combos. These numbers are all based on meta builds with realistic stats that you'd find from Gods of PvP or MetaBattle.

> >

> > Basically, a condition mirage might kill you in 6.5 seconds if you stand still eat every attack and don't cleanse. Multiple power builds can kill you in under 2 seconds. The idea that any condition build is bursting you faster than any power build is literally just in your head and does not play out when damage numbers are properly calculated.

>

> Jokes aside, whenever i face a condi mirage in full trailblazer, as i mainly play WvW, the conditions never end no matter how much i cleanse, i can have permanently pulsing cleanse with antitoxin runes and it still doesn't end and you can die in 3 seconds to a build with 3,500 armor if you have a regular amount of cleanse, the conditions never, ever stop unlike other builds which run out of resources or have to use cd's.

>

> And if you tell me ThIs Is ThE pVp FoRuM, i just wanted to make a joke lol, as mirage has never felt not ridiculous imo.

**Engineer**

Engineer Rifle Auto Attack: 1479

**Mesmer**

* Condition Mirage Staff No Clones with bounces: 846 (For bounces to occur and for the mesmer to get the 2x hit bonus assume 400 range or less. Safe to assume ~425 without bounces)

* Condition Mirage Staff 3 Clones no mesmer with bounces: 1202

* Condition Mirage Staff 3 Clones with bounces: 1814 (I'm not sure how, but despite the mesmer doing about 800 dps and the clones doing about 1200 dps, which logically assumes the total should be 2000 dps, 200 dps goes missing some how)

* Condition Mirage Pistol 4 in to Staff 3 Clones Ambush Spam: 2465

To some degree, no matter what if you are fighting a condition build and you are taking attacks there will be conditions. Because damage is an unlimited resource. There's no mana or energy system. The way power damage attacks are unlimited, condition damage attacks are also unlimited. A power engineer will do 1400 dps just auto attacking you with rifle, a condition mirage with staff and 3 clones will 1,1,1,1, you for 1800 dps.

Now there are some answers. For starters if you get poked by a staff auto it might do 100 power damage 700 bleeding over 7 seconds, and yeah you are conditioned but there's little reason to actually be afraid of that. Just because you see one bleed stack pop up on your bar isn't reason to be afraid of ENDLESS CONDITIONS. Now what you do want to avoid is being 1. Surrounded by clones and 2. Letting the mesmer and the clones freely cast on you.

One of the things that makes staff mesmer in general a potent 1v1 spec isn't that it's a 1200 range build, in fact it sucks at such long ranges because you can literally circle strafe around the projectiles. What makes it strong is that it's a "Just out of melee range" weapon. It wants to bait you with trying and failing to engage it in melee. With Phase Retreat you have the perfect tool for getting 400 units away from an aggressive target, and when you're at that range both yours and your clone's staff autos will bounce off your enemy towards the nearest friendly target and then back again to the enemy for 2x damage and buffs to the ally. In this case it is usually the mesmer itself. Staff is kind of self explanatory and intuitive from the mesmer's perspective. You want to be standing on one end of the Chaos storm while your opponent is at the opposite end of the chaos storm and you have three clones all fairly close auto attacking for condition damage and you're close enough to get the 2x damage bonus from the bounces while your opponent is suffering from weakness and you're getting aegis and protection to make the trading of blows a clear winning situation for the mesmer.

The absolute worst case scenario is what I call the Staff Mesmer Square of Death where you're in the center of the node and around the node in four corners is a mesmer and one of his clones.

Your goal is to not let this happen. And should this happen it's probably time to hard disengage and rethink and approach the fight differently.

You basically want any an all attacks you land to try and cleave a clone down. Remember, on staff clones are more than 50% of their sustained DPS output. This means if you Whirlwind Attack or Arcing Slice as a Warrior you want to position your attack in a way to both hit the mesmer and as many clones as possible. If you're on an engineer or holosmith you want your Jump Shots and Photon Forge cleave to try and hit as many clones as possible. Ect Ect. You want to stay in their face and outside of chaos storm. If they're failing to properly kite they can't trade blows with basically any melee weapon set and thus will get rushed down.

If you can't avoid this, staff mesmer does not appreciate truly long range combat. Staff autos are extremely slow for projectiles and they have fairly poor tracking. The staff ambush in particular can be strafed at almost any range except maybe point blank. Circle strafing alone will allow you to consistently avoid Chaos Vortex, from the mesmer and it's clones. You don't need to even dodge it. And the phantasm has extremely poor damage and is really only good for clone generation and vulnerability stacking It's not even worth dodging to be quite honest. At 600+ range against the mesmer and the clones pretty much every ranged build can trade blows and win without the bonus bouncing damage from staff. So you can employ a long range strategy where you strafe around the mesmer and avoid a lot of projectiles just by outrunning them past their 1200 range as they slowly try to home in on you.

Now when a mesmer is on Scepter+Pistol, the most popular off set there is an entirely different situation. Scepter clones are significantly lower DPS than Staff ones;

* Condition Mirage Scepter 3 clones: 984

* Condition Mirage Scepter 3 clones with ambush spam: 1164 (Obviously some variability due to confusion)

BUT the Pistol OH skills are exceptionally deadly. Most mesmers will soften you up with staff skills and kiting and then go in for the kill with Pistol 5 > Pistol 4 > Scepter 3 combo+Dodge for Clone Ambush. This is the time when you REALLY want to use whatever emergency defensive skills are at your disposal, stunbreaks especially. You want your Shield Block up for warrior, you want your Elixir S on Engineer the second you see the Pistol Phantasm, your Obsidian Flesh on Weaver, ect, ect.

Hope this helps.

> @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > There's a lot of depth and skill towards playing thief. But surviving on thief is not one of them at all and to suggest that is poppycock.

>

> So buff thief damage when you ask to cut their survivability then.

>

> ;)


Yeah, unnerf portal.

Honestly people underestimate how serious sacrificing a direct combat utility for portal is. It means you're losing either Arcane Thievery, so you lose your boon steal and condition transfer, or you're losing Signet of Midnight/Illusory Ambush/Mantra of Resolve/Null Field ect. ect. Anyway you look at it, taking portal opens up a new area and opportunity for players to break through your capacity to 1v1 them as you always have serious new holes opened in your defense no matter what you're sacrificing.

There's a reason outrage against condition mirage hit a fever pitch when portal was nerfed and no longer worth taking. In many ways Portal is a power limiter and when condition mirages weren't taking it anymore their capacity to 1v1 skyrocketed just because of how much better they were able to shore up their defenses and their capacity to respond to certain situations like being loaded with conditions or an enemy ramping up boons or being +1'd against.

> @"Vallun.2071" said:

> As it is right now the length of smokescreen allows it to be such little counterplay. There are many things that can counterplay smokescreen, however the thief can just wait a bit or reposition inside the screen to prevent those counters from yielding any results. But, no thief will survive in a smokescreen without 1 sec pulsing blind, theyll just remove the utility. Instead of making skills unusable you could just lower the duration by 2 and keep the 45 sec cd and make the pulse not unevadeable. That still gives the thief windows of pseudo invulnerability but theyre much shorter and further apart.

Good to see you recognize the sheer power of this skill.

Like I said you either have unblockable with range, you have resistance with melee, or your melee attacks are ridiculously faster than the 1s blind pulse like a Reaper's Soul Spiral. That's basically it. Or you just don't have projectiles like Necromancer Scepter and Staff. That's basically it.

> @"Anput.4620" said:

> Then why is that "time" so short on Mirage.

>

> Pls help i haven't figured this one out yet.

These are some damage per second numbers I calculated a while back;

Condition Mirage Pistol 4 in to Staff 3 Clones Ambush Spam: 2465

Fire Weaver Lava Skin Into Fire Attunement Glyph of Elemental Power and Primordial Stance: 3279

vs

Photon Forge Corona Burst Might stack into quickness autos: 4468

Ranger Quickening Zephyr into Maul into greatsword autos with Rock Gazelle: 4452

Sic Em Soulbeast Merged Quickening Zephyr Rapid Fire into autos: 5232

Reaper's Shroud Reaper's Onslaught Autos: 4436

Reaper's Shroud Soul Spiral into Autos: 5822

Herald Phase Traversal into Sword 4+5 then Auto Attacks: 5882

Herald Phase Traversal into Auto Attacks with Impossible Odds: 6576

Core SA Thief Assassin Signet into Backstab+Steal into Auto Attacks: 8612

Daredevil Pistol Whip Spam with Lesser Haste Proc: 4361

Deadeye Binding Shadows into Mark into Three Round Burst Spam: 7162

Warrior Bull's Charge into Frenzy Arcing Slice then Hundred Blades then Whirlwind Attack Right Before the knockdown ends: 7714

Power damage has significantly higher burst than condition builds, literally anywhere between 33% higher to over 250% higher burst DPS. Even when comparing the burstiest condition classes using their burst combos. These numbers are all based on meta builds with realistic stats that you'd find from Gods of PvP or MetaBattle.

Basically, a condition mirage might kill you in 6.5 seconds if you stand still eat every attack and don't cleanse. Multiple power builds can kill you in under 2 seconds. The idea that any condition build is bursting you faster than any power build is literally just in your head and does not play out when damage numbers are properly calculated.

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" THis is exactly what balancing is.

> > There is too much reward in this ability without accounting for proj hate. So it kitten you if you dont have proj, and EXPECIALLY kitten you if you do have projectiles.

>

> Sorry no if you chose to be projectile based you shouldnt be upset when skills are used that counter projectiles. There is no point in screaming nerf x or y when you could use other tools that counter those tools or are not subject to the same weakness as being projectile base.

>

> Its the same when you are melee based and someone guns you down because they have mobility to out run you for at least 7 seconds or more making them for the most part perfectly safe. I cant say nerf blink and staff 2 because im playing a warrior.. with no ranged weapon it just makes no sense.

Smokescreen hard counters both ranged, and melee builds. That's the difference. This isn't just a matter of "Oh he's destroying projectiles I'll melee him" because he has a pulsing 9 second long (The tool tip says 7 but if you test it it's 9 second duration) blind field bigger than almost all conquest nodes. You either have unblockable with range, you have resistance with melee, or your melee attacks are ridiculously faster than the 1s blind pulse like a Reaper's Soul Spiral. That's basically it. This makes Smokescreen practically an invulnerability field against a ton of builds. I'm glad it's getting nerfed at least to a 45 second cooldown.

You compare how Feedback and Wall of Reflection counter range with high up time, and how you can play around those, and how Smoke Screen Counters both Melee and Ranged and how much less options you have for playing around it and the difference is night and day. And yeah, Projectile Reflection is superior to just Destruction, but how hard Smokescreen also counters melee is greater than the benefits of reflecting.

I agree, I think Capricorn is easily the worst ranked map right now. I'm just going to copy and paste my comments about it from a different thread:

Revenge of the Capricorn: My least favorite map in ranked currently. The individual nodes are all solidly designed. It's gorgeous, but I think this might have the worst layout outside of Spirit Watch. For starters, the initial far push is basically impossible. I mean its not impossible but you really only have two routes, either the long way swinging through home or by literally cutting through the team fight as it opens, potentially forcing multiple cooldowns to get that far push. Now imagine you're the player on home and your team wipes before you can even get to mid. In other maps like Skyhammer and Forest and Temple you can push far in relative safety with solid amounts of Line of Sight to hide you and terrain to use as you push that way. If you team wipes and you try to push far the entire mid fight can see you and if any one is paying attention you're already in range to be stolen onto, phase traversed onto, and judges intervention onto making a decap attempt extremely punishing. And even if the mid fight doesn't immediately rush you, you're running right into the enemy who got home and there's little capacity to actually sneak past him. Compare to Temple where if you're sneaky and patient you can use the back door to quickly decap the point right from under the enemy's node as they leave the point when they finish capping.

In addition, while Bell is a solid mechanic I think the actual node on bell is just really unfun to fight on. It's a meatgrinder and without any sort of line of sight and a hilariously inadequate jumping platform it just massively favors team fighters because there's almost no terrain you can use to stall a fight here. Even Skyhammer has the panels on the side of the node for line of sight.

Right now Capricorn is the single most snowbally and swingiest map in the game. At the same time. This sounds contradictory but it's true. While Bell is a solid map mechanic and does decide games, what really decides this map is how boxed in the team that lost the last engagement is. Your capacity to recover with a far push that baits a favorable 1v1 or even a 2v1 you can stall while your other teammates try to recover is just so low. You have two options most of the time; you go home or you go mid. This means Capricorn snowballs harder than any map as often times teams just don't have any capacity to break through the choke points. On the other hand, I've also seen the most extreme and wild swings on this map. And when this happens it's usually some sort of upset at mid or home while you've been losing, and then once you've gotten that foothold your enemy can't break through the choke points.

I think if the giant buildings had entrances could actually be walked into allowing you to cut diagonally from your spawn to far without having to try and cut through the mid fight, it would really help with the layout problems. Maybe make Bell's node a bit bigger with just a little bit more terrain to use, more similar to the Tranq area where if you're skilled you can get a lot of mileage while outnumbered stalling against the enemy team while you wait for reinforcements.

What the difference between the capabilities of a core and elite specialization should look like:

Core:


Elite:


What the difference between the capabilities of a core and elite specialization look like for far too many elite specializations:

Core:


Elite:


Honestly the whole trade off thing, like trade off and tinkering with the profession mechanic can work, but ultimately elite specializations should be expanding the strengths of the core profession while adding additional weaknesses.

The examples I always go to are Druid and Holosmith. Druid, before they ever added the -200 pet stats already had a serious opportunity cost; if you pick druid, because of the way the unique weapon, traits, and utilities were set up meant you could never do as much damage if you picked druid compared to a core ranger, let alone a soulbeast. Even though picking it gives you an F5 with no true trade off, just by being a smarter designed elite specialization it never needed a direct "Lose X Profession Skill" or in the actual case "Lose -200 pet stats."

Holosmith on the other hand, even though it has a "Trade off" in that you lose the Elite Toolbelt skill, taking holosmith gives you; More Burst Damage, More Sustained DPS, More Mobility, More CC, More Stability, More Active Defenses, More Condition Cleansing, and More Healing than a Core Engineer. Sure, Holosmith has a "trade off" according to Arenanet's philosophy, but it isn't remotely genuine trade off that gives holosmith noticeable strengths but also notable weaknesses. Holosmith is just an increase in all the capabilities of Engineer.

While sometimes tinkering with the profession mechanics can help, really the solution is to be more careful, focused, and smarter with how the elite specializations are designed going forward in terms of their weapons, utilities, and especially their traits.

> @"Multicolorhipster.9751" said:

> Wouldn't a Doomsday scenario be the best scenario?

>

> If everything sucks, it'd at least be on the same level. I'm ready for the patchpocalypse.

A Doomsday scenario would be a bunker meta where it's literally impossible for any build to kill any other build and entire games go without a single person dying on either side or maybe just 1-2 kills.


Platinum tier game. 3x Dagger Pistol SA Thieves. 1x Pistol Whip Daredevil. 40% thief representation. I'd say a majority of my games this season have looked like this.

Yeah thief+daredevil should probably have been hot fixed.

> @"Highlie.7641" said:

>

> **If you know how thieves function they are by far the easiest class to demolish.** but why bother learning how to fight something when you can spam "nerf thief" threads and get carried by passive bullshitery.

Thieves have always been throughout the entire lifetime of the game the single hardest class to kill by any opposing build. It is not hard to survive on a thief vs anything. There's a reason every stream you watch, it's always the thief streamer who is the last to die in any fight that goes poorly, or the only one to survive and then cries "OMG Garbage teammates".

Between top tier evade frame uptime tied to multiple sources, dodge roll with high vigor uptime, initiative based skills, your healing skill, multiple utility skills, unparalleled mobility, and access to stealth a thief only dies when they over commit to a fight. A thief has to choose to stay in a losing fight in order to die despite having so many different ways to escape said fight and either try again after resetting, or by rotating to a different area of the map where their presence can swing the status of the game with faster mobility than whatever they were fighting could possibly have.

Now, I'm not saying thief is a brain dead profession. I think all professions take skill. Knowing when and how best to press the offense with a flexible but lower impact combat kit takes skill. When do you go in for a Pistol Whip and when do you port in with a Cluster Bomb burst? When do you go for a Flanky Strike and when do you try to zone them with Choking Gas? And the way they rotate is extremely counter intuitive if you're using to playing standard 1vX specs, team fight builds, or builds that can juggle both those rolls.

There's a lot of depth and skill towards playing thief. But surviving on thief is not one of them at all and to suggest that is poppycock.

> @"bravan.3876" said:

> Using Daredevil traitline now reduces endurance to 50. Consistent and ez fix

No no. Reduce all Endurance Regeneration by 50% while a Daredevil. You can't have both three dodges and one Dodge.

> @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> >

>

> No, stop that.

>

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> So in a nutshell these changes mean nothing and thief will still hardcore punish mesmer so it still needs more reductions until it cant do that anymore then its fine???

> Thats honestly all im getting at this point.

Frankly the the changes I've suggested will even out Mesmer vs Thief but it will still be very stacked in thief's favor.

>

> Thief is getting to the point where its going to be borderline how necro was for a massive portion of the games existence 'not effective' at the mechanics it has to work with that it should be effective with because people or a certain amount of people who play a certain profession that it just so happens to stomp demand nerfs in the wrong ways.

Fair enough. To be honest I dunno what you're talking about as necro was top tier both with Condi reaper in HoT and scourge>Core Reaper in PoF.

>

> Yes please do something about one shots (from any profession from stealth) but dont go trying to kill stealth then when someone finds a build that can work that does not depend on stealth demand for that to be erased too and say "well you have stealth!" Then when people go back to stealth call for more stealth nerfs im not even a thief main and im starting to see the pattern of this trend recently and honest it does not look good for thief as a whole in the long run.

Genuinely the only change I think should happen to the baseline stealth mechanic is that when you dodge an attack from a stealthed attacker it reveals the attacker. There have been literally hundreds of times this season where I've had to deal with some sort of stealthed target aggressing me, and I've accurately predicted when they are about to strike and full on dodge rolled it, but they're still stealthed for 4+seconds so they can just try it again.

> @"Antipode.7830" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > > @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> > > > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > > >

> > > > Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

> > >

> > > Expected.

> > >

> > > You also can't have the Fortitude nerf now.

> > >

> >

> >

>

> I love this response XD

>

> I think the unintended consequences of pushing for SI and EF to be less powerful is that you will see *more Deadeyes* and *more Shadow Arts*

The best Deadeye builds have always used Be Quick or Be Killed+Sword, because the zoning capacity of Sword 2 is literally unmatched.

To break it down Sword 2 is: 900 units towards the target+ immobilize for three initiative. And it's 1200 units back to the initial cast+ 1 condition cleansed for 2 initiative. Some people earlier in the thread were talking about how all movement isn't created equal and that is true, but in combat Sword 2 only ever moves you where you want it too. You only ever move 900 units into you opponent where you want to be as a melee build or you move up to 1200 units away so that you can completely avoid incoming damage while they try to retaliate. Combined that's spamming 2100 units of movement speed in combat every 5 seconds based on endurance regeneration.

My change gives thieves a bit more flexibility when they engage in combat by lowering the engage cost of the skill, but if they want to retreat requires a bit more attention paid to their initiative to do so, and when they do so the reweighting of the skill would mean their capacity to IMMEDIATELY reengage and begin the hit and run process anew is limited at least a little. It's the kind of change that's going to slide off even platinum PvPer's backs, let alone top PvPers like Sindrener. But it'll still help all the builds who have to stare out ontop a jumping puzzle as they watch said thief literally corner them like a shark blinking back and forth into attack range and outside of your attack range freely. Not even a lot. Not build breakingly so. Just a little.

> @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > > @"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

> > > Hi Everyone,

> > >

> > > We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.

> > > **Additional changes**

> > > * Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.

> > > * Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.

> > > * Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.

> > > * Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.

> > > * Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8

> > > * Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds

> > > * Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

> > >

> > >

> > > There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.

> > > -The Systems Team

> >

> > Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

>

> Expected.

>

> You also can't have the Fortitude nerf now.

>

NA top 250 started at 1519 last season.

> @"Fat Disgrace.4275" said:

> > @"Azure The Heartless.3261" said:

> > > @"Crackmonster.2790" said:

> > > Thieves are filthy animals. They have so much over the top kitten.

> > > They destroy you fast as hell, they sometimes oneshot you directly in a single attack from stealth, they stealth all around and are thereby annoying as kitten, their mobility is insane i can't even catch them using several teleports and speed runes they still just charge away as they want faster than a lightning. They have a lot of evade kitten and imagine how much they nerfed mirages till now mirages aint got nothing almost but those filthy thieves got so much they must pay the price, enough is enough they are freestyling from extreme safety, extreme mobility and oneshot from stealth potential-

> > > **while other classes get any of their powers kept extremely in check.**

> >

> > Lol "Thief wont let me be op."

> >

> > > @"noot.8641" said:

> > > Funny how everyone is compaining about a skill that has been there since forever, infiltrators arrow had not been changed since a long time, and now u guys qq about it? That skill is the bread and butter for s/d thieves, if you nerf that s/d will be poop.

> >

> > Why do people keep using this argument? It doesnt work. The devs don't care about the status quo. Did you see the patch?

> >

> > > > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > > > In that case you must be playing glass, they must be playing glass (so Berserker instead of Marauder and Scholar instead of Eagle, and quite possibly dropping SA for CS. Because otherwise, 9k isnt achievable.

> >

> > you can hit 9k on mara vs a glass or mara target. _**Shadow Arts damage buffs is exactly why they can, now**_.

> > There's even a sleeper build that hits for higher than that on Deadeye, but not gonna talk about that because it trades surprise for damage.

> > It's getting nerfed anyway so meh.

>

> Shadow arts dmg buff?

They're talking about the life siphon from Leeching Venoms and Shadow Siphoning.

> @"Shao.7236" said:

> Well, that's good to know.

>

> My idea of Toughness however was always that it's useful if you don't have the means to heal back up a lot or want to invest in Healing Power while Vitality is when you have a lot of Damage Reduction modifiers anyway that it doesn't matter how much Vitality you have even with low Healing Power although that if you do have the means to heal up all the vitality invested into it's also a better choice for skills like Infuse Light or Defiant Stance.

Well my perception of it was that 560 Toughness amulets were effectively a 22% increase on effective health against power damage, and if you're on a medium vitality build 560 vitality was a 33% increase in effective health. However depending on the self healing it can radically change the value of toughness. Let's say you're a holosmith and during a fight you get two separate healing turrets off. This means your opponent isn't just punching through 15,900 damage but 30,000 to secure the kill. With a vitality amulet though means its effectively only a 15% effective health increase, since it'll bump you up to 36,344 damage the opponent needs to punch through. But the toughness on demolisher's is a 22% increase in effective health across all the 30,000 HP the opponent needs to inflict before they kill you.

Basically as long as you aren't fighting conditions and you're prioritizing fighting power builds, toughness let's you double dip into it's value compared to vitality to the way healing plays with it.

> @"mrauls.6519" said:

> > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > > The performance on this class is too strong in higher tier play, and it isn't because of damage output like most people think.

> > >

> > > It's the over saturation of way too much teleportation chase potential.

> > >

> > > **You could actually disable the Herald's walk/run WASD functions completely, and it would still stick to you like glue and be the strongest chase class in the game.**

> > >

> > > That's too much.

> >

> > they lose stun remove on swap, you cant chase when you are stunned.

> > there reason why they are over the top is becouse they are 100% always actiave, always mitigating damage or dishing out damage

>

> Where do they state they lose stunbreak on swap?

Here

> * **Empty Vessel (Stunbreak on Legend Swap): This trait has been retired and been replaced by Contained Temper.**

> * **Contained Temper (NEW): Gain fury when you disable a foe.**

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > > > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > > > > @"Cal Cohen.2358" said:

> > > > > Hi Everyone,

> > > > >

> > > > > We wanted to swing by with an update on the balance patch and respond to some of the main feedback points that we’ve seen. At this point we’re mostly locked down for the release, but we’re still gathering feedback and continuing some investigation for future work.

> > > > > **Additional changes**

> > > > > * Concealing Restoration: Reduced stealth duration from 2 seconds to 1 second.

> > > > > * Rending Shade: Reduced number of boons stolen from 2 to 1.

> > > > > * Assassin's Signet: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds.

> > > > > * Leeching Venoms: Reduced maximum stacks of spider venom provided by this trait from 6 to 2.

> > > > > * Malicious Backstab: Reduced power coefficients from 1.2/2.4 to 0.9/1.8

> > > > > * Smokescreen: Increased cooldown from 35 seconds to 45 seconds

> > > > > * Lightning Rod: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 1.2

> > > > >

> > > > >

> > > > > There’s still a lot of work to do, but this update should give us a good starting point to build from and we’re excited to see where things go.

> > > > > -The Systems Team

> > > >

> > > > Shadow arts is getting some more needed nerfs. Overall I'm pretty happy about this. I'd still like to see a bit of a trim to Infiltrator's Strike and the cleanse on Escapist Fortitude and I'd be pretty happy.

> > >

> > > Wait Malicious Backstab wasnt also nerfed alongside Backstab? Thats hilarious. The other nerfs are fine, Leeching Venoms is weird anyway, and Rending Shade losing some boonrip is fair. Definitely no need to hit Escapist Fortitude at all (then again I just realised youre likely a condi mes player so you have a certain bias against it).

> >

> > any condi player has bias against it, becouse its broken as kitten trait lol.

> > and worst of all its not even condi that it counters, it counters every single build in the game.

> > everyone has cripple or weakness or blind or slow.

> > even if you dont have heavy condi its insane value for such a low tier trait, and when you do go against condi it can almost singlehandedly make some builds deal no damage. stupid trait, nerf it properly

>

> Yeah, so broken it had to be combined with another one *and* moved to a lower trait tier because *noone* was using it. Wait what? It doesnt even really counter condis (burst just stows weapon, sustained applies more than 1 condi per second).

Literally every good build in the game has some sort of trait based answer to conditions and a utility skill to answer against conditions. Maybe a weapon skill too. Spellbreakers run both Brawler's Recovery AND Shake It Off. Condition Mesmers run Renewing Oasis, Jaunt and Arcane Thievery. Holosmiths run Healing Turret and Conversion.

The idea that "Oh this trait cleanse isn't over tuned even though it's more than doubling the value of other trait based cleanses because it doesn't make you literally 100% immune to condition damage and you might still have to use a cleanse skill is nonsense." Right now the good Daredevil builds can get out of a condition bomb using Withdraw to heal and remove cover conditions and Signet of Agility to cleanse damaging conditions and give them further dodge rolls. There is literally no build that can do to you where they can just stow weapons, let you do run through that, and you'll still die. Literally none.

And in between you get both the most evade frames outside of probably just Fire Weaver at this point so by design you can dodge the most attacks, and when you do any incidental hits like scepter and staff autos that might land go from potentially doing 700 damage after 10 seconds to being retroactively negated and heals for 400.

Before it was a hard choice between the trait and Impacting Disruption. Because both traits were good. Generally when DP was better it took Impacting. When Condition Daredevil was good it traditionally took the cleanse trait. After the rework they've basically made it so a Daredevil can pick up every single truly good trait with little choice.

> @"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

> > @"mortrialus.3062" said:

> > For like 25 seconds. A core guardian rolls into a team fight yeah they have the healing from Mantras and Mantra of Resolve and if they're REALLY in danger they can delay the focus for 3 seconds with Renewed Focus. But They aren't preventing you from focusing or counter attack them for like 25 seconds.

>

> I would love to play this core guard build with Mantras, is this some sort of gemstore feature?

>

Derp. Ha. I meant meditations. Edited to clarify what I meant.

Obviously I'm happy to see Shadow Arts get a bit of toning down. I am also really happy to see that some stuff like the hard line 0.01 CC Coefficient isn't set in stone after the patch lands. The example I always give is that Warrior Hammer is going to be really weird going forward since the CC on that weapon kit are designed to be both your highest damage and most important skills to land for both the CC and damage.