Azure The Heartless.3261

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

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

> > People not understanding skill ceiling doesn't stop them from arguing that nerfing what they personally find annoying is top-level balancing.

> >

> You've confused two things. Arguing for a top-level balancing philosophy is different from believing that a player is at the top level. Their arguments for their annoyances can have merit, too. Looks like you've decided to just declare people hypocrites without actually checking first.

You're right, but this doesn't stop people from conflating those two, making an argument based on an assumption generated by this conflation, then being surprised when it doesn't work in their favor, and those people are **definitely** hypocrites. I'm not talking about people with objectively reasonable opinions backed by concise proof, or even those people's attempts at balancing in a way that takes into account how different skill levels approach and experience the same mechanics.

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

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

> > So either quit, or it's balanced. It still works at top level, so practice. People will scream about "balance should be determined by how class functions at top level" but get upset when it actually happens.

> No they don't. **To argue for top-level balancing they have to understand skill ceiling.** Those are the people telling everyone else to "git gud" when something gets nerfed.

There's someone in this thread doing this right now. I don't know what you mean by "No they don't." This is a hallmark of the forums that transcends class bias. These people aren't rare.

Also, I feel like these are important:

> @"Sobx.1758" said:

> "I can consistently win against thieves if they decide to fight me, but if they decide to fight me then it's automatically losing *by choice*. Class broken because it can run away".

>

> Isn't this what you've just said?

> @"Sobx.1758" said:

> As you said, I pointed out and then *you confirmed again*: the thief *"lost by choice"*, because he *chose* to participate in a fight while in wvw instead of running away and pveing camps I guess.

All I wanna know is are thief decap bots or not. If they are, say so, slap "support" label on them and quit whining when they stealth away.

If they aren't it should be easy to prove they have they staying power to contest/win matchups with just their raw damage.

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

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

> > So either quit, or it's balanced. It still works at top level, so practice. People will scream about "balance should be determined by how class functions at top level" but get upset when it actually happens.

>

> No they don't. **To argue for top-level balancing they have to understand skill ceiling.** Those are the people telling everyone else to "git gud" when something gets nerfed.

People not understanding skill ceiling doesn't stop them from arguing that nerfing what they personally find annoying is top-level balancing.

> @"Dantheman.3589" said:

> > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> >You call it a cowards class, but more accurately, it a support class.

>

> I’ve seen it all ???

>

He's not wrong.

Hasn't the meta explanation been "Decap/ +1/ forbidden from duel because shortbow", and aggressively argued back to that role the moment anything deviates? What else would you call that?

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> ... how did they hit someone in stealth with a shadowshot? Actually scratch that, why were they *using* shadowshot? And how did they "go into stealth for 10 seconds" when its trivially easy for one thief to prevent the other one from doing so? Also you know autos can be used to track enemies in stealth, so it wasnt as "random" as you thought?

I don't think anyone will care about the intricacies of thief at the end of the day, and wouldn't expect someone who thinks the entirety of a thief ditto is "both stealthed for 2mins, one randomly downs" to know or care about what their skills do or why they're used when. You might be asking questions with no answers.

Oh, nobody can prove thief is overpowered or underpowered, yet somehow top players are still carrying?

Guess it's balanced now.

Accept any interaction with thief, whether vs or using, will be annoying. Like Kuma said, they have agency priority. This agency to initiate is balanced by their lack of staying power in engagements, so only the good thieves will thrash you while the others should be repelled long enough for you to finish objectives.

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

> Thief is just, straight up, a cowards' class, except it's to the point where they either exist in a state of either running away or executing a burst.

I could say the same thing about any class that equips a sustain build and kites around to heal back up to full after whiffing their burst. This isn't a Thief-specific thing.

But, I'd think that would be the point. Thieves aren't objectively honorable, so their playstyle will probably revolve around dirty fighting if it is to be in keeping with the theme of what a thief is expected to be, which, you guessed it, involves:

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:

> feelings.

What matters is if the class balance is fair. We can RP about the relative morality of who plays what another time.

I would rather the forum be a mass of grumbling and vague gesturing when asked to prove whether a class is underpowered or overpowered. Thief mains will always want buffs, and Thief haters will always want nerfs. The middle ground is both groups being unhappy, with the former not being unhappy enough to quit, and the latter not being able to point to any specific thing as being overpowered without being easily challenged.

So either quit, or it's balanced. It still works at top level, so practice. People will scream about "balance should be determined by how class functions at top level" but get upset when it actually happens.

I hope it's a feature and not a bug. mm pain mmm

the cast on this is fine. the cast on hunter call needs to be more in line with this one.

> @"Filip.7463" said:

> Nades are now useless. Was that nerf really necessary?

Yes it was.

I'm fine with people having their egos confined to that small square area they have currently, thanks. If you want more room get a custom arena.

> @"Raiden The Beast.3016" said:

> Are we going into the right direction with this balance approach?

I didn't like some of the changes and found them to be arbitrary, but the core premise of the patch was sound, targeted, and addressed both current and potential future build issues. This is a good standard to shoot for in the future. If the patches are this targeted and farsighted consistently, we might be able to work with this. Just be careful with gutting core for elites or even edging into that territory.

> @"Quadox.7834" said:

> 

> Drazeh's tier list sPvP September 2020

This is actually pretty reasonable.

> @"GewRoo.4172" said:

> > A dodge immediately following Infiltrator's Arrow will be performed in-place, as if the player was immobilized.

>

> 8 years untouched but bug still not fixed worst deal of my life

what a scaaaaam

> @"noiwk.2760" said:

> well.. the only situation you wouldnt have thieves is playing not prime time and having game full of bots.. apparently the bots dont play thief ..

> @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> The reason for that is thiefs defenses are all active requiring good timing and knowledge of ur opponents class to predict and evade their attacks. On top blinds, interrupts and other such skills have to be used on dp to have a chance in a fight as well as good positioning if using s/d or such. A bot thief would be useless and it's far easier to program a class/spec with higher hp/armor that has barriers, invulnerability at a press of a button all while spamming weapon skills that do decent damage. But those defensive type skills are far more skillful right, so skillfull bots can some what utilize them :)

> But yes teefs mobility,evades and stealth thru combo fields are OP emiright?

> @"noiwk.2760" said:

> claiming the class require timing and is bad for bot to play it doesnt mean the class is weak ^^

> it means that you claim the class require skills.. . ok.. so? weaver require skills .. and it was still nerfed a ton. to be good at Umm? who knows..

> someone who stick to a class eventually master it.. and how thief would be useless on bots because it require some skills and timing isnt a good argument to say thief isnt strong ! i never saw heal breaker used by bot.. or support tempest .. does it mean they are bad classes? warrior just got all of his heal skills halved..

There are no thieves during primetime.

"There are no thieves during prime time because there are so many bots and the bots dont play thief."

Bots cant play thief.

"Bots not being able to play thief doesn't mean they aren't strong!"

So, assuming "there are no thieves during primetime" is true, what is your next explanation for this? They cannot both be bots and not bots, and if the class was strong they would not be displaced by bots in primetime.

Anyhow, I'd like to float this is a waste of time attempting to argue whether thief is balanced.

> @"NorthernRedStar.3054" said:

> _"4K BACKSTABS. WOW....!!!"_

That energy is better spent surviving the nerfs by adapting. People are going to be upset and vaguely gesture at someone else's youtube videos when asked why they think what they think anyway.

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> people cry nerf that class then when it happens to their class people cry nerf

> cuz lawjicks

I really think a lost of people on this forum have no object permanence or neglect to notice this. You spent your whole time on the forums campaigning for X class to get nerfed so you can have an easier time fighting it because of some annoying but not necessarily game breaking mechanic it has? Okay, but next balance patch that annoying metric that carries you will get nerfed and you'll be right back where you started.

I'm almost certain most of these issues would vanish into the ether if people took the time to multiclass only briefly or, yknow, exchanged human-words with someone thy find difficult to fight that weren't 'ez lmao bad wow such noob build" but a l a s

~~Not like PvP facilitates that anyway~~

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> Now Warriors have to find the next underpowered, barely viable Warrior build for people to complain about until it, too, gets nerfed out of viability.

I keep telling people not to ~~kitten~~ share builds but _they never ~~kitten~~ listen_

mmm pain mmmm

> @"noiwk.2760" said:

> if im honest this patch as a whole is even a buff for daredevil because its counter classes took a bigger hit

Dragonhunter took literally no hit.

~~merge or leave me alone.~~

>Profession Skills

>Elementalist

[QoL, disregarded]

>Engineer

>Freeze Grenade: Reduced power coefficient per grenade from 0.375 to 0.2 in PvP only.

>Poison Grenade: Reduced power coefficient per grenade from 0.375 to 0.2 in PvP only. Reduced poison stacks per grenade from 3 to 1 in PvP only.

>Grenade Barrage: Reduced power coefficient per grenade from 0.4 to 0.3 in PvP only.

>Lesser Grenade Barrage: Reduced power coefficient per grenade from 0.3 to 0.2 in PvP only.

>Explosive Entrance: Reduced power coefficient from 1.25 to 0.9 in PvP only.

**Good work.**

>Guardian

[WVW only, disregarded.]

>Necromancer

>Well of Darkness: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.8 to 0.45 in WvW only.

>Well of Corruption: Reduced power coefficient per strike from 0.45 to 0.35 in WvW only.

Were these needed?

>Revenant

>Draconic Echo: This trait no longer increases the maximum number of targets of passive facet skills.

>Inspiring Reinforcement: Reduced stability duration from 3 seconds to 1 second in PvP only. Increased cooldown from 10 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP only.

>All for One: Reduced protection duration from 3 seconds to 2 seconds in PvP only.

>Breakrazor's Bastion: Reduced base heal from 4,529 to 3,397 in PvP only.

>Soulcleave's Summit: Reduced healing from life stealing from 328 to 262 in PvP only.

>Steadfast Rejuvenation: Reduced base heal from 40 to 33 in PvP only.

Not as expected or as needed as grenade nerfs but proactivity is always a plus. Didn't agree with the renegade groanings but I suppose with the shortbow rework this is acceptable.

>Thief

>**Shortbow, plasma Thanos snap**

Mmm, pain. mmm. Delicious. Hope y'all want some non shortbow thieves to spice up your ratings.

>Warrior

>Vigorous Shouts: Reduced healing coefficient from 1.0 to 0.64 in PvP only.

>"To the Limit!": Reduced base heal from 7,735 to 6,575 in PvP only. Reduced endurance granted from 100 to 50 in PvP only.

>Might Makes Right: Increased base heal from 64 to 85 in PvP and WvW.

Fair. Might put a dent in healbreaker. We going to do anything about the damage output for Zerker though?

>Structured Player vs. Player

>Removed the Celestial Amulet from the PvP Build panel.

I guess? Were people running this? Is this a nerf for Ele?

Overall Balance patch 7.8/10 in my very limited-scope opinion. 1 very targeted series of nerfs that was needed, 2 targeted sets of nerfs that were going to become a problem eventually, and 1 ~~ribkick~~ adjustment for thieves.

> @"Mauzi.5892" said:

> As a warrior you have more HP and more toughness and your skills should only work when you are in range of your target. If you pick a fight you should be in it. If you lose, too bad for you.

According to you, if a class can keep out of melee range (or rifle/bow range) by using skills to retreat, block, interrupt, or blind, warrior by design should not be able to retreat/reposition and should hard lose to that class because they have slightly more hit points. Did I hear that right?

> @"LilSpark.4567" said:

> Hello guys, i have a questions, i am new in the game, i play this game from 10 days and i play this game with the dlcs and my friends and other ppl tell me i waste time to play gw2 bcs is a dead game. Is that true?

This is very often a blanket term used by veteran players who have played all the content to the point of nausea, or who have specific content wishes that have not been granted (although there are some cases where players have left in noticeable waves). More often than not, people who make these statements mean that the game seems to have nothing left to offer them and have not actually taken census on the general morale of the playerbase.

I am confident you will find hundreds, if not thousands of players to fight with in commander trains. You just need to use LFG to get where the action is. If you are not looking for large groups with LFG though, the world map will often only be lightly populated (which I think is a good thing to avoid making people who just want a quiet gaming session overwhelmed).

Just don't take SB and let someone else decap, then get yelled at when your opposing thief decaps faster than you because theyre still running shortbow.

Thanks for patching, devs. I wish we had some heads up about some of these changes but yknow~

*wheezing laughter*

Okay, okay, do SA next

Any build that becomes meta will be complained about and subsequently nerfed, regardless of whether or not it is fair. Balancing efforts are heavily geared toward rotating the meta manually rather than making the meta self-changing without major outside intervention.

If you have a viable off-meta build, _keep it under wraps._

Pre Feb meta had its own grievances, and favored a different set of people. It was not generally more balanced or less objectively boring.

What I want is this meta, but instead of long periods of silence between patches that end up only being minor changes, I want a handful of balance/skills team devs to have frequent, visible dialogue with the people playing the content and make changes on a set schedule (Or, if they feel no changes are necessary/they need more data/they are watching the meta, to specify that.)

As of right now, the only problem I have is nades, and occasionally Lich. Some classes are becoming un-shoehorned. Particularly ele.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> in my mind warrior and ele are about as strong as each other, the difference comes down to the fact that ele can make mistakes and warrior is so stupid easy that you legit cant kitten up.

In a meta of press 1 rotations, standing in blind fields, instant cast interrupts, being able to stack 6-10 burns by being near an opponent, et cetera, this was disappointing and exhausting to read. Simple does not equate to easy to win with. Often times it is quite the opposite, but whatever.

Still nerf healbreaker though. Immortal builds shouldnt exist period.