Robert Gee.9246

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I've been following this thread and I wanted to respond to a some comments that have come up a few times:

**Stronger reses are not desired in PvP.**

We are looking at competitive splits for some of these changes but they haven't been finalized yet.

**Fall damage reduction is important in WvW.**

We hear you that fall damage reduction and gauging whether a fall will kill you is something that is considered regularly as a part of WvW. However we would like to see how the WvW meta adjusts before making additional changes.

**I need falling damage reduction for some jumping puzzles.**

Right now we think the only one that really needs it is Griffonrook Run because it integrates fall damage into the critical path (the red eggs restore health for this reason). We'll be adding fall damage reduction into the bomb buff as a result. We don't think this necessary for the other jumping puzzles at the moment but are open to adding it as the need arises.

**Can you kill yourself with Signet of Undeath's active?**

No. Health is a resource similar to Initiative or Adrenaline. The skill will simply be greyed out and uncastable if you don't have the required health cost.

**Medic's Feedback might be too strong.**

We are a little worried about it but not any more than the other revival changes.

**Stalwart Courage (Courageous Return) is definitely too strong.**

Talked this one over with Cal and we're going to split the protection duration in PvP/WvW to 1 second. We considered an ICD for this trait, but think it's more interesting without it so we will only add one if this split proves insufficient to balance it.

**Why didn't you change Toss Elixir R?**

We did not originally plan to modify Toss Elixir R as we considered it fairly strong due to its 5 target cap and 170% total revive amount. With that said, we took another look at it and decided to make a few changes since there we felt that it being stopped by projectile destruction/reflection was too punishing for its recharge.

* Toss Elixir R: This skill no longer removes 1 condition when thrown. Increased projectile speed by 25%. The projectile thrown by this skill is now unblockable. Fixed an issue where the land and water versions of this skill moved at different speeds.

> @"killfil.3472" said:

> Wait, hold on.

>

> Signet of Undeath's passive life force generation has been increased by 100%?

> Does that mean the trait "Signet of Suffering" 's increase has also been increased by 100%?

> That could be a bit too powerful, no?

Signet of Undeath currently gives 2% lifeforce per 3 seconds.

This change increases it by 100% up to 4% per 3 seconds.

When traited with Signets of Suffering you get 6% per 3 seconds which is a 100% increase from the previous 3% per 3 seconds.

> @"Melech.4308" said:

> Question about this:

>

> Medic's Feedback: This trait no longer increases revival speed. It now causes Feedback to revive allies inside it by 5% per second.

>

> Does this mean that a mesmer can just tap F to cast the feedback then suddenly stop reviving but allies in the feedback still get revived?

Yes, it's similar to how the Arcane Resurrection trait works.

Hey folks,

I wanted to pop in today to give you all a preview of some upcoming changes to fall damage and revival that we'll be rolling out in an upcoming balance update. The quick summary is that we are removing trait functionality that reduces fall damage and increases passive revival speed.

While fall damage reduction traits were useful when the game first launched we feel that they are currently over-complicating trait descriptions in a post-glider/mount world. Falling damage reduction is already pretty niche and in the past we have added additional functionality to make them more generally useful. However for most of these traits, that bonus functionality eventually became the main reason to take the trait. At this point we felt it just makes more sense to remove the fall damage portion, which leaves some design space if we want to buff these traits in the future.

For revival traits we want to focus more of that power onto active revival rather than simply increasing the speed of "press F to revive". You may have noticed that we've slowly been removing some of these traits already as was the case with the Tactics rework. We like how revival traits like Necromancer Transfusion and Elementalist Arcane Resurrection actively tap into existing skills and augment them so we added similar functionality to a few other revival traits when we removed the revival speed increase. In addition you'll also see some improvements to skills which revive allies directly.

Here's the list of changes by profession:

**Elementalist**

* Arcane Abatement: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Arcane Restoration."

* Glyph of Renewal: Reduced recharge to 90 seconds in all game modes. Lowered cast time from 3.25 seconds to 2 seconds.

* Arcane Resurrection: This trait no longer increases revival speed. Auras granted by this trait are now granted only to the elementalist at the start of a revival attempt rather than at the end. This effect has a 20 second cooldown.

**Engineer**

* Grenadier: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Additionally this trait now casts Lesser Grenade Barrage on your location when using a healing skill.

* Toss Elixir R: This skill no longer removes 1 condition when thrown. Increased projectile speed by 25%. The projectile thrown by this skill is now unblockable. Fixed an issue where the land and water versions of this skill moved at different speeds.

**Guardian**

* Protectors Impact: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Protector's Restoration".

* Signet of Mercy: Reduced recharge to 90 seconds in all game modes. Changed passive effect from granting 180 healing power (216 when traited) to granting 120 concentration (150 when traited).

* Protective Reviver: This trait no longer increases revival speed and no longer grants boons on a successful revival. Fixed skill fact to show correct 3 second duration. Fixed a bug which prevented the recharge of Lesser Shield of Absorption from being affected by Stalwart Defender. Lesser Shield of Absorption now heals nearby allies when it ends. This trait now causes all versions of Shield of Absorption to revive allies by 15% when it detonates.

* Courageous Return: This trait has been reworked and it has been renamed to "Stalwart Courage". It grants the guardian Protection for 3 seconds in PvE and 1 second in PvP/WvW whenever aegis on the guardian is removed due to blocking an attack.

**Mesmer**

* Descent into Madness: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Method of Madness"

* Medic's Feedback: This trait no longer increases revival speed. It now causes Feedback to revive allies inside it by 5% per second.

**Necromancer**

* Terrifying Descent: This trait has been reworked. It has been renamed to "Insidious Disruption". It now causes control effects to inflict torment on foes.

* Signet of Undeath: Reduced recharge to 75 seconds in all game modes. Reduced cast time from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds. Reduced number of allies revived from 3 to 1. Added additional health cost of 50% of base health to this skill. Increased passive lifeforce gain by 100%.

**Ranger**

* Soften the Fall: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Child of Earth"

* Allies' Aid: This trait no longer increases revival speed. Reduced cooldown of this trait from 85 seconds to 60 seconds. Fixed a bug which caused the version of "Search and Rescue!" associated with this trait to be considered a Shout skill instead of a Command.

**Revenant**

* Planar Protection: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait.

**Thief**

* Uncatchable: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait.

**Warrior**

* Peak Performance: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Reduced conditional damage bonus from 20% to 15% in PvE and 10% to 7% in competitive modes. Now grants 5% bonus damage baseline in PvE and 3% bonus damage in competitive modes.

Just wanted to jump in to address a few questions and comments I've seen popping up frequently in relation to these update notes:

**Why does Function Gyro die when CCed?**

Destruction on CC allows other players to counter the skill just like they would counter a normal stomp or res attempt. There is no point to the gyro existing after being interrupted as we don't feel it's fair for it to attempt multiple stomps or reses. This has been the functionality since the rework but we are clarifying it in the upcoming update because players are under the mistaken assumption that Function Gyro has low health and armor. The Function Gyro has 18k health and 1.3k armor. (A level 80 Elementalist in ascended armor with no bonus toughness or vitality has about 12k health 1.9k armor.)

**Can Improvisation recharge my Heal or Elite?**

Improvisation recharges one of your utility skills. It does not recharge the Heal or the Elite.

**What does Mending Might do?**

This was an editing error that should be fixed for the final release notes next week. Mending might heals the warrior whenever the warrior grants might to an ally and has no internal cooldown.

**Power Break isn't related to Mantra of Pain, which skill does this note refer to?**

This is another error and should be "Power Spike". It should be corrected on the final notes.

**How much barrier does Call of Valor give?**

About 2.5k with a 1x healing multiplier.

Anything that changes the profession mechanic UI (that area where the F1-F4/5 skills live) tends to be a lot of work. When the original game was built, that part of the UI wasn't really made to be very flexible. As a result, any time we need to change it, it takes work from both artists and programmers who are familiar with the nuances of the underlying system.

As for the Elementalist thing, one specialization idea that was pitched during PoF development was an ele with only 2 attuenements (and a weapon swap). It's similar to what you are suggesting and probably would have involved similar amounts of work to change the profession UI. Although, I think Weaver was probably just as (or more) difficult due to the sheer number of extra skills!

Testing usually depends on the extent of the change. If we are only increasing the damage of Necro Axe by 5% then the testing isn't very extensive, but if we are overhauling an entire trait line, then testing is more rigorous.

When deciding IF a change can be implemented (when the question is "Can we do it in the engine?") we discuss the issue with our programmers. When deciding SHOULD a change be implemented, it can get vetted through the team, through team leads, and up to the game director level depending on the expected potential impact.

Balance isn't always a zero-sum game. Just because there is a nerf to something doesn't mean there needs to be a corresponding buff. If that were the case we'd also have to nerf something every time we buffed something. :s

Nerfs do not necessarily reduce build diversity. We've used nerfs in the past to reduce the power of skills/traits that were crowding out other options because they were too strong.

> @"DemonSeed.3528" said:

> How about changing bullet velocity so it doesn't have a chance to break stealth? Would that be too inconsistent a change?

With the current implementation, the stealth is applied as soon as the roll begins. Dodge rolling has a more or less an instant activation, so there's no way we could make the bullet fast enough with the current system that you couldn't start your dodge roll (and get the stealth) before it hit.

> @"Volrath.1473" said:

> My question is, do you have the means/tools to apply some kind of buff for 1/2 second that would prevent stealth from braking?

This was a potential solution we considered when we were looking at our options. We chose to go a different route since it was more difficult to determine what kind of impact this would have across the whole game. (This is the type of change we'd want to apply globally since it would be weird if only a single trait had special functionality.) Changing a single trait is much safer than making a new rule for stealth and we wanted to keep things within the scope of a Deadeye update.

Heya, thanks for the thoughtful and well-formatted feedback. I wasn't sure if I should post again after my last "thanks for the feedback" post was misinterpreted. But I wanted to give it one more shot since I thought some of these ideas were pretty cool.

So first things first...

We are planning to move the stealth application on the Silent Scope trait from the start of the dodge roll to the end. There are pros and cons to each version so I want to explain the reasoning. We originally put the stealth at the beginning of the dodge to make it more responsive and to give it a sneaky feel by hiding the direction of your roll. However given problems some players are having with being revealed by bullets in flight, we've decided to move it to the end. This should make the moment-to-moment gameplay with rifle feel smoother and more intuitive. We are also removing the in-combat restriction from this trait.

Moving forward from here…

You'll see this change in an update coming in a few weeks. (I think we'd all like that to happen sooner but our team doesn't control the update cycle and we need to wait for other changes in the update be implemented, tested, etc.) While this doesn't address all of the feedback we've seen so far it was the one we were able to ship in the shortest amount of time. We will continue to follow up as necessary so please continue to leave your feedback on the forums.

> @"TheMaskedGamer.5708" said:

> I have found and issue while attempting to do a combo with the new Deadeye. I really enjoy the new Silent Scope trait that allows you to go to stealth after a dodge roll. Makes a great opportunity to dish out your stealth attacks immediately after. However, I've found an issue when attempting to do that with the rifle.

>

> The issue comes with the nature of projectiles taking their time to hit the target. In the combo, I of course would Mark the target, use Iniciative skills to charge Malice, go to stealth specifically the Slient Scope dodge roll to stealth, then attempt to use the new Stealth Attack, Death's Judgement. However, if doing this at maximum range(kneeling or otherwise), the autoattacks takes about a second to hit the enemy target. Within that second I roll in order to stealth and use the stealth skill, but by the time I go to stealth, the autoattack projectile finally hits the target. The issue is that once that projectile hits, it reveals me before I could use the Stealth Skill. It cancels out my stealth.

>

> Now I've heard that persisting attacks (as an example on Longbow Ranger, use the AoE skill 5, and then try to use Skill 3 to stealth, but gets revealed immediately since targets are getting hit.) or attacks that take its time to reach the enemy cause this problem. There should be a fix to eliminate this issue. Like any attack or skill persistent or not that comes out before stealth should not reveal you.

>

> Hope this feedback helps.

Thanks for the detailed feedback. We'll keep this in mind for future adjustments.

> @"Daishi.6027" said:

> Probably because they wanted more clone generation as this weapon performs better the more clones and bounces you have going on.

Yup, you pretty much got it. To add onto that, having it summon two phantasms (to make two clones) helped give it a stronger unique identity when compared to the other phantasm skills.

Hey everyone, I know this is all a lot to take in so I wanted to clarify a few of the questions I saw pop up in this thread.

> @"Highlie.7641" said:

> 180 con per boon. that could be a bit extreme. guess we will see though

The concentration bonus is flat and does not scale with number of boons.

> @"Gambit.9501" said:

> So if Death's Judgment is gonna become the new Rifle stealth attack, what will become of Cursed Bullet? I really like that boon-strip that CB has/it's also helpful in PoF open-world when bursting down Awakened in the new maps (getting rid of their Protection is super useful). Will Death's Judgment retain that functionality as the new Rifle stealth attack?

Cursed Bullet is being removed. Its boon removal functionality will be moved to one of the utility skills.

> @"MUDse.7623" said:

> i could see alot of problems with the malice change if the traits would remain the same, but as we dont know what they will be like..

> now will we lose our malice if the stealth attack does not hit, like a warrior missing his burst skills? adrenaline will still be faster build up than malice tho.

Malice is only lost if you hit your mark.

> @"Cameryn.5310" said:

> Please tell me that we aren't going to lose that and be forced to play Deadeye spec with rifles. Please. I don't want to go back to that. In PVE, I *never* do more damage with the rifle than the pistol, because circumstances where I can safely kneel and hit things with my rifle are few and far between, but with dual pistols I'm hitting things every second.

While I can't speak to your exact build, I personally find P/P Deadeye to be just as good or better with these changes.

> @"Curennos.9307" said:

> Based on 'The Perfect Shot', I assume you mean that when a rifle thief is stealthed, their 1/AA will now turn to Death's Judgement? Just looking for some clarity :)

Yes. Stealthing flips over the AA to Death's Judgement.

> What about the non-kneel version of Death's Judgement, Death's Retreat?

Death's Retreat is still the Rifle standing skill #4.

Unlike most phantasms, when the defender applies its condition (taunt) it is sourced directly from the phantasm. Normally conditions applied by phantasms are sourced from the memser which allows the condition duration stat to apply. In the case of the defender we can't do this, because of how taunt functions. Taunt causes the taunted target to attack the source of the taunt. If we sourced the condition to the mesmer and allowed your condition duration to apply, the taunted target would attack YOU.

> @"Solori.6025" said:

> Wait...

> So instead of the system we have now where if you summon a phantasm while having 3 clones it replaces a clone..

>

> If you summon a phantasm in the new system while you have max clones it'll just become a clone and not do any phantasm skill?!?!

No, the phantasm will always attack. Then it will become a clone. If you have max clones at this point, it will replace an existing clone.

> @"Me Games Ma.8426" said:

> @"Robert Gee.9246"

> You don't know how much I've been waiting for a change like this. I've been hoping for such a rework for quite a while now. Shattering is a very cool mechanic and even if the mirage probably won't be utilizing it I still think it's one of the best changes you could have made.

> **Three Questions:**

> Phantasmal Fury: Will this stay? I'd love to see it be changed now that it is rather the mesmer instead of a "pet" attacking constantly.

> Chronophantasma: The most obvious option would be to have phantasms attack twice, is that correct?

> Are changes to other skills' damage values planned? (as the text only refers to "all skills and traits **related to phantasms**")

Phantasmal Fury is still there, we felt that 20% crit chance on your phantasm attack still had value so we left the trait alone.

Chronophantasma is more or less what you're describing, it allows the phantasm to attack a second time, becoming a clone after the second attack.

Many skills have been changed in this pass, we focused on skills related to phantasms but some other skills needed to be adjusted as well.

> @"Kencussion.9273" said:

> Curious, if you already have 3 clones and summon a Phantasm - what happens to it after it uses its attack and is destroyed? Does it just stay destroyed (so your clones keep the weapon you WANT on them), or will it replace a clone (with a weapon you don't want)?

>

> Also, will the max number of clones be increased or remain the same?

If you have 3 clones and summon a phantasm, that phantasm will become a clone and replace one of your existing clones. Shatter before that happens!

Max clone count is 3.

> @"viquing.8254" said:

> Hello,

> I have just a question who bothered me : Will the health of illusions remain the same ? Or are you planned somes reworks about it in your re-evaluation ?

Illusion health has not changed.

> @"Sephylon.4938" said:

> Since alac is becoming a boon, will other classes gain access to the alacrity boon as well or will it still be chrono and rev that can give alac?

We don't plan to add alacrity to other professions at this time.

> @"TwilightSoul.9048" said:

> I'm wondering about Quickness uptime for Chronomancer now since they replaced Quickness on Tides of Time with Alacrity

I am guessing you are talking about uptime for a raid group and not personal quickness uptime? When we checked current raid builds we found that quickness uptime was already higher than 100%. Removing it from Tides of Time should still allow full uptime, though it may be a little more difficult to run without Time Warp now.

> @"Shayd.9648" said:

> Is this going to be a loss in DPS for condi mirage in raid? This is a huge concern that has come up with my guildies since much of the sustained dps is coming from the phantasms. If it is, many of them are thinking of ditching it altogether. In my opinion that would be sad as condi mirage was almost the only viable dps for raid as a Mesmer.

We're expecting rotations to change for DPS mesmer builds. Clones builds now have more flexibility to summon phantasms, and shattering in general will be more usable, but there may be damage losses from other changes. We're looking forward to seeing what new builds appear and will continue to make adjustments if things end up too far out of line (in either direction).

> @"Vermillion.4061" said:

> What about Frenzy Sigil which is used on almost every weapon in WvW, is that sigil going to be adjusted to?

Yes, this sigil will be receiving a functionality change that causes it to give flat recharge reduction instead of alacrity.

> @"Ost.1560" said:

> I know this is mostly geared towards Chronomancer, but how does this affect Renegade's F3 (Orders From Above) as well as The Ventari Tablet trait Serene Rejuvenation in the Salvation trait line? Will they just be converted into the boon form, or can we expect totally different effects?

They will also provide the alacrity boon. Duration of alacrity will be lowered a bit on Serene Rejuvenation to account for boon duration.

> @"Oglaf.1074" said:

> What about SIgnet of the Ether? Won't it lose all viability with Phantasms just blowing themselves up?

Signet of the Ether's passive has been changed and heals when illusions are summoned. The active should still be viable since it still lets you recast the phantasm for another attack.

> @"Ben K.6238" said:

> Disenchanter may need a significant boost yet again, I think.

It's been updated to remove multiple boons and deal significantly more damage.

> @Lily.1935 said:

> Now I'm going to criticize the balance team because they, once again, went over board with the necromancer.

Criticism is a fine thing and it's one of the reason these forums exist. I don't mind responding to criticism, but I don't like responding to toxic threads, so I hope we can keep this one civil.

I'm gonna do quick bullets here to address the rest of your points since otherwise this is gonna get long:

* Shade Aftercast - This isn't a bad idea and we've done similar things with Mesmer shatters in the past to prevent them all from activating at once.

* Shade FX Readability - Art requests can take a little time to make since they have to go through a different team and we have a pretty strict budget for them as well. I agree that this is an issue though that I hope we can get some time for.

* Shade Recharge vs Duration - I'm going to have to disagree about the recharge needing to stay in lockstep with the duration. Changing those values is how we adjust uptime and uptime was the area we intended to target with PvP and WvW splits.

* Bug or Feature - Some bugs become can become features, others don't. The Desert Shroud repeatedly proccing Dhuumfire wasn't something we felt should be kept. If Scourge needed to rely on buggy behavior to be competitive then we need to fix the bug before we figure out what needs to be improved to make it competitive. If the bug is causing blowouts in other areas of the game then we need to fix it even sooner.

> @Lily.1935 said:

> I'm so beyond upset right now, I can't be objective right now.

As a developer I don't expect players to be objective. We expect players to be passionate, involved and subjective when it comes to their chosen profession(s). So if you're upset about something, then by all means let us know you are upset. However as developers, _it is_ our job to be objective when it comes to choosing what changes to make (and what bugs to fix). Although even if your criticism is subjective, it's still helpful to give us reasons and context behind your thoughts. ;)

> @Geisterlicht.6083 said

> Also @Robert Gee.9246 burning precision (elementalist) is an adept trait, that adds way more than SFL in its current state.

Burning Precision is 2.4s of 1 stack of burning every 5 seconds. Solar Focusing lens is 2 stacks of burning for 2 seconds every 6 seconds when optimized. I get that you're probably not going to toggle Photon Forge every 6 seconds though (and Burning Precision buffs all burning too) which is why I agree SFL could be better.

>@Adamantium.3682 said:

> I feel like the burn is inconsequential even if you add a couple more stacks, and Holo is lacking in the direct damage it seems to be meant to do. Solar Focusing Lens should get a "+10% damage against burning foes" or something.

With that said, the ele trait Burning Rage is a GM minor and gives 10% bonus damage to burning foes. It might be too much to add that to SFL given that it's much lower tier. I get where you're going with this, but I also want to be careful about adding too many conditional damage modifiers to profession that already has quite a few.

-------------------------

So far my main takeaways from this discussion are:

1. SFL feels like it isn't as good without also taking PBM. It would be nice if it was more usable in conjunction with other traits.

2. SFL is in a trait tier with no options for power builds. It would be nice if it or another trait in the tier benefited power.

**As a general disclaimer**, I can't guarantee that we'll have the time to change SFL in the the next balance update. Holosmith already has quite a few adjustments (yes some of them are for sword) and I don't know if we have time for many more in this batch. I do however appreciate the civil discussion and hope it will help inform future updates.

PBM already has a fairly complex description that I'd prefer not get longer. If solar focusing lens is weak though I think that's an area that could be improved. Seeing as its an adept level trait I don't think it needs to change all that much.

> @Geisterlicht.6083 said:

> A better approach would be to additionally make it apply 2 stacks of the effect upon leaving PF.

> (2 on entering 2 on leaving or 5 on overheat)

> That way it provides the same boost with Thermal Release Valve and PBM.

This isn't a bad idea either.

Edit: For clarification I like this idea, but it does make is similar to Prismatic Converter which also triggers on Deactivation. Generally we prefer to have traits with different trigger conditions in the same tier.

> @"Zero Solstice.9754" said:

> Hey guys, here's a list of changes that were not included in the patch notes:

>

> Manifest Sand Shade: Sand shade duration was reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP and WvW only.

> Nefarious Favor: The cooldown of this skill was increased from 5 seconds to 8 seconds in PvP and WvW only.

>

> Edit: Sand Flare now also properly functions as a heal skill for related runes and traits.

Update notes have various cutoff points for our localization/editing team so sometimes even though an update will make it into the final build the notes will be delayed a bit due to the localization being processed in batches. Balance adjustments and important bugfixes sometimes come in after this cutoff point so please be sure to check the release notes once they are updated.