PoF Balance Problems

[Hooglese.4860]

Everyone knows these exist, this is my most unbiased, minimal list of issues. I don't want to encourage any drastic balance changes that could break a spec. Also keep in mind these should be PvP only.

 

**Deadeye**

Deadeye is annoying but not really viable. Daredevil's strength/thieves core issues are more of the issue but that's not the topic. Basically I want to make it less of a pain in the ass but better overall.

* Call out voice line should be less frequent and attached to a skill. It's just random and annoying.

* *Preparedness* - should be made baseline to open up new builds, which is the core weakness of Deadeye since the other traits don't work with it as well.

* *Deadeye's Mark* - Faster cast time or instant.

* *Death's Judgement* - Longer cast time but made unblockable to deal with the amount of projectile denial in the game but also make it easier to dodge.

* *Shadow Meld* - lower cast time and cooldown.

* *Maleficent Seven's heal* - should be put in Perfectionist. It already gives better malice generation and more of it, it doesn't need to also heal.

 

**Firebrand**

Has issues. Needs a nerf in its tankiness, buff to axe. Its unkillability and support power is... too much. One million healing in a match isn't hard to accomplish.

* *Pure of Heart* - decrease healing ability by lile 50%. It's not fire brand but with all the new aegis skills it needs to be toned way down

* *Tome of Courage* - Increase CD because it is crazy strong with the CC, resistance, stability and bubble.

* *Blazing Edge* - more burn stacks (at least 2 more). It should be a hard hitting skill with that CD and ease of avoidance but it's weaker than autoattacking atm.

* *Quickfire* - lower ICD. It's not that powerful.

* *Loremaster* - lower cool down to 25%. It's the best option atm due to this.

 

**Holosmith**

It feels a tad undertuned but not by much.

* *Holographic Shockwave* - please let us move while using it otherwise it's not going to ever land. Also increase the damage, it does less than the auto attack.

* *Refraction cutter* - should do a little more damage, it's pretty mediocre as it is.

 

**Mirage**

Despite what people say, Mirage is great and a little op. The axe needs some help but that's about it.

* *Axes of Symmetry* - Needs to be debugged, it currently doesn't always teleport you in range of your opponent.

* *Mirage Thrust* - Distance should be lowered cause the mobility makes portal plays really easy.

 

**Renegade**

This spec has so much wrong with it, fixing it without reworking it might be impossible. In the mean time these suggestions will hopefully help it.

* *Heroic Command* - Should also give fury as Renegade doesn't have an active way to get fury and this skill does very little.

* *Citadel Bombardment* - larger ordinance area, faster projectile speed.

* *Bloodbane Path* - faster projectile speed so it can actually hit moving targets.

* *Sevenshot* - should block all attacks in front or the convergence point should be made selectable by the player.

* *Spiritcrush* - should be able to be fired behind the player.

* *Scorchrazor* - faster projectile speed.

* *All Kalla Skills* - need to be unable to be CC'd

* *Razorclaw's Rage* - significantly increase the bleeding duration to 5s.

* *Vindication* - longer might duration to 5s instead of 3.

* *Righteous Rebel* - Increase condition damage reduction to 50% as revenant already doesn't have condition removal.

 

**Scourge**

So the bugs fixed but Scourge is still an absolute pain to deal with. Mostly it's Sand Savant being so OP in PvP as a trait.

* *Ghastly Breach* is just Plaguelands but better. Increasing the might duration but decreasing condition duration would help with this.

* *Garish Pillar* should have a 20s cd to match the other fear skills.

* *Sand Savant* - Should also limit stacks to 1. Currently you can just plop that thing anywhere anytime, ripping boons as you do it.

 

**Soulbeast**

Now that Gazelle is fixed, Soulbeast is pretty good. Well dagger isn't good.

* *All dagger skills* - increase the power scaling by at least double of what it has. It's a very weak weapon.

* *Instinctive Engage* - Lower CD to 10s and add poison effect. It's pretty garbage right now.

 

**Spellbreaker**

SB is good and always will be, but one traits an outlier that makes Spellbreaker borderline broken.

* *Revenge Counter* is overpowered. There's no reason to take any of the other traits over it. Reducing the resistance, damage bonus and condition copied would help but ideally, one of those needs to be removed entirely and the conditions copied would be my candidate.

 

**Weaver**

Weaver is really good and versatile. The only problem with it at the moment is the barrier numbers are absolute garbage if you don't have healing power.

* Skills/traits that add barrier need to be increased, by about 50%, but the scaling will have to go down to make sure it doesn't become unkillable.

[Brandon.8294]

Weaver sword is so weak, my autos will do 2.5k crits, other weapon abilities usually less than that, with full zerker. So if i wanna get into melee range to deal 2.5k every second with 11k health Weaver is my go to. Or i could sit at 1.2k range as a ranger and crit for 3.5k with autos.

 

Weaver needs much faster attack animations and larger hit boxes with sword to be viable. Lightning/earth duel ability is basically impossible to hit unless youre stacking CC or ask the person to stand still. The hitbox is just too small.

[OriOri.8724]

> @Brandon.8294 said:

> Weaver sword is so weak, my autos will do 2.5k crits, other weapon abilities usually less than that, with full zerker. So if i wanna get into melee range to deal 2.5k every second with 11k health Weaver is my go to. Or i could sit at 1.2k range as a ranger and crit for 3.5k with autos.

 

You call that weak, but that's what auto's should be at. We shouldn't be seeing autos capable of dealing more damage than that, period. They are free attacks, no cooldowns on them, no initiative cost for thieves, no energy cost for revs. They are supposed to be weak attacks, that just apply extra pressure. No auto attack in the game should be a heavy hitting attack, yet even 2.5k crits is anywhere between 10% and ~23% of a person's max health.

 

TL;DR your auto attacks are fine, its the auto attacks of other professions that need to be looked at.

 

**Edit** words are hard

[Hooglese.4860]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> > @Brandon.8294 said:

> > Weaver sword is so weak, my autos will do 2.5k crits, other weapon abilities usually less than that, with full zerker. So if i wanna get into melee range to deal 2.5k every second with 11k health Weaver is my go to. Or i could sit at 1.2k range as a ranger and crit for 3.5k with autos.

>

> You call that weak, but that's what auto's should be at. We shouldn't be seeing autos capable of dealing more damage than that, period. They are free attacks, no cooldowns on them, no initiative cost for thieves, no initiative cost for revs. They are supposed to be weak attacks, that just apply extra pressure. No auto attack in the game should be a heavy hitting attack, yet even 2.5k crits is anywhere between 10% and ~23% of a person's max health.

>

> TL;DR your auto attacks are fine, its the auto attacks of other professions that need to be looked at.

 

These words are the truth.

[Amityel.5324]

firebrand op? 2 dpses can down him any thief+combo can easily its very weak vs power spikes shatter mes freshair ele holosmith thief all can kill him in matter of seconds when they 2vs1 him also it deals no dmg so it cant force you for decap alone so imo its pretty balanced

[Buran.3796]

> @Hooglese.4860 said:

 

> **Renegade**

> This spec has so much wrong with it, fixing it without reworking it might be impossible. In the mean time these suggestions will hopefully help it. [...]

 

Those changes would be both nice and a complete waste of time. Renegade doesn't belong to PvP, trying to force it into Conquest through patches wold be the same as trying to run a pug (french bulldog) in a greyhound race. You can bio-engineering the poor thing to the hell, and still won't work.

 

Better to pretend that doesn't exist, and to fix instead the competitive handicaps that Herald and core Rev still has.

 

[Vagrant.7206]

Holosmith needs more than just some numbers improvements, imo:

 

Sword/Shield is not worth taking atm with holosmith because the risk is TOO DANG HIGH. Holosmith has very few defensive options at a melee range, making the rifle the weapon of choice, for its relative safety and kitability. Even with the "unique mechanic" benefits only applying to sword, it's still not worth taking. We're also the only spec with its own built-in punishment. If you overheat, you're pretty hosed unless you did it very strategically.

 

In short, the risk/reward for holo is all out of whack. We have a very high risk spec, and the reward just isn't there. The holosmith meta is forced to pick "safer" options than what the devs envisioned.

 

Meanwhile, SB can run around 1v3 and do just fine (even get a few kills), and scourge can wreck entire teams if it's played properly, all with relatively low risk.

[Unholy Pillager.3791]

As a holosmith, I don't think that Shockwave needs more damage. It's supposed to be the knockdown skill, not part of your damage rotation. Use it if you need to, but be prepared to deal with the massive amount of heat it generates. If PF mode actually needs more damage, put it on 2 or 3, not 5. I agree that the sword needs love.

 

I also think that soulbeast could use some attention. In addition to needing a lot of bug fixes, the spec needs a little more damage. As for the gazelle, they overnerfed it (no surprise there; they always overnerf rangers and pets). They really need to make it able to hit moving targets. The only times I've ever been hit by the charge was while I was standing still, and even then it didn't feel any more oppressive than a full-malice Death's Judgment (and far less oppressive than the idiots running around in pairs spamming quickened unloads and talking trash as if that requires any noteworthy skill to do).

[Razor.6392]

> @Hooglese.4860 said:

> **Holosmith**

> It feels a tad undertuned but not by much.

> * *Holographic Shockwave* - please let us move while using it otherwise it's not going to ever land. Also increase the damage, it does less than the auto attack.

 

Stopped reading here. It's clear you have no idea of what you're talking about. A really large AOE knockdown CANNOT have huge damage attached to it. Balancing 101.

 

Please refrain from opening these threads in the near future. Thanks.

 

[Unholy Pillager.3791]

> @Razor.6392 said:

> > @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > **Holosmith**

> > It feels a tad undertuned but not by much.

> > * *Holographic Shockwave* - please let us move while using it otherwise it's not going to ever land. Also increase the damage, it does less than the auto attack.

>

> Stopped reading here. It's clear you have no idea of what you're talking about. A really large AOE knockdown CANNOT have huge damage attached to it. Balancing 101.

>

> Please refrain from opening these threads in the near future. Thanks.

>

 

But apparently, it's fine for a skill to have blocking, AoE daze, decent AoE damage, resistance, protection, stability, cripple, slow, and transfer conditions and be unblockable. I don't think that giving more damage to holo shockwave is a good idea (as I mentioned above), but it's a much better idea than full counter as implemented.

[Daffan.8924]

> @Brandon.8294 said:

> Weaver sword is so weak, my autos will do 2.5k crits, other weapon abilities usually less than that, with full zerker. So if i wanna get into melee range to deal 2.5k every second with 11k health Weaver is my go to. Or i could sit at 1.2k range as a ranger and crit for 3.5k with autos.

>

> Weaver needs much faster attack animations and larger hit boxes with sword to be viable. Lightning/earth duel ability is basically impossible to hit unless youre stacking CC or ask the person to stand still. The hitbox is just too small.

 

Well that's kinda the thing with most 'bad' classes in this game. Melee range sucks (too low, even WoW in 2006 worked this one out that in an **online** game having 1yd range is **crap** so they patched it) and range/hitboxes on abilities in general are complete garbage that you are either missing dps or swinging in mid air.

 

Which is why Soulbeast, Spellbreaker (lol tank/reflect forever) and Scourge are so powerful - as well as bunker builds like DH/Firebrand. Because they basically don't deal with any of those problems and can just zerg you down without missing a single hit, either through targeted condi or AoE. Everyone else is running around, spamming ADADADAD and right mouse to try and target GS2 LOL

[Kyon.9735]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> > @Brandon.8294 said:

> > Weaver sword is so weak, my autos will do 2.5k crits, other weapon abilities usually less than that, with full zerker. So if i wanna get into melee range to deal 2.5k every second with 11k health Weaver is my go to. Or i could sit at 1.2k range as a ranger and crit for 3.5k with autos.

>

> You call that weak, but that's what auto's should be at. We shouldn't be seeing autos capable of dealing more damage than that, period. They are free attacks, no cooldowns on them, no initiative cost for thieves, no energy cost for revs. They are supposed to be weak attacks, that just apply extra pressure. No auto attack in the game should be a heavy hitting attack, yet even 2.5k crits is anywhere between 10% and ~23% of a person's max health.

>

> TL;DR your auto attacks are fine, its the auto attacks of other professions that need to be looked at.

>

> **Edit** words are hard

 

If people found Soul Beast dagger weak, then that logic should apply to Weaver sword as well. Soul Beast Dagger chain is **1/4 - 1/4 - 1/4 - 1/2** compared to Weaver sword's **1/2 - 3/4 - 3/4** across all attunements. They're direct opposites, one doing small but fast damage while the other doing slow but above average damage - which Weaver sword doesn't.

 

So there's the problem. Weaver sword doesn't really apply pressure due to its combined mediocre damage and slow attack speed which is a problem for a pure melee build because you'll always find yourself being outpressured by staying in melee which is ironically what a sword weaver should do.

[Exciton.8942]

Revenge counter should be just greatly simplified to this:

 

*Full counter deals 15% more damage. It does 30% more damage to foes that get interrupted.*

 

Basically very reminiscent of mesmer's mental anguish trait. Just make it all about full counter damage.

 

It doesn't need provide 33% uptime of resistance on a profession that already has high resistance up time and very good condition clear. I also doesn't need more to the condition spam which is already too much overall in this game.

[apharma.3741]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> > @Brandon.8294 said:

> > Weaver sword is so weak, my autos will do 2.5k crits, other weapon abilities usually less than that, with full zerker. So if i wanna get into melee range to deal 2.5k every second with 11k health Weaver is my go to. Or i could sit at 1.2k range as a ranger and crit for 3.5k with autos.

>

> You call that weak, but that's what auto's should be at. We shouldn't be seeing autos capable of dealing more damage than that, period. They are free attacks, no cooldowns on them, no initiative cost for thieves, no energy cost for revs. They are supposed to be weak attacks, that just apply extra pressure. No auto attack in the game should be a heavy hitting attack, yet even 2.5k crits is anywhere between 10% and ~23% of a person's max health.

>

> TL;DR your auto attacks are fine, its the auto attacks of other professions that need to be looked at.

>

> **Edit** words are hard

 

Brandon isn’t asking for a damage increase in his post, he’s asking for cast time reductions and slight range adjustments. Right now hitting anything with swiftness running through your hit box is practically impossible because whatever dev team came up with the sword skills thought 3/4 cast times should be on almost everything. It’s also worth mentioning a lot of 1/2s cast times on the weaver have massive aftercasts as well essentially making the vast majority of weaver skills and sword skills very very slow.

 

All that’s needed for weaver to be more competitive is cast and after cast reductions then to reevaluate after that, preferably with monthly balance patches for 3 months so they can properly tune everything.

[OriOri.8724]

Reducing the aftercast delays would be a good approach, along with speeding up the chain a bit, but his first paragraph was about damage, so I thought he wanted a flat damage increase on top of faster attacks. Then again, at the same time, Weaver fire and air sword auto chains deal more damage than mesmer's sword auto chain, and also completes in the same amount of time (~2.4 seconds for weaver, ~2.4-2.5 seconds for mesmer). So if weaver sword auto chain needs love, then so does mesmer's, yet I don't see a lot of people asking for that, so I have trouble believing this isn't a subjective request on his part.

 

And the range problem is not unique to weaver sword, so I think its mostly a moot issue.

[Kyon.9735]

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> Reducing the aftercast delays would be a good approach, along with speeding up the chain a bit, but his first paragraph was about damage, so I thought he wanted a flat damage increase on top of faster attacks. Then again, at the same time, Weaver fire and air sword auto chains deal more damage than mesmer's sword auto chain, and also completes in the same amount of time (~2.4 seconds for weaver, ~2.4-2.5 seconds for mesmer). So if weaver sword auto chain needs love, then so does mesmer's, yet I don't see a lot of people asking for that, so I have trouble believing this isn't a subjective request on his part.

>

> And the range problem is not unique to weaver sword, so I think its mostly a moot issue.

 

Might be better to have mesmer mains to answer that. But from my experience of playing both classes, it's more of a difference in playstyle. **Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.**

 

Mesmers have shatter, which is a class mechanic, as their primary source of damage. They don't really need to be swinging their swords around. They can also opt to use ranged weapons as a 2nd weapon set and doesn't really need to stick to their targets 100% of the time. Most use sword for defensive purposes (Blurried Frenzy). Mirage on sword is a different case. They also rely on auto attacks but has abundant mobility (Mirage Thrust, Jaunt) to stick to its target.

 

Elementalists doesn't have damaging class mechanics similar to Shatter so they are more reliant on landing and chaining their weapon skills. Weaver sword mobility is mediocre and is a pure melee build. Pair the mediocre damage, slow attack animation, and mediocre mobility, sword weaver has more trouble sticking to its target compared to a sword mirage.

 

To simply put it, landing auto attacks is a lot more important to Sword Weavers than Mesmers who shatter for damage, can use ranged weapons, or has good mobility (Mirage). As a pure melee build with the lowest base armor and HP in the game, it makes sense for me if a Sword Weaver is better at pressuring than other melee classes as part of risk/reward.

 

[MyPuppy.8970]

> @Kyon.9735 said:

> > @OriOri.8724 said:

> > Reducing the aftercast delays would be a good approach, along with speeding up the chain a bit, but his first paragraph was about damage, so I thought he wanted a flat damage increase on top of faster attacks. Then again, at the same time, Weaver fire and air sword auto chains deal more damage than mesmer's sword auto chain, and also completes in the same amount of time (~2.4 seconds for weaver, ~2.4-2.5 seconds for mesmer). So if weaver sword auto chain needs love, then so does mesmer's, yet I don't see a lot of people asking for that, so I have trouble believing this isn't a subjective request on his part.

> >

> > And the range problem is not unique to weaver sword, so I think its mostly a moot issue.

>

> Might be better to have mesmer mains to answer that. But from my experience of playing both classes, it's more of a difference in playstyle. **Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.**

>

> Mesmers have shatter, which is a class mechanic, as their primary source of damage. They don't really need to be swinging their swords around. They can also opt to use ranged weapons as a 2nd weapon set and doesn't really need to stick to their targets 100% of the time. Most use sword for defensive purposes (Blurried Frenzy). Mirage on sword is a different case. They also rely on auto attacks but has abundant mobility (Mirage Thrust, Jaunt) to stick to its target.

>

> Elementalists doesn't have damaging class mechanics similar to Shatter so **they are more reliant on landing and chaining their weapon skills**. Weaver sword mobility is mediocre and is a pure melee build. Pair the mediocre damage, slow attack animation, and mediocre mobility, sword weaver has more trouble sticking to its target compared to a sword mirage.

>

> To simply put it, landing auto attacks is a lot more important to Sword Weavers than Mesmers who shatter for damage, can use ranged weapons, or has good mobility (Mirage). As a pure melee build with the lowest base armor and HP in the game, it makes sense for me if a Sword Weaver is better at pressuring than other melee classes as part of risk/reward.

>

I would add the fact that aa chains disrupts the class mechanic which relies on comboing different skills on different attunements to get things done. Inversely, the class mechanic also disrupts the aa chain.

 

[coro.3176]

> @"Unholy Pillager.3791" said:

> As a holosmith, I don't think that Shockwave needs more damage. It's supposed to be the knockdown skill, not part of your damage rotation. Use it if you need to, but be prepared to deal with the massive amount of heat it generates. If PF mode actually needs more damage, put it on 2 or 3, not 5. I agree that the sword needs love.

>

> I also think that soulbeast could use some attention. In addition to needing a lot of bug fixes, the spec needs a little more damage. As for the gazelle, they overnerfed it (no surprise there; they always overnerf rangers and pets). They really need to make it able to hit moving targets. The only times I've ever been hit by the charge was while I was standing still, and even then it didn't feel any more oppressive than a full-malice Death's Judgment (and far less oppressive than the idiots running around in pairs spamming quickened unloads and talking trash as if that requires any noteworthy skill to do).

 

I dunno.. Soulbeast could easily become a 1500 range monster. It's close already.

 

Eg. (this happened in WvW, so spike damage is already higher)

 

* I'm in the middle of a fight. full health engi (20k, some toughness)

* Soulbeast targets me from 1200 range and begins a quickness + rapid fire.

* I take 5 hits (almost 15k damage in just over 0.5s) before I can react, then I dodge to evade the rest of rapid fire.

* Soulbeast follows up with an autoattack. I dodge it and start running away. I have no dodges left.

* nothing nearby to break line of sight, so I switch to toolkit and use gear shield for 2 seconds while I continue to run away.

* I use Rocket Boots to get out of range, taking 1 more autoattack as I travel (it's not an evade). I'm down to 1.5k/20k health.

 

At the end of this sequence, I'm almost dead. If I didn't run a few PVT pieces in WvW, I would be dead. And yet, I reacted very quickly, burned my dodges, defense, and escape skills. I'm still one autoattack from being down. That's a bit oppressive IMO for one skill + autoattacks at 1200-1500 range.

 

I don't want this to be a thing in PvP.

[Chaith.8256]

This list of balance changes is objectively very good. Subjectively, I have no problem with the difficulty of landing Holographic Shockwave and don't think that skill needs any buffs, if someone held a gun to my head for an idea to buff it, I'd say reduce the heat cost by 5.

[Lighter.5631]

personally, i would just reduce the wait time which u need after leaving PF for heat release

[coro.3176]

Yeah. If it was 1 or 2 seconds instead of 3, that would go a long way to helping Holo sustain. I also have not had problems landing Shockwave. Getting interrupted mid-cast or having enemies get out of range is just good counterplay to an aoe damaging knockdown.

[AlekseyGrando.8691]

Firebrand = cast time on tomes + cast time on skill tomes + cast time on mantras + limited mobility + low health. Is the easiest target of the game.

[Faux Play.6104]

> @Razor.6392 said:

> > @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > **Holosmith**

> > It feels a tad undertuned but not by much.

> > * *Holographic Shockwave* - please let us move while using it otherwise it's not going to ever land. Also increase the damage, it does less than the auto attack.

>

> Stopped reading here. It's clear you have no idea of what you're talking about. A really large AOE knockdown CANNOT have huge damage attached to it. Balancing 101.

>

> Please refrain from opening these threads in the near future. Thanks.

>

 

Not sure how anyone in good conscious can say holosmith is under tuned. their combination of mobility, damage, decap ability, and cc is top tier. Don't forget they can't be spiked by power builds due to auto proc invuln.

[Mikeskies.1536]

In my experience fighting Holosmiths, they have incredible burst damage and CC, but if you survive that initial combo, they are easily taken down.

[coro.3176]

> @"Faux Play.6104" said:

> > @Razor.6392 said:

> > > @Hooglese.4860 said:

> > > **Holosmith**

> > > It feels a tad undertuned but not by much.

> > > * *Holographic Shockwave* - please let us move while using it otherwise it's not going to ever land. Also increase the damage, it does less than the auto attack.

> >

> > Stopped reading here. It's clear you have no idea of what you're talking about. A really large AOE knockdown CANNOT have huge damage attached to it. Balancing 101.

> >

> > Please refrain from opening these threads in the near future. Thanks.

> >

>

> Not sure how anyone in good conscious can say holosmith is under tuned. their combination of mobility, damage, decap ability, and cc is top tier. Don't forget they can't be spiked by power builds due to auto proc invuln.

 

That auto-proc invuln is a double-edged sword though. You're just as likely to get stuck in it and take lethal condi damage, or have it trigger when you need to use skills / deal damage. I don't even run that trait because I was tired of not being able to control it.

 

In any case, shockwave is fine. Moving while using it would be nice, but isn't necessary. It doesn't need damage.