Upcoming Wintersday Balance Update

[Saiyan.1704]

**No one here has issues with Condi. We only have issues with Scourges.**

 

Anet demolished burn FB by nerfing F1. Now you're killing All Condi classes by increasing burn duration.. Mesmers are going to have an even worse time with me now.

[Genesis.5169]

Theres nothing wrong with conditions, we are still in a power meta Anet, the forums are less then 1% of the population do not give in to these tears they are just terrible players.

 

Only 3 classes use conditions and all of them are anti faceroll classes which is why people cry so much stop punishing people for just being good at there class.

[xDudisx.5914]

Any chances of we getting a weaver buff? Weaver need some love

[Vulf.3098]

> @ReaverKane.7598 said:

> Those bosses are already meant to be tackled more by power builds. You can outdps condi builds with power builds on these bosses. It's a matter of balances. You have power for instant damage, and condi for DoT. It should always have been this way. It's not a bad thing. It just makes varied team comps needed, instead of making condi damage king in every situation.

 

More power builds as in Ele and DH that are already taken on almost every boss? So much Variety! This is not balanced in any shape or form and contradicts the statement that was made in a recent AMA where they want every class to be brought into raid instead of if you are not X spec for Y boss you are not being brought. Condi damage is not king in every situation in raids. So until more power builds are on par with DH and Ele you can not make this argument as "balance".

 

Honestly these changes are looking more like a blanket PvP nerf that is going to bleed over into PvE.

 

 

 

[Shagaliscious.6281]

> @SloRules.3560 said:

> Also please take a look at hammer rev vs staff ele. Hammer rev just shouldn't be able to do as much damage as ele, when they are both full zerk, because it's a whole lot more survivable.

 

Eh, not sure I would agree with this. Ele, more specifically weaver, effectively has 4 dodges with twist of fate, add mist form and lightning flash, and you can get caught by a zerg and still make it out alive. Rev, not so much.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

Is Deadeye getting any amount of buffs?

[otto.5684]

> @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

> Wintersday is coming fellow Tyrians and, during the recent AMA, I made reference to a [small balance update](

) and I wished to follow-up to let you know that we're aiming to release that update next Tuesday, 12/12.

>

> ---

>

> We've heard your frustrations with the burstiness of conditions invalidating power builds across game modes (though for differing reasons in each). Conditions have always been intended as a way to achieve strong sustained damage *once it has ramped up*.

>

> This small update has primary two foci:

> * Pushing damaging burst condition toward ramping, sustained damage. This should create more opportunities for counterplay, but also feel satisfying to keep conditions rolling once you’ve ramped them up.

> - i.e. We’re tuning some skills that apply damaging conditions so that they apply less stacks up front, but last for longer. In total duration they’re almost the same before and after.

> - e.g. Purging Flames: Burning has been adjusted from 3 stacks for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 8 seconds.

> * Re-vamping several passive vulnerability traits to offer more distinct opportunities or create synergy with other traits (rather than being standalone). At small amounts vulnerability doesn’t feel good and adding more vulnerability to something that is capped on it has little value. These changes will offer chances to spike up vulnerability when it is ebbing or encourage new build styles.

> - e.g. Mutilate Defenses: This trait has been reworked and renamed to "Expose Defenses". This trait now causes your first attack when entering combat to inflict 5 stacks of vulnerability for 5 seconds. This ability refreshes whenever you use an elite skill.

>

> As always, we’ll be looking for your feedback once you have had a chance to play with the upcoming changes. We’ll start a post here after December 12th to hear your thoughts, so please prepare your most constructive feedback.

>

> See you in the lands!

>

 

Not condition damage, but boon corruption is the main issue in sPvP. If you will do nothing to fix boon corruption, then nothing will change. In fact, you will hurt all none scourge and mirage builds, of which none is even meta.

 

Example you used for purging flames, condi guardian is not even sPvP viable. This skill in sPvP relies heavily on dealing as much damage in the first few seconds, cuz it will get cleansed. Lower damage over longer duration kills it. Not to mention, this will push many condi builds out of vast majority of none raid PvE content.

 

Also, this reverent change is extremely bad on so many levels. Power damage is bound loses 7% if no vulnerability on target. Now I have to rely on someone else to provide vulnerability and using elite spell is not rotational for PvE for power rev and is situational in sPvP. So... wtf?

 

As for the passives, the request was to reduce passive auto proc defenses. Why are you targeting damage procs?!

 

I used to respect Anet dev team, but since PoF release you guys have been rocking the boat so badly with terrible designs and nonsensical changes. This is extremely misguided.

 

 

 

 

[JayAction.9056]

Could rev get some love in this patch? It's almost comedic how bad it is outside of the one middle-of-the-pack-viable power build that does laughable damage.

 

Renegade still brings nothing of value outside of PvE, and you guys gave us an expansion weapon that literally serves no purpose and is good for nothing.

 

Lile the functionality of some things is pretty horrible, but the numbers on everything is just too low now it's been way over nerfed and doesn't really compete anymore.

 

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Shagaliscious.6281 said:

> Eh, not sure I would agree with this. Ele, more specifically weaver, effectively has 4 dodges with twist of fate, add mist form and lightning flash, and you can get caught by a zerg and still make it out alive. Rev, not so much.

 

So having to use THREE utilities for avoiding damage doesnt seem a little excessive? I mean the rev could use abilities and avoidance skills of their own as well. Add in Legend swap, add in the condi removal, healing, alacrity that Ventari has, add in the boons, and healing skill Herald has and you have a very sustainable character where as a Zerk ele gets looked at and they die lol

 

[otto.5684]

> @JayAction.9056 said:

> Could rev get some love in this patch? It's almost comedic how bad it is outside of the one middle-of-the-pack-viable power build that does laughable damage.

>

> Renegade still brings nothing of value outside of PvE, and you guys gave us an expansion weapon that literally serves no purpose and is good for nothing.

>

> Lile the functionality of some things is pretty horrible, but the numbers on everything is just too low now it's been way over nerfed and doesn't really compete anymore.

>

 

No worries, it looks like it will get a nerf, which is a staple of balance patches.

[Apolo.5942]

I agree with the overall idea. I just dont believe that "strong sustained damage once it has ramped up" can be achieved in 10-15 second fights with out it degenerating into the same thing we have now.

[Einlanzer.1627]

Sigh...

 

Condition "Burst" is not the issue (other than a few outliers who lay down way too many conditions at once). Conditions need to be balanced in both short and long duration fights. The issue is that conditions are supposed to be balanced by doing less raw damage but penetrating armor. I don't know how or why you guys seem to have lost sight of that in favor of the idea of making them like DoTs in other games, which they aren't and shouldn't be.

 

Get rid of the absurd number of sources of cleanse and immunity and lower condition damage across the board.

[gannondorf.7628]

> @Inoki.6048 said:

> > @coro.3176 said:

> > Condi burst has become overwhelming not only in # of stacks, but also in # of conditions applied at once. For an example, look no further than scourge condi bomb:

> >

> >

> > That's 8 condi applied more or less instantly with no obvious tell to dodge. There's no real way to avoid this other than "don't ever be close to a scourge".

>

> that is disgusting and needed to be addressed from the beginning. I can't fathom how anyone thought this was OK.

 

Moreover when it was supposed to be an "heavy support spec". When i saw that it make me laugh. How can they fail at this point if the goal of the spec was support? Because right now it's the worse condi bomb the game ever had.

 

[BeepBoopBop.5403]

> @Rengaru.4730 said:

> Of course I don't know the full balance changes so I could be mistaken, but wouldn't the proposed chage to Mutilate Defenses destroy the synergy it already has with the other Devastation traits (namely Targeted Destruction and Focused Siphoning) especially in AoE situations?

 

Yes.

 

If they go through with that trait change to power revenant I will actually delete mine. Clueless about their own game.

[Avigrus.2871]

Wonder if they will address or review all the cleanses and resistance. Wait to see how this plays out, but i have a feeling this will have a pretty major impact.

 

Burn Guardians are going to cop the worst of this.

 

Also wonder if they're going to add back some amulets to PvP given the changes.

 

They really need to buff some of the power builds...

[Shiyo.3578]

> @Shara.4716 said:

> Number 1 change I would like to see. Every class having the same base vitality.

 

No that'd be really awful, guardian with 15-18k base hp would be completely broken in every game mode.

 

What I want to see, however, is HP valued re-evaluated. Ele's 11k hp makes no sense anymore and engineer shouldn't have 15k base(should be 11k since it's so survivability and has so much damage + burst + everything in the entire game more so than ele ever did), scourge also probably shouldn't have 18k base when it sits at 21k with talents and spiking to 27k+ with barriers all the time.

[notebene.3190]

This will probably get buried in everything else, but I'm wondering how this will effect a (mostly) solo PvE'r in PoF? My Renegade is my only condi character, and was curious as to how it would effect her.

[Swagger.1459]

A concern... "3 stacks for 5 seconds to 2 stacks for 8 seconds.".. If the team doesn't use my perfect idea, then I hope this "2 stacks" example will mean pretty big damage numbers per stack... or you are screwing over condi users... Why? because of the incredible power burst damage being pumped by individual builds in wvw...

 

I've seen some ridiculous power burst (1 hit burst and multi-hit burst in seconds) numbers (across many professions), compared to the average amount of HP a player has, so keep all these issues in mind when condi gets gutted and the team doesn't overhaul everything... Example...

 

 

 

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

> @Einlanzer.1627 said:

> Sigh...

>

> Condition "Burst" is not the issue (other than a few outliers who lay down way too many conditions at once). Conditions need to be balanced in both short and long duration fights. The issue is that conditions are supposed to be balanced by doing less raw damage but penetrating armor. I don't know how or why you guys seem to have lost sight of that in favor of the idea of making them like DoTs in other games, which they aren't and shouldn't be.

>

> Get rid of the absurd number of sources of cleanse and immunity and lower condition damage across the board.

 

Condition Burst IS an issue, because the burst happens every 2seconds! Getting riddled with like 5 different conditions with various stacks every few seconds IS an issue. They need to heavily reduce that, maybe even remove it altogether and actually get conditions back to what they are in GOOD games - Damage Over Time. With periods of down time. Not insanely broken damage every 2 seconds.

 

absurd cleanses and immunities? Theres very few immunities that have a low enough cool down to really be that effective, The old Warrior Signet was the key one and that got nerfed. Cleanses NEED to be "absurd" because the application is absurd. Getting riddled with SEVERAL different conditions each with various stacks every few seconds makes most classes cleanses totally pointless.

[Loboling.5293]

> @coro.3176 said:

> Condi burst has become overwhelming not only in # of stacks, but also in # of conditions applied at once. For an example, look no further than scourge condi bomb:

>

>

> That's 8 condi applied more or less instantly with no obvious tell to dodge. There's no real way to avoid this other than "don't ever be close to a scourge".

 

SO MUCH THIS. I hope this patch works out though... Not holding my breath. Good luck balance team. You may have lost my faith, but you have my full support on this. Let's try and finish this season on a high note.

[Arkantos.7460]

what counterplay to conditions if your class (revenat) has only a very small condicleance trait ... this trait should get buffed to 3 condicleance like warriors... i dont want to stick with condicleance runes and sigils just for cleanse .....

oh and i hope you buff renegade fskills shortbow and normal utilities

[Vulf.3098]

> @notebene.3190 said:

> This will probably get buried in everything else, but I'm wondering how this will effect a (mostly) solo PvE'r in PoF? My Renegade is my only condi character, and was curious as to how it would effect her.

 

The simple answer is we do not know yet because Renegade does not deal burst damage through condi's. My assumption is Mace 3 will get **nerfed again** (it was nerfed last balance patch as well) along with possibly Citadel Bombardment since those are really the only abilities that apply multiple stacks of a condition that is part of the main rotation. Axe 5 could also see a nerf but that ability is already on a thin line of "why should I use this over heroic command?" so if it gets nerfed too much it might not be used at all outside of grouping mobs together then ignoring it after that.

 

So in other words they will be nerfing a balanced condi build for PvE and shooting an already dead build for PvP/WvW. I just do not get it.

 

Edit -

 

As for power rev. It needs massive buffs. No amount of nerfs to condi is going to make that a viable option for raids.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

I do know if this affects PvE, I'm going to be even more bias against PvP and blame them for YET AGAIN holding PvE back.

Why is PvP/WvW connected to PvE? Why can't they just be the same character but as some of the things say "This is different depending on the game mode"... then why not just leave it the hell alone in PvE and just do this for those PvP people who likes that PvP stuff?

[Alpha.1308]

i almost lost hope for the balance team, but this is a fantastic way to fix this, and i'm glad they're finally getting around to it

 

DoTs should be backloaded, not frontloaded, unless they're on long cooldowns/resources, this game favors short cooldowns and no resources, so this is a step in the right direction for this game, and i'm honestly impressed after being so disappointed in the lack of meaningful balance updates

 

if we can keep these types of balancing directions going, this game will be even better than it was before

 

(from a PvPer's viewpoint)

 

people are complaining how this messes up PvE, but they're not realizing that if they do this right (which, they might not, of course) backloading DoTs will still function the way it's supposed to: low damage on fast dying mobs, but ramping up damage on bosses for higher overall dps with more room for error

 

PvE in games should be play how you want and not go with top tier, but we all know that's not how it works, at least in high end content, you get kicked for being suboptimal, and giving people multiple ways to play such as giving some mobs low health that you'd favor high spike damage and some more priority and higher health with more evasion mechanics for DoTs to ramp up their total damage to be useful, it allows more people to find a way they'd like to play

[Jinks.2057]

> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> I do know if this affects PvE, I'm going to be even more bias against PvP and blame them for YET AGAIN holding PvE back.

> Why is PvP/WvW connected to PvE? Why can't they just be the same character but as some of the things say "This is different depending on the game mode"... then why not just leave it the hell alone in PvE and just do this for those PvP people who likes that PvP stuff?

 

You should blame the PvE team on refusing to adjust the content based on game balance. You can't balance people only code.

 

Also what I'm wondering is what PvE balance are we talking about here? I'm curious to know what is a PvE'rs complaint about balance