PvP/WvW Skill Split Release

[Stand The Wall.6987]

Shadow Shot: Increased the initiative cost from 4 to 5 in PvP and WvW. Increased Increased the power coefficient from 1.325 to 1.8 (+36%) in PvP and WvW

absolutely horrible change - this skill hits really hard, ports, blinds. one ini increase **does not** justify buffing this skills damage. i remember i got critted for 9k by this on a 3k armor build once lol. just lol... heartseeker was fine as well. looks like overall they nerfed sword teef to the ground. better get back to d/p, the one teef set that has been meta for _ages_.

 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Have you looked at nerfing a Scourge's ability to cover an entire point? Sand Savant is probably the most problematic trait in the game right now.

 

Heck, most of the Necro nerfs probably wouldn't be necessary if standing on-point didn't automatically mean standing in a shade.

[Shaman.2034]

> @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > @"Shaman.2034" said:

> > > @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > > > @"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

> > > > > @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > > > > > @"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

> > > > > > I am actually extremely surprised how heavy-handed these changes are. Although I don't necessarily agree with all of them, I applaud the direction you are going in and think you did a good job with this list. Thank you for the update. I am not going to comment on other balance issues that weren't addressed because this is strictly about skill splitting.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > One general critique I have, though, is how you seemed to increase cooldowns on all passive traits without actually looking at how varied their effectiveness was beforehand. So now traits like Soothing Bastion, for example, get punished with a 90 second cooldown when they weren't really ever a problem in the first place. I am okay with the cooldowns being increased as I myself am not a fan of passive defenses, _however_, the traits need to be more deeply evaluated and adjusted for such a big blanket change.

> > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > >

> > > > > We went back and forth on this a bit. In the end we decided to err on the side of consistency for anything that cleansed conditions, fired on getting CC'd, or anything defensive that fired at low health. If we missed something, let us know and we'll look at it.

> > > >

> > > > Thanks for responding, Ben. I since edited my post to include a question in there and to correct some misinformation, but I will post it here too:

> > > > If this is only about skill-splitting, does this mean you will also be adjusting the functionality of some of these traits in all game modes to warrant the cooldown increase?

> > >

> > > It's hard to say at this time. Do consider that just because we don't want passives to be very strong in PvP, doesn't necessarily mean we have a problem with them in PvE.

> >

> > What about all the proposed buffs to skills and traits that are underperforming in PvE, and will likely still underperform even with these changes? Shouldn't one of the goals be to minimize the amount of skill splits in general? I think just about every buff on this list could make it to PvE without changing anything there, while it reduces the amount of split things in the game for people to have to juggle.

>

> We'll probably look at some of them to see if they can go game-wide. Our first focus for this release was on splits only. But as we revise the list, a few old splits and maybe some new ones might get changed to game-wide.

 

Thanks for the response, Ben! We really do appreciate your hard work on all of this, and the chance to see potential changes before they go through. Thanks for opening up a discussion into it!

[arnitheking.8427]

would it be possible for Kalla summons to act like wells in wvw? atm they are not useful in any larger fights as they kind of die instantly (and are therefore very unreliable)

[Ben Phongluangtham.1065]

> @"MADPIEMAN.8023" said:

> Buff sword on weaver (dmg on actually used skills and making some skills easier to land) and buff tempest to compete other support specs like firebrand and chrono

 

We feel that while the current state of sword weaver and tempest might be under performing a bit, they aren't too far from viability. Considering the changes we're planning for other classes, we feel that they may be in a pretty good spot after the release. We didn't want to buff them with this release just to have to nerf them later. We may be wrong, so we'll be keeping an eye on them after the release to see how they fared.

[Toron.4856]

first of all anet, great job.

 

secondly my few cents:

the spellbreaker nerfs are too much. spellbreaker is a very strong class atm that can take pretty much any 1v1. with those changes u will probably ruin spellbreaker tho. core warrior seems to be stronger than a spellbreaker after those nerfs. dagger auto attack is already kinda of weak. why would u make it even weaker? only because sword auto attack on thief hits for 4k it doesnt mean the 800-1000dmg auto hits on war should be tuned down as well.

 

the passives: i agree removing or making passive less useful is a good thing. then again, 2 secs of physical dmg invulerabiliy on a 90 sec cd is a bit too much. did u consider giving defy pain its old duration back?

compare defy pain to the stone signet: 2 secs invuln on a 90 secs cd to 3 secs on a 40 secs cd.

-> 45 secs cd per sec of immunity vs 13 secs cd per sec of immunity

 

the last stand: increasing the cd of last stand like this makes it kind of not unsful anymore. keep in mind last stand is a GM trait and not a minor trait.

my suggestion would be reworking last stand into something different. a non passive trait, and then somehow give warrior access to stabiliy.

 

without last stand warriors have to either use last stand as utility or they are left without stabiliy. and honestly war doesnt work without stabiliy.

 

about break enchantments: removing even more boons is probably not the right way to deal with the dmg decrease. i would rather have the dmg decreased by 20 and kept the boon removal at 2 boons.

 

considering the other classes got nerfed as well i think the nerfs on the dagger 2, dagger 3, f1 and full counter are fine.

 

and now about buffing "non-meta skills and traits":

 

you need more changes to the weapons and skills that are not used in the meta to make them viable. with ur current plan u would make spellbreaker unviable and support or condi war would remain unviable as well.

 

so please anet, reconsider some of the spellbreaker changes. i totally agree that spellbreaker can be tuned down a little. B U T: nerfing literally every important aspect of spellbreaker is NOT the solution. i believe ur goal is to have a healthy pvp enviroment with equally balanced classes. nerfing a class into oblivion and buffing other classes until they become godlike is not the solution.

 

About the other classes:

 

- Thief

most of the classes took quite some nerf BUT:

 

sd thief is barely untouched and u want to buff sword 3. i sadly have to say that i completly disagree with that. S/d thieves really have to be nerfed and nerfing their auto attack is not the key. the key problems are: the double steal, the amount of stolen boons and boon uptime same as having a spamable skill that has an evade and an unblockable on both chain skills.

 

my suggestion would be to make the first skill of the chain blockable and perhaps increase the initative costs.

 

more over: s/d is the current meta and outperforming d/p but d/p is yet the build taking all the nerfs. isnt the goal to have d/p and s/d be on pair with each other in order to provide 2 viable thief builds?

 

so yeah pls recosider the changes on thief and pls nerf s/d thief a bit more.

 

- Mesmer

i believe what u are planning is a step into the right direction but mirage is simply going to be "godmode" if u keep the changes the way they are.

 

mesmer would be:

-the best 1v1 class

-have the highest burst dmg

-and have the best mobiliy / be on pair with dash thief (dp thief not played because sd is meta) due to sword ambush, portal, jaunt, blink ... its just so much mobiliy

 

please reconsider nerfing mirage a bit more. anything else would just be very unhealthy for the pvp enviorment.

 

in the hope a dev will read this and may take it serious :)

 

ad:

 

- Rev

please give rev some more condi cleanse. its so easy. remove 2 condis on legend swap instead of one, remove 3 condis on staff 4 and make the casting time shorter and or similar changes.

 

every player in the game knows how badly revs struggle with condis.

 

also, how about reworking sword 5 on rev. it is just very clunky and slow which makes it very hard to pull off. the only reason sword offhand is being used is sword 4.

since u nerfed revs dmg, revs were forced to drop shield as a weapon and take sword or axe since its just better.

 

so yeah my suggestion would be reworking sword 5 OR do something about sword 1-3 dmgwise and then rework shield for rev.

 

[Za Shaloc.3908]

I apologize if this question has already been answered, but would this be its own patch independent of the routine ones we have, or would this be the actual post-season patch? Hope that makes sense.

 

Thanks again for the communication. I love seeing posts like this.

[GenerationX.9178]

I am looking forward to these changes!

[DiogoSilva.7089]

> @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

>

> We'll probably look at some of them to see if they can go game-wide. Our first focus for this release was on splits only. But as we revise the list, a few old splits and maybe some new ones might get changed to game-wide.

 

Yeah, I agree with this approach. If they are underused/ not-meta in pve, it should be safe to unsplit them.

 

Whatever little risk there is in unintentially breaking the endgame pve meta can always be fixed later (and I'd say the chances are pretty low for most of them), so the reward far outweights the risk, I think.

[Blackarps.1974]

Only thing that needs to change for druid is how they can handle 1v1 situations where they can just stay alive forever and easily run away with staff. In a zerg setting, they are mostly fine because they don't really do much anyways. They aren't in meta because the healing is so much better on ele or support guard so I don't know why you'd want to nerf it in a group setting.

 

The other thing I forgot to mention in my other post is how rev works. With such high energy cost, it makes so much more sense to just play necro where you can face roll your keyboard. Rev, being like thief, where you can only attack at certain times because of cooldowns AND energy costs, means you have to be a pretty skilled player to play the class at its potential. The only way to even get good damage on power rev is to run zerker gear because of all the long cast times on hammer (the only real power weapon other than maybe staff). Now CoR did need a nerf, I agree. You shouldn't be able to one shot people with any build on any class. However, you can't just nerf CoR and not buff something else. It just makes it feel useless. This is exactly how warriors fell out of the WvW meta. Losing their adrenaline out of combat along with other tweaks and nerfs made people just play guardian instead. Now with warriors back, they are literally only around for their bubbles and hammer to help remove boons. Still though, they are mostly useless because other professions bring more to the table since warrior isn't the best DPS nor does it have support people need.

 

So yeah, same thing as always with a lot of these balance patches. You can't straight nerf something without giving a solid buff somewhere else. It makes weapons, specs, traits, and sometimes entire classes pointless to run. As seen post POF where all you needed in a zerg was scourge and firebrand to roll down anyone in your path.

[apocalypso.4895]

As a Ranger my main critique with these changes is that while it addresses nerfs to the meta for most classes (ignoring mesmer and overcompensating thieves for some reason), it fails to realise that when the meta adapts to changes, for example when thieves moved from d/p to s/d, some classes, like ranger, don't have anything close to meta to play as an alternative to the current meta build (druid).

As a Druid you nerfed our direct damage, indirect damage, condition removal, boon generation, healing, defense to CCs, defense to direct damage, to the point that it's not competitive in any aspect anymore and effectively it's pushed out of any pvp meta, and is positioned even further from being accepted in group play in wvw. While this may be a healthy move for the game, and I can understand that with some reservations, it doesn't create build diversity by itself if the class doesn't get any meaningful buffs to underused builds or already has a close to being meta alternative build.

For example, different underused playstyles like condition builds with Traps, are not going to be suddenly equally good to everything else in the game without being directly addressed in their core utility/effectiveness. I'm looking forward for changes, but I'd like to see more emphasis being put in the "open build diversity" part of the changes, for now they only look like exactly the opposite for my class.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

Thank you, thank you, thank for making these changes in only PvP and WvW.

[Spanker.8513]

U guys must add berserkers to PvP / WvW Scenario again

Please let primal burst abilities apply 3 stacks of adrenal health again, reduce arcing dive cast time by 0.25 and make Eternal Champion usable again (because it sucks a loooooot now)

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

I... am really not liking what I am seeing. I am mostly a thief main, so I may be a bit biased.

 

But thieves are supposed to be high mobility, high damaged sort of people. Usually their entire gameplay in the past had been to get in and hit someone so hard that they don't have a chance to react. And if you draw the fight out, you're supposed to outplay them. The damage nerf to the auto is a little frustrating to see, especially when we're sitting on an annoying cool down for backstab, and that we don't exactly have the ability to freely rotate out skills without blocking out the others. This would just force us into always taking trickery again.

 

The buff to the signet is nice... but most of them aren't actually used as most of the passives and actives aren't worth what other utilities can do for you. So it's really redundant when you could have improved the other signets to bring them up to usable levels.

I'm fine with the smoke screen buff.

 

I'd rather DaggerStorm be buffed in what it can do, than have the cool down be reflected. It's the thief's only access to stability, and it has so many glaring issues behind it. Namely that you deal more damage when you have more people near you, or you're right on top of someone.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

> @"ZerotheFang.5890" said:

> i agree the magi amulet was a bit much with some healing type builds, but could we do something about stealth in spvp thief kinda disappears too much to fast and can rapid cast those, or engi stealth gyro.

 

You do know there are abilities that reveals stealthed enemies right?

[Darknicrofia.2604]

DH longbow needs some TLC, it was originally designed as a spike damage weapon that can also crowd control, but with the nerfs over the years, it can't do either.

 

It can't do damage, it can't spike and it can't really CC either. Spirit weapon memes are not going to be pvp viable, please fix the things that could be.

[Buran.3796]

> @"Blackarps.1974" said:

> Now CoR did need a nerf, I agree. You shouldn't be able to one shot people with any build on any class. However, you can't just nerf CoR and not buff something else. It just makes it feel useless. This is exactly how warriors fell out of the WvW meta. Losing their adrenaline out of combat along with other tweaks and nerfs made people just play guardian instead. Now with warriors back, they are literally only around for their bubbles and hammer to help remove boons. Still though, they are mostly useless because other professions bring more to the table since warrior isn't the best DPS nor does it have support people need.

>

> So yeah, same thing as always with a lot of these balance patches. You can't straight nerf something without giving a solid buff somewhere else. It makes weapons, specs, traits, and sometimes entire classes pointless to run. As seen post POF where all you needed in a zerg was scourge and firebrand to roll down anyone in your path.

 

That's the perspective of a guild vs guild fight. Try to roam with a Rev with only mele weapons and tell me how well it goes. They just nerfed the hammer ditching quickness from Impossible Odds in the previous patch and now they will cut the damage again. So thieves and mesmers can nuke you from stealth, but isn't fine to have a tool to retaliate becausehammer seems Op in zerg vs zerg. Ok, just let me to enjoy this last days in WvW because no way I'll step again the game mode until Herald gets a ranged weapon feasible to roaming.

[Kovu.7560]

> @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > @"Hiraldo.7954" said:

> > At first glance most of these changes look good, however I'm very puzzled as to why Celestial Avatar CD is being increased, heals are being reduced, and GoTL is being nerfed. Druid is barely viable as a healer in WvW right now and this will likely kill it entirely.

> >

> We **may** rethink some of the druid nerfs for WvW and do them PvP only.

>

 

Please do.

 

> @"Blackarps.1974" said:

> In a zerg setting, they [Druids] are mostly fine because **they don't really do much anyways**. They aren't in meta because the healing is so much better on ele or support guard so I don't know why you'd want to nerf it in a group setting.

>

 

And that's pretty much the long and short of it.

 

~ Kovu

[Mighty Favazz.1546]

Engi main mostly, but I play most classes. I like the general direction for the most part, but I have a bit of an issue with this:

**_Increase build diversity

By decreasing the power of some of the more dominant builds, we hope to give increased viability to builds that previously were pushed out by these dominant specs. We're also increasing power levels in some targeted areas that previously were underperforming._**

The problem I have is you just can't knock down skills to promote others if the other skills are still trash.

Are you expecting me to throw on turrets with a medkit build now?

Elixirs took a beating last patch.

You are forcing me to pick the shiniest turds. Putting lipstick on a pig....

 

There are other skills too, like ele conjure weapon skills, war banner skills, you get the idea.

 

Oh- and please make grenades 1200 for wvw.

 

 

 

[Swing.6439]

Wow. I've powered through some crappy nerfs for three years, and this is the first time I've considered quitting pvp for it.

[reikken.4961]

Very good changes overall. Everything meta was nerfed

 

....except mesmer? Which is arguably the _strongest_ at the moment. Very confused on lack of mesmer nerfs.

 

Also I don't like that scourge's power and support builds were nerfed so hard. really wish you would make changes that are more targeted instead of a blanket cooldown increase (that probably actually nerfs the off meta builds more than the meta ones)

[Razor.6392]

> @"Ben Phongluangtham.1065" said:

> > @"MADPIEMAN.8023" said:

> > Buff sword on weaver (dmg on actually used skills and making some skills easier to land) and buff tempest to compete other support specs like firebrand and chrono

>

> We feel that while the current state of sword weaver and tempest might be under performing a bit, they aren't too far from viability. Considering the changes we're planning for other classes, we feel that they may be in a pretty good spot after the release. We didn't want to buff them with this release just to have to nerf them later. We may be wrong, so we'll be keeping an eye on them after the release to see how they fared.

 

What's your opinion on holo photon forge autoattacks having 240 range while sword weaver has 130 range?

[Gop.8713]

> @"reikken.4961" said:

> Very good changes overall. Everything meta was nerfed.

 

I agree, this list looks pretty great. Things have gotten a bit silly so anything that helps fights last a bit longer is a plus, ditto anything that gets ppl out of their comfort zone and learning new ways to use their class . . .

 

Basically, if we can get the list to a point where everyone is angry about what anet is doing to their class, I'd say we're on the right track :)

 

That's from a wvw roaming perspective. Idk about all this pvp ppl talk about . . .

[Razor.6392]

> @"Mr Godlike.6098" said:

> You want better build diversity on ele? How about revert:

> -arcane fury change

> -how healing power works with everything tempest

> -Woven Stride obligatory water traits to remove conditions

> -healing power scaling on sword water 2 (not base healing)

> -any kind of condi nerf you did for years

> -tempest generally needs reworks to do something different then healing or more stuff for team as it's completely overshadowed by firebrands who can do much more then simply healing and spamming protection.

>

> and maybe SWORD SHOULD HAVE SOME REAL BUFFS?

> -sword skills range and animation speed

> -weak unravel that can't compete for 3th utility slot

> -weaver elite skill that it's inferior gravity well with buff that doesn't matter with HORRIBLE COOL-DOWN!

> -or generally give us way so when we cc something we can follow-up with something...it can be even auttoattacks...but still key 3th dps sword skills are denied thanks to internal cooldown WHEN REALLY NEED THEM.

>

> But really I would appreciate if Karl&friends would start their balance testing FROM DUELING ANY KIND OF PVP META BUILD...MAYBE THEY WOULD HAVE BETTER IDEA WHY WE WANT BUFFS ON SWORD NOT DAGGER!

 

These are pvp / wvw splits. What you propose are heavy trait adjustments, which won't happen right now.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

> @"XxsdgxX.8109" said:

> Even though you didn't seem to address some other big problems like Mesmer's burst I really hope that you **ANET** don't get intimidated by the people here clearly biased for their class not wanting their respective nerfs.

> For the most part these are excellent nerfs all across the board, almost every spec needed them.

>

> Good step in the right direction, please do not pander to so many of these biased complaints.

 

This times a million holy kittenfest.

 

Right now there are only two classes that do not have viable builds for sPvP: Elementalist and Revenant. These are the only two classes that realistically need buffs.

 

People who are complaining about nerfs to builds that are clearly and blatantly overtuned need to chill. Like people complaining about the Druid CA nerf. Druid has been 200% busted for how many seasons now? And they are whining about a 5 second nerf? And then mesmers complaining about elusive mind. Because it's not like EM wasn't one of the most broken grandmaster traits in PoF or anything.