The last balance patch and "tradeoffs"

[LaFurion.3167]

Would like to discuss whether arenanet plan on continuing in this direction and the trade off for elite specs that they did , and how so.

 

I've been quite vocal that the swipe change to daredevil was a huge nerf in my opinion. Whether this is reverted or not doesn't matter because if this is justifiable for thief I'd like to give two other examples.

 

1) What exactly does engineer trade off to become a holosmith or scrapper? Especially holo Smith. You gain a button that literally is the most power crept ability in the game and completely outshines every other engineer power build from core or scrapper in terms of dps. Will they remove toolbelt for holosmith? Increase cooldown? Because at the moment there is none. Holosmith is just better in every single way shape or form. My thief that hits like a wet noodle anyway got range on steal halved in dd but... holo is unscathed... and the balance difference is huge.

 

2)another example is guardian and dragon hunter trade off. Where is it? The f1-f3 skills for dragon hunter do everything core guard f1-f3 do but better. Plus you get traps and longbow. Will core guardian get a new ability like rev did perhaps?

 

3) necro. I find it interesting that anet themselves used the loss of death shroud as a trade off but wonder what kind of trade off this even is? They polarized the elite specs for necro. In hot reaper could do both power and condi and it was awesome but now they made reaper power and scourge condi. And core deathshroud is super outdated and just laughable compared to other things in the game like holosmith photon forge while keeping toolbelt skills. Nobody plays core necro except maybe 10 guys who make core wvw videos just for fun...

 

 

Idk. Just seems like there is a long way to go. It might be the right direction but a loooong way to go..

[Aza.2105]

When GW2 was first designed part of Anets perspective on balance was this thing called "roles with holes". I think that is the term anyway. Well, what it mean was that each class would have a specific weakness.

 

Warrior: Was suppose to have trouble dealing with conditions

Guardian: Weak when boons get stripped and slow run speed

Mesmer: Weak when clones are destroyed leaving them vulnerable.

Necro: Slow run speed, low access to stability

Ranger: When pet is downed, ranger becomes weaker

 

I don't remember all of them. Over time the holes in roles begin to vanish and many classes no longer had a specific weakness. Part of what contributed to the problem was elite specializations. Elite specs pretty much added a layer of complexity on top of the base class, all the while in many cases eliminating weaknesses the class originally had. With Anet focusing on trade offs, they are going back to their original balance idea but applied to elite specs. Since they are sort of classes within a class.

 

In regards to Guardian. DH virtues are much different than core. DH virtues all have a cast time and a animated function and in some cases longer cds. Core guard virtues are instant and provide different benefits in many cases. Like f3 for core gives a aoe aegis to party members. F3 with DH creates a shield that provides frontal blocking. So yea its different. Not sure about engi since I don't play them!

[Westenev.5289]

What sort of tradeoffs does a Soulbeast have?

 

They can:

~ Absorb their pet, giving them stat bonuses and new skills (pets miss most of their attacks anyway, so this is probably a dps gain)

~ Revive their pet on a 10 second timer in-combat

~ Retain all core skills (spirits) and have full pet functionality

~ Gain access to a 3rd dps focused traitline, and completely repurpose the beastmastery traitline (base 25% movement speed)

~ Use all pet traits, abilities or skills (like sic 'em) for the player character

~ Use stances which can increase boon duration or generate might

 

 

What sort of tradeoffs does a Druid have?

 

They can:

~ Stack group might through point blank aoe heals.

~ Enjoy a nerfed pet who dies when targeted. Oh, don't forget the 1 minute pet swap cooldown in combat.

~ Enjoy a utility elite spec weapon which is a net dps loss.

~ Gain access to 3 seconds stealth and condi removal from astral form.

~ Gain access to astral form... which has a long ass cooldown!

~ Have several situational glyphs you will probably never use over base spirits.

 

 

In regards to the ranger, all this talk of "tradeoffs" makes me laugh when - if anything - soulbeast has no drawbacks over the base profession.

[LaFurion.3167]

> @"Westenev.5289" said:

> What sort of tradeoffs does a Soulbeast have?

>

> They can:

> ~ Absorb their pet, giving them stat bonuses and new skills (pets miss most of their attacks anyway, so this is probably a dps gain)

> ~ Revive their pet on a 10 second timer in-combat

> ~ Retain all core skills (spirits) and have full pet functionality

> ~ Gain access to a 3rd dps focused traitline, and completely repurpose the beastmastery traitline (base 25% movement speed)

> ~ Use all pet traits, abilities or skills (like sic 'em) for the player character

> ~ Use stances which can increase boon duration or generate might

>

>

> What sort of tradeoffs does a Druid have?

>

> They can:

> ~ Stack group might through point blank aoe heals.

> ~ Enjoy a nerfed pet who dies when targeted. Oh, don't forget the 1 minute pet swap cooldown in combat.

> ~ Enjoy a utility elite spec weapon which is a net dps loss.

> ~ Gain access to 3 seconds stealth and condi removal from astral form.

> ~ Gain access to astral form... which has a long kitten cooldown!

> ~ Have several situational glyphs you will probably never use over base spirits.

>

>

> In regards to the ranger, all this talk of "tradeoffs" makes me laugh when - if anything - soulbeast has no drawbacks over the base profession.

 

Which makes me ask why did daredevil get owned but not other specs

[Zenith.7301]

> @"Westenev.5289" said:

> What sort of tradeoffs does a Soulbeast have?

>

> They can:

> ~ Absorb their pet, giving them stat bonuses and new skills (pets miss most of their attacks anyway, so this is probably a dps gain)

> ~ Revive their pet on a 10 second timer in-combat

> ~ Retain all core skills (spirits) and have full pet functionality

> ~ Gain access to a 3rd dps focused traitline, and completely repurpose the beastmastery traitline (base 25% movement speed)

> ~ Use all pet traits, abilities or skills (like sic 'em) for the player character

> ~ Use stances which can increase boon duration or generate might

>

>

> What sort of tradeoffs does a Druid have?

>

> They can:

> ~ Stack group might through point blank aoe heals.

> ~ Enjoy a nerfed pet who dies when targeted. Oh, don't forget the 1 minute pet swap cooldown in combat.

> ~ Enjoy a utility elite spec weapon which is a net dps loss.

> ~ Gain access to 3 seconds stealth and condi removal from astral form.

> ~ Gain access to astral form... which has a long kitten cooldown!

> ~ Have several situational glyphs you will probably never use over base spirits.

>

>

> In regards to the ranger, all this talk of "tradeoffs" makes me laugh when - if anything - soulbeast has no drawbacks over the base profession.

 

Of course, soulbeast is trying to fix the atrocity that is the pet system. Rangers begged Anet in beta to not saddle the class with a pet, just like rangers in GW1 didn't need pets baseline.

 

Anet ignored them, and then we got one class with pets that can't attack certain objects, down or up walls in WvW, most of them besides drake don't cleave with their melee attacks and their scaling with the ranger's ferocity stats, foods, potions, and runes don't work so a portion of the ranger's damage has terrible scaling with gear and consumable upgrades. The pets also evaporate as soon as anything sneezes on them, they might as well be deleted in large scale fights.

 

And even with the "soulbeast" solution power ranger DPS has such abysmal coefficients on the power weapons (part of why meta ranger DPS specs were always condi, because condi weapons did not pay a pet tax in their condition coefficients), soulbeasts are still a mediocre power dps spec in PvE for raids with marginal utility.

[derd.6413]

well, yes anet acknowledged it themselves in the patchnotes that this is just the first step

[Blocki.4931]

They've made clear that they're not done yet. Would be crazy to update every single spec at once. We can hope that next balance patch won't be too far. At the very least we will see a follow up patch for this in a few weeks.

[kharmin.7683]

There already exists a discussion on this topic in the Professions forum: [https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/74076/balance-changes-upcoming#latest](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/74076/balance-changes-upcoming#latest "https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/74076/balance-changes-upcoming#latest")

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> Would be crazy to update every single spec at once.

 

And why is that? I'd rather have them update all at once than having more imbalance being created by updating only a few at once. Also, now every profession is worried what's going to come to them. Not a good approach.

[Samnang.1879]

trade off for holo/scrapper is that holo cannot get pods at Dragon Stands, while Scrapper can get pods easily without dying

[MoriMoriMori.5349]

And may I then ask a thing or two on behalf of Ele community as well? :)

 

Weaver:

1. Has the lowest base HP pool in the game

2. Light armor

3. Due to previous severe nerfs the Sword is the only option if you aim for DPS, so close-range combat (now look at the previous 2 items again)

4. Gives no unique boons to the team, and almost no boons at all

5. Relies heavily on full boon set he can only get from others to do whatever damage you see in golem-DPS charts

6. Has DPS comparable to Dragon Hunter (heavy armored warrior espec with huge HP pool) on large hitbox, and not even in the top 3 DPSers for small hitboxes; keep in mind, it's "golem DPS" and in the real combat it will be even lower due to the mentioned facts (lowest HP pool + light armor + close combat = you spend more time in downed state or have to disengage to not get downed more often)

 

What exactly is role of this e-spec and where exactly does it shine? In current its state the only thing it could shine as is raw DPS delaer, like if it would have 15-20% more "golem DPS" than any other e-spec - but it doesn't have even this.

 

So what is trade-off of playing, say, Dragon Hunter, instead of Weaver? :)

[Raknar.4735]

> @"MoriMoriMori.5349" said:

> 6. Has DPS comparable to Dragon Hunter (heavy armored warrior espec with huge HP pool) on large hitbox, and not even in the top 3 DPSers for small hitboxes; keep in mind, it's "golem DPS" and in the real combat it will be even lower due to the mentioned facts (lowest HP pool + light armor + close combat = you spend more time in downed state or have to disengage to not get downed more often)

 

Dragon Hunters / Guardians share the same base HP pool with Elementalists and Thieves. Not sure where you're getting this "huge HP pool".

[derd.6413]

> @"MoriMoriMori.5349" said:

> And may I then ask a thing or two on behalf of Ele community as well? :)

>

> Weaver:

> 1. Has the lowest base HP pool in the game

> 2. Light armor

> 3. Due to previous severe nerfs the Sword is the only option if you aim for DPS, so close-range combat (now look at the previous 2 items again)

> 4. Gives no unique boons to the team, and almost no boons at all

> 5. Relies heavily on full boon set he can only get from others to do whatever damage you see in golem-DPS charts

> 6. Has DPS comparable to Dragon Hunter (heavy armored warrior espec with huge HP pool) on large hitbox, and not even in the top 3 DPSers for small hitboxes; keep in mind, it's "golem DPS" and in the real combat it will be even lower due to the mentioned facts (lowest HP pool + light armor + close combat = you spend more time in downed state or have to disengage to not get downed more often)

>

> What exactly is role of this e-spec and where exactly does it shine? In current its state the only thing it could shine as is raw DPS delaer, like if it would have 15-20% more "golem DPS" than any other e-spec - but it doesn't have even this.

>

> So what is trade-off of playing, say, Dragon Hunter, instead of Weaver? :)

 

the trade-offs ppl and anet are talking about are between especs and their core classes, not between especs from different classes

[Erasculio.2914]

> @"LaFurion.3167" said:

> I've been quite vocal that the swipe change to daredevil was a huge nerf in my opinion.

 

"ArenaNet,

 

Nerf rock.

 

Paper is fine.

 

Signed,

Scissors"

 

It's rather obvious that Thief players are going to think Swipe was a big nerf. Complaining without presenting any viable argument as to why it should be reverted is pretty much meaningless.

 

> @"LaFurion.3167" said:

> 3) necro. I find it interesting that anet themselves used the loss of death shroud as a trade off but wonder what kind of trade off this even is?

 

Irrelevant. It states what ArenaNet has set as their definition of a "trade off": when a profession loses something in order to gain something. Whether what they're losing is better or worse than what they're gaining has not factored on that rule. So:

 

* Reapers and Scourges have a trade off: they lose access to Death Shroud.

* Holosmiths have a trade off: they lose access to the fifth tool belt skill.

* Dragonhunters and Firebrands have a trade off: they lose access to the unmodified Virtues

 

And so on. There are only a few specializations left with no trade off now, like Soulbeast and Scrapper. Like ArenaNet said on their patch notes:

 

> @"ArenaNet Team.4819"

> With this update, we're targeting a few elite specializations to receive trade-offs, and we expect to continue doing this in future updates.

 

So this is only the first step in adding trade offs.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> > @"LaFurion.3167" said:

> > I've been quite vocal that the swipe change to daredevil was a huge nerf in my opinion.

>

> "ArenaNet,

>

> Nerf rock.

>

> Paper is fine.

>

> Signed,

> Scissors"

>

> It's rather obvious that Thief players are going to think Swipe was a big nerf. Complaining without presenting any viable argument as to why it should be reverted is pretty much meaningless.

>

> > @"LaFurion.3167" said:

> > 3) necro. I find it interesting that anet themselves used the loss of death shroud as a trade off but wonder what kind of trade off this even is?

>

> Irrelevant. It states what ArenaNet has set as their definition of a "trade off": when a profession loses something in order to gain something. Whether what they're losing is better or worse than what they're gaining has not factored on that rule. So:

>

> * Reapers and Scourges have a trade off: they lose access to Death Shroud.

> * Holosmiths have a trade off: they lose access to the fifth tool belt skill.

> * Dragonhunters and Firebrands have a trade off: they lose access to the unmodified Virtues

>

> And so on. There are only a few specializations left with no trade off now, like Soulbeast and Scrapper. Like ArenaNet said on their patch notes:

>

> > @"ArenaNet Team.4819"

> > With this update, we're targeting a few elite specializations to receive trade-offs, and we expect to continue doing this in future updates.

>

> So this is only the first step in adding trade offs.

 

All these things holosmith, reaper and dh lose are inferior is many (most even) ways compaired to what they gain, thats not a trade off, thats a better deal.

[HungryWhale.6150]

> @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> "ArenaNet,

>

> Nerf rock.

>

> Paper is fine.

>

> Signed,

> Scissors"

>

> It's rather obvious that Thief players are going to think Swipe was a big nerf. Complaining without presenting any viable argument as to why it should be reverted is pretty much meaningless.

 

Adding unblockable to steal while halving its range halved is basically an undeniable nerf unless Anet wants to promote gameplay to doesn't require people to use their brains to play. You can hardly do anything at all as thief without the tickery specialisation to boost your initiative which leads players to choose Bountiful Theft as the other two options in that same line is basically useless. Bountiful Theft + Steal already rips boons and goes through aegis so in my opinion, there is basically no need to add unblockable unless:

1) Like I mentioned previously, Anet wants to promote 'easier gameplay' which hurts the game more as it will eventually lead to people mindlessly button mashing without knowing what the heck they are doing

2) Idek. Maybe they just hate thief in general.

Also, Anet said they wanted to promote thief or daredevil to be more of a 'melee oriented specialisation.' How on earth are we supposed to stay in melee combat when half of the time I cannot even use Swipe to get in their faces. Also consider the fact that thief has the lowest base health of all classes with literally no sustain or damage mitigation, how are we expected to be in melee situations when we get destroyed in less than 20 seconds after we commit to a fight without running away. I can understand the complaints about Steal being 1200 range. But reducing it down to 600 is basically killing the entire specialisation. So Swipe should be reverted to Steal or at least be changed. I don't really care about the unblockable feature but I'm sure everyone will agree that the range needs to be increased to at least 900.

 

 

[Erasculio.2914]

> @"zealex.9410" said:

> All these things holosmith, reaper and dh lose are inferior is many (most even) ways compaired to what they gain, thats not a trade off, thats a better deal.

 

That's what ArenaNet is using as their definition of a "trade off": losing something in order to gain something. You may think what those other professions are losing is worse than what they're gaining, but that doesn'r really matter to ArenaNet's definition.

 

> @"HungryWhale.6150" said:

> Adding unblockable to steal while halving its range halved is basically an undeniable nerf

 

Yes, it's implemented as a trade off to compensante for the other advantages the Daredevil has over core Thief.

 

Thief players are not happy with the nerf, but then again, when were players happy with a nerf to their profession?

 

[Shiyo.3578]

It's going to take Anet literally 6 years to add "trade-offs" to every elite spec. I don't know why they decided to start doing this now, so far into this games life. Very bad decision and will just make certain specs feel BAD while others who don't get a trade-off for years get to be overpowered.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

> @"LaFurion.3167" said:

> [...] 1) What exactly does engineer trade off to become a holosmith or scrapper? Especially holo Smith. You gain a button that literally is the most power crept ability in the game and completely outshines every other engineer power build from core or scrapper in terms of dps. Will they remove toolbelt for holosmith? Increase cooldown? Because at the moment there is none. Holosmith is just better in every single way shape or form. My thief that hits like a wet noodle anyway got range on steal halved in dd but... holo is unscathed... and the balance difference is huge.

 

To become Holosmiths, Engineers trade off their elite Toolbelt skill.

Scrapper does not trade off anything, that's why they should also get a trade-off in the same slot, their elite skill toolbelt skill.

For example, they could get in that slot another Gyro that is offensive instead support to complement the Function gyro. It could be called "Action Gyro" and always deal damage, plus another effect based on the selected Grandmaster scrapper trait.

Then once the elite toolbelt skill is exclusive to core, their effects could be greatly improved as they would not transfer to the elite specializations. For example:

* Orbital Strike could strike more times, and while equipped with a certain trait, it could hit continuously in the same spot for as long as it hits at least one enemy, then stop and go on recharge after not hitting enemies.

* Med Pack Drop could become a ground-targeted ammo skill, allowing throwing several med packs repeatedly, and change the medpacks into AoEs when triggered, and to trigger instantly when allies are in the area.

* Toss Elixir X would also work underwater (an area around the target) and change the Morphed duration to 10s split between all affected targets, so hitting 2 enemies would give 5s each, and hitting 5 enemies would give 2s each.

 

> 2)another example is guardian and dragon hunter trade off. Where is it? The f1-f3 skills for dragon hunter do everything core guard f1-f3 do but better. Plus you get traps and longbow. Will core guardian get a new ability like rev did perhaps?

 

* Dragon hunter F1 has a second long cooldown that won't recharge instantly.

* The wings force the dragonhunter to move between the allies to heal them.

* The F3 is a wide block instead an area block, so you can flank them to hit them.

* So their effects may be stronger, but also different. Than being said, core virtues could use a little more oomph, like:

* Core virtues become ammo skills with 5 charges for justice, 3 charges for Resolve, and 2 charges for Courage.

* Having a 4th "Virtue of Humility" you can toggle to change virtue of justice when fighting enemies immune to burning, so you can get Might instead giving burning or some other effect that won't be pointless against enemies immune to burning or that spam condition removal.

 

> 3) necro. I find it interesting that anet themselves used the loss of death shroud as a trade off but wonder what kind of trade off this even is? They polarized the elite specs for necro. In hot reaper could do both power and condi and it was awesome but now they made reaper power and scourge condi. And core deathshroud is super outdated and just laughable compared to other things in the game like holosmith photon forge while keeping toolbelt skills. Nobody plays core necro except maybe 10 guys who make core wvw videos just for fun...

 

Core shroud could indeed use a bit of love. At least they got a tether to keep enemies from going into stealth, but their fear skill is lacking, and the skills too single-target. I would make the following changes:

 

* Life Blast now explodes if it hit 5 enemies. The explosion will gain life force for each enemy. This final explosion would also be a blast finisher.

* Dhuumfire would now affect every hit done by Life blast and apply 1 additional stack of burning on each hit based on the number of enemies hit before. So if Life Blasts hits 5 enemies, then another 5 enemies with the Blast the 10 hits would deal 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 stacks, then another 6 stacks of burning on the explosion. Dhuumfire's will take +1s to recharge for each hit Life Blast delivers, so delivering 10 hits total would make it recharge for 10 seconds, but hitting just 1 enemy would keep the base recharge of 1s.

* Dark Path no longer teleports to target, instead it produces a cascading poison field AoE that can hit 5 enemies per pulse in total, and that cascades 600 units in a 150 unit wide line starting on the target. Each cascading section of Dark Path pulses 4 times and deals blind on the first pulse, bleeding on the second pulse, poison on the 3rd, and chilled on the last pulse.

* Doom is now a narrow cone that hits 5 enemies up to 600 units in front of the necromancer, causing fear. It would also transfer 1 condition + 1 extra condition from for every 3 conditions on you, max 4 conditions total. The durations of the transferred conditions would be split between the affected enemies. If you have on you bleeding for 9s and hit 3 enemies, they each get 3s.

* Life Transfer will steal life from enemies, converting it into life force, and also draw 1 condition from allies to yourself per pulse.

* Tainted Shackles would remain unchanged.

* Underwater skills would be reworked to work in the same way as much as possible, with just the necessary tweaks to work underwater, and keep the same names as the ground version.

 

[Noodle Ant.1605]

Even though certain especs are theoretically yet to get tradeoffs, IMO, they shouldn’t be dished out simply for the sake of having ‘tradeoffs’ (like what druid and DD ‘tradeoffs’ seem to many ppl), unless they are very well thought out. In other specific cases, tradeoffs don’t even appear to be completely necessary; the espec mechanic in question could actually be fairly balanced due to being subject to a few years’ worth of patches. Alternatively, a few additional proper changes/nerfs/buffs to certain traits or skills can create tradeoff required between specs.

 

However, if ‘good’ tradeoffs are to be implemented, whole espec mechanics and or traitlines may have to be reworked to ensure the tradeoff is obvious and can be felt in any situation, not just instinctive PvP nerfs. e.g:

- Instead of a just 600 range unblockable Steal, the items obtained by using Swipe and how the skill works could bring out the brawler nature the devs had intended by picking DD. Daredevils will not ‘just shadowstep’ and find items such as Throw Junk or Blinding Tuft; instead they could quickly dash *through* their opponent, obtaining skills that actually assists the DD in staying toe-to-toe and in melee range against their opponent, rather than having to rely on stealth and or disengage. Core stolen skills appear outdated however and probably require buffs (perhaps changes to make them more hit-and-run compared DD’s)

- If the issue with druid was that the pet was essentially doing the stuff for the druid while the druid just sustained both of them, they could’ve ‘celestialtised’ the pet(s) to be like a tanky perma clone that can still inflict condis and cc (cases like attack of opportunity could allow pet to do normal damage). That way, the dmg output needs to be transferred back onto the druid themselves, where they can’t attack while healing/supporting vice versa and a combination of interesting changes could arise from this approach, while a tradeoff is still present in all situations and builds.

 

The above are just random suggestions. In the end however, I believe the devs should probably drop or slow down this tradeoff act, no matter how good or logical it may sound, until or unless they are actually ready to make rework level or universally impactful changes.

[Assic.2746]

> @"LaFurion.3167" said:

> Would like to discuss whether arenanet plan on continuing in this direction and the trade off for elite specs that they did , and how so.

>

> 2)another example is guardian and dragon hunter trade off. Where is it? The f1-f3 skills for dragon hunter do everything core guard f1-f3 do but better. Plus you get traps and longbow. Will core guardian get a new ability like rev did perhaps?

>

> Idk. Just seems like there is a long way to go. It might be the right direction but a loooong way to go..

 

1. Dragonhunter virtues have casting time, are no longer instant and can be interrupted.

2. Virtue of Justice active effect is different. Your allies will no longer apply burning with their next attack. There is a tradeoff.

3. Virtue of Resolve is different. You will only heal your allies inside small AoE radius. Wings of Resolve radius is 240 and Virtue of Resolve radius is 600. And this skill can also be interrupted and won't heal at all. So there is a tradeoff.

4. Shield of Courage does indeed grant shield on top of aegis to allies but it has 33% longer cooldown and again the radius is smaller.

5. Every elite spec gets new utility skills and weapon... I don't get that argument.

 

Dragonhunter does not get any additional skills on top of standard virtues. And what is more those skills are not strictly better than regular Virtues. Active effects are different and have smaller areas of effect.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"derd.6413" said:

> well, yes anet acknowledged it themselves in the patchnotes that this is just the first step

Except the first step should have been buffs to core specs, not tweaks to some of the elite ones. "tradeoffs" do not work all that well when the main problem is that a lot of core classes got so overnerfed in order to give a role to elite specs, that they simply do not function well without those elite specs.

 

There is also the point of why these specific especs were even selected for "tradeoffs". Take Berserker for example - There's no point in adding a tradeoff at all. As far as power DPS goes, berserker is already the worst option of the three available (and core is actually the best). With condi however, Berserker is the _only_ option, and no tradeoffs are going to change that. So, basically, all tradeoffs do here are nerfing the espec, without changing the relationship between it and the core in the slightest.

Same with druid - nerfs to pets are irrelevant, because noone takes druid as a dps option anyway.

 

The "tradeoff" for all classes should be done the revenant way - by giving something unique to the core class. Preferably after deciding on what should be the focus of said core class (and buffing that). Just please do not make that focus a thing that was the main use of the espec since now (not unless you will give something of equivalent value to the espec - taking condi away from the reaper haven't been balanced by buffs to power melee yet, for example, even after a long time since that decision has been made).

 

PS: i have no idea what can be done about core ele though. It never had a multitude of roles, and now all of them are split between tempest and weaver - there's simply nto enough of those to cover all 3 specs. Well, theoretically you could split dps into a melee (weaver) and ranged (core) options. Too bad the whole combat and boons system made sure noone will ever _need_ ranged dps spec.

 

[Naxos.2503]

To be fair, while Holosmith is Indeed powerful thanks to the holo forge, it also gives something engineer lack which is a non defensive melee weapon. The loss of the elite toolbelt kit is actually kind of a big deal for a class who prides itself on having a plethora of skills to bridge cooldown. I can tell you that I could really use the medkit drops considering how fragile a damage holo can be. Similarly, an orbital strike can do a Lot if well aimed. The tradeoff can be felt.

 

If it really isn't that much of a tradeoff, can I have it back ? You can take the constant explosion/burn on holoforge overheat too :D I mean it's not much of a trade off either, is it ? Seriously. Holoforge overheat happens after 4 skill use if you attack normally a few times. It does non negligeable damage to yourself, and inflict burn, which can easily be used by burn condi professions/monsters. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Overheat is no joke when you're still in combat after it procs. Chances are you Have to use your heal skill to avoid an immediate down if you've already taken some damage.

[zealex.9410]

> @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> > @"zealex.9410" said:

> > All these things holosmith, reaper and dh lose are inferior is many (most even) ways compaired to what they gain, thats not a trade off, thats a better deal.

>

> That's what ArenaNet is using as their definition of a "trade off": losing something in order to gain something. You may think what those other professions are losing is worse than what they're gaining, but that doesn'r really matter to ArenaNet's definition.

>

> > @"HungryWhale.6150" said:

> > Adding unblockable to steal while halving its range halved is basically an undeniable nerf

>

> Yes, it's implemented as a trade off to compensante for the other advantages the Daredevil has over core Thief.

>

> Thief players are not happy with the nerf, but then again, when were players happy with a nerf to their profession?

>

 

No, thats what we had before this balance patch, things that got tradeoffs with this patch feel more like an actual trade off with some options being weaker on the elite specs to copensate for other things that might empower them.

 

Point is, the classes with "tradeoffs" that didnt get this treatment with this patch should get it with the next.

[Kylden Ar.3724]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> It's going to take Anet literally 6 years to add "trade-offs" to every elite spec. I don't know why they decided to start doing this now, so far into this games life. Very bad decision and will just make certain specs feel BAD while others who don't get a trade-off for years get to be overpowered.

 

They should have done this **from the start like they originally said when Colin said they would be sidegrades** _and anyone playing MMO's from the start laughed and called him full of kitten._