the new patch in a nutshell

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

> @"rng.1024" said:

> > @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > snips

> >

> > …

> > it has nothing to do with specific skills and everything to do with useless things getting destroyed.

>

> Lol so you feel Bull's Charge already was a useless skill? Alright alright, but don't blame it on the patch then. All cc-skills gpt brought up to par with this change, and all cc-skills suffered the dmg loss.

>

> Best I can tell your issue is with skills not being able to do damage and cc at the same time anymore, which is a valid opinion ^^

>

> Or maybe it's just an unfortunate example, since the "useless" skill now is actually more viable than the previous meta-option.

 

I think it's more about how that decision is an incredibly disproportionate balance decision that will clearly result in some very lopsided changes.

 

For example:

 

* Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will great effect Dragon's Maw or Deflecting Shot or Bull's Charge or Full Counter, which will greatly effect the damage output on Spellbreaker, and the already weak impractical damage output of Dragonhunter.

* Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will not effect the efficiency of skills like Headshot or Basilisk or Mantra of Distraction at all, because those skills already did no damage to begin with and the builds tied to them did not rely on any damage output from those skills to be "in balance" with the damage output of other classes.

* So by universally tossing this all hard CCs go to 0 damage stuff, you've got to understand that some classes are in addition to the already incoming -33% coefficient nerf, they are also receiving an additional damage nerf because the damage output on their hard CCs are bottoming out completely. The game for years had been balancing around the idea that "A DH or Warrior's damage output is balanced for what it is, because it has damage on all of the hard CC skills that they have, vs. classes with CCs that have no damage who's other skills have large damage in other places." But now with all hard CC damage very abrasively being removed, it hits hard CC classes WAAAAY too hard in the damage department, while leaving soft CC classes still dealing large damage.

 

This is simply not going to be a balanced a change. If Arenanet doesn't acknowledge this now before the patch is dropped, we're going to be stuck in a season or two where Thieves go on an unholy savage rampage where they are super OP because all of their important CCs dealt no damage to begin with, and all of their damage was 95% in places not tied to hard CCs at all. Whereas hard CC classes/builds/kits, are seriously losing additionally next to the -33% coefficient nerf, another 30% to 50% of their damage output. Look at what is happening to Warrior Hammer. That's the biggest example I can give. This change is deleting the Warrior Hammer and I mean it is deleting it. <- If you can't understand the disproportionate completely out of whack and in no way balanced decision that this is going to be, I just don't know what else to say.

 

Arenanet is going to open up the ultimate can of worms on this one. I really hope they just omit that .001 hard CC stuff, and adjust it to more of something like .25 at the bare minimal. Really I'd rather it be like .45 or something.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

> @"rng.1024" said:

> Best I can tell your issue is with skills not being able to do damage and cc at the same time anymore, which is a valid opinion ^^

>

> Or maybe it's just an unfortunate example, since the "useless" skill now is actually more viable than the previous meta-option.

 

I can't be anymore clear. forget it.

 

and lol.

[Exitus.3297]

My general opinion on this patch is that the balance team (who I'm hearing is new) broke out their hammers and started swinging, hoping they hit a few nails.

 

I am in complete agreement that everything needs to be toned back somewhat, and this does that and then some. The problem is they are also making arbitrary changes that make no sense and will dramatically shift the balance of the game in ways I don't think they understand (the CC skill power-coefficient changes being one example). For example, what is going to be the point of an anti-nuke trait like the Lightning Reflexes trait (proc evasion trait for Acro thieves) if the cooldown is 300 seconds and everyone is hitting eachother with pool noodles anyway? The cooldown becomes absurd for how little damage the Thief is actually avoiding. It doesn't balance the trait. It just phases it out of existence and makes 1 less trait in that line for players to choose from.

 

Some skills that seem overloaded are often not as powerful as they seem on paper, because the mechanics of the game justify how strong it is (such as a long telegraph time). And that is where I am ultimately going with this: the balance team is going by what seems good to them on paper, as if they don't play the game. I would imagine this is the case if they are indeed a new team.

 

There is also one other problem which is entirely my opinion. I generally don't like massive skill splits between PvE and PvP. Some mild ones for the sake of balancing are okay for me, as long as the general expectation for how a skill works remains the same. Or, rather, as long as the "feel" of the skill remains the same between game modes. For example, it's fine if some damage numbers on any given class are tweaked if their PvE numbers are overbearing, as long as the skill still functions the same way. This patch makes a ton of skills across the board function very differently between game modes all at once. This does not make me very confident for what the balance is going to look like afterward.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

> @"Exitus.3297" said:

> My general opinion on this patch is that the balance team (who I'm hearing is new) broke out their hammers and started swinging, hoping they hit a few nails.

>

> I am in complete agreement that everything needs to be toned back somewhat, and this does that and then some. The problem is they are also making arbitrary changes that make no sense and will dramatically shift the balance of the game in ways I don't think they understand (the CC skill power-coefficient changes being one example). For example, what is going to be the point of an anti-nuke trait like the Lightning Reflexes trait (proc evasion trait for Acro thieves) if the cooldown is 300 seconds and everyone is hitting eachother with pool noodles anyway? The cooldown becomes absurd for how little damage the Thief is actually avoiding. It doesn't balance the trait. It just phases it out of existence and makes 1 less trait in that line for players to choose from.

>

> Some skills that seem overloaded are often not as powerful as they seem on paper, because the mechanics of the game justify how strong it is (such as a long telegraph time). And that is where I am ultimately going with this: the balance team is going by what seems good to them on paper, as if they don't play the game. I would imagine this is the case if they are indeed a new team.

>

> There is also one other problem which is entirely my opinion. I generally don't like massive skill splits between PvE and PvP. Some mild ones for the sake of balancing are okay for me, as long as the general expectation for how a skill works remains the same. Or, rather, as long as the "feel" of the skill remains the same between game modes. For example, it's fine if some damage numbers on any given class are tweaked if their PvE numbers are overbearing, as long as the skill still functions the same way. This patch makes a ton of skills across the board function very differently between game modes all at once. This does not make me very confident for what the balance is going to look like afterward.

 

In regards to the 300 ICD passive traits, I am of the opinion that they did that completely intentionally to remove them from general and wide use so that when this update hits and they get more information on how they can actually move forward in reworking them it can be according to however this new paradigm plays out.

 

So in the short term, yes, these traits are basically useless. However over the long term they will more than likely get reworked to fit better into whatever dynamic gets established.

[Tayga.3192]

People of the forums,

 

This was NOT a balance patch. It wasn't supposed to touch underused/overused skills.

 

These pvp changes are just setting a base for incoming patches.

 

If you want to see the real balance patch, go check the global changes.

[Exitus.3297]

> @"KryTiKaL.3125" said:

> > @"Exitus.3297" said:

> > My general opinion on this patch is that the balance team (who I'm hearing is new) broke out their hammers and started swinging, hoping they hit a few nails.

> >

> > I am in complete agreement that everything needs to be toned back somewhat, and this does that and then some. The problem is they are also making arbitrary changes that make no sense and will dramatically shift the balance of the game in ways I don't think they understand (the CC skill power-coefficient changes being one example). For example, what is going to be the point of an anti-nuke trait like the Lightning Reflexes trait (proc evasion trait for Acro thieves) if the cooldown is 300 seconds and everyone is hitting eachother with pool noodles anyway? The cooldown becomes absurd for how little damage the Thief is actually avoiding. It doesn't balance the trait. It just phases it out of existence and makes 1 less trait in that line for players to choose from.

> >

> > Some skills that seem overloaded are often not as powerful as they seem on paper, because the mechanics of the game justify how strong it is (such as a long telegraph time). And that is where I am ultimately going with this: the balance team is going by what seems good to them on paper, as if they don't play the game. I would imagine this is the case if they are indeed a new team.

> >

> > There is also one other problem which is entirely my opinion. I generally don't like massive skill splits between PvE and PvP. Some mild ones for the sake of balancing are okay for me, as long as the general expectation for how a skill works remains the same. Or, rather, as long as the "feel" of the skill remains the same between game modes. For example, it's fine if some damage numbers on any given class are tweaked if their PvE numbers are overbearing, as long as the skill still functions the same way. This patch makes a ton of skills across the board function very differently between game modes all at once. This does not make me very confident for what the balance is going to look like afterward.

>

> In regards to the 300 ICD passive traits, I am of the opinion that they did that completely intentionally to remove them from general and wide use so that when this update hits and they get more information on how they can actually move forward in reworking them it can be according to however this new paradigm plays out.

>

> So in the short term, yes, these traits are basically useless. However over the long term they will more than likely get reworked to fit better into whatever dynamic gets established.

 

That isn't even remotely reassuring. Rendering several traits completely useless so they can "get more information" makes no sense. How are they going to get information from traits that are being avoided at all costs? If you're point is that those traits would upset the balance they are trying to achieve too much without nerfing them into actual uselessness, then that is something they should do after the fact, not before, because in the meantime that is one less trait in an entire row that the class has to work with.

 

Completely reducing all hard-cc abilities to 0 as a general principle without shifting the damage elsewhere for said hard-cc is a massive oversight and ends up rendering some skills and weapons completely useless. What is even the point of having scaling health levels on Executioner's Scythe (.01/0.015/.02) if the coefficients are so low that it doesn't matter to begin with? They may as well make it 0.01 and leave it at that. Nevermind it seems they never took into account that the reason such a good CC was packed into such a hard-hitting ability was because the telegraph was so long that if someone got hit by it, they *deserved* to get hit by it. It just screams to me that the new balance team read all of the abilities on paper without actually playing the game.

 

The PvP balance was already going in a good direction without needing to shake things up this much. They just needed to address a few cheese builds and mechanics and it would have been fine. Or they could have taken the "let's just reduce damage and healing numbers and go from there" approach. I would have had a lot more confidence if they did that.

 

Of course no matter what changes they make, they can and likely will balancing things out *eventually*. How soon that is... Well, normally it takes them an entire expansion to figure it out.

[sneakytails.5629]

Hard CC like Bulls Charge should be the setup for a burst, not part of the burst itself. People are _downing_ enemies right now with Bulls Charge with 5k+ crits. They land the CC and then they do not have to burst anymore, the enemy was downed.

 

A 3 second knockdown is VERY powerful.

A 3 second knockdown combined with 900 units of movement, and a 1 1/4 second evade is UBER powerful. I dont really consider this skill as a utility, its really an elite level of power in its current state.

 

The fact of the matter is that this "Utility" does far too much for a single button press especially when you consider its cool-down.

 

Removing the damage was the right thing to do and re-enforces the set-up/burst game-play which is the right way to go.

 

I personally feel that Utilities with a very hard hitting 3 second CC should not be combined with a 1 1/4 second Evade, and 900 units of movement. Unless its an elite. I think skills like this need more consideration on if they are really good for the game.

 

**_EDIT: - Yeah, this should be a Physical Elite skill similar to Thief's Impact Strike/Uppercut/Finishing Blow Elite._**

[KryTiKaL.3125]

> @"Exitus.3297" said:

> > @"KryTiKaL.3125" said:

> > > @"Exitus.3297" said:

> > > My general opinion on this patch is that the balance team (who I'm hearing is new) broke out their hammers and started swinging, hoping they hit a few nails.

> > >

> > > I am in complete agreement that everything needs to be toned back somewhat, and this does that and then some. The problem is they are also making arbitrary changes that make no sense and will dramatically shift the balance of the game in ways I don't think they understand (the CC skill power-coefficient changes being one example). For example, what is going to be the point of an anti-nuke trait like the Lightning Reflexes trait (proc evasion trait for Acro thieves) if the cooldown is 300 seconds and everyone is hitting eachother with pool noodles anyway? The cooldown becomes absurd for how little damage the Thief is actually avoiding. It doesn't balance the trait. It just phases it out of existence and makes 1 less trait in that line for players to choose from.

> > >

> > > Some skills that seem overloaded are often not as powerful as they seem on paper, because the mechanics of the game justify how strong it is (such as a long telegraph time). And that is where I am ultimately going with this: the balance team is going by what seems good to them on paper, as if they don't play the game. I would imagine this is the case if they are indeed a new team.

> > >

> > > There is also one other problem which is entirely my opinion. I generally don't like massive skill splits between PvE and PvP. Some mild ones for the sake of balancing are okay for me, as long as the general expectation for how a skill works remains the same. Or, rather, as long as the "feel" of the skill remains the same between game modes. For example, it's fine if some damage numbers on any given class are tweaked if their PvE numbers are overbearing, as long as the skill still functions the same way. This patch makes a ton of skills across the board function very differently between game modes all at once. This does not make me very confident for what the balance is going to look like afterward.

> >

> > In regards to the 300 ICD passive traits, I am of the opinion that they did that completely intentionally to remove them from general and wide use so that when this update hits and they get more information on how they can actually move forward in reworking them it can be according to however this new paradigm plays out.

> >

> > So in the short term, yes, these traits are basically useless. However over the long term they will more than likely get reworked to fit better into whatever dynamic gets established.

>

> That isn't even remotely reassuring. Rendering several traits completely useless so they can "get more information" makes no sense. How are they going to get information from traits that are being avoided at all costs? If you're point is that those traits would upset the balance they are trying to achieve too much without nerfing them into actual uselessness, then that is something they should do after the fact, not before, because in the meantime that is one less trait in an entire row that the class has to work with.

>

> Completely reducing all hard-cc abilities to 0 as a general principle without shifting the damage elsewhere for said hard-cc is a massive oversight and ends up rendering some skills and weapons completely useless. What is even the point of having scaling health levels on Executioner's Scythe (.01/0.015/.02) if the coefficients are so low that it doesn't matter to begin with? They may as well make it 0.01 and leave it at that. Nevermind it seems they never took into account that the reason such a good CC was packed into such a hard-hitting ability was because the telegraph was so long that if someone got hit by it, they *deserved* to get hit by it. It just screams to me that the new balance team read all of the abilities on paper without actually playing the game.

>

> The PvP balance was already going in a good direction without needing to shake things up this much. They just needed to address a few cheese builds and mechanics and it would have been fine. Or they could have taken the "let's just reduce damage and healing numbers and go from there" approach. I would have had a lot more confidence if they did that.

>

> Of course no matter what changes they make, they can and likely will balancing things out *eventually*. How soon that is... Well, normally it takes them an entire expansion to figure it out.

 

You misunderstood what I meant. The intent is likely to completely get rid of them and their functions and replace them with entirely different traits. However they are potentially looking to only focus on figuring out what would fit best **after** they have gathered enough information as to what would work within the new dynamic being established after the patch releases.

 

The better approach is to alter them in a way that makes them undesirable to use with the patch that is coming rather than just either delete them from the Specializations or make players unable to even select them. Its a future proofing measure so that they don't influence a newly established paradigm that they clearly don't want these traits to be a part of. People will still likely use them but the 5 minute ICD on them means that the effect they might have on said paradigm will be significantly diminished.

 

The PvP balance was certainly not going in a good direction. All they were doing were little bandaid fixes that weren't changing anything and were only going to keep things going in the same vicious circle that we have been stuck in for **years**. The only way to ensure the changes that needed to be made to PvP balance could be made was to introduce a patch that would create a foundation for them to work from. Which ultimately meant taking a wide swing at just about everything with little discrimination. That way it allows them to rework things accordingly and alter numbers accordingly from a point that they have more control over rather than the garbage, power crept mess that has been present in the game for years.

 

I'm a Warrior main, man, and those passives got hit just as hard. I welcome it. I wanted it. Something needed to be done with those traits and if the intention is to inevitably rework them into traits that will be more healthy to the game, and traits that are useful, then I say do it. Keeping them around in their current state when that balance patch hits would just massacre the whole idea of shifting balance in a new direction.

 

What will be important in seeing how well this new direction and newly established balance dynamic plays out will be feedback from the playerbase as well as the release cadence of balance fixes/changes. An important thing to note, though, in regards to the feedback from players...you need to keep an open mind and stop thinking of how these things interact with each other in what we have **right now** and start thinking about how they will interact with each other **post patch**.

 

Sure I'm just as skeptical as anyone and sure there are concerns, but we will see how they are handled going forward with this patch and with updates afterwards.

[felix.2386]

now as you remove more functions from CCs, now i find it hard to identify different rage skill and physicals

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

> @"KryTiKaL.3125" said:

> > @"Exitus.3297" said:

> > My general opinion on this patch is that the balance team (who I'm hearing is new) broke out their hammers and started swinging, hoping they hit a few nails.

> >

> > I am in complete agreement that everything needs to be toned back somewhat, and this does that and then some. The problem is they are also making arbitrary changes that make no sense and will dramatically shift the balance of the game in ways I don't think they understand (the CC skill power-coefficient changes being one example). For example, what is going to be the point of an anti-nuke trait like the Lightning Reflexes trait (proc evasion trait for Acro thieves) if the cooldown is 300 seconds and everyone is hitting eachother with pool noodles anyway? The cooldown becomes absurd for how little damage the Thief is actually avoiding. It doesn't balance the trait. It just phases it out of existence and makes 1 less trait in that line for players to choose from.

> >

> > Some skills that seem overloaded are often not as powerful as they seem on paper, because the mechanics of the game justify how strong it is (such as a long telegraph time). And that is where I am ultimately going with this: the balance team is going by what seems good to them on paper, as if they don't play the game. I would imagine this is the case if they are indeed a new team.

> >

> > There is also one other problem which is entirely my opinion. I generally don't like massive skill splits between PvE and PvP. Some mild ones for the sake of balancing are okay for me, as long as the general expectation for how a skill works remains the same. Or, rather, as long as the "feel" of the skill remains the same between game modes. For example, it's fine if some damage numbers on any given class are tweaked if their PvE numbers are overbearing, as long as the skill still functions the same way. This patch makes a ton of skills across the board function very differently between game modes all at once. This does not make me very confident for what the balance is going to look like afterward.

>

> In regards to the 300 ICD passive traits, I am of the opinion that they did that completely intentionally to remove them from general and wide use so that when this update hits and they get more information on how they can actually move forward in reworking them it can be according to however this new paradigm plays out.

>

> So in the short term, yes, these traits are basically useless. However over the long term they will more than likely get reworked to fit better into whatever dynamic gets established.

 

300s though? That's a 5 minute cool down man. That's like twice as long as any elite in the game. Would slapping a 120s CD have no sufficed on Balanced Stance or Defy Pain? I mean 120s would have been like: "Why would they do that? That's too much." But 300s is as good as the CI hotfix that just disables a skill from play entirely. 300s feels sarcastic and trolly tbh.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > @"KryTiKaL.3125" said:

> > > @"Exitus.3297" said:

> > > My general opinion on this patch is that the balance team (who I'm hearing is new) broke out their hammers and started swinging, hoping they hit a few nails.

> > >

> > > I am in complete agreement that everything needs to be toned back somewhat, and this does that and then some. The problem is they are also making arbitrary changes that make no sense and will dramatically shift the balance of the game in ways I don't think they understand (the CC skill power-coefficient changes being one example). For example, what is going to be the point of an anti-nuke trait like the Lightning Reflexes trait (proc evasion trait for Acro thieves) if the cooldown is 300 seconds and everyone is hitting eachother with pool noodles anyway? The cooldown becomes absurd for how little damage the Thief is actually avoiding. It doesn't balance the trait. It just phases it out of existence and makes 1 less trait in that line for players to choose from.

> > >

> > > Some skills that seem overloaded are often not as powerful as they seem on paper, because the mechanics of the game justify how strong it is (such as a long telegraph time). And that is where I am ultimately going with this: the balance team is going by what seems good to them on paper, as if they don't play the game. I would imagine this is the case if they are indeed a new team.

> > >

> > > There is also one other problem which is entirely my opinion. I generally don't like massive skill splits between PvE and PvP. Some mild ones for the sake of balancing are okay for me, as long as the general expectation for how a skill works remains the same. Or, rather, as long as the "feel" of the skill remains the same between game modes. For example, it's fine if some damage numbers on any given class are tweaked if their PvE numbers are overbearing, as long as the skill still functions the same way. This patch makes a ton of skills across the board function very differently between game modes all at once. This does not make me very confident for what the balance is going to look like afterward.

> >

> > In regards to the 300 ICD passive traits, I am of the opinion that they did that completely intentionally to remove them from general and wide use so that when this update hits and they get more information on how they can actually move forward in reworking them it can be according to however this new paradigm plays out.

> >

> > So in the short term, yes, these traits are basically useless. However over the long term they will more than likely get reworked to fit better into whatever dynamic gets established.

>

> 300s though? That's a 5 minute cool down man. That's like twice as long as any elite in the game. Would slapping a 120s CD have no sufficed on Balanced Stance or Defy Pain? I mean 120s would have been like: "Why would they do that? That's too much." But 300s is as good as the CI hotfix that just disables a skill from play entirely. 300s feels sarcastic and trolly tbh.

 

Yes. 300 seconds. If you read what my theory is as to **why** they did that then it kinda makes sense. A 5 minute ICD essentially forces them out of general use and also makes it so that if anyone does decide to use them then their influence under the new paradigm, or within the newly established environment, is significantly diminished.

 

Unfortunately this is how they need to approach this particular problem with passive traits, and the wider ranger problems in balance for that matter, because there is no Public Test Server for these kinds of things to be tested long term on. I have asked an ANet deva bout it before, it is apparently not feasible due to tech constraints they face so this is how this stuff needs to be tested. On the live servers by the community.

 

Is it unfortunate? Yeah, probably. Would it be better if there was a Public Test Server for such things? Absolutely. However that is not the reality of the situation so we have to try to make the best of it and do our best to help ANet make sure balance goes in the right direction from the point of patch release going forward.

 

Legitimately people probably wouldn't be having what I personally equate to emotionally charged breakdowns over these changes if this was something released on a Public Test Server that we had access to and it was being tested long term on it. Unfortunately we have to accept the fact that we don't have that so tough luck, this is how this needs to happen. People just need to be objective, stop flailing wildly like the world is ending, and give some **constructive** feedback on things when the patch goes live.

[rng.1024]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > > > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > > snips

> > >

> > > …

> > > it has nothing to do with specific skills and everything to do with useless things getting destroyed.

> >

> > Lol so you feel Bull's Charge already was a useless skill? Alright alright, but don't blame it on the patch then. All cc-skills gpt brought up to par with this change, and all cc-skills suffered the dmg loss.

> >

> > Best I can tell your issue is with skills not being able to do damage and cc at the same time anymore, which is a valid opinion ^^

> >

> > Or maybe it's just an unfortunate example, since the "useless" skill now is actually more viable than the previous meta-option.

>

> I think it's more about how that decision is an incredibly disproportionate balance decision that will clearly result in some very lopsided changes.

>

> For example:

>

> * Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will great effect Dragon's Maw or Deflecting Shot or Bull's Charge or Full Counter, which will greatly effect the damage output on Spellbreaker, and the already weak impractical damage output of Dragonhunter.

> * Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will not effect the efficiency of skills like Headshot or Basilisk or Mantra of Distraction at all, because those skills already did no damage to begin with and the builds tied to them did not rely on any damage output from those skills to be "in balance" with the damage output of other classes.

> * So by universally tossing this all hard CCs go to 0 damage stuff, you've got to understand that some classes are in addition to the already incoming -33% coefficient nerf, they are also receiving an additional damage nerf because the damage output on their hard CCs are bottoming out completely. The game for years had been balancing around the idea that "A DH or Warrior's damage output is balanced for what it is, because it has damage on all of the hard CC skills that they have, vs. classes with CCs that have no damage who's other skills have large damage in other places." But now with all hard CC damage very abrasively being removed, it hits hard CC classes WAAAAY too hard in the damage department, while leaving soft CC classes still dealing large damage.

>

> This is simply not going to be a balanced a change. If Arenanet doesn't acknowledge this now before the patch is dropped, we're going to be stuck in a season or two where Thieves go on an unholy savage rampage where they are super OP because all of their important CCs dealt no damage to begin with, and all of their damage was 95% in places not tied to hard CCs at all. Whereas hard CC classes/builds/kits, are seriously losing additionally next to the -33% coefficient nerf, another 30% to 50% of their damage output. Look at what is happening to Warrior Hammer. That's the biggest example I can give. This change is deleting the Warrior Hammer and I mean it is deleting it. <- If you can't understand the disproportionate completely out of whack and in no way balanced decision that this is going to be, I just don't know what else to say.

>

> Arenanet is going to open up the ultimate can of worms on this one. I really hope they just omit that .001 hard CC stuff, and adjust it to more of something like .25 at the bare minimal. Really I'd rather it be like .45 or something.

 

Yeah I get it, but you fall into the same trap here. If every hard CC gets nerfed, then anount of available CC will determine who loses out.

 

In your example;

Gurdian:

- Deflecting Shot

- Dragon's Maw

 

Warrior:

- Disrupting Stab

- Shield Bash

- Full Counter

- Bull's Charge

- Throw Boulder

- Seismic Leap

 

Comparatively the viable Dragonhunter wins out on damage since they lose less access to damage across the board. This change actually brings Dragonhunter damage closer to that of the meta Spellbreaker even if we choose only to look at the hard CC nerfs, which is what I'm getting at.

 

And the argument that professions with 0 dmg cc is going to be more of an issue after the patch is also a moot one, because health and armor stay the same so those skills will be exactly as annoying as they are today, meaning their dps output was already balanced around their cc doing no damage - and now that is shaved by 33% aswell.

 

Let's further dive into how the midrange weapon strength is going to be the standard, here most those classes lose out even more (since this doesn't really matter for condition builds).

 

Yes soft cc-classes will be the new damage dealers, and yes cc-machines will be the duelists. Does that really shake the current roles up in the least? No, the duelists that are effective now will be effective then aswell.

 

Think of it this way:

Damage is moved for the most part from your 2-5 skills onto your autoattack. Anything else is bonus damage gated behind a cooldown. Not only does type of weapon matter for your damage output, but coefficients also vary wildly between weapon type AA's - you want to do more damage you will either need to use a squishier amulet or another weapon. Everybody has access to AA's, and more hits will now equate to more damage instead of 15 hits equating to 1 Prime Light Beam. This is a good change.

 

Finally to adress thieves - they are supposed to be roamers, with a decent burst window every steal cooldown. Sounds to me you want them to be duelists instead. Their burst already suffers 33% reduction, lesser offensive stats and weapon strength standardization for the big crits. This can be further negated by aegis, protection and weakness. I

A thief should be able to take atleast 50% of your health with a good timed burst, although I agree it shouldn't be more than at most 11k - and judging by the 20k I have seen around, even the most broken specs will now do 20k * 0,6 = 12k, which is less than a marauder amulet on an ele since health and armor remain the same, and using your heal will refund 50% of the burst. And it's pretty obvious when a deadeye marks and stealths before he can do that. What more do you want?

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

> @"rng.1024" said:

> > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > > @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > > > > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > > > snips

> > > >

> > > > …

> > > > it has nothing to do with specific skills and everything to do with useless things getting destroyed.

> > >

> > > Lol so you feel Bull's Charge already was a useless skill? Alright alright, but don't blame it on the patch then. All cc-skills gpt brought up to par with this change, and all cc-skills suffered the dmg loss.

> > >

> > > Best I can tell your issue is with skills not being able to do damage and cc at the same time anymore, which is a valid opinion ^^

> > >

> > > Or maybe it's just an unfortunate example, since the "useless" skill now is actually more viable than the previous meta-option.

> >

> > I think it's more about how that decision is an incredibly disproportionate balance decision that will clearly result in some very lopsided changes.

> >

> > For example:

> >

> > * Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will great effect Dragon's Maw or Deflecting Shot or Bull's Charge or Full Counter, which will greatly effect the damage output on Spellbreaker, and the already weak impractical damage output of Dragonhunter.

> > * Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will not effect the efficiency of skills like Headshot or Basilisk or Mantra of Distraction at all, because those skills already did no damage to begin with and the builds tied to them did not rely on any damage output from those skills to be "in balance" with the damage output of other classes.

> > * So by universally tossing this all hard CCs go to 0 damage stuff, you've got to understand that some classes are in addition to the already incoming -33% coefficient nerf, they are also receiving an additional damage nerf because the damage output on their hard CCs are bottoming out completely. The game for years had been balancing around the idea that "A DH or Warrior's damage output is balanced for what it is, because it has damage on all of the hard CC skills that they have, vs. classes with CCs that have no damage who's other skills have large damage in other places." But now with all hard CC damage very abrasively being removed, it hits hard CC classes WAAAAY too hard in the damage department, while leaving soft CC classes still dealing large damage.

> >

> > This is simply not going to be a balanced a change. If Arenanet doesn't acknowledge this now before the patch is dropped, we're going to be stuck in a season or two where Thieves go on an unholy savage rampage where they are super OP because all of their important CCs dealt no damage to begin with, and all of their damage was 95% in places not tied to hard CCs at all. Whereas hard CC classes/builds/kits, are seriously losing additionally next to the -33% coefficient nerf, another 30% to 50% of their damage output. Look at what is happening to Warrior Hammer. That's the biggest example I can give. This change is deleting the Warrior Hammer and I mean it is deleting it. <- If you can't understand the disproportionate completely out of whack and in no way balanced decision that this is going to be, I just don't know what else to say.

> >

> > Arenanet is going to open up the ultimate can of worms on this one. I really hope they just omit that .001 hard CC stuff, and adjust it to more of something like .25 at the bare minimal. Really I'd rather it be like .45 or something.

>

> Yeah I get it, but you fall into the same trap here. If every hard CC gets nerfed, then anount of available CC will determine who loses out.

>

> In your example;

> Gurdian:

> - Deflecting Shot

> - Dragon's Maw

>

> Warrior:

> - Disrupting Stab

> - Shield Bash

> - Full Counter

> - Bull's Charge

> - Throw Boulder

> - Seismic Leap

>

> Comparatively the viable Dragonhunter wins out on damage since they lose less access to damage across the board. This change actually brings Dragonhunter damage closer to that of the meta Spellbreaker even if we choose only to look at the hard CC nerfs, which is what I'm getting at.

>

> And the argument that professions with 0 dmg cc is going to be more of an issue after the patch is also a moot one, because health and armor stay the same so those skills will be exactly as annoying as they are today, meaning their dps output was already balanced around their cc doing no damage - and now that is shaved by 33% aswell.

>

> Let's further dive into how the midrange weapon strength is going to be the standard, here most those classes lose out even more (since this doesn't really matter for condition builds).

>

> Yes soft cc-classes will be the new damage dealers, and yes cc-machines will be the duelists. Does that really shake the current roles up in the least? No, the duelists that are effective now will be effective then aswell.

>

> Think of it this way:

> Damage is moved for the most part from your 2-5 skills onto your autoattack. Anything else is bonus damage gated behind a cooldown. Not only does type of weapon matter for your damage output, but coefficients also vary wildly between weapon type AA's - you want to do more damage you will either need to use a squishier amulet or another weapon. Everybody has access to AA's, and more hits will now equate to more damage instead of 15 hits equating to 1 Prime Light Beam. This is a good change.

>

> Finally to adress thieves - they are supposed to be roamers, with a decent burst window every steal cooldown. Sounds to me you want them to be duelists instead. Their burst already suffers 33% reduction, lesser offensive stats and weapon strength standardization for the big crits. This can be further negated by aegis, protection and weakness. I

> A thief should be able to take atleast 50% of your health with a good timed burst, although I agree it shouldn't be more than at most 11k - and judging by the 20k I have seen around, even the most broken specs will now do 20k * 0,6 = 12k, which is less than a marauder amulet on an ele since health and armor remain the same, and using your heal will refund 50% of the burst. And it's pretty obvious when a deadeye marks and stealths before he can do that. What more do you want?

 

I don't understand what you guys aren't seeing about the obvious mechanical flaws here.

 

Let's take two classes that have a relatively balanced match up against each other. For these example we'll use Staff Daredevil and Soulbeast. This is a 1v1 that EVEN in a DPS meta, would go on for some 60+ seconds before someone had to retreat. This will be best explained using bullets:

 

* Staff DrD vs. Soulbeast is a situation where the Staff DrD has no CC outside of possibly having Daze on Swipe, which never had any damage output to begin with. The Soulbeast however has many CCs.

* This match up is balanced BEFORE this patch. But it is only balanced because, the Soulbeast can land damage IF it hits the Staff DrD with a CC. The hard CC will deal a bit of damage and provide a very short window to land another single attack. Because the hard CCs deal normal weapon strike level damage, the Soulbeast is guaranteed to get a bit of damage on the Staff DrD by landing a CC, even if the Staff DrD stun breaks and moves too quickly for the Soulbeast to follow up with successive attack. This is why the Soulbeast can keep up and make this a balanced match.

* Post patch 0 damage hard CCs - This 1v1 will become lopsided to the point that it will be impossible for the Soulbeast or anything else for that matter, to be able to deal with the Staff DrD. To even be able to deal enough damage in this current DPS meta, one must land a hard CC on the Staff DrD several times in a row to bait its stun breaks, until they can land successive blows to kill it or drive it off. During this phase of being required to land hard CCs to stop up its defenses players now before patch are still able to deal damage while landing those hard CCs. Post patch, there will be no damage in hard CCs = The game mechanics are requiring you to use hard CCs to attack an opponent to get through its defenses, but your attacks now deal no damage = you aren't dealing damage. Let me really stress this again "You will not be dealing damage while trying to fight the Staff DrD." I really want to stress this and I want everyone to really imagine the flow of how this works now and how it's going to work later: _"While fighting a Staff DrD as this one example, all of us know that you must hit it with a hard CC to be able to provide kill opportunity, and that the damage off the CC itself is just as important of pressure as the damage on the successive attacks."_ And you can't just swing around random bursting against the Staff DrD without CCs because it just dodges/evades everything. And then of course that Staff DrD is dealing damage with everything he does still. So using just that 1 example, do you not see how this is going to break the game? There are other builds vs. build comparisons I could use that explain similar situations, where Build (A) who is in a situation where he MUST land hard CCs against Build (B), is getting pigeonholed in the dynamic into a situation where he cannot deal damage output at all whatsoever.

* Right now the Staff DrD vs. Soulbeast is balanced, but after the patch, there is no way in hell that the Soulbeast would ever land enough damage to even be able to stay in the ball park of real kill opportunity.

 

**This new system with no damage CCs will result in players eventually realizing how powerful and exploitive it will be to position themselves and their builds against other people so that it forces the other player into a situation where they must CC play for an opener to be able to do anything at all, and in that case they deal no damage, and can't kill the player who is purposely positioning himself to force these scenarios.** <- These kinds of scenarios happen to all of us all day long while playing, but no has ever had a reason to define a term for that moment in the dynamic when a person is forced into "needing to land a CC to be able to create counter play" because there was never a reason that drew focus to the moment. But that moment will become highly recognized and complained about post patch, when the moment of CC required counter play also becomes a moment of complete disability.

 

 

[Liewec.2896]

fool! we all know there are so many hammer warriors in PVP, its soooo super meta and OP!

obviously it needed all of its skills nerfing, Anet know exactly what they are doing!

they aren't clueless at all!

 

/sarcasm off

[Leonidrex.5649]

> @"Liewec.2896" said:

> fool! we all know there are so many hammer warriors in PVP, its soooo super meta and OP!

> obviously it needed all of its skills nerfing, Anet know exactly what they are doing!

> they aren't clueless at all!

>

> /sarcasm off

 

everyone with half a brain know that nerfing hard CC skills to 0 dmg is stupid, there is no point to even comment on it lol

 

[Exitus.3297]

People also aren't considering the *internal* balance aspects of each class. When I said that the new balance team is applying arbitrary changes that don't make sense, I meant that they are treating some abilities differently with no apparent criteria. They say that they are specifically going after abilities and traits that do more than one thing, but it is some of these skills that get ignored.

 

I main a Thief, but I still took time to read the patch notes for most of the classes. I main a Thief (and have mained a Thief for 7+ years) so I basically understand the class in and out. With that said, here are my concerns (from the perspective of a Thief, although some aspects apply to other classes as well).

 

1) Backstab is getting it's Power Coefficient reduced from 2.4 to 1.8. Heartseeker is unchanged. Keep in mind that Heartseeker on targets below 25% health has a coefficient of 2.0, and a coefficient of 1.5 on targets below 50% health. That means that Heartseeker will do comparable and then more damage than Backstab, when this was originally never the case. **This is going to put Thieves in a position where Heartseeker spam on targets below 50% may be optimal for damage.** Why bother wasting the initiative to Stealth for a hard-hitting melee ability with a position requirement when you can just keep spamming a now even harder-hitting ability with a Leap on it? Do you really want to see Dagger Thieves spamming Heartseeker? Because I don't think anyone does.

 

2) Sneak Attack (the Pistol Stealth attack) has 5 shots on it that each had a coefficient of .36, (totaling 1.8) down to .30 (totaling 1.5). Based on my previous point, you can already tell where I am going with this. Keep in mind that it also stacks 5 bleeds *and* has no position requirement.

 

3) Larcenous Strike is also untouched (although flanking strike did get the 1/3rd treatment). In PvP, it has a Power Coefficient of ~1.36 due to a 15% damage nerf from a prior patch. Upon hitting a Boonless target, that damage is increased by 20%, effectively giving it a ~1.63 Power Coefficient. _This means it is almost as strong as Backstab when it isn't stealing 2 boons._

 

Because Backstab only got nerfed by 25%, people think it is a relative buff because it isn't getting the 1/3rd treatment other abilities are getting. However, they aren't taking into consideration other abilities in the same kit which will be rendered either redundant or a no-brainer. But I'm not even done...

 

4) Withdraw vs Channeled Vigor (for Daredevils, obviously). These two skills were, mathematically speaking, on par with eachother. Channeled Vigor had the advantage of very slightly increased healing per second (~15 healing per second more than Withdraw) while also giving the Daredevil an actual evade, allowing them to benefit from Weakening Strikes and their Grandmaster Dodge trait 1 more time. Withdraw, on the other hand, removed movement-impairing conditions (which even synergized with Unhindered Combatant in situations where you would get Exhausted) as well as removing Torment, in addition to being a very reliable dodge animation (people in higher skill levels use it often for mind-games). Basically, the two skills were competitive. After the patch, Channeled Vigor is getting a 50% increased cooldown with nothing in return. Withdraw is getting it's cooldown increased by ~39% (I'm rounding up), but is also getting its heal increased from 4778 to 5243 (~10% increase). **Why would any Daredevil even look at Channeled Vigor after this patch?** Especially when Hide in Shadows wasn't even touched.

 

5) The Shadow Arts Trait line wasn't even touched besides Shadow's Rejuvenation (the heal-over-time in stealth), which only got a ~26% hit, below the 33% benchmark. Meanwhile, traits like the Daredevil's Escapist's Fortitude got cut from 456 to 150, which is more than a 67% decrease. You may argue that because the trait also removes a condition, but then it would be just as easy to fire back that it is tied to dodging things proactively. Meanwhile, Shadow's Rejuvenation heals every second in stealth. **This means you are going to see more Thieves camp stealth for healing.**

 

6) This is more of a pet peeve of mine, but take a look at Mug and Impactful Disruption. The patch notes say that Mug is going down from 1.5 to 0.75, and that Impactful Disruption is going from 2.0 to .75. Here is the problem: That makes no sense because Mug currently does roughly the same damage as Pulmonary Impact. Seriously, if you have a Daredevil, go read the tooltips then compare the damage. Use the skills if you still don't believe me. Both of the tooltips will be ~1180, with Mug being very slightly higher than PI. First use Fist Flurry into Palm Strike (it will apply PI twice, but that's okay, it's still the same skill). Now use Mug right after. Mug's damage will be slightly higher, mostly due to the added conditions and the Expose Armor trait, but still very close. So obviously, either Mug's Power Coefficient is wrong or PI's is wrong. Keep in mind, 1.5 value for Mug and 2.0 Value for PI are the values are listed on the Wiki, but here is my point... **This means that the balance team is getting their information from the Wiki and not from playing and understanding the game.** I have made it a habit of not trusting the Wiki at face value because on more than one occasion I provided information to _correct it_. The tooltip being off is also present with Dagger Storm. It says its coefficient is getting reduced from 1.0 to 0.4. 1.0 is it's PvE Coefficient. It's PvP Coefficient is closer to 0.6. This raises the question, is Mug getting reduced by 50%, PI by ~67%, and Dagger Storm by 60%? Or are their coefficients wrong so they aren't getting nerfed as bad as we think? We don't know, because the balance team probably doesn't know.

 

7) I've made this point before, but I will make it again: Phasing traits out by diminishing their value then increasing their cooldown to the point where they happen once or twice per match as opposed to once per fight _is not balancing them_. If their plan was to change that trait to something else (which I am completely in favor of depending on the change) then they should have had a plan to do that _before_, not _after_. In the meantime, those are traits that may as well be completely off of the table for the remainder of the season (this does not just apply to Thieves). I didn't like it when they did that to Mesmers with Chaotic Interruption and I really don't like it when they do it to multiple classes at once. At least with Chaotic Interruption they had to courtesy to say flat out they didn't know what to do with it at the time.

 

8) I will finish with this final point: Reducing all hard-CC abilities to 0 literally breaks the game and flat out makes no sense in some cases. Take, for example, Executioner's Scythe. I said it before, and I will say it again: what is the point of having scaling Power Coefficients based on the Target's Health if every single scale does no damage (0.01/0.015/0.02)? Look at the name of the ability _Executioner's Scythe_ and think about what it is supposed to do... Once you thought of it, think about how that would impact your next decision: Would you rather this ability be high damage ability (maybe replace the stun with a soft-CC like Immobilize or something) and nerf the damage a little bit to fall in line with the other damage nerfs? Or have the damage removed entirely and make it a pure hard CC skill? I guarantee you every Reaper would say it would feel better for it to be an *Execute* to go with the name of *Executioner's Scythe*. I may main a Thief, but I have played Reaper, and nothing feels better on that class than the terror emanating from a low-health opponent when the bell begins tolling for them as the Reaper raises their massive Scythe, knowing that once it makes contact, they're done. _Hey I know, let's turn that ability into nothing but a 0-damage stun!_

 

Sorry for the wall of text. I likely have more points I can add, but I have spent too much time on this post as it is. My ultimate point is that all of the above reasons (and more) tell me that the balance team literally doesn't know what they are doing and have not played the game, at least not enough to justify changing it to such an extent all at once. Given all of the reasons above, how am I supposed to be confident with this patch? People are looking at everything being scaled down and assuming it is a good thing. The reality is that once you start looking at the details, it will start giving you the impression that something is off.

 

I have my own prediction of what traits Thieves will roll after the patch drops, but I will save that for the Thief forums.

 

EDITED because grammar is hard on a wall of text.

[Leonidrex.5649]

@"Exitus.3297"

hi, thx for interesting read, I 100% agree.

they did the same thing with mesmer.

Its clear to me that they just went ahead and nerfed everything by "more or less 30%" and called it a day.

then they went and nerfed some more things that people complained on forum and " our job here is done "

examples :

Twist of Fate hard gut.

Soulbeast rip pet

Escapist hard nerf

Mirage losing dodge

all hard CC hard gut to 0.

TLDR They hardnerfed things forum complained about, and then they just randomly nerfed damage by 20-30% without even looking how and why.

[rng.1024]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > > > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > > > @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > > > > > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > > > > snips

> > > > >

> > > > > …

> > > > > it has nothing to do with specific skills and everything to do with useless things getting destroyed.

> > > >

> > > > Lol so you feel Bull's Charge already was a useless skill? Alright alright, but don't blame it on the patch then. All cc-skills gpt brought up to par with this change, and all cc-skills suffered the dmg loss.

> > > >

> > > > Best I can tell your issue is with skills not being able to do damage and cc at the same time anymore, which is a valid opinion ^^

> > > >

> > > > Or maybe it's just an unfortunate example, since the "useless" skill now is actually more viable than the previous meta-option.

> > >

> > > I think it's more about how that decision is an incredibly disproportionate balance decision that will clearly result in some very lopsided changes.

> > >

> > > For example:

> > >

> > > * Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will great effect Dragon's Maw or Deflecting Shot or Bull's Charge or Full Counter, which will greatly effect the damage output on Spellbreaker, and the already weak impractical damage output of Dragonhunter.

> > > * Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will not effect the efficiency of skills like Headshot or Basilisk or Mantra of Distraction at all, because those skills already did no damage to begin with and the builds tied to them did not rely on any damage output from those skills to be "in balance" with the damage output of other classes.

> > > * So by universally tossing this all hard CCs go to 0 damage stuff, you've got to understand that some classes are in addition to the already incoming -33% coefficient nerf, they are also receiving an additional damage nerf because the damage output on their hard CCs are bottoming out completely. The game for years had been balancing around the idea that "A DH or Warrior's damage output is balanced for what it is, because it has damage on all of the hard CC skills that they have, vs. classes with CCs that have no damage who's other skills have large damage in other places." But now with all hard CC damage very abrasively being removed, it hits hard CC classes WAAAAY too hard in the damage department, while leaving soft CC classes still dealing large damage.

> > >

> > > This is simply not going to be a balanced a change. If Arenanet doesn't acknowledge this now before the patch is dropped, we're going to be stuck in a season or two where Thieves go on an unholy savage rampage where they are super OP because all of their important CCs dealt no damage to begin with, and all of their damage was 95% in places not tied to hard CCs at all. Whereas hard CC classes/builds/kits, are seriously losing additionally next to the -33% coefficient nerf, another 30% to 50% of their damage output. Look at what is happening to Warrior Hammer. That's the biggest example I can give. This change is deleting the Warrior Hammer and I mean it is deleting it. <- If you can't understand the disproportionate completely out of whack and in no way balanced decision that this is going to be, I just don't know what else to say.

> > >

> > > Arenanet is going to open up the ultimate can of worms on this one. I really hope they just omit that .001 hard CC stuff, and adjust it to more of something like .25 at the bare minimal. Really I'd rather it be like .45 or something.

> >

> > Yeah I get it, but you fall into the same trap here. If every hard CC gets nerfed, then anount of available CC will determine who loses out.

> >

> > In your example;

> > Gurdian:

> > - Deflecting Shot

> > - Dragon's Maw

> >

> > Warrior:

> > - Disrupting Stab

> > - Shield Bash

> > - Full Counter

> > - Bull's Charge

> > - Throw Boulder

> > - Seismic Leap

> >

> > Comparatively the viable Dragonhunter wins out on damage since they lose less access to damage across the board. This change actually brings Dragonhunter damage closer to that of the meta Spellbreaker even if we choose only to look at the hard CC nerfs, which is what I'm getting at.

> >

> > And the argument that professions with 0 dmg cc is going to be more of an issue after the patch is also a moot one, because health and armor stay the same so those skills will be exactly as annoying as they are today, meaning their dps output was already balanced around their cc doing no damage - and now that is shaved by 33% aswell.

> >

> > Let's further dive into how the midrange weapon strength is going to be the standard, here most those classes lose out even more (since this doesn't really matter for condition builds).

> >

> > Yes soft cc-classes will be the new damage dealers, and yes cc-machines will be the duelists. Does that really shake the current roles up in the least? No, the duelists that are effective now will be effective then aswell.

> >

> > Think of it this way:

> > Damage is moved for the most part from your 2-5 skills onto your autoattack. Anything else is bonus damage gated behind a cooldown. Not only does type of weapon matter for your damage output, but coefficients also vary wildly between weapon type AA's - you want to do more damage you will either need to use a squishier amulet or another weapon. Everybody has access to AA's, and more hits will now equate to more damage instead of 15 hits equating to 1 Prime Light Beam. This is a good change.

> >

> > Finally to adress thieves - they are supposed to be roamers, with a decent burst window every steal cooldown. Sounds to me you want them to be duelists instead. Their burst already suffers 33% reduction, lesser offensive stats and weapon strength standardization for the big crits. This can be further negated by aegis, protection and weakness. I

> > A thief should be able to take atleast 50% of your health with a good timed burst, although I agree it shouldn't be more than at most 11k - and judging by the 20k I have seen around, even the most broken specs will now do 20k * 0,6 = 12k, which is less than a marauder amulet on an ele since health and armor remain the same, and using your heal will refund 50% of the burst. And it's pretty obvious when a deadeye marks and stealths before he can do that. What more do you want?

>

> I don't understand what you guys aren't seeing about the obvious mechanical flaws here.

>

> Let's take two classes that have a relatively balanced match up against each other. For these example we'll use Staff Daredevil and Soulbeast. This is a 1v1 that EVEN in a DPS meta, would go on for some 60+ seconds before someone had to retreat. This will be best explained using bullets:

>

> * Staff DrD vs. Soulbeast is a situation where the Staff DrD has no CC outside of possibly having Daze on Swipe, which never had any damage output to begin with. The Soulbeast however has many CCs.

> * This match up is balanced BEFORE this patch. But it is only balanced because, the Soulbeast can land damage IF it hits the Staff DrD with a CC. The hard CC will deal a bit of damage and provide a very short window to land another single attack. Because the hard CCs deal normal weapon strike level damage, the Soulbeast is guaranteed to get a bit of damage on the Staff DrD by landing a CC, even if the Staff DrD stun breaks and moves too quickly for the Soulbeast to follow up with successive attack. This is why the Soulbeast can keep up and make this a balanced match.

> * Post patch 0 damage hard CCs - This 1v1 will become lopsided to the point that it will be impossible for the Soulbeast or anything else for that matter, to be able to deal with the Staff DrD. To even be able to deal enough damage in this current DPS meta, one must land a hard CC on the Staff DrD several times in a row to bait its stun breaks, until they can land successive blows to kill it or drive it off. During this phase of being required to land hard CCs to stop up its defenses players now before patch are still able to deal damage while landing those hard CCs. Post patch, there will be no damage in hard CCs = The game mechanics are requiring you to use hard CCs to attack an opponent to get through its defenses, but your attacks now deal no damage = you aren't dealing damage. Let me really stress this again "You will not be dealing damage while trying to fight the Staff DrD." I really want to stress this and I want everyone to really imagine the flow of how this works now and how it's going to work later: _"While fighting a Staff DrD as this one example, all of us know that you must hit it with a hard CC to be able to provide kill opportunity, and that the damage off the CC itself is just as important of pressure as the damage on the successive attacks."_ And you can't just swing around random bursting against the Staff DrD without CCs because it just dodges/evades everything. And then of course that Staff DrD is dealing damage with everything he does still. So using just that 1 example, do you not see how this is going to break the game? There are other builds vs. build comparisons I could use that explain similar situations, where Build (A) who is in a situation where he MUST land hard CCs against Build (B), is getting pigeonholed in the dynamic into a situation where he cannot deal damage output at all whatsoever.

> * Right now the Staff DrD vs. Soulbeast is balanced, but after the patch, there is no way in hell that the Soulbeast would ever land enough damage to even be able to stay in the ball park of real kill opportunity.

>

> **This new system with no damage CCs will result in players eventually realizing how powerful and exploitive it will be to position themselves and their builds against other people so that it forces the other player into a situation where they must CC play for an opener to be able to do anything at all, and in that case they deal no damage, and can't kill the player who is purposely positioning himself to force these scenarios.** <- These kinds of scenarios happen to all of us all day long while playing, but no has ever had a reason to define a term for that moment in the dynamic when a person is forced into "needing to land a CC to be able to create counter play" because there was never a reason that drew focus to the moment. But that moment will become highly recognized and complained about post patch, when the moment of CC required counter play also becomes a moment of complete disability.

>

>

 

I still don't get why people struggle against staff thief anymore, however the most surefire tactic (since they don't use much stealth) is to CC them on their way down after using Vault - it's a huge window and easy to time since the thief is **stuck in animation**.

 

If they don't use Vault they won't have nearly the evade uptime you credit them and you can treat them like fighting any pre-nerf mirage and just spam your damage skills.

 

Let's assume he does use Vault. Not dodging his steals are not a valid argument as it's a secondary factor, meaning with the current initiative cost he can at most use Vault 3 times in quick succession. You already said the matchup is balanced, so I'm going to assume you already know how to mitigate that damage. That's 3 surefire opportunities for you to land a cc - you don't even have to use an animation, let the pet do it.

 

You are arguing that an overpowered spec stalling another overpowered spec (not going into details about that, but both are meta for a reason) can be used to predict every other matchup in the game. Sorry mate but that's not how it works.

 

Staff thief will still be annoying, do 30% less damage and use the same tactics. You as f.ex a Soulbeast will still have the same means of outplaying him like you did before (literally do the exact same). Will you comparatively have a harder time after the patch against this thief than he has against you? Yes of course, I never argued otherwise. But he has to land his damage, as do you - and in that department you win out big time because you have access to more hard CC uptime. Pure numbers alone only tell us best/worst case scenarios, which can't really be used to predict any specific matchup.

 

You are looking at numbers alone, which any unexperienced player tend to do at first. Going full zerker for those top stats, don't need toughness because of dodge. But I thought of you as a seasoned veteran, so I'm guessing you know better than to assume f.ex a specific rune will allow you to win against a better player every time. Because this is literally the difference we are looking at here (and yes if that happens the rune needs a nerf). Doesn't matter if you do 4x the damage of your opponent if you can't land any of it. What you lose in dmg/s playing a high cc-uptime build you gain in free windows to burst (or just auto attack even), while low cc-uptime builds keep their superior constant damage/s at the cost less ability to lock you down for theirs - simple as that.

 

[Crab Fear.1624]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > > > @"rng.1024" said:

> > > > snips

> > >

> > > …

> > > it has nothing to do with specific skills and everything to do with useless things getting destroyed.

> >

> > Lol so you feel Bull's Charge already was a useless skill? Alright alright, but don't blame it on the patch then. All cc-skills gpt brought up to par with this change, and all cc-skills suffered the dmg loss.

> >

> > Best I can tell your issue is with skills not being able to do damage and cc at the same time anymore, which is a valid opinion ^^

> >

> > Or maybe it's just an unfortunate example, since the "useless" skill now is actually more viable than the previous meta-option.

>

> I think it's more about how that decision is an incredibly disproportionate balance decision that will clearly result in some very lopsided changes.

>

> For example:

>

> * Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will great effect Dragon's Maw or Deflecting Shot or Bull's Charge or Full Counter, which will greatly effect the damage output on Spellbreaker, and the already weak impractical damage output of Dragonhunter.

> * Hard CC skills going down to 0 damage output will not effect the efficiency of skills like Headshot or Basilisk or Mantra of Distraction at all, because those skills already did no damage to begin with and the builds tied to them did not rely on any damage output from those skills to be "in balance" with the damage output of other classes.

> * So by universally tossing this all hard CCs go to 0 damage stuff, you've got to understand that some classes are in addition to the already incoming -33% coefficient nerf, they are also receiving an additional damage nerf because the damage output on their hard CCs are bottoming out completely. The game for years had been balancing around the idea that "A DH or Warrior's damage output is balanced for what it is, because it has damage on all of the hard CC skills that they have, vs. classes with CCs that have no damage who's other skills have large damage in other places." But now with all hard CC damage very abrasively being removed, it hits hard CC classes WAAAAY too hard in the damage department, while leaving soft CC classes still dealing large damage.

>

> This is simply not going to be a balanced a change. If Arenanet doesn't acknowledge this now before the patch is dropped, we're going to be stuck in a season or two where Thieves go on an unholy savage rampage where they are super OP because all of their important CCs dealt no damage to begin with, and all of their damage was 95% in places not tied to hard CCs at all. Whereas hard CC classes/builds/kits, are seriously losing additionally next to the -33% coefficient nerf, another 30% to 50% of their damage output. Look at what is happening to Warrior Hammer. That's the biggest example I can give. This change is deleting the Warrior Hammer and I mean it is deleting it. <- If you can't understand the disproportionate completely out of whack and in no way balanced decision that this is going to be, I just don't know what else to say.

>

> Arenanet is going to open up the ultimate can of worms on this one. I really hope they just omit that .001 hard CC stuff, and adjust it to more of something like .25 at the bare minimal. Really I'd rather it be like .45 or something.

 

Classes have skills that do damage without cc like thief.

 

Classes now will not have hard cc with damage, like thief.

 

 

Thief damage has been lowered before this patch, it is getting lowered with this patch.

 

Otherer classes are getting brought in line.

 

Lol thief on rampage with noodle damage.

 

 

[Burnfall.9573]


 

Karma/Consequences

 

[Dadnir.5038]

Never forget that ANet always chose the smart solution, they never chose the wise solution.

The reason they nerf all CC to abysmal damage is most likely that they aim to see more specialized role in cooperative environment.

 

To take the warrior's hammer as an example, they imagine it in the environment where it used to be performant: 2014 WvW hammer train. The new/futur hammer is ideal in the perspective of a hammer train. It create a potent front liner able to stop the ennemy zerg while the backliners and the more offensive builds send the punishment.

 

Now, sure it's been a long time since the WvW meta shifted to something different, but the aim is obviously to try and get something similar. (In small scale fights, thought, it's the death of those slow but stuning skills.)

[mixxed.5862]

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > @"Aza.2105" said:

> > snips

>

> you could've picked a better option for your argument, no one in their right mind is going to use hammer anymore if anyone even did. I get what you're saying but you're the one who doesn't understand. so op things get nerfed, some up things that didn't get nerfed become more attractive options. except too many of those options are still unusable because of how bad they are. they could follow up in the future with buffs to these useless things which I hope they will.

>

> > Hammer

> > - Autoattack Chain: Reduced power coefficients from 0.9/0.9/1.2 to 0.6/0.6/0.8

> > - Fierce Blow: Reduced base power coefficient from 1.8 to 0.77. Reduced power coefficient vs controlled foes from 2.16 to 1.82. Reduced weakness duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds. Reduced cooldown from 6 seconds to 4 seconds

> > - Hammer Shock: Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.7

> > - Staggering Blow: Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.01

> > - Backbreaker: Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 0.01

> > - Earthshaker: Reduced power coefficient from 1.0 to 0.01

 

No, hammer won't be nerfed. It's about to get the BIGGEST BUFF it ever got! Yes, it'll do less damage however its CC will be a LOT more valuable. Hammer will be all about control. So the pertinent question to ask is whether after the patch your opponents will eventually run out of stunbreaks.

 

Most stunbreaks will be on a 40+ second cooldown, every trait that allows for frequent access to stunbreaks (Rev, Necro, Druid etc.) will be straight up deleted from the game, passive stunbreaks will get their cooldowns adjusted to 5 MINUTES. Stability durations will be reduced, access to stability cut and some builds will even lose their access to stab altogether. Mirage will only have a single dodge, Rev's dodging will be neutered. On some builds disengages and mobility will be reduced considerably.

 

Once you've caught your enemy in a CC chain you swap weapons and follow up with a burst. But will you be able to? I think so! However it'll all depend on the new meta.

[kodesh.2851]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

>

> Yeah I'm really starting to question this "CCs deal no damage" thing. It's... wrong on so many levels.

>

> Cutting CC skill damage by 50% would have been adequate. Having all of these skills dealing 0 damage is just weird man. Not sure it's going to feel good in application. They really need to test server this patch before release.

 

I agree, look no further than Rampage for proof. I know it's still "better" than other elites but it just feels off and I don't like using it anymore.

[Aeolus.3615]

> @"apharma.3741" said:

> It's a jump in the right direction, not everything is final and not everything has been accounted for.

>

> Just be quick to highlight the skills that over-perform and pass it on for the next cycle. NO BUFFS PLS.

 

Pitty that many only play atention to the numbers they believe it correlates to their personal skill.... and cant notice how much they are being carried.

 

Hight damage will still exist, but players will have to use more brain power :P

[Stand The Wall.6987]

> @"mixxed.5862" said:

> snips

 

this is a nice picturesque portrayal of this game actually having roles. the main one is damage, with healing being secondary or not chosen at all on some teams cuz most meta builds have damage, cc, and sustain built into them. now, lets imagine a scenario. one support per team, two guys side noding, so a 3v3 in mid. can a fb power buff thru 2 peoples worth of damage? yeah. 1 guy and 1 guy with war ham? absolutely. vs 2 guys and a third with ham? maybe. what would be the point of taking hammer if meta builds already have cc?

 

don't forget this thread isn't about the 0.01 coefficient specifically. its about all skills that weren't used getting nerfed for no apparent reason, instead of just the over performing ones. we'll have to see how they do on the follow up if there is one at all.