[Poll] What do you think of the PvP changes in the upcoming balance patch?

[Exitus.3297]

I'm curious to see where everyone's thoughts are on this besides a "Is the patch good? Yes or No" question. **I'm also hoping ANet will see this and take it into consideration.**

 

I'm personally at 3 (I will go into more detail on why in a bit).

 

EDIT: Everything Below (late to the party but it took awhile to type... I ended up copying/pasting from another one of my posts with some edits because it gets the point across)

 

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 deserves an extra nerf because it removes a condition, but then it would be just as easy to fire back that it is tied to dodging things proactively so it simply procs much less often. 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 we weren't given that information to work with.

 

I know all of the above examples only really include the Thief class, but I know the class in and out so it just made the most sense to me. Other mains have similar examples to talk about with their own classes as well. But moving on...

 

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. **It doesn't make sense for an ability like this to be an opener instead of an Execute.**

 

Sorry for the wall of text. I likely have more points I can add from different classes, 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 realize what they are doing because they don't have the same level of experience playing 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?

 

I cannot stress this next thing enough: **I am not trying to antagonize the balance team.** I really like the concept of scaling everything down in PvP because I think it will make the game cater to more well-rounded builds and less so towards cheese builds (at least most of them). I **want** the balance team to succeed, but the upcoming patch has serious issues in it that need to be addressed before it goes live.

[Dantheman.3589]

What I mainly want is anet to actually have a vision for what they want for future balance and this patch touches on that point exactly but it is just an overall balance patch so somethings will still be over performing and there is nothing they can do but wait for new meta with new concerns

[Burnfall.9573]

'Starting Strong, Finishing Weak'

 

**Intentional Toxic remains**

 

Exploit Stealth Design, Exploit Teleport Design, +One Shots. Toxic Pullings, Toxic Thief Profession Design, Toxic Mesmer Profession Design, Toxic Mechanic Designs, Toxic Skill Designs, Food Buffs, Bad Design Sigils/Runes Buffs., Toxic Mobility, Toxic Condition Thief Profession.....anything else missing??

[UNOwen.7132]

Yeah the CC skill nerfs are kinda all over the place. You have Prime Light Beam, a huge bloody Laser, do basically no damage which in itself is already a major flavour fail, but then it will also CC for less with a much longer cast time and nearly twice as long cooldown than bloody *Magic Bullet*. Hell I cant see Engineer ever picking Prime Light Beam over Supply Crate, even with half the cooldown, given that Supply Crate CCs way longer, has a lower cast time, and can far more easily hit multiple people (plus the things it drops are relevant). For that matter, its only the power coefficient that is (usually) hit. Once again, Magic bullet did see its power coefficient reduced to 0.01, but its confusion was completely untouched (and it was mostly used for condi builds). In general, condi vs power balance is gonna be completely out of whack.

 

On a sidenote, I checked the Mug and Pulmonary Impact bit and yeah, they do actually do basically the same damage. Theyre both on 1.5, specifically, which means the 29% nerf it officially got was in actuality a nerf over 50%(!). No wonder D/P went from a decent to a terrible build. That does raise some questions, surely while doing the changes, they actually looked in the files and saw the different damage coefficients, right? Or does that mean they hadnt taken a look at them yet at the time? Anyway, hopefully they decide to retroactively fix the intended nerf, and then do the 33% damage reduction on Pulmonary impact for 1.333 coefficient (or better yet, retroactively fix the intended nerf and leave it alone, it was already useless before, lowering the damage of everything else might make it viable again).

[otto.5684]

I do not like the direction. Even if we stick with the direction, the changes are poorly thought out (if at all).

[Exitus.3297]

> @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> Yeah the CC skill nerfs are kinda all over the place. You have Prime Light Beam, a huge bloody Laser, do basically no damage which in itself is already a major flavour fail, but then it will also CC for less with a much longer cast time and nearly twice as long cooldown than bloody *Magic Bullet*. Hell I cant see Engineer ever picking Prime Light Beam over Supply Crate, even with half the cooldown, given that Supply Crate CCs way longer, has a lower cast time, and can far more easily hit multiple people (plus the things it drops are relevant). For that matter, its only the power coefficient that is (usually) hit. Once again, Magic bullet did see its power coefficient reduced to 0.01, but its confusion was completely untouched (and it was mostly used for condi builds). In general, condi vs power balance is gonna be completely out of whack.

>

> On a sidenote, I checked the Mug and Pulmonary Impact bit and yeah, they do actually do basically the same damage. Theyre both on 1.5, specifically, which means the 29% nerf it officially got was in actuality a nerf over 50%(!). No wonder D/P went from a decent to a terrible build. That does raise some questions, surely while doing the changes, they actually looked in the files and saw the different damage coefficients, right? Or does that mean they hadnt taken a look at them yet at the time? Anyway, hopefully they decide to retroactively fix the intended nerf, and then do the 33% damage reduction on Pulmonary impact for 1.333 coefficient (or better yet, retroactively fix the intended nerf and leave it alone, it was already useless before, lowering the damage of everything else might make it viable again).

 

It would make more sense if they only nerfed Mug and Pulmonary Impact by 30% instead of by half, but also apply the 30% reduction to the heal. Mug is going to get severely overshadowed by Leeching Venoms for damage otherwise. PI has been through enough as it is to justify nerfing it by another half.

[Tycura.1982]

Should have left underplayed specs alone for the most part. If SPB is better than Berserker before the patch and you nerf both then SPB is still going to be better post patch. They weren't nerfed equally though Berserker got nerfed harder than SPB because they don't want one shots anymore but why would you ever choose a spec that trades off survivability for damage if that damage is the same as any other spec of your class? Other then that my feelings are mostly around the CC nerfs but only for elites and reaper shroud 5. Shield bash doesn't have damage? Sure whatever. Headbutt doesn't have damage? Why? It's an elite skill with a glaring animation.

 

July 16, 2019

This skill now removes all stacks of stability when casting and does 50% more damage if stability was removed

 

What was suppose to be a buff is now nothing but detrimental.

 

Same goes for things like Glint 5, Chilled to the bone, Executioner Scythe, Gravity Well, Dragons Maw. They're suppose to be elite skills meant to be the trump card of the class. Scythe being the exception. Take away the CC and leave the ice field.

[Dadnir.5038]

It's a poor approach of the problem. It's like they refuse to acknowledge the powercreep and broken designs that were added to the game over the years after launch and, instead, try to adapt the base coefficients (that were mostly left untouched since released of the game) to give them an environment where everything feel "less broken".

 

They don't fix the problems, they soothe the "feelings". Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Edit: The only thing with a true fix in this whole patch is _unblockable_.

[Leonidrex.5649]

this patch missed whats important in my eyes, I expect things to get even worse.

[Exitus.3297]

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> this patch missed whats important in my eyes, I expect things to get even worse.

 

Then vote on it ya dingus lol

[Marxx.5021]

Class design for non PvP with number adjustments to make it working somehow in PvP. I think this approach will never succeed. Even less with lower population and garbage match making.

[PLS.4095]

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/96991/do-you-like-the-new-balance-patch#latest

 

This is it.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

The devs here at anet have set a whole new bar of laziness.