Guild Wars 2

I was just poking around on every single Profession Forum I give a kitten about and it looks like Rev’s are either grabbing pitchforks or quiting the game, Engineers claim they’re walking out the door, Guardians are ambivalent regarding the changes, Elementalists seem to be feeling meh, Necros are angry and even though Power has been buffed it doesn’t make Great Sword ideal which quite frankly is the only weapon I use on my Necro other than staff for range, I guess Warriors didn’t seem to notice there was a balance patch, Mesmers seemed to be confused.

None of this is making me feel remotely confident in returning to this game full time.

PS Gives me a nicer appreciation for balance in WoW I’ll never complain about my Vengance Demon Hunter nerf again.

I’m not sure what the problem is? You’re describing a normal GW2 balance patch.

Substance E.4852:

I’m not sure what the problem is? You’re describing a normal GW2 balance patch.

Well if this is considered normal then that’s a problem from everything I’ve been reading, it seems like no one has anything remotely positive to say and frankly I don’t want to take the chance leveling up a profession that’s going to be kitten.

Lol is this a serious thread? You read some posts on the absolute worst part of the forums and think the game is suddenly no longer worth playing? If you haven’t noticed before the profession forums are always full of people who constantly complain about their main classes being nerfed and needing buffs. You will hardly ever find any objective posts there because some people can never get past personal interest.

Personally I found this update to be rather mild, nothing to big.

X T D.6458:

Personally I found this update to be rather mild, nothing to big.

Ditto.

Sure, I’m reconsidering the structure of some of my builds… but I was going to have to do that no matter what was changed.

In the profession forums, the saying isn’t, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.” Instead it’s generally, “if you don’t have anything negative to say, don’t say anything.” Considering player reactions in the profession forums right after a balance patch is not a great idea.

~EW

Every time an MMO does a balance patch the same thing happens for all professions/classes/races. Everyone complains that they hate it and it’s the worst thing to happen ever.

Yeah after reading over the patch notes, the balance isn’t as bad as people were speculating. It’s just like every other class balance that anets released in the past.

The only bad thing about it really was reduction in boon share.

But other than that, it’s not a game quitting reason. It’s just another patch to change up how people play.

I guess I’ll check Metabattle then

I’m happy…….

If they wanted to nerf boonshare in WvW why didn’t anet just buff boon removal/stealing?

Either way i’m happy cause i don’t raid or wvw and only play bad builds in spvp which get buffed every patch

I found it a lot of fuss over nothing to be honest.

The large amount of negativity is more apparent since the ppl unhappy are the only ones really commenting. EVeryone else is either happy or getting on with it and don’t feel the need to comment on what they feel is a non-event for them.

Well lets just say its a bit insulting when they do solid nerfs, and then improve “diversity” by changes such as increasing the direct damage of fire bomb by 10% or increase damage of rocket boots by 25%. Its like buffing the damage of astral form by 250%. It does nothing to improve its purpose and is ultimately just a safe way of padding patchnotes with meaningless cotton and to dilute the nerfs (not in actual effect but in text) without actually having to worry about balancing a diverse meta. Because a one class one build meta is easy to handle.

The patch was pretty devastating from a PvE perspective. There’s a lot of stat swapping that has to happen on a lot of ascended gear, all classes have reduced build diversity within meta raid compositions, there’s even less class diversity than when the alacrity nerf happened back in the day, and a few classes have been nerfed extremely hard even though they comparatively weren’t top dogs to begin with.

There’s a lot of opinions floating around going either way on whether it was necessary or justified, but suffice it to say that if the balance goal of the ANet skills team is increased build and class diversity that they objectively went in the opposite direction with this patch.

WRT PvP. I think this is a pretty good balance patch, small changes are far better than wide sweeping yo-yo changes. That said, they should do PvP balance changes more than once per season and they certainly need to be entirely separate from PvE balance changes.

Its fitting that OP didn’t even mention thieves, considering they are no longer a supported class in Gw2.

Ubik.8315:

WRT PvP. I think this is a pretty good balance patch, small changes are far better than wide sweeping yo-yo changes. That said, they should do PvP balance changes more than once per season and they certainly need to be entirely separate from PvE balance changes.

…wouldnt call removing the daze from gyros small… but whatever, not playing engi anymore so it only bothers me mildly..

Unless I overlooked something, other than the daze/gyro change I didn’t really see anything to complain about for engis…

Well concerning raids, I guess necros are going to be the only ones definitely dropped, with guardians favored due to “Feel my Wrath!” helping Chronos in their more difficult job. I think FoTM is still going to be stock full of necros, even without jagged horrors they can cleave through anything easily. But mostly they’re back from barely feasible to complete trash on min-maxing endgame content, oh well.

As a Power Necro who uses GS and Axe, I am actually happy.

Mea.5491:

As a Power Necro who uses GS and Axe, I am actually happy.

Same here. I’ve been super-casual lately and was actually using great sword and staff, and I think it’s time to equip the axe again.

So Greatsword Reaper is viable again, if so that made my day.

Mea.5491:

As a Power Necro who uses GS and Axe, I am actually happy.

Well GS Buff is like a 200 DPS Increase.

I am dumbfounded by the majority of changes….

The ele changes are mostly reverts from 3 or 4 patches back…..

The engi changes made me outright laugh…We want to increase its DPS, only increases 2 dps skills.

I don’t even anymore….

Oldirtbeard.9834:

I was just poking around on every single Profession Forum I give a kitten about and it looks like Rev’s are either grabbing pitchforks or quiting the game, Engineers claim they’re walking out the door, Guardians are ambivalent regarding the changes, Elementalists seem to be feeling meh, Necros are angry and even though Power has been buffed it doesn’t make Great Sword ideal which quite frankly is the only weapon I use on my Necro other than staff for range, I guess Warriors didn’t seem to notice there was a balance patch, Mesmers seemed to be confused.

None of this is making me feel remotely confident in returning to this game full time.

PS Gives me a nicer appreciation for balance in WoW I’ll never complain about my Vengance Demon Hunter nerf again.

if you think the WoW forumites don’t scream about balance and nerfs then you don’t read their forum. If you read it they’re constantly complaining about tank balance, healer balance and flavor of the day spec balance as well as how [whatever class being discussed] is awful and is at the bottom of the dps charts and should never have been nerfed. Their forums have multiple complaint threads before a balance patch and after a balance patch. Reading it will let you see that all forums are always unhappy when something is changed, or not changed for that matter.

My only real complaint is warrior retains its stupid amount of sustain in wvw.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Oldirtbeard.9834:

I was just poking around on every single Profession Forum I give a kitten about and it looks like Rev’s are either grabbing pitchforks or quiting the game, Engineers claim they’re walking out the door, Guardians are ambivalent regarding the changes, Elementalists seem to be feeling meh, Necros are angry and even though Power has been buffed it doesn’t make Great Sword ideal which quite frankly is the only weapon I use on my Necro other than staff for range, I guess Warriors didn’t seem to notice there was a balance patch, Mesmers seemed to be confused.

None of this is making me feel remotely confident in returning to this game full time.

PS Gives me a nicer appreciation for balance in WoW I’ll never complain about my Vengance Demon Hunter nerf again.

if you don’t think the WoW forumites don’t scream about balance and nerfs then you don’t read their forum. If you read it they’re constantly complaining about tank balance, healer balance and flavor of the day spec balance as well as how [whatever class being discussed] is awful and is at the bottom of the dps charts and should never have been nerfed. Their forums have multiple complaint threads before a balance patch and after a balance patch. Reading it will let you see that all forums are always unhappy when something is changed, or not changed for that matter.

I was being facetious.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Substance E.4852:

I’m not sure what the problem is? You’re describing a normal GW2 balance patch.

Well if this is considered normal then that’s a problem from everything I’ve been reading, it seems like no one has anything remotely positive to say and frankly I don’t want to take the chance leveling up a profession that’s going to be kitten.

I have something positive to say…they effectively neutered boonsharing, one of the worst things in the game in WvW, and what was basically a crutch in PvE. You done good Anet, you done good…now you just need to buff Rev damage next patch and all will be good.

Yay, they nerfed both my mains Rev and Druid! Thanks so much Anet. /s

Seriously, you nerf Rev boon sharing and don’t even buff the class to make up for the fact that you took away the very utility that makes them useful. You also basically wrecked build variety for druids. And no love for power ranger either, which really needs it now. I’m really disappointed.

Yes, profession forums QQ a lot about their own personal gripes, but take a step back and you’ll see that there are some major problems, particularly from a raiding perspective.

For raiding, they eliminated revenants, necros (well, at least from most fights), and thieves from competitive raiding groups. They added no builds or classes to that group.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

None of this is making me feel remotely confident in returning to this game full time.

A lot of people have been complaining that the elite specializations are two powerful and so of course those who haven’t been complaining are going to be upset if & when ANet rebalances.

I’m not arguing that these are great changes for me or necessarily for the game, only that I don’t care if people are complaining. Offer constructive criticism about how the set of changes is bad for the game (not just your own playstyle) — there are a number of well-written posts doing just that around.

RyuDragnier.9476:

now you just need to buff Rev damage next patch and all will be good.

They said that buff to Rev damage will be in this patch, so i guess they decided Revs are good now and need no further buffs.

It’s an overall disappointment for sure. Yeah, a fair number of things were buffed, most of which were niche or rarely used. A large sum of useless and underpowered traits, skills, and utilities remain across every profession.

And though the patch is still sinking in (for me, at least), I hope Anet takes next year as an opportunity to focus solely on the weak and under-used traits, skills, and aspects of each profession.

Ignore what’s working and focus on what’s not. Many complain about a lack of diversity, and when each profession easily has a third of traits, skills, and utilities that are: underused, underpowered, and lack synergy – it’s no wonder players feel this way.

To each their own, though.

I guess if nobody is happy that counts as a win.

The developers in charge of the balance are disconnected from the game. Allow me to present some evidence that I will keep it to ONE subject for simplicity, there are other topics that could and need to be presented and addressed.

Warrior’s Adrenal Health regenerates 560 hp per second at max stacks. Couple that with the usual healing signet’s 364 and you have over 900 hit points per second – with no points put in healing power. In 10 seconds this combination doubles the healing potential over time of every other class in the game (most healing skills heal for around 4,000).

The traits of other classes do not regenerate anywhere near the amount of health as Adrenal Health and Adrenal Health is less restrictive in how the healing is activated than all the others. Examples:

Engineer: 250/sec for Bunker Down (Assuming a crit and player running over the pack)
Necro: 130/sec for Unholy Sanctuary (In shroud)
Guardian: 107 /sec for Writ of Persistance (Assuming standing in a symbol)
Elementalist: 80/sec for Soothing Mist (Assuming Water attunement)
Thief: 293/sec for Shadow’s Rejuvenation (assuming stealth)
Revenant: 66/sec for Invigorating Flow (Assuming using an energy skill every 5s)

The best trait from other classes is less than half the power of Adrenal Health. There is no comparison, Adrenal Health is strictly better than other classes.

For the Developers to say

“Warrior continues to hold its place among each game type, so the team isn’t looking to make massive adjustments at this time.”

shows a massive disconnect from the desire to balance the game properly.

As a Revenant player I don’t think I’m alone that most of us are just sick and tired of waiting on bugs to get fixed that were reported Day 1.

It’s getting ridiculous at this point. Also we’re searching for the promised DPS increase to compensate for the nerfs that A.net previewed before this patch.

TexZero.7910:

I am dumbfounded by the majority of changes….

The ele changes are mostly reverts from 3 or 4 patches back…..

The engi changes made me outright laugh…We want to increase its DPS, only increases 2 dps skills.

I don’t even anymore….

And they keep ignoring Turrets.

Eles are happy just to not be nerfed again. Nobody is going to post about that though because they don’t want to tempt fate. Plus we got some decent improvements for PvP, which were much needed. We still have some issues with survivability and inherent design flaws, so I guess that’s where the “meh” people are coming from.

But seriously, zero Ele nerfs. How long has it been since that happened?

Mea.5491:

As a Power Necro who uses GS and Axe, I am actually happy.

Not sure why you’d be happy that your class now instead of being ok at something is now bad at everything.

It’s not like GS/Axe power necro is suddenly useful in PvE, it’s still bad but now with the nerfs, condi is also bad.

As a pve player it was a pretty underwhelming patch, but im unfazed by the changes. Yes i was hoping for some more buffs for the glorious engi master race but at the very least maybe fire bomb can somehow be part of the power rotation now.

As for rev and mes changes, i do play both classes & anyone who says their class is now unplayable must be joking. Naturalistic resonance got nerfed by 13%. 13%!!! Its so minor that i seriously doubt it will cause a shift in the meta: probably only at the highest levels or organized / guild play. As for mesmer i dont personally agree that the signet can only share one stack of might now, but it can still be used to prolong the quickness that everyone was so bothered about: from what ive seen it can still provide around 1/3 uptime if combined with the inspiration trait. The buffs on auto attack were pathetic to be honest… But hey, theyre buffs at least.

Cant honestly speak for the rest of the classes but it doesnt seem that the changes were wholly unfair. The only thing im really puzzled about is of the changes have actually stopped the issue in wvw?

emikochan.8504:

If they wanted to nerf boonshare in WvW why didn’t anet just buff boon removal/stealing?

Either way i’m happy cause i don’t raid or wvw and only play bad builds in spvp which get buffed every patch

Because it would not solve the problem, since boons in general are an inherent game- and sometimes implicit class-mechanic, not some special build to go for.

If you buff boon corrupt/steal to a level where it can keep up with the insane boon uptime provided by boonshare, they would completely annihilate builds that have a normal amount of boons and uptime. As well as classes that were designed and balanced around heavy boon usage (e.g. Ele).

As crazy as it sounds, the only answer to boon corrupt/rip/steal would be to play even more boons to at least have a chance on keeping some stability or resistance up.

The Ranger’s “Strength of the Pack” cooldown nerf is possibly the most WTF nerf in these notes (Not the harshest, but the harsh ones were telegraphed long before. Just… no explanation or reason), along with the unexpected buff to ranger GS2. They said they were reworking the shortbow in this patch, but I don’t see how a weak 1.5 second bleed on the Auto and nothing else of consequence can count as a ‘rework’.

Score for my main:

Buffs: 2
Nerfs: 0

Why should I be unhappy again?

Flamethrower—Air Blast: The description has been updated to better specify the ability’s function. The burning stacks it applies have been increased from 1 to 2. (+1)

Fire Bomb: The physical damage of this ability has been increased by 10% per tick. (+1)

Concussion Bomb: Confusion duration has been increased from 5 seconds to 8 seconds. The physical damage of this ability has been increased by 20%. (+1)

Big Ol’ Bomb: The knockdown duration of this ability has been increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. (+1)

Poison Dart Volley: The projectiles fired by this skill will now land more consistently. (+1)

Gyro utility skills: Gyros will no longer daze anything in the area they affect when they die. (-1)

thumbs up from my main

So is Roy still playing his Warrior then? Clearly Karl is no longer playing his Thief. It’s been a while, so not sure who else still balances this game…

I am, most of the patch notes were positive changes. A LOT of cooldowns got reduced and a lot numbers got increased. The patch note 75% positive upkeep.

This patch for me is the worst patch I’ve ever seen in gw2 history. I still play this game even though it’s pretty boring lately but after this patch I’m not sure I can continue.

WvW cannon fiesta, Raid diversity is dead, worse version of old halloween events. Nothing to expect here.

And yet people have run raids with the old setup and beat those raids within hours of the patch. Are you really looking on professions forums to see the truth behind how good or bad a patch is?

Meanwhile, people who spend less time complaining and more time adapting are just editing the meta build pages to match the current skills. As it always has and always will.

jonemirant.1653:

Time and time again, there are nerfs and people would get kittened and say enough is enough and quit, including myself.

Yet, they never really seem to do. Remember when the warrior got nerfed into the ground and there were like a 100 topics “I’m gonna quit GW2 if this gets through”
Guess where those people are? right, still in GW2, and still playing a warrior.

People love to whine about nerfs, rebalances, but in the end, you play for a week and you forget all about it, because the game is so kittening easy you can cut everyone in half and we’re still gods walking on a mortal planet

Squee.7829:

Meanwhile, people who spend less time complaining and more time adapting are just editing the meta build pages to match the current skills. As it always has and always will.

Doesn’t mean diversity hasn’t taken a huge hit, pushing multiple classes away. Of course content will still be playable and clearable like before and whatnot, doesn’t mean this balance patch was full of bad choices or choices that haven’t been full thought through.