Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

Mesmer

• Echo of Memory: Block duration reduced from 2.25 to 1.5

I am once again saddened that PvP needs affect the 95% of my game experience, which is PvE.

Errant Venture.9371:

Xyonon.3987:

JUST FINALLY SPLIT PVP AND PVE!!!!!!!

we ALL want this … just PLEASE do it!

They won’t do this because it would confuse too many casual players to have skills doing different things in pvp and pve

In World of Warcraft I understood sap lasts 8 seconds vs players and a minute vs. mobs just fine, same principle should be applied here too. The logic is sound, players simply don’t have the massive health pools of elite and vet mobs so stuns shouldn’t last as long against us as it does them.

AysonCurrax.3254:

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the Balance Team:

As mentioned in our “Road Ahead for 2015” blog, our strategy for adjusting the meta-game in Guild Wars 2 after the release of Heart of Thorns focuses on releasing balance updates on a set cycle – each and every quarter. We began this cadence with the release of HoT in October which undoubtedly changed the way that the game is played across all game modes. In the weeks following the launch of HoT we made a number of tweaks to elite specializations as we began to notice trends that did not align with our design goals.

Today we stand about a month and a half since Heart of Thorns was released, and once again we feel it is necessary to make some adjustments for the overall health of the game. This week we will be making a few changes to address some emergent gameplay that has cropped up across multiple game modes:

General

• Runes of Durability: Fixed a bug that granted this rune set more boon duration than indicated.
• Temple of the Silent Storm: Players will no longer be able to interact with Meditations while under the effect of Blur.

Mesmer

• Echo of Memory: Block duration reduced from 2.25 to 1.5

Revenant

• Demonic Defiance: This trait now has a 5 second internal cooldown.
• Radiant Revival: This trait’s functionality has been altered to provide Infused Light for the revenant, instead of the downed target. This trait now grants the revenant 10% bonus revival speed.
• Coalescence of Ruin: This ability will no longer hit over the maximum number of targets (5). The cascade will additionally cease its progression if it hits the maximum number of targets.

As a note, not all of the changes listed above will be in the first build on December 15, but instead in a hotfix that will happen shortly afterwards.

Balance itself is an iterative process and our work will be ongoing. We’re taking a hard look at the ways players are experiencing content across the game (raids, fractals, open world, PvP, and WvW) and we’ll be making adjustments accordingly.

Our next major balance update will be released at the end of January, and after the new year we plan on sharing the high-level details of those changes, giving you an opportunity to provide feedback to our design team.

So, are we just going to ignore the fact that you, Arenanet, clearly stated, that there wont be any balance updates while there is an ongoing PvP Season? Why set rules, if you arent going to stick with it?

More importantly, if they’re going to break those rules, who much Soon™er rather than later can I expect Warrior updates?

LOL are you serious Anet?

Another slap in the face to PvE players because the 0.1% PvP elites are inconvenienced.

Katsuragi.4026:

This game is confusing to any new player already unless someone’s holding your hand, so I don’t think it should matter.

I’m not criticizing the fact, by the way. The fact that it is so different is what made me like this game to begin with.

Not sure if it’s only new players. Before June I had one build for everything (not because I was lazy but because it was the best build for me in every game mode) – I knew exactly what my character would do. Now I have one for pve and one for wvw – and confuse quite a lot, tbh.

Rauderi.8706:

AysonCurrax.3254:

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the Balance Team:

As mentioned in our “Road Ahead for 2015” blog, our strategy for adjusting the meta-game in Guild Wars 2 after the release of Heart of Thorns focuses on releasing balance updates on a set cycle – each and every quarter. We began this cadence with the release of HoT in October which undoubtedly changed the way that the game is played across all game modes. In the weeks following the launch of HoT we made a number of tweaks to elite specializations as we began to notice trends that did not align with our design goals.

Today we stand about a month and a half since Heart of Thorns was released, and once again we feel it is necessary to make some adjustments for the overall health of the game. This week we will be making a few changes to address some emergent gameplay that has cropped up across multiple game modes:

General

• Runes of Durability: Fixed a bug that granted this rune set more boon duration than indicated.
• Temple of the Silent Storm: Players will no longer be able to interact with Meditations while under the effect of Blur.

Mesmer

• Echo of Memory: Block duration reduced from 2.25 to 1.5

Revenant

• Demonic Defiance: This trait now has a 5 second internal cooldown.
• Radiant Revival: This trait’s functionality has been altered to provide Infused Light for the revenant, instead of the downed target. This trait now grants the revenant 10% bonus revival speed.
• Coalescence of Ruin: This ability will no longer hit over the maximum number of targets (5). The cascade will additionally cease its progression if it hits the maximum number of targets.

As a note, not all of the changes listed above will be in the first build on December 15, but instead in a hotfix that will happen shortly afterwards.

Balance itself is an iterative process and our work will be ongoing. We’re taking a hard look at the ways players are experiencing content across the game (raids, fractals, open world, PvP, and WvW) and we’ll be making adjustments accordingly.

Our next major balance update will be released at the end of January, and after the new year we plan on sharing the high-level details of those changes, giving you an opportunity to provide feedback to our design team.

So, are we just going to ignore the fact that you, Arenanet, clearly stated, that there wont be any balance updates while there is an ongoing PvP Season? Why set rules, if you arent going to stick with it?

More importantly, if they’re going to break those rules, who much Soon™er rather than later can I expect Warrior updates?

I mean, if they arent going to stick to what they say, atleast, they could do so to fix all currently existing issues in PvP. Instead, they pour oil into the fire.

Why are you fractal people freaking out? This thread is just a quick note on pvp hot fixes coming this week not the entire patch notes. Jesus people read and understand the post.

P.S Spammable aoe on a 2sec cooldown that can crit for 15k?, most other classes would give an arm and a leg for that. Most aoe’s in the game are already capped to 5 targets.

Xenesis.6389:

Why are you fractal people freaking out? This thread is just a quick note on pvp hot fixes coming this week not the entire patch notes. Jesus people read and understand the post.

Because its not a PvP Only Fix. Its a Nerf to PvE aswell.

AysonCurrax.3254:

Xenesis.6389:

Why are you fractal people freaking out? This thread is just a quick note on pvp hot fixes coming this week not the entire patch notes. Jesus people read and understand the post.

Because its not a PvP Only Fix. Its a Nerf to PvE aswell.

They nerfed the amount of targets on a 2sec heavy damage spammable aoe, seriously it’s not that big of a deal, the area that it will affect the most is WvW zerging. Come back when they bump the cooldown to 10s or drop the damage to 5k instead.

The mesmer change shows how little they understand about the gamebreaking aspects of their own game.

Literally everyone in this thread sees what the issue is and agree upon what needs to be fixed. Yet for some weird reason Anet doesnt want to see it lol.

It’s funny how we were lead to believe quality balancing would be done with a decent frequency for the game.

xbutcherx.3861:

Warrior and thieves are still in rememberland?

Its all nerfs. You think warrior and thief needs nerfs?

Wanze.8410:

xbutcherx.3861:

Warrior and thieves are still in rememberland?

Its all nerfs. You think warrior and thief needs nerfs?

My poor warrior, he had to drop his great sword for a sickle, flax farmer from now on!

Remember how they said they wouldn’t do balance changes during a PvP tourney? Well, they’re doing that, yes. But they’re trying to keep it very small and minor, as small as they can and still fix the worst problems. These may not be the best fixes, or the ones they’ll go with long term, they’re just the small ones for right now. They’re telling us these changes now, so that when the patch hits nobody has to be surprised by them. Again, because there’s a tourney going on.

I’m moderately sure that the fractal reward changes and other things will be in the patch as well, but this is just the stuff that’s going to directly mess with PvP.

Gods know I often think ANet needs to pull their head out, but in this case I see nothing wrong.

Xillllix.3485:

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the Balance Team:

As mentioned in our “Road Ahead for 2015” blog, our strategy for adjusting the meta-game in Guild Wars 2 after the release of Heart of Thorns focuses on releasing balance updates on a set cycle – each and every quarter.

Your strategy isn’t good.

First of all you need to fix broken skills that do 17-20k damage like Coalescence of Ruin or Gun Flame on the week we find out the issues, not 3 months later, because these press 1 button to win skills are ruining the game for everyone in the competitive modes.

Secondly, we don’t want “meta changes” where you are just stuck into playing the same build for 3 months. We want balanced skills so that we can have Build variety as it was promised with the new trait system. The players should be dictating the meta by creative thinking, Anet shouldn’t be dictating it for them and cornering them into meta-builds that they have no choice to run, as it currently is.

Pls do me a favor and send a screenshot of that 17-20k dmg, okay? Seems a bit exaggerated.

LOL what? No nerf to Coalescence of Ruin’s damage? I’m hitting people for 15k with this 1200 range 2 second cool down skill.

What on earth…

This is not balance, this is….nothing, but even nothing is too good word for that.

More you wait you lose more players who are talking negatively about this game and passing information to those who are future buyers. You already lost million+ players in 1 month… just sayin…

I am at a loss for words that we have to wait till end of Januari to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Incoming exodus.

Props to the art team etc (HoT looks really great) but man did you kitten up almost everything else. Shambles.

• Coalescence of Ruin: This ability will no longer hit over the maximum number of targets (5). The cascade will additionally cease its progression if it hits the maximum number of targets.

Ok, I don’t comment in the forum much about changes made to skill/traits because most I tend to agree with. This one, I don’t. What I’m reading from this change says that the skill will never be able to do it’s maximum damage output which comes from the third cascade because anything (including ambient creatures) would count as a hit and will more than likely keep the third cascade from happening more times than not. Now, I am an adament Revenant player, even made it my main and I do agree that CoR needs a nerf. However, there are other options that would have nerfed it but continue to make it a viable skill and allowing the skill to do what it’s meant to do, i.e. you could make it a single burst aoe (instead of three bursts) that hits only 5 people (instead of the current 5 people per burst in total 15) from 0-1200 dealing increased damage to players it hits farther out with range indicators stating range and damage, or another option is reduce the ammount of players each cascade hits from 5 to 3 (or even 2) and give a damage reduction so the third cascade (with all traits, gear, buffs, ect.) doesn’t hit for the 17-18k people are complaining about. That’s my two cents on it. Otherwise, great game guys, I enjoy it immensely.

Super cool balance patch. Way to balance the game.

Xenesis.6389:

Why are you fractal people freaking out? This thread is just a quick note on pvp hot fixes coming this week not the entire patch notes. Jesus people read and understand the post.

P.S Spammable aoe on a 2sec cooldown that can crit for 15k?, most other classes would give an arm and a leg for that. Most aoe’s in the game are already capped to 5 targets.

Because:

• It’s not sPvP specific.
• But assuming it’s not, why is this the important part? There’s much much bigger and more urgent fish to fry.

Gaile Gray.6029:

all of the changes

Kappa

AysonCurrax.3254:

So, are we just going to ignore the fact that you, Arenanet, clearly stated, that there wont be any balance updates while there is an ongoing PvP Season? Why set rules, if you arent going to stick with it?

She clearly states that balance patch was originally not going to occur until January but that emergent issues caused the need for it, and most players agree that they need to make an emergency patch, that is not even in question, the issue with this is that it doesn’t go far enough.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

LOL are you serious Anet?

Another slap in the face to PvE players because the 0.1% PvP elites are inconvenienced.

PvP is almost literally being destroyed so yes they are going to fix it.

Carighan.6758:

• But assuming it’s not, why is this the important part? There’s much much bigger and more urgent fish to fry.

I don’t think non pvp players understand exactly how bad pvp is ATM.

These qualify as issues which require speedy resolution? I cannot possibly see how that is the case now, yet it wasn’t 2 weeks ago when the pvp community screamed for balance prior to the league.

Also please just split pve and pvp skills. You’ll have to do it eventually and it’ll make both sides a lot happier.

Why complain with the… hmmm… little “mesmer nerf”? Seriously. I’m a mesmer and the elite spec is totally OP in PvE.
Stop complaining for thing that need to be nerfed. And I even think mesmer need MUCH more nerf… Whenever I play or play with a mesmer, I’m like “oh nice, the combat will be fast and sweet, because MOAR skillspeed thanks to mesmer.”

Gaile Gray.6029:

Balance itself is an iterative process and our work will be ongoing. We’re taking a hard look at the ways players are experiencing content across the game (raids, fractals, open world, PvP, and WvW) and we’ll be making adjustments accordingly.

That means => separating sPvP from PvE and WvW?
And maybe WvW from PvE too? (If it’s the case, I might give a try to WvW !)
Anyway if you really meant by “we’ll be making adjustments accordingly” what it really means… all I can say is that looks good and might promising !

Gaile Gray.6029:

Our next major balance update will be released at the end of January, and after the new year we plan on sharing the high-level details of those changes, giving you an opportunity to provide feedback to our design team.

Well.. end of January is normal, I’d say ! We can let you have some holidays, can’t we?
Good holidays and I hope you’ll do the rights choices concerning the balances.

I can have my pause of the game in peace now, I guess x)

Khyan.7039:

Why complain with the… hmmm… little “mesmer nerf”? Seriously. I’m a mesmer and the elite spec is totally OP in PvE.
Stop complaining for thing that need to be nerfed. And I even think mesmer need MUCH more nerf… Whenever I play or play with a mesmer, I’m like “oh nice, the combat will be fast and sweet, because MOAR skillspeed thanks to mesmer.”

Nobody is saying Mesmer shouldn’t be nerfed……

Achrya.7892:

Xillllix.3485:

Gaile Gray.6029:

A message from the Balance Team:

As mentioned in our “Road Ahead for 2015” blog, our strategy for adjusting the meta-game in Guild Wars 2 after the release of Heart of Thorns focuses on releasing balance updates on a set cycle – each and every quarter.

Your strategy isn’t good.

First of all you need to fix broken skills that do 17-20k damage like Coalescence of Ruin or Gun Flame on the week we find out the issues, not 3 months later, because these press 1 button to win skills are ruining the game for everyone in the competitive modes.

Secondly, we don’t want “meta changes” where you are just stuck into playing the same build for 3 months. We want balanced skills so that we can have Build variety as it was promised with the new trait system. The players should be dictating the meta by creative thinking, Anet shouldn’t be dictating it for them and cornering them into meta-builds that they have no choice to run, as it currently is.

Pls do me a favor and send a screenshot of that 17-20k dmg, okay? Seems a bit exaggerated.

It’s not. I can get 18K without being in a party, without having decent food buffs, and without full bloodlust stacks, so 20K is probably doable. Also, the target is probably full zerk, so in other words, totally asking for it. hehe

Andraus.3874:

Khyan.7039:

Why complain with the… hmmm… little “mesmer nerf”? Seriously. I’m a mesmer and the elite spec is totally OP in PvE.
Stop complaining for thing that need to be nerfed. And I even think mesmer need MUCH more nerf… Whenever I play or play with a mesmer, I’m like “oh nice, the combat will be fast and sweet, because MOAR skillspeed thanks to mesmer.”

Nobody is saying Mesmer shouldn’t be nerfed……

I gets ahead! \o/

thank you anet for fixing looking forward to the big patch

Alright peeps, let’s not shoot the messenger… Gaile is one of us and saved my life once from the mighty Jormag. She is on our side…

CoR is one of the hardest hitting WvW attacks in the game right now, spammable, an AoE, long range and pretty much everyone knows it.

Only a Mesmer could slide by with this “balance” change. If this skill were on a thief or warrior, they would have replaced the damage with an enemy heal. Then promised to “fix” it… then promptly forget to fix it.

One can only hope Blur is getting an adjustment and it wasn’t listed.

So thief continues to get ignored. Sigh.

Unfortunately the spvp league won’t end for 6? more weeks.

Don’t worry, I’m sure our legendary gifts are being prepared along with this update. Gaile just forgot to paste it in there…

Fix the issue with Trailblazer Insignias and Inscriptions not working in the Mystic Forge!
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/BUG-Trailblazer-s-Stat-Swap-Merged/first

Melanion.4892:

Jiggawattz.2697:

How is this going to balance the nearly spam-able team wide distortion and blur that are non removable, non corrupt-able, non counter-able invulnerabilities?

Doesn’t shocking aura interrupt things while blurred, still? And retal?

Good luck killing a sentinels mesmer with retaliation damage..
/yawn

As a mesmer, I will say that block is literally the least broken of all mesmer damage mitigation. Just a simple switch of “blurred targets do not contribute to point capture” would fix almost every issue people currently have with them in pvp. As far as pve, I didn’t see it making any gamebreaking changes. I guess I’m no authority on the subject, but I just really want to understand why this is the change being made.

fixit.7189:

So thief continues to get ignored. Sigh.

The thief and warrior projects have been terminated. They only remain in the game for backward compatibility.

“We’re taking a hard look at the ways players are experiencing content across the game”
if this was the truth, we would have at least 5 balance patches in since leagues started

It’s just frustrating how toxic the PvP meta is right now. I’ve seen 2v2 fights at mid that lasted five minutes straight with no fatalities and no successful capture. This is a step in the right direction, but only a very small step, and tempests are still out of control.

pls do keep ignoring thief ugh so done with this, world of tanks here i come (>o.o)>

Cuddle Time.4027:

As a mesmer, I will say that block is literally the least broken of all mesmer damage mitigation. Just a simple switch of “blurred targets do not contribute to point capture” would fix almost every issue people currently have with them in pvp. As far as pve, I didn’t see it making any gamebreaking changes. I guess I’m no authority on the subject, but I just really want to understand why this is the change being made.

No you’re right. They just never understood Mesmer well. Seems Chrono is the same.

It’s nice to be told of updates in advance, even if it is only a day. Really though, assuming this game is going e-sports and has a large competitive player-base, informing players about upcoming updates and at least some if not most of what is going to be in them should be done at least a week ahead of time so players have time to prepare for the shift - especially if tournaments are upcoming or ongoing at the time. It’s nice to hear that this might be the aim - a new year’s resolution? - but we’ve seen it started before, and it’s great, but then after 1-2 weeks it’s back to silence. So I will remain skeptical.

I would also like to assume that the lateness in dealing with the game breaking builds and unbalanced skills is due to a lot of changes being done and bundled together. Well, firstly, ideally, they would be made live as and when they are completed - not held back to be released in a big bundle. If there is a fix for a problem that is making aspects of the game frequently un-enjoyable, they should be applied! Secondly, I can’t assume there will be a lot of changes because most of the times in the past we’ve been waiting extremely patiently for months for a "big" balance patch, there wasn’t actually that much in it, and it hardly made an impact to gameplay except for one or two classes, leaving the meta the same. So I’ll be remaining skeptical on that, too.

This time hoping to be proven wrong instead of right.

I’ll say it once more with feeling, “Skill splits please.”

What is this bullkitten?

The toxicity here is strong. Its a step forward, and the changes are extremely conservative. Lets not jump on them in the one thread where progress has been stated.

I hope this continues going forward. If arenanet do start balancing their game iteratively, gw2 pvp certainly has the opportunity to reinvent itself.

There are some major MMO pvp games out Q1 next year however. I hope this mentality can gain some traction with the fans before then.

Gaile, I don’t have anything nice to say. I want the game modes balanced separately.

Thats a PvP only change for Mesmer right?

You aren’t going to make the game worse for your paying customers just to appease a minority of players, who don’t want to learn how to play the game, when you can easily split the changes right?

Achrya.7892:

Pls do me a favor and send a screenshot of that 17-20k dmg, okay? Seems a bit exaggerated.

Here you go:
(see image below)