Guild Wars 2

there is something missing in these notes.

Where are the fixes to noise effects in elementalist skills?

That end of January balance patch better be the second coming, or you’re going to lose a lot of Thieves and Warriors (among others). I for one have no intention of logging in even for daily chests until the next patch hits in late January. The game just isn’t that fun in its current state, so until something changes I will spend my time and money elsewhere. The US release of Blade & Soul is less than a month away, after all…

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Elrey.5472:

I just hope this change doesn’t affect raids. Please make “only PvP” changes before it’s too late. It will be frustrating if you make raids even harder because of something that’s not even related to PvE.

Distortion vs blur has no effect on pve

Well, that’s not completely true. The distortion changes are a potentially game breaking buff in raids, but I believe the other person was also talking about the original changes to the block duration. I don’t foresee any of these changes making mesmer less viable at all. Their main raid utility right now is in being a boon bot. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are currently in the lowest DPS class in the game if you exclude raid utility that they give other people.

Concur.7489:

“we’ll be revisiting all skills in our end-of-January balance update”

Is this referring to all class skills, or just Mesmer, or just this one skill on Mesmer?

Can you go back and read again?
If you’ve read what he’s been saying, you would understand that end-of-January ’s gonna be a big patch for PvP.

Hopefully, they’ll review thief and war! It’s very likely though!

Now stop whining and just wait, we’ve been whining for so long, it’s enough and it’s becoming ridiculous.

Cuddle Time.4027:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Elrey.5472:

I just hope this change doesn’t affect raids. Please make “only PvP” changes before it’s too late. It will be frustrating if you make raids even harder because of something that’s not even related to PvE.

Distortion vs blur has no effect on pve

Well, that’s not completely true. The distortion changes are a potentially game breaking buff in raids, but I believe the other person was also talking about the original changes to the block duration. I don’t foresee any of these changes making mesmer less viable at all. Their main raid utility right now is in being a boon bot. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are currently in the lowest DPS class in the game if you exclude raid utility that they give other people.

My guild use chronomancer as tank, he relies a lot on blocks so there’s why. It would be frustrating if they make skills for raids even harder to use just because it doesn’t work as expected in PvP. Guilds that never PvP would find that kind of changes a bit stupid, if I can be honest.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inspiring_Distortion

Speaking of balance, has there been an adjustment to the drop rate of Black Lion Ticket Scraps? I spent a fairly large amount of gold converting gold to gems to buy Black Lion Keys. After opening 8 Black Lion Chests and not receiving one scrap I was rather disappointed. The rate shown on the Wiki approximates 32% drop rate..yet I had a 0% drop rate in 8 chests. Unlucky or has the rate been adjusted and it not been mentioned to the players. I’m severely disappointed at this waste of gold.

-A faithful but disappointed customer/long-time player.

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.

Then there’s a 4% chance to get no scraps from 8 chests – sounds like you were unlucky, but it’s well within the expected range for RNG, gotta be prepared to lose occasionally.

Thanks for balancing my class around a single gameplay mode I don’t even play. SPvP and PvE balance needs to SEPARATE.

Zhemos.6290:

Thanks for balancing my class around a single gameplay mode I don’t even play. SPvP and PvE balance needs to SEPARATE.

this is a pretty hard buff for PvE mesmer…. aoe invulnerability is so much better than aoe dodge

Good change. It was much needed.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Mesmer:

• Well of Precognition: This ability now applies distortion instead of blur and prevents capture-point contribution. Casting time has been increased from 0.25 seconds to 0.75 seconds, and aftercast delay has been reduced from 0.5 seconds to 0 seconds.

Now we’re cooking with gas!

so Basicly they are not planning on reworking warrior or thiefs, or nerf all the other classes. Good Plan Anet you suck

PvP ignorance doesn’t seem to realize that the nerf to the skill in PvE comes from the CAST TIME.

PvE mobs strike a lot faster, harder, and with less telegraphs than player skills.

Increasing the cast time to 0.75 seconds makes this a pretty weak reactive tool to defend your team with as most boss/mob attack rates are below 0.75 seconds so you basically eat the attack before the cast is done.

Zenith.7301:

PvP ignorance doesn’t seem to realize that the nerf to the skill in PvE comes from the CAST TIME.

PvE mobs strike a lot faster, harder, and with less telegraphs than player skills.

Increasing the cast time to 0.75 seconds makes this a pretty weak reactive tool to defend your team with as most boss/mob attack rates are below 0.75 seconds so you basically eat the attack before the cast is done.

I laugh out loud when I see that someone saying PVE mobs strike faster and less telegraphic than PVP. (They even have big wind-up or fixed CD timer/ rotation)

Sorry I really can’t keep on reading and take this seriously.

Zenith.7301:

PvP ignorance doesn’t seem to realize that the nerf to the skill in PvE comes from the CAST TIME.

PvE mobs strike a lot faster, harder, and with less telegraphs than player skills.

Increasing the cast time to 0.75 seconds makes this a pretty weak reactive tool to defend your team with as most boss/mob attack rates are below 0.75 seconds so you basically eat the attack before the cast is done.

I can’t think of a single attack nasty enough to require aoe distortion that executes in less than .75 seconds.

That being said, .75 seconds is still stupidly long.

Fay.2357:

Zenith.7301:

PvP ignorance doesn’t seem to realize that the nerf to the skill in PvE comes from the CAST TIME.

PvE mobs strike a lot faster, harder, and with less telegraphs than player skills.

Increasing the cast time to 0.75 seconds makes this a pretty weak reactive tool to defend your team with as most boss/mob attack rates are below 0.75 seconds so you basically eat the attack before the cast is done.

I can’t think of a single attack nasty enough to require aoe distortion that executes in less than .75 seconds.

That being said, .75 seconds is still stupidly long.

^
Even think about Gorseval. His “knock-back-Attack” is so kitten telegraphed…

The inc cast time to 0.75 (for a stun break) is total stupid.
Anet can you clarify the reason for this change? There is no logic in it. The fact Precog now prevents capture points (as well as procs Inspiring Distortion) alone makes it useless in PvP, so whats the point in the increased cast time?

I dont think you even know what you are nerfing.

The prevents capture point was needed, but your reasoning (because we, ANET, don’t like the current bunker meta) is kittened also.

You let Cele d/d eles (and to an extent engis) DEFINE the meta for nearly 2 years, to the point ESL teams ran 3+ eles just to stay competitive, yet because a couple of teams run double chornobunker you feel you need to HOTFIX them? You are a joke.

Have you ever considered the reason some mesmers switched to Chronobunker in the first place?

Mesmers were fed up of having to fight in a BUNKER META and with 0 condi removal, they were a weak link with all the condi revs/bunkers out there.

You have now also made every other chronomancer alternative build more useless because of this nerf too.

Love how you give mesmers the nerf bat just because they adapted to what was already a kittened bunker meta.

Anet never does logic. They dont know how to nerf. Every player and their mum could see Precog needed to prevent capture points, but your reasons for nerf (while d/d ele was god mode for 2+ years) shows what a pathetic balance team you have.

Why not HOTFIX warriors and thieves?

Cheers for the communication. Please don’t feel discouraged that some of what you wrote was seriously misread by some: it was clear enough – please keep at it.

As primarily a vanilla P/P Rogue (‘Thief’) I think you’ll really have your work cut out to present me with a proper fix in the next major balance patch, but we’ll see. If you actually do listen to those who play the classes in all game modes, and not just listen to the ‘Iz OP, plz nerf!’ heads, then something good could happen here.

I don’t have much hope, since (frankly) what appears to be lacking is the desire to fix certain classes at your end, but we’ll see.

ive played beta 1 of B&S, got a key for BDOnline, both of those have better balance and better mechanics than anet have thrown out in the last 4 patches.

Im holding very little hope of returning to the game on my main (thief, over £500/2.8khours ive spent on this game hoping they would fix things) and enjoying things again.

Some of you have some truly horrifying reading comprehension skills…

Aomine.5012:

Zenith.7301:

PvP ignorance doesn’t seem to realize that the nerf to the skill in PvE comes from the CAST TIME.

PvE mobs strike a lot faster, harder, and with less telegraphs than player skills.

Increasing the cast time to 0.75 seconds makes this a pretty weak reactive tool to defend your team with as most boss/mob attack rates are below 0.75 seconds so you basically eat the attack before the cast is done.

I laugh out loud when I see that someone saying PVE mobs strike faster and less telegraphic than PVP. (They even have big wind-up or fixed CD timer/ rotation)

Sorry I really can’t keep on reading and take this seriously.

If you actually played fractal 50 before the expansion nuked fractal difficulty, you’d know mossman and archdiviner melee had autoattack swings with less than that cast time that hit light armor zerker for 7-10k damage.

But I suppose people have short memories and it seems like raids is all they think about now, even though it’s the least rewarding PvE content by far.

PvE players: “Please can you gives us harder and more complex counters. Can we have different roles that need filling in a party. These classes are in a good spot but these other classes can’t keep up, can you give them some help.”

PvP Players: "nerf this and this and this and that and this and nerf this some more and nerf that. That nerf broke that skill? Good nerf it some more. I have to dodge that skill? Nerf it and those 2 other traits on a differnt class to be sure. Then nerf this and that and this and this…. "

And PvP players call PvE players the casuals.

Levetty.1279:

PvE players: “Please can you gives us harder and more complex counters. Can we have different roles that need filling in a party. These classes are in a good spot but these other classes can’t keep up, can you give them some help.”

PvP Players: "nerf this and this and this and that and this and nerf this some more and nerf that. That nerf broke that skill? Good nerf it some more. I have to dodge that skill? Nerf it and those 2 other traits on a differnt class to be sure. Then nerf this and that and this and this…. "

And PvP players call PvE players the casuals.

Human brain > programmed enemies – fighting another player is ten times harder than mobs – so you can believe pvp players that some skills are “OP”.
F.e. I’m playing the weakest class with the weakest spec of the game – the people I defeat in wvw make some really stupid mistakes, otherwise I wouldn’t stand a chance – but I can still solo tower lords (on EB) just fine.

Ha I was right… I already predicted in summer that Mesmer will be the first class which will be toned down – it was fun while it lasted. Now if Revenant, Dragonhunter and Reaper follow, we might have an even playing field again. One more X-mas wish: make thief a unique class again

Gaile Gray.6029:

An Update from our Balance Team:

As developers, we try to push certain aspects of gameplay that align with our vision for the game, but unfortunately things don’t always pan out the way that we hoped they would. A current example of this is the bunker meta that has formed in PvP over the past two weeks across all tiers of play, from Amber Division all the way up to our Pro Leagues. We’ll be honest: we’re not happy with the current meta, and it certainly doesn’t do a great job of showcasing the things that make Guild Wars 2 great, namely our action-based combat.

While our post-HoT balance strategy is to deliver a major balance update every quarter, we do want to emphasize that if glaring issues arise during seasons we won’t hesitate to address them. To this point, on Monday we announced that we’d be making a few mid-season balance changes. After lengthy internal conversation driven both by discussion on our own forums and on other platforms, we have decided to implement one more additional balance change with this week’s update.

Mesmer:

• Well of Precognition: This ability now applies distortion instead of blur and prevents capture-point contribution. Casting time has been increased from 0.25 seconds to 0.75 seconds, and aftercast delay has been reduced from 0.5 seconds to 0 seconds.

A fair number of gameplay implications can arise from such a seemingly small change, so we want to be very clear with all of you regarding our intentions. First and foremost, we understand that this change may have impact on other areas of the game, and that is precisely why we’re viewing today’s change as a short-term solution. We’ll be revisiting all skills in our end-of-January balance update, and we’ll be sharing the specifics of the planned changes with you in early January. In the interim, because this skill will be classified as "no-cap”—meaning that it does not contribute to capture point progress—we’d suggest that you keep an eye out for mesmers using this skill in PvP matches, as they could potentially cause you to decap a point in a way similar to the stealth function. The change to this skill will now also prevent you from interacting with certain channels objectives, such as supply piles in Stronghold or the Meditation buffs in Temple of the Silent Storm.

This change will be included our in hotfix later today.

Cole.3824:

Some of you have some truly horrifying reading comprehension skills…

Shouldn’t that read : ‘Some of you have truly horrific reading comprehension skills’?

Balancing skills and debugging runes are good updates to make, but how about Trailblazer’s insigs cannot be thrown into the Mystic Forge to do the armor stat swap? Instead, I am seeing visual and audio updates take priority. Why is this a thing?

lordpathos.1425:

Balancing skills and debugging runes are good updates to make, but how about Trailblazer’s insigs cannot be thrown into the Mystic Forge to do the armor stat swap? Instead, I am seeing visual and audio updates take priority. Why is this a thing?

News flash, when underlying the armor is vastly more difficult/expensive to produce, they’re not gonna let you sidestep that extra expense with the MF. By Design. Sorry.

Ice Spike still doesn’t work with Quickness from the Sigil of Agility.

Nike.2631:

lordpathos.1425:

Balancing skills and debugging runes are good updates to make, but how about Trailblazer’s insigs cannot be thrown into the Mystic Forge to do the armor stat swap? Instead, I am seeing visual and audio updates take priority. Why is this a thing?

News flash, when underlying the armor is vastly more difficult/expensive to produce, they’re not gonna let you sidestep that extra expense with the MF. By Design. Sorry.

But you can with Vipers and the other new Prefixes? That doesn’t make any sense at all. If 1 out of the 6 new Prefixes is designed to not work in the MF, it should be specifically stated somewhere.