Guild Wars 2

Critical Damage
Crit Damage as a percentage stat will go away
Replaced by a numeric stat called Ferocity
Balanced to be about 10% less damage overall
PVP crit damage won’t change – they feel it’s in a good place already
Numeric amount same as “secondary stat” on gear (e.g. 90 power/60 prec/60 fero for berserker)
Opens up potential for Ferocity to be a primary stat on new stat combo
Sigils
Two sigil slots for two-handed weapons!
No more shared cooldowns!!
RNG reduced – percent chance on crit will probably just become 100% on-crit
Still only one stacking sigil type (bloodlust, perception etc.)
Dual swap sigils WILL both proc. (e.g. Battle + Geomancy or Air + Fire)
Runes
Adding strong bonuses further towards rune #4/5/6 to give more benefit of having full sets
Added more condi duration on early bonuses so 2/2/2 is still possible
Examples: Strength: 1) 25 power, 2) 10% might duration, 3) 50 power, 4) 15% might duration and 25% might proc on hit, 5) 100 power, 6) 20% might duration, +5% damage under might.
Fixing Rune #6 bonuses and other rune bugs (e.g. Ranger runes etc.)
They’ve done a balance pass over runes and sigils to try to improve diversity.
PVP
Adding new unlockable stat combos for PVP (similar to how new heal skills are being added)
This is more speculative / for future, probably not in next build
Balance Preview – There will be balance updates in the next build:
Elementalist
Signet of Restoration is restored to full power (no more pve/pvp split)
Armor of Earth cooldown goes from 90s to 75s (pre-cantrip mastery)
3 seconds of Regen added to Water Trident (for up to 5 allies) – supportcondi removal for scepter
Burning Speed now evades during cast! (more melee survival for d/d)
Frozen Burst is now a blast finisher! (can combo with Burning Speed)
Engineer
Net Turret immobilize reduced by 1 second
Poison grenades – poison applied per tick reduced from 5 to 3 seconds
Toolkit – Box of Nails/Piranhas cast time reduced from 1 sec to 3/4 sec
AED cast time reduced from 1 sec to 3/4 sec (may go to 1/2sec later)
Guardian
Litany of Wrath cast time reduced from 1 sec to 3/4 sec (may go to 1/2sec later)
Vigorous Precision cooldown increased to 10 sec (so only 50% vigor uptime)
Healing Breeze rescaled so 50% self-applies on cast, then 10% per tick for 5 seconds on allies
Mesmer
Critical Infusion cooldown increased to 10 sec (so only 50% vigor uptime)
Deceptive Evasion will no longer create a new clone if you already have full images (no overwrites) (yeesh, that’s huge. RIP clone-death builds.) :‘(
Necromancer
Putrid Explosion is no longer unblockable
Training of the Master damage bonus reduced from 30% to 25%
Dhuumfire changed to make only Life Blast apply 3 sec burning with 10 sec cd – no longer split pve/pvp
Less passive — controllable application, and makes for active counter-play possibilities
Vampiric Master rebalanced, so Mastery gives the biggest leech boost (thanks, /u/razinbread)
Ranger
Spirit of Nature healing was bugged – changing to 320hp / sec
Considering adding combo field to all trap skills (Viper’s Nest => poison field, etc.)
Empathetic Bond will no longer remove conditions when pet is dead
Making steps towards allowing dodge during sword auto chain (server-side fixes involved)
Thief
Positive things coming that won’t be discussed yet (same for ranger)
Pistol Whip possibly split into two-part skill with separate ini cost (stun and then slashes separated)
Warrior
Healing Signet passive reduced by about 8% (~30hps), active may be improved / altered
Pin Down has new animation / tell, cast time increased from 1/4 to 3/4 sec
Quoted from Valarauka on Reddit

Ones that I Like
Engineers Net has been nerfed
Necros Duumfire nerfed
Ele buffs

Think that was all I really like. Otherwise the healing signet has been reduced a small amount which is 30hps. Doesn’t seem like enough to me and they are talking about buffing the active. Thief has been nerfed in two ways, the first being the 10% crit damage nerf and then the poison fields and such. I pretty much stopped paying attention when they said nerf. Next being mesmer’s dodge mechanic that creates clones when traited. This is such a huge nerf. I agree that PU needs to be nerfed but not in this way. I don’t get it. Those clones are used to trick someone while in stealth to think that is you. They need to nerf the aspect of mesmers hiding in PU while delivering a lot of damage at the same time.

Other than that, there are some good things coming when it comes to runes and signets.

I really don’t understand how they don’t see how powerful conditions are in this game when it comes to PvP right now. That means sPvP and WvW. It seems all they are looking at is dungeons and PvE in general. There were no major nerfs to Conditions in general and there’s a nerf to DPS. Why?
Discuss.

The critical 10% nerf is only for Pve and WvW so it is not a nerf for thieves in PvP.
Dhumfire will now last 3s instead of 2s if i heard correctly so it is a buff according to me.

Healsig change is a start at least, looking forward to what they do to the active.
Really really really like what they did with dhumfire, I just have no idea why incendiary powder isn’t changed.

I didn’t really understand what they’re gonna do with sigils. So now we can stack air + fire but not use energy on one weapon and then on another weapon? Like gs/staff mesmers with 2 energy sigils? That coupled with the vigor nerf is terrible. This type of trait was actually not op on mesmers because mesmers use dodges for both offensive and defensive, the amount of dodges we spare for actually evading attacks is probably smaller than what other classes do, even before they were nerfed. The deception evasion change is also really really bad. All this put together, shatter mesmer is taking a huge kittening nerf in my opinion. Will have to wait and see. Curious to see what master helseth’s opinion is. Add the thief damage buff with air + fire sigil, mesmer is now a piñata. I mean, they take a super soft approach on warrior healsig, and then take a dump on shatter mesmer. I really hope I’m wrong and overreacting though. I can also see a chance of actually creating some skillful play on better managing clones and keeping them at count 2 a save a third for a more reactionary play?

So can someone confirm me this? We won’t be able to use double energy sigils (one on each weapon) but we will be able proc both sigil of air and fire?

Also, there’s no nerf to dps, that ferocity stuff will only happen on pve, from what I understood.

2 handed weapons will now have 2 sigil slots. So to prevent sigil stacking the same sigil “type” on the SAME weapon or weapon set will not stack.

But if you have Sigil of Energy on GS and Staff, and you swap.. your still good. You just can’t put 2 sigils of energy on the one GS.

I missed the stream =( Any idea when the vod will be up?

1, This stuff wont be in for ages. It is anet so probably march (lol)

2, The sigil changes are huge and just lead to power creep – imagine proccing air and fire on a single attack then getting a dodge by switching to an energy set. MASSIVE power creep.

3, They have to nerf spirit ranger if they are intent on nerfing a (not nearly as strong) minion spec. Nerfing both is a good idea, as both are skilless. But more nerfs to spirits are needed on top of the elite spirit nerf because spirits is strong and clutters up the battlefield even without the elite.

4, They finally made dhuumfire useless but in the meantime nerfed all the bleeds. This is fine, I would rather necro be over nerfed than be totally skilless. But makes you wonder about their planning.

All in all at least these changes are actually changes which could impact the game. So they should be commended. Small changes suck when the game should get large changes to keep things fresh – espicially in a pvp game without a gear grind where people can just change their build if it sucks.

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, This stuff wont be in for ages. It is anet so probably march (lol)

They said the next feature patch will have balance changes, which should be end of january?

Lordrosicky.5813:

1, This stuff wont be in for ages. It is anet so probably march (lol)

2, The sigil changes are huge and just lead to power creep – imagine proccing air and fire on a single attack then getting a dodge by switching to an energy set. MASSIVE power creep.

3, They have to nerf spirit ranger if they are intent on nerfing a (not nearly as strong) minion spec. Nerfing both is a good idea, as both are skilless. But more nerfs to spirits are needed on top of the elite spirit nerf because spirits is strong and clutters up the battlefield even without the elite.

4, They finally made dhuumfire useless but in the meantime nerfed all the bleeds. This is fine, I would rather necro be over nerfed than be totally skilless. But makes you wonder about their planning.

All in all at least these changes are actually changes which could impact the game. So they should be commended. Small changes suck when the game should get large changes to keep things fresh – espicially in a pvp game without a gear grind where people can just change their build if it sucks.

Yep, another let down from A-Net. Especially the possible change to dhuumfire. Just why? Absolute nonsens, tells me again that they have clearly no idea about balance.

These changes will be on the next update according them which is the 21st. Only thing they said that wouldnt be in this patch is the new unlockable stat combos for PvP. I think a lot of these changes are great except for the fact that conditions still rule all PvP aspects of the game and now even more.

mons.1386:

The critical 10% nerf is only for Pve and WvW so it is not a nerf for thieves in PvP.
Dhumfire will now last 3s instead of 2s if i heard correctly so it is a buff according to me.

You didn’t hear correctly. Dhuumfire will now only proc for 1 skill (Lifeblast) not on critical hits generally. It’s a huge nerf and it puts necros back to normal tier, imo.

But really, we have no idea how the metagame will be like. They literally, LITERALLY reworked, even slighly, all existing rune sets to introduce variety. And I like it.

I’d just like to point out something about 2H weapons getting dual sigils. That’s all well and good, but 2h weapons have higher weapon coefficients than regular 1h weapons. For example, Greatsword has an average weapon coefficient of 1047.5 while Sword has an average weapon coefficient of 952.5. That means that GS will do an average of 9.97% more damage than Sword will do. That’s the equivalent of two Force sigils already. By being able to place two sigils on a 2h weapon, we’re essentially giving 2h weapons a base 10% more damage than regular 1h weapons with no drawbacks. For a lot of classes/builds, this won’t have much effect, but it’ll have some pretty massive repercussions on thieves (whose only 2h weapon is SB, which isn’t usually used for damage anyways) and engis (who tend not to use Rifle anyways). Given that ANet didn’t address this, I’m deeply concerned that they don’t understand the consequences of their decisions.

no nerfs to conditions and yet i see nerfs for direct damage?

has anet not been paying attention to this bullkitten with condition bunkers and condition spam?

Thief has been nerfed in two ways, the first being the 10% crit damage nerf and then the poison fields and such

- What do you mean by the nerfs to poison fields? Did I miss something, also the crit damage nerf is PvE only so not really worried.

Bear in mind that they’re doing a balance pass on sigils too, so they may tone down the damage on some sigils once you can stack them. Also, I doubt the boost to overall damage will be that much higher with fire + air over fire + force.

OP missed the change to thief Choking Gas – each poison application is now 3 sec (down from 5 sec)

Amitabh Bachan.4385:

Thief has been nerfed in two ways, the first being the 10% crit damage nerf and then the poison fields and such

- What do you mean by the nerfs to poison fields? Did I miss something, also the crit damage nerf is PvE only so not really worried.

They had mentioned it in the stream but in don’t remember exactly what they said and the post I quoted from reddit didn’t mention it either but I forget the specifics. Sorry.

+1 anet
Can’t really complain.
Less passive across the board (unless you count SoR which is still at least not completely passive), especially on Dhumfire and at least some AI builds, and of course Healsig, and rune changes which badly needed to happen.

good stuff overall, gg devs