Like most players I was really looking forward to those patch notes set to be released with the patch. I was expecting the first major game-play revision since launch.
What I later read though looked more like a random assortment of changes rather than anything based of the feedback provided through these forums over the past months. In fact, a lot of the changes still leave me perplexed and I have a hard time making sense of ANets reasoning.
Let’s just re-cap some of the most heated balance issues that were discussed on these forums over the past weeks/months.
The top balance issues were
1. Thief Backstab burst in PvP and WvW
2. Guardian Bunker builds in PvP
3. Elementalist Bunker builds in PvP
4. Poor state of Rangers
5. Mesmers potency in PvP and WvW
6. The general power of Quickness
So let’s just see how each of the issues was tackled, if at all.
1. Undoubtedly the most discussed balance issue was Thief Backstab Burst caused by the Steal+Mug > C&D > Backstab combo.
How was this addressed?
Well Cloak and Dagger Damage was reduced by 33% in PvP. Yet not only was C&D the least problematic part of the Backstab combo it also doesn’t apply to WvW, where a lot of the complaints originated from.
Essentially Thief Backstab burst remains unchanged for WvW players and wasn’t nerfed much in sPvP either. Not only that, with C&D nerfed it also made a few of the less popular builds less attractive (S/D, P/D).
The fact that Mug, a Tier 2 Trait can still crit for up to 6000 or being able to Steal during C&D was not addressed.
2. Followed by the Thieves debate was the issue with Bunker Guardians and their impact on tPvP games.
How was this addressed?
With the changes to some of the Boon-Runes and changes to some of the Guardian’s boon durations their survivability should be somewhat lower. Especially the nerf to Selfless Daring should be noticeable.
But on a grander scale of things…I seriously doubt this will be enough to change the current tPvP meta game. Not only that, this still makes Bunker Guardians virtually unkillable 1v1 in WvW and probably PvP too.
Considering how big of an issue Guardians were…these changes just aren’t going to be enough to seriously impair Bunker Guardians. It’s odd considering that Elementalist Bunker builds did get a significant nerf.
3. Elementalists were the second popular Bunker build.
How was this addressed?
While the functionality of most skills remains unchanged, the changes to the Boon duration coupled with changes to Evasive Arcana should make Elementalist Bunker builds slightly less problematic than they were before.
4. While balance issues with other professions were discussed too, most people agreed that Rangers performed rather poorly in PvP.
How was this addressed?
While Rangers did receive a number of changes and buffs to specific abilities no change will lead me to believe that Rangers now will be any better than they were before. In fact the patch didn’t address nearly as many issues as Ranger players were lead to believe.
5. Mesmer discussions were less unanimous although they are generally perceived as a very powerful profession. Issues evolved particularly around the use of Portals both in PvP and WvW.
How was this addressed?
This is one of the most baffling changes I read in the patch notes: “The cooldown of portal is now 90 seconds, up from 60”. Now maybe there was a very explicit tactic that was supposed to be limited by this change but other than that, it changes absolutely nothing about the skill.
I mean the fact that they changed it at all implies that something was wrong about it. And yet the change they made seems to be the most ineffectual one they could have come up with. It has zero effect on portal bombing, on fights against Mesmers or on PvP portal tactics.
It just seems completely useless.
6. Quickness, the 100% speed increase caused by a few abilities was genrally considered problematic in the grand scale of things, especially compared to other DPS increasing abilities.
How was this addressed?
Now there is always the possibility that ANet didn’t consider this as much as an issue as the community. Maybe that’s why nothing changed. Quickness still stands out as the only 100% DPS increase in game.
Now what bugs me most about these changes is not that a specific ability or skill was not buffed or nerfed. It’s the fact that, as an avid forum poster, I feel all the feedback and discussion we had here on these forums was completely ineffectual.
Very few of the changes address concrete issues discussed here on these boards or even consider the many pages of insightful discussions that were had.
I ask why bother having an online forum if you’re going to ignore most of the feedback and discussion anyway?
It just seems so pointless.