The new balance patch has been released. I’m leaving out the changes to Spirit Watch, Skyhammer, Foefire, Forest, and Stronghold and focusing on game balance. Below are some of my brief thoughts.
TLDR: Great changes overall. A mix of nerfs and QoL changes without any real powercreep. It’s hard to say how things will play out with the new amulets. Unfortunately this patch won’t fix the powercreep from the elite specs, which remain much stronger than there core spec counterparts.
Highlights
New amulets introduced.
Scrapper sustain overall nerfed.
SnR range nerfed and CD increased.
Reaper Deathly Chill and RS pressure nerfed.
Warrior sustain buffs which might help depending on the adrenal health numbers.
DH true shot and hunters ward given appropriate nerfs: HW ward is now dodgeable.
No real revenant nerfs.
No mesmer Moa/continuum split nerfs, but some QoL buffs.
Sigil of Nullification:
Reduced the internal cooldown from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.Added two new amulets:
* Destroyer:*
1050 Power
1050 Precision
560 Ferocity
560 Condition Damage
Demolisher:
1050 Power
1050 Precision
560 Ferocity
560 Toughness
Looks great. Demolisher will be the go-to amulet for power necros, power warriors, and probably a replacement for paladins for scrapper, though not DH.
Damage Changes
These damage modifiers were reduced, as they applied too much spike damage to targets at range and didn’t allow for enough counterplay. We do want to keep ranged combat viable in WvW scenarios, but we don’t want it to be the best option in open-field combat. As with the other changes, we’ll continue to watch and make adjustments where it’s deemed necessary.True Shot: The damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%.
Gun Flame: The physical damage of this primal burst has been reduced by 20%. Fixed an issue that allowed this burst to hit enemies twice. This burst no longer pierces but still delivers the area-of-effect attack. Fixed a bug that caused the tool tip to show a decrease in damage when the Burst Mastery trait was in use.
Great change to True Shot and Gun Flame, which were overperforming on very low CD’s.
PROFESSION SKILLS
General
snip
Rune of Vampirism: Life stealing now scales properly with power.
Fixed improper life-stealing damage values for consumables, increasing damage by 10.
Stability: The frequency at which stability can be removed by control effects has been increased from 0.05 seconds to 0.75 seconds. A brief effect will now play on the character when stability is removed via control.
Quickness/Slow: The formula for animation-speed increases and decreases has been modified. Quickness is normalized to behave the same as before, while Slow has had its effectiveness reduced. However, due to the formula change, Slow will continue to have a negative impact while Quickness is in effect. The table below indicates how this change works.Skill Cast With Old Quickness With Old Slow With Both Old With New Quickness With New Slow With Both New
10 seconds 6.66 seconds 20 seconds 10 seconds 6.66 seconds 15 seconds 11.66 secondsThis change allows for more fluidity, as the previous animation-speed formula caused slowing effects to be stronger than we desired. As an added benefit, we have not reduced the effectiveness of any trait that modifies attack speed, so these traits will see a boost in speed given.
Stability can now only be removed 1 stack per 0.75 seconds. This is a big change and will probably help. Instead of removing the CC from the elite specs, all of it is being indirectly nerfed. For classes with limited stability access, prepare to continue being thrown around like a ragdoll. Slow has been nerfed by 50%.
Elementalist
We’re continuing to watch the elementalist and its tempest specialization, and we’ll look to make improvements in lesser-used areas. For this update, we’ll be looking at weapon skills that promote both scepter and dagger. Scepter changes include some modification to casting times and damage increases for both physical and condition damage. The dagger’s abilities have been adjusted to be both more frequently usable and pack a bigger punch for both main-hand and off-hand use.Glyph of Storms: This skill now has new icons for each attunement for better visibility.
Glyph of Elemental Power: This skill now has new icons for each attunement for better visibility.
Glyph of Elemental Harmony: This skill now has new icons for each attunement for better visibility.
Glyph of Renewal: This skill now has new icons for each attunement for better visibility.
Flamestrike: The cast point of this skill has been reduced by 0.2 seconds. The aftercast delay of this ability has been reduced by 0.38 seconds.
Ice Shards: The damage applied by this skill has been increased by 33%.
Shatterstone: The damage of this skill has been increased by 22%.
Water Trident: The healing contribution per level of this skill has been increased by 27%.
Arc Lightning: The damage of this skill at all levels has been increased by 33%.
Rock Barrier—Hurl: This skill now applies 1 stack of bleeding for 8 seconds when striking an enemy.
Dust Devil: The cast point of this skill has been reduced by 0.15 seconds. The aftercast delay of this ability has been reduced by 0.3 seconds.
Lightning Touch: The damage of this skill has been increased by 66%.
Churning Earth: The damage of this skill has been increased by 7%.
Fire Grab: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
Frozen Burst: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
Fireball: The effect of this skill has been returned to its previous state. The damage of this skill has been increased by 17%.
Gust: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
Windborne Speed: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
Static Field: The number of times this skill can be used to attempt to stun an enemy has been capped at 10.
Unsteady Ground: The number of times this skill can be used to attempt to knock back an enemy has been capped at 10. The duration of this skill has been increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
“Eye of the Storm!”: This skill can no longer be used to attempt to stun-break NPCs who aren’t already in combat.
Nothing I can see here will change the current meta. Elementalist remains powercreeped bunker guard 2.0.
Engineer
Our goal for this quarter has been to reduce a bit of the scrapper’s survivability while updating the base engineer with multiple weapon and utility quality-of-life changes. Some increases have been based around physical and condition damage increases for the pistol, to help its viability as a hybrid condition option. From the utilities side, we’ve made several adjustments to damage and recharge for underutilized skills. One of the bigger notes is that Slick Shoes are now only able to affect a target once per skill activation.Fixed a bug that prevented certain engineer kits from becoming hidden while gathering.
Fragmentation Shot: The damage of this skill has been increased by 14%.
Static Shot: Confusion duration has been increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds. The number of confusion stacks has been increased from 2 to 3. The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
Blowtorch: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
Bomb Kit: Fixed a bug that caused the explosions of this skill to behave oddly and not occur where the bomb was originally laid.
Toss Elixir C: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 25 seconds to 20 seconds.
Toss Elixir R: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 100 seconds to 90 seconds.
Toss Elixir S: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 45 seconds.
Elixir U: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 45 seconds.
Healing Turret: The casting time of this skill has been increased from 0.5 seconds to 0.75 seconds.
Throw Mine: The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 18 seconds to 15 seconds. The damage has been increased by 20%.
Rocket Kick: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 17 seconds to 15 seconds. The damage has been increased by 33%.
Launch Personal Battering Ram: The cripple duration from this tool-belt skill has been increased from 5 seconds to 6 seconds.
Slick Shoes: This skill is now limited to knocking each enemy down once. The number of enemies that it can affect remains unchanged. The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.
Rocket Charge: This skill now executes two leaps instead of three. This skill now charges straight forward rather than angling slightly on the initial two leaps.
Equalizing Blow: Increased the number of might and vulnerability stacks applied from 1 to 3.
Sneak Gyro: This skill now has a 0.75-second casting time.
Rapid Regeneration: The base healing of this trait has been reduced from 150 to 20 when under the influence of superspeed and from 25 to 5 when under the effects of swiftness. Level and healing values continue to scale the same for superspeed. Swiftness’s scaling with levels has been increased by 20%.
Shredder Gyro: The damage caused by this skill has been increased by 600%. The duration has been reduced by 50%. Removed the initial strike.
Scrapper survivability has been nerfed. Condi engi has been buffed. Elixer CD’s lowered quite a bit. Healing turret cast time increased, which is good. MAJOR slick shoes nerf: you can only be knocked down once. Excellent change. Rocket Charge was nerfed down from 3 leap finishers to 2, and Sneak gyro has been given a casting time. All appropriate changes. I was dissapointed by the lack of nerfs to the hammer damage coefficients. Scrapper’s are going to be pumping out the same insane DPS, and can make good use of the new Destroyer amulet.
(edited by Salamander.2504)