Guild Wars 2

These are all the balance changes I would make for a single balance patch. All these suggestions as specifically aimed towards shaking up the meta and reducing power-creep. That’s why I didn’t propose many buffs at all and that’s why I targeted all the meta builds and elite specs.

Quite honestly, I really think warriors and thieves could be balanced if all these monstruosities below are properly nerfed. They both make huge sacrifices in order to gain some new playstyle or gain some specific perks. Some berserker specs are capable of doing huge damage while sacrificing a lot of defense, this is how it should be. Daredevils can avade a lot and do quite a bit of damage with that staff. Daredevil’s elite skill could use some toning down in damage though. The problem here is that every other elite spec is so over the top in comparision that buffing Berserkers and Daredevils would only increase this powercreep even farther.

I’m going to be harsh on some of my suggestions, but I (mostly! :P) wont give many specific numbers, instead I will give some general ideas on what I think should be nerfed. This is what I want us to discuss, mainly.

Dragonhunter

True Shot. (longbow) CD increased to 6s. Increased oportunity cost. You don’t even need to stow weapon to bait dodges with a 4s CD, too rewarding of a skill.
Piercing Light (Trait). Daze removed and replaced with something else. An unblockable daze removes a lot of counterplay and makes some of the traps, some of which are instant and have low CDs as a whole, a little too rewarding.
Heavy Light (trait). Removed some of the randomness of the knockback. It now causes your True Shot to knockback enemies within the range threshold. CD increased to 12s so you know the knockback happens every second True Shot. Random knockbacks with an unblockable Deflecting Shot are no longer possible.
Dragon’s Maw. It no longer does any damage. No longer affects teleports. Such a strong CC skill, that also gives the guardian 10 stacks of might, should never do any damage at all.

Reaper

Deathly Chill (Trait). Damage significantly reduced. Maybe make it cause vulnerability when hitting chilled foes or something to compensate and to gain better sinergy with Bitter Chill. Although I’m afraid that too much vulnerability is risky as well (even though they can still apply 25 stacks effortlessly). This condition already has incredibly potent effects, it shouldn’t do nowhere near the damage it does currently. It’s even worse than first iteration Dhuumfire right now.
As a general suggestion, chilling uptime across the board should be reduced, it’s a very very strong condition on its own. STOP with the obvious and blatant POWERCREEP!!
Infusing Terror (trait). Duration reduced to 5 seconds, Stability reduced to 2 seconds. Vulnerability to CCs should still be a thing for necros, more so in their shroud form where they can do increased damage while having another pseudo HP bar.
Chilling Victory (trait). Life force gain reduced to 0.5 and might stack duration reduced to 5s. Over the top life force regen and might stacking anyone?
Bitter Chill (trait). Vulnerability stacks reduced to 2. Because easy access to 25 stacks of vulnerability is totally fine. Kind of contradictory to my first suggestion, I know.

Druid

Druid is very tricky, it definetly has some outliers. Although they have some very clear weaknesses like being very vulnerable against CCs, being heavily focus fired and whatnot.
The only potential significant outlier I see is the amount of daze uptime they can put out with the trait Moment of Clarity. And even without this trait, the daze uptime may be too high. I suggest reducing daze durations across the board or altering the Moment of Clarity trait to not have such strong sinergy.
Suggestion: Daze durations from Glyph of Equiality and Lunar impact reduced to 1.5s. Now with Moment of clarity it’s 3 seconds instead of 4.
Also, most of their damage comes from the new pets, mostly from Bristleback’s F2 machinegun skill, maybe reducing the damage of that skill a little would go a long way.

Scrapper

Shock Shield (Hammer). Damage significantly reduced. It now only blocks attacks from the front. It still applies vulnerability. Scrapper denfeses and sustain need to go down as a whole. They CAN’T be THIS tanky with Marauder’s/Zerker’s, it’s crazy stupid. Shock Shield feels too rewarding. And as you may see, I don’t like strong defense or CC skills being so strong offensively (or vice-versa).
Thunder Clap (Hammer). CD increased to 30s. A 1200 range AoE stun that also does a lot of AoE persistent damage needs its opportunity cost increased. CCs need to be reduced across the board too (from all elite specs).
Rocket Charge (Hammer). CD increased to 12s. A 1000 range, tripple leapskill that does a lot of damage and has an avade on top of it on a 10s CD is just way too rewarding. This is a prime example of how overloaded with possitive effects some of the elite spec skills are.
Recovery Matrix (Trait). Protection duration reduced from 5s to 3s.
Rapid Regeneration (Trait). Healing per second reduced by about 33%.
Protection Injection (Trait). ICD increased to 10 seconds. Even if it’s not in the Scrapper line, protection uptime for engies needs to go down, period. They no longer have weak stun breakers, neither they are nearly as weak against CCs, that’s something way from the past. They are not even that weak agasint condition damge anymore for gods sake!
Slick Shoes. Added an ICD of 1.5 second after a knockdown happens, it can no longer knock you down if you’re not moving and it’s also affected by evade frames.
Sneak Gyro. CD increased to 60s. Duration reduced to 20s. The stealth uptime of this thing is off the charts, it’s also instant cast which makes it increadibly strong already.
Detection Pulse (Toolbelt). CD increased to 40s. A wide area reveal on a 20s CD… yeah, why not, because… screw thieves (NOTE: I do NOT main a thief, nor a Warrior for that matter).

Tempest

Diamond skin (trait). Redisigned altogether. Suggestion: It now applies 4s of Resistance when you enter Earth attunement. You also gain -20% damage recieved from conditions passively. We all hate this kittened up trait that also screams design failure all over the place.
Elemental Shielding (trait). Protection duration reduced to 2 seconds. Over the top protection uptime needs to go bye bye.
Hardy Conduit (trait). The increased effectiveness to protection boon is removed and replaced with something else. Anet, do you kittening test your stuff? Frost Aura + Protection Boon + Hardy Conduit passive effect + Stone Flesh + Geomancer’s Defense… all of those didn’t ring any bells? Really?
Element bastion (trait). Base healling significantly reduced, healling power scaling increased. This one is so obvious, if you want to heal for so much over time you better get some Magi/Cleric.
Shocking Aura (skill/general aura). Redisigned. It no longer stuns. Suggestion: It now applies weakness and vulnerability to melee attackers. Said attackers also recieve significant direct damage in return. Ok Ele players, I know beforehand you’re going to trash talk me even ingame for suggesting this one. But, with the inclusion of Air overload and Unstable Conduit, high uptime of this Aura is incredibly strong and creates some annoying and uncontrollable sutiations where you randomly stun people again and again in team fights, it’s mostly unavoidable given the chaotic nature of them. I also didn’t take away its defensive/offensive nature. Also, CC needs to go down as a whole, period.

Chronomancer

Alacrity (prof. effect). It’s now considered a boon. It can now be stripped and corrupted. Corrupting it turns it into Chill.
Alacrity duration needs to go down significantly, it’s a ridiculously powerful effect. Even more so now that I consider it a boon which can have its duration extended by boon duration (Concentration) and other sources. Consider reducing Alacrity duration from All’s Well tha ends well (trait), Flow of time (trait), Improved Alacrity (trait), Well of Recall (utility), etc.
Continuum Split (prof. mechanic). It no longer affects Elite skills. Double Gravity Wells, Moas, Time Warps and Mass invis go bye bye… for obivous fraking balance reasons, that’s why Sherlock. Stop crying, you know I’m right.
Tides of Time(shield). Changed stun into a daze. It may seem random, but CC as a whole from Chronomancers needs to go down significantly. This particular skill is incredibly strong on its own, a 1sec stun is just way over the top.
Gravity Well and Signet of Humility. Cast times increased to 1.5s. With so much quickness nowadays such 1s cast times might as well not be there. These CCs skills are SO strong they need harsh drawbacks.
Restorative Illusions (trait). The condition removal effect from this trait now has an ICD of 5s. Base healing reduced. Mesmers/Chronos, even if they are bunker, are supposed to be weak against conditions.
Bountiful Disillusionment (trait). The stability is replaced with some other effect. Such a slippery profession such as Mesmer/Chrono with a pletora of escapes and active defenses should NEVER have such a high uptime of an anti CC buff. Leave that to more straight forward and more melee oriented classes such as Warrior or guardian. This trait just screams design failure all over again.

Oh boy… Revenant/Herald This profession, being the new one, is by FAR in need of the most changes.

All utility skills now have short CDs, energy costs readjusted accondingly. Upkeep skills now leave you ‘exhausted’ (apply a condition to yourself if canceled) if you finish them before running out of energy (Herald skills not included). This is to make you think twice before using upkeep skills on demand as using them for a few seconds and then canceling them has very few drawbacks.

Sword AA. Damage SIGNIFICANTLY reduced, and I mean, A LOT. Now part of the damage shifts to Precision Strike which also has its cast time increased to ¾s. Sword AA the most absurd AA in this game, I just can’t comment much else.
Unrelenting Assault. Cast time increasaed to 1 second. Range reduced to 300. It now does gradually higher damage, that means that the first hits do lower damage and the final hits do higher damage. Now it’s easier to see it coming and doging by the end of it does less damage.
Malyx Leyend and Mace. Torment stacks and durations reduced across the board.
Pain Absorption (Mallyx skill). Now has a five second CD (stupid filter!).
Banish Enchantment (Mallyx skill). Now has a 3s CD.
Embrace the Darkness (Mallyx skill). Now canceling this upkeep skill leaves you confused.
Enchanted Daggers (Shiro heal). Damage reduced by about 33%. We all know how much ridiculous burst this skill can cause right now, it would still do decent damage. It’s a healing skill!!
Riposting Shadows (Shiro skill). Now has a CD of 10s. Endurance gained effect removed. It’s a no CD stunbreak, that fills half your endurance bar, removes all movement imparing conditions, provides evade frames and also acts as a (great) mobility skill with turn camera trick. You tell me RIGHT NOW, with a straight face, this thing is balanced in its current iteration. I see the arguments coming such as: ‘But the energy cost..’. No! just, no! Sorry, and you know it. Go ahead, compare even this nerfed version to Lightning Reflexes if you dare, go.
Phase Traversal (Shiro skill). Range reduced to 900. Because having more durability that thieves, more utility than thieves, almost more evade frames than thieves, more healing than thieves, damage on par to thieves, more team fight presence than thieves… was not enough, so Anet gave them almost on par + 1 capabilities with this skill. Haha! no.
Impossible Odds (Shiro skill). This skill now leaves you crippled for a few seconds if you cancel it. Explained above.
Jade Winds (Shiro Elite). Stun duration reduced to 2 seconds. Damage reduced. Again, reducing CC durations as a whole. And… again, strong CC skills with decent damage is a nono.
Dwarf and Centaur legends. Respective skills and upkeep skills are now balanced accordingly for consistency.
Infuse Light (Dragon skill). Added cast time of ¼s. it now becomes a preventive skill instead of a reactive one. This one is pretty much self explanatory.
One with Nature (Herald prof. mechanic). Protection duration reduced to 3s.
Facet of Chaos (Dragon Elite). Protection duration reduced to 2s.
Chaotic Release (Dragon Elite). Animation fx significantly reduced. Damage reduced.
Staff. Debilitating Slam and Punishing Sweep now switch places and also switch their damage. Now, if you interrupt a foe’s skill with Debilitating Slam, you unlock Punishing Sweep. Punishing Sweep is now a very strong damaging skill.
Warding Rift CD increased to 15s. In an attempt to reduce overly high block and evade uptimes.
Surge of the miss now has its damage even further (significantly) reduced, its CD is reduced to 15s and number of impacts reduced to 6. Part of that damage goes to Punishing Sweep making it do even more damage.
Crystal Hibernation (shield skill). CD increased to 30s. Number of pulses reduced to 3. Base healing reduced by half. It now clears 1 damaging condition every pulse.
Soothing Bastion (trait). This trait now has an ICD of 60s.
Eye for an Eye (trait). Taunt duration reduced to 1.5s. Protection duration reduced to 3s. I was going to suggest that taunt should not be affected by condition duration, but then fear would lose its only partner and be forever alone.
unwavering avoidance (trait). Changed to: You gain stability only after you dodged an attack, with your endurance bar only. It now has an ICD of 3s.
Enhanced Bulwark (trait). Redisigned. Suggestion: You now recieve significantly less damage for a few seconds when a control effect ends on you. Also Works on breaking out of a CC. It has an ICD of xs.
Hammer. Coalescence of Ruin redisigned. Suggestion: It now has a single 1200 range impact. CD increased to 5s. It now acts as Long range shot, it does less damage the closer your foe is to you. Damage numbers readjusted: damage from long range is reduced and damage from medium and close ranges increased, but long range still does higher damage than both medium and close.
Field of the mists. Duration reduced to 4s. High uptime (50%) on projectile block is too much.
Drop the hammer. Cast time reduced to 1.5s. It takes forever!!

Two more general changes

All stun breaks in the game now provide one second of ‘determination’. Determination acts exactly as the Stability boon, but it can’t be removed, stripped, corrupted or either have its duration increased by Concentration and other sources.

Celestial amulet stats redistributed. From:
+560 power
+560 precision
+560 toughness
+560 vitality
+560 ferocity
+560 healing power
+560 condition damage

to:
+280 power
+840 precision
+280 toughness
+280 vitality
+840 ferocity
+560 healing power
+280 condition damage
+280 expertise
+280 concentration

Cele amulet may now seem unviable, that’s why I’m open to suggestions!

Khenzy.9348:

Chronomancer

Alacrity (prof. effect). It’s now considered a boon. It can now be stripped and corrupted. Corrupting it turns it into Chill.
Alacrity duration needs to go down significantly, it’s a ridiculously powerful effect. Even more so now that I consider it a boon which can have its duration extended by boon duration (Concentration) and other sources. Consider reducing Alacrity duration from All’s Well tha ends well (trait), Flow of time (trait), Improved Alacrity (trait), Well of Recall (utility), etc.
Continuum Split (prof. mechanic). It no longer affects Elite skills. Double Gravity Wells, Moas, Time Warps and Mass invis go bye bye… for obivous fraking balance reasons, that’s why Sherlock. Stop crying, you know I’m right.
Tides of Time(shield). Changed stun into a daze. It may seem random, but CC as a whole from Chronomancers needs to go down significantly. This particular skill is incredibly strong on its own, a 1sec stun is just way over the top.
Gravity Well and Signet of Humility. Cast times increased to 1.5s. With so much quickness nowadays such 1s cast times might as well not be there. These CCs skills are SO strong they need harsh drawbacks.
Restorative Illusions (trait). The condition removal effect from this trait now has an ICD of 5s. Base healing reduced. Mesmers/Chronos, even if they are bunker, are supposed to be weak against conditions.
Bountiful Disillusionment (trait). The stability is replaced with some other effect. Such a slippery profession such as Mesmer/Chrono with a pletora of escapes and active defenses should NEVER have such a high uptime of an anti CC buff. Leave that to more straight forward and more melee oriented classes such as Warrior or guardian. This trait just screams design failure all over again.

I’ll only speak for chrono, because I am not familiar enough with other classes to judge..
First, I like many of your ideas, especially the one transforming Alacrity in a boon, however I think flow of time (3/4 second) is alright as it is and so is Improved Alacrity. It’s those two coupled with AETEW and Well of recall that makes Chrono such a huge Alacrity bot…
Also, CS not affecting Elite would be fair (I hate saying it, but I still think it’s true.), having the capability to spam 2 of each (moa, GW, TW, etc) makes them too strong. HOWEVER, at the same time I feel like it’s also not that worrisome because of the CD (which does close match most elite). But in wasting CS on an elite, you basically forego any defensive use for the next 75 seconds, so it’s basically transforming the shatter into a one-trick-pony that everyone is now capable of expecting.

Addressing GW and Humility because of the quickness uptime is not the good way to solve a problem… nerf quickness access before increasing their cast time (which is already long enough without quickness)… They are Elite, so I do expect them to be incredibly strong, but if they are now a problem it’s because of quickness, not because of the skill itself.
Nerf the problem, don’t tiptoe around it please!
I fail to see your logic with RIllusion… they are supposed to… who told you that mesmer were supposed to be weak with condis? That’s rather bland as far as argument goes, especially when we need to take a trait for that…
now the argument would be different if we didn’t need a trait to benefit from the clear, but adding a 5 SECOND of ICD? I leave that 14 stack of torment for half a second and half of my life is gone already, and that’s not withstanding to SPEED to which condis can get reapplied…
especially since we only have NField as a decent Condi removal (arcane thievery being the crap kitten kitten that it is) which is an aoe you need to stay in and has a CD of 32 seconds…
I could see the base healing reduced, but not in current meta. Maybe in one where everything is tone down to proper level… as it is, Mesmer is FORCED to take the Inspiration line simply because the power creep is way too huge and the class do not have access to the means necro and ele have to mitigate damage. (second healthbar / water)

BDisillusionment: by removing stab we won’t have any means of getting out of CCs (we have very few access to stun breaks (only blink being decent) nor will we have any way to secure a stomp… It’s so easy to lockdown people nowadays that removing our only form of stability is, again, assuring you a kill. And we’re receiving only one stack of stab. If you can’t remove a stack of stab these days… Which we need to use our core class mechanic for that (either robbing us of defensive or offensive abilities)

Tides of times: I’d see the first wave as a stun and the second as a daze, not both of them as daze…. and you can evade it so easily that I fail to see the problem.
Very different from the mantra (for example)
Beside, chrono the current chronobunker does not have that much access to CC (especially if you compare him to other classes currently),
He basically have: chaos storm, GW and (if you count it as such) the swap from ILeap. Two of these are aoes from which you can easily (yes easily) get out of.
Even gravity well, as long as you breakstun out of the first hit and dodge out of it, you’re safe, whereas chaos storm pose barely no problem.

As a whole, I think you gave ideas that have merits and can see the big picture without falling into huge bias, yet I also think you do not understand the class itself properly enough to make correct balance on it without killing it in the process.
Also, I’d suggest, in the future, to avoid mentioning thing as “X should NEVER HAVE y thing” especially when it’s things as important as stability and condis clear… every class should have access to those two because: CC should never be permitted until the death of a character and condis should never have been made as a main damage pressure…
It’s just broken otherwise. I’ll die in a matter of half a second if I ever fall against a condi revenant or necro, and while I’m all for build countering each other, dying because I’ve been lockdown or got 14 stack of torment I can’t clean is just… that’s just not on.

I agree with a lot of your comments, it´s a great job.
But attention to the effect of some of them in the other part of the game.
For example, 12sec for the rocket charge is justified in pvp but in pve you kill the power hammer build.

This post is probably too late now, if devs already made post about balance changes it is save to assume most of it is dead set :/

Cynz.9437:

This post is probably too late now, if devs already made post about balance changes it is save to assume most of it is dead set :/

Implying the devs are a transparent team looking for feedback from their community
/lol

necros are already in a really bad state they don t need nerf at all without giving them some defensive buffs.

You basically want to Nerf Rev into the ground then. GG

Zodi, you knows its op. If you don’t may I ask why? The only legend I can’t use is Ventari, and thats because I didn’t even try. The only trait line I don’t touch is Salvation (well minus that daze on elite…mallyx power sword rev is HILARIOUS with that and Dwarf). The only weapon is…..none? I’ve played this class, and it feels like someone gives me training wheels and secret service along with customer support and BACON when I play this thing. Its so autopilot, its embarassing when I hear someone say “Ye I main rev”.

Pepsi.8907:

I’ll only speak for chrono, because I am not familiar enough with other classes to judge..
First, I like many of your ideas, especially the one transforming Alacrity in a boon, however I think flow of time (3/4 second) is alright as it is and so is Improved Alacrity. It’s those two coupled with AETEW and Well of recall that makes Chrono such a huge Alacrity bot…
Also, CS not affecting Elite would be fair (I hate saying it, but I still think it’s true.), having the capability to spam 2 of each (moa, GW, TW, etc) makes them too strong. HOWEVER, at the same time I feel like it’s also not that worrisome because of the CD (which does close match most elite). But in wasting CS on an elite, you basically forego any defensive use for the next 75 seconds, so it’s basically transforming the shatter into a one-trick-pony that everyone is now capable of expecting.

The CD has very little to do. It’s the incredibly strong clutch moments it creates. Even if it had a 2h CD, two well placed double gravity well can change the course of an entire team fight.You’re not ‘wasting’ your CS on an elite, be careful with your wording.

Addressing GW and Humility because of the quickness uptime is not the good way to solve a problem… nerf quickness access before increasing their cast time (which is already long enough without quickness)… They are Elite, so I do expect them to be incredibly strong, but if they are now a problem it’s because of quickness, not because of the skill itself.
Nerf the problem, don’t tiptoe around it please!

Quickness is definetly NOT the main reason why I nerfed cast times on Gravity Well and SoH, it’s just one of the many reasons. I’ve been saying it all over my post, CCs need to go down, period. And that includes 2 of the strongest CC skills in the game. Chronos can already have quickness on demand, even if I nerfed 1s quickness to 0.5 secs, it would still be enough to significantly reduce cast times, not to forget that mesmers/chronos also have stealth to cover the cast times.

I fail to see your logic with RIllusion… they are supposed to… who told you that mesmer were supposed to be weak with condis? That’s rather bland as far as argument goes, especially when we need to take a trait for that…
now the argument would be different if we didn’t need a trait to benefit from the clear, but adding a 5 SECOND of ICD? I leave that 14 stack of torment for half a second and half of my life is gone already, and that’s not withstanding to SPEED to which condis can get reapplied…
especially since we only have NField as a decent Condi removal (arcane thievery being the crap kitten kitten that it is) which is an aoe you need to stay in and has a CD of 32 seconds…
I could see the base healing reduced, but not in current meta. Maybe in one where everything is tone down to proper level… as it is, Mesmer is FORCED to take the Inspiration line simply because the power creep is way too huge and the class do not have access to the means necro and ele have to mitigate damage. (second healthbar / water)

Ok, you’re clearly failing to see the whole picture here. Tha main intention of this post is to adress exactly that, the power-creep. I added 5ICD to the condi cleansing to avoid back to back to back condi cleansing from shatter after shatter passively. Mender’s Purity+Restorative Illusions+Null field… all these 3 alone, make Mesmers incredibly ressiliant against conditions. But, you also have to take into account Mesmer’s/Chrono’s active defenses that also help them avoid condition application entirely. This trait, now with 5s ICD could have a visual notification like Clariond Bond does for Rangers so you know that next shatter is going to cleanse you a condi. Base healing reduced becouse, again, between blurs, invulns, alacrity, evades, dodges, blocks, dazes… the actual added mitigation this provides is off the charts. That’s pretty self explanatory.

BDisillusionment: by removing stab we won’t have any means of getting out of CCs (we have very few access to stun breaks (only blink being decent) nor will we have any way to secure a stomp… It’s so easy to lockdown people nowadays that removing our only form of stability is, again, assuring you a kill. And we’re receiving only one stack of stab. If you can’t remove a stack of stab these days… Which we need to use our core class mechanic for that (either robbing us of defensive or offensive abilities)

Mesmers/Chronos not only already have easy means of getting out of CCs easily (which actually are among the best ones in the game: instant distortion, staff 2, blink, decoy, etc.), they are supposed to have windows of opportunity where they can actually be properly damaged. Again, between blurs, blocks, teleports, invulnerabilites, evade frames, double energy sigils, dodges, dazes, stuns, CCs… and NOW, 80/90% stability uptime. That doesn’t really happen, the stability needs to go, period. I know it, you know it, we know it.

Funny note: Even in spite of recent nerfs, the population of Chronos multiplied on the recent ESL, where we now have up to 2 Chronos per team.

Tides of times: I’d see the first wave as a stun and the second as a daze, not both of them as daze…. and you can evade it so easily that I fail to see the problem.
Very different from the mantra (for example)
Beside, chrono the current chronobunker does not have that much access to CC (especially if you compare him to other classes currently),
He basically have: chaos storm, GW and (if you count it as such) the swap from ILeap. Two of these are aoes from which you can easily (yes easily) get out of.
Even gravity well, as long as you breakstun out of the first hit and dodge out of it, you’re safe, whereas chaos storm pose barely no problem.

I’m barely touching this ridiculously strong skill. Just changing the stun from a daze. Being a stun, if you get hit by it once, you’re garanteed to be hit by it twice as you can’t move and tharefore dodge. This skill already blocks projectiles and gives the incredibly potent quickness boon, it also acts as an AoE double interrupt, also strong on its own. As most HoT weapon skills, it needs some toning down.
Also, you can’t start listing all Mesmer skills and judging them individually, it’s te whole pack, all those little things that really start to add up to a point where it becomes too much, too overwhelming. So you really have to tone down some things here and there.

As a whole, I think you gave ideas that have merits and can see the big picture without falling into huge bias, yet I also think you do not understand the class itself properly enough to make correct balance on it without killing it in the process.

Thanks, appreciated. I love theorycrafting with balance actually, I do it all the time. Most of which I never even post it on forums or anywhere else. I feel I have a strong sense of balance, but I may be entirely mistaken.

Also, I’d suggest, in the future, to avoid mentioning thing as “X should NEVER HAVE y thing” especially when it’s things as important as stability and condis clear… every class should have access to those two because: CC should never be permitted until the death of a character and condis should never have been made as a main damage pressure…
It’s just broken otherwise. I’ll die in a matter of half a second if I ever fall against a condi revenant or necro, and while I’m all for build countering each other, dying because I’ve been lockdown or got 14 stack of torment I can’t clean is just… that’s just not on.

Ok, yeah. I made a blunt statement I shouldn’t have, my apologies. But my point still stands.
Mesmer’s perk has always been to be really hard to lock down, and their weakness to be condition pressure. They are now incredibly hard to lock down and very resilliant to conditions (again, remember, evade frames, invulns, blocks, etc. also prevent condition application). Something really has to go.

Let me be honest here. It’s actually hard to argue with you as you seem blatantly biased towards Mesmers in general. Please, I encourage you to have a stronger sense of general overall balance, it’s going to be much healthier for the game as a whole and much more enjoyable to you as a player in spite of the nerfs to your favourite profession. Consider that also not only your profession would be getting nerfs, but all others as well.

Khenzy.9348:

True Shot. (longbow) CD increased to 6s. Increased oportunity cost. You don’t even need to stow weapon to bait dodges with a 4s CD, too rewarding of a skill.

I would agree even to 8s CD, if they reduce the cast time to at least 3/4 sec. It’s way too dodgeable/blockable/reflectable, you know.

Ski Cask.1457:

Khenzy.9348:

True Shot. (longbow) CD increased to 6s. Increased oportunity cost. You don’t even need to stow weapon to bait dodges with a 4s CD, too rewarding of a skill.

I would agree even to 8s CD, if they reduce the cast time to at least 3/4 sec. It’s way too dodgeable/blockable/reflectable, you know.

then it should have better tell – most of the time i can’t even see it at all in all the shiny aoe crap (especially from dh traps)

Cynz.9437:

Ski Cask.1457:

Khenzy.9348:

True Shot. (longbow) CD increased to 6s. Increased oportunity cost. You don’t even need to stow weapon to bait dodges with a 4s CD, too rewarding of a skill.

I would agree even to 8s CD, if they reduce the cast time to at least 3/4 sec. It’s way too dodgeable/blockable/reflectable, you know.

then it should have better tell – most of the time i can’t even see it at all in all the shiny aoe crap (especially from dh traps)

dude, dragonhunter completely stops for a second and goes down on his knee, what more of a tell do you need? I mean, one of the few reasons to cease movement in the whole guild wars 2 pvp is to cast a “True Shot”

Ski Cask.1457:

Cynz.9437:

Ski Cask.1457:

Khenzy.9348:

True Shot. (longbow) CD increased to 6s. Increased oportunity cost. You don’t even need to stow weapon to bait dodges with a 4s CD, too rewarding of a skill.

I would agree even to 8s CD, if they reduce the cast time to at least 3/4 sec. It’s way too dodgeable/blockable/reflectable, you know.

then it should have better tell – most of the time i can’t even see it at all in all the shiny aoe crap (especially from dh traps)

dude, dragonhunter completely stops for a second and goes down on his knee, what more of a tell do you need? I mean, one of the few reasons to cease movement in the whole guild wars 2 pvp is to cast a “True Shot”

it is all fine in 1v1 situation, except pvp is about team play and it is not THAT easy to see what he does in the aoe spam… i am not even going to mention trapper rune~

you want cast time reduction which would leave target even less time to see and react to spell

A few comments

Piercing Light (Trait). Daze removed and replaced with something else. An unblockable daze removes a lot of counterplay and makes some of the traps, some of which are instant and have low CDs as a whole, a little too rewarding.

For me the main problem is now how rewarding it is, it is how mindless it is. CC should be a decision: “I want to CC now to interrupt this”. CC should not be a side effect of a spammable skill category, especially AOE CC!

Heavy Light (trait). Removed some of the randomness of the knockback. It now causes your True Shot to knockback enemies within the range threshold. CD increased to 12s so you know the knockback happens every second True Shot. Random knockbacks with an unblockable Deflecting Shot are no longer possible.

Same: I don’t like this being random. Actually, I would have put the CC on deflecting shot, so that there is no need for ICD.

Reaper

Deathly Chill (Trait). Damage significantly reduced. Maybe make it cause vulnerability when hitting chilled foes or something to compensate and to gain better sinergy with Bitter Chill. Although I’m afraid that too much vulnerability is risky as well (even though they can still apply 25 stacks effortlessly). This condition already has incredibly potent effects, it shouldn’t do nowhere near the damage it does currently. It’s even worse than first iteration Dhuumfire right now.

This trait has a lot of problem, and as a necro, I don’t like it. There have been many suggestions on how to fix this such as instead of doing damage, every chill application also apply a stack of torment. This means it can stack (can’t be overwritten by other sources of chill), reinforces the “don’t move” effect of chill and is easier to balance (if iCD and duration are properly adjusted).

Infusing Terror (trait). Duration reduced to 5 seconds, Stability reduced to 2 seconds. Vulnerability to CCs should still be a thing for necros, more so in their shroud form where they can do increased damage while having another pseudo HP bar.

I actually disagree with that. Being vulnerable to CC is one thing, hopeless to CC is another one. The problem of necro is not its survivability (which is still bottom low) but its scary damage.

Chilling Victory (trait). Life force gain reduced to 0.5 and might stack duration reduced to 5s. Over the top life force regen and might stacking anyone?

I don’t see how this trait is over the top. Really not.

Suggestion: Daze durations from Glyph of Equiality and Lunar impact reduced to 1.5s. Now with Moment of clarity it’s 3 seconds instead of 4.

I would have gone for 1s. long duration AOE CC must stop. And no entangle on CC, that is just too much.

Gravity Well and Signet of Humility. Cast times increased to 1.5s. With so much quickness nowadays such 1s cast times might as well not be there. These CCs skills are SO strong they need harsh drawbacks.

I think they are just fine. They are strong only because you can cast them twice, and even that…

Restorative Illusions (trait). The condition removal effect from this trait now has an ICD of 5s. Base healing reduced. Mesmers/Chronos, even if they are bunker, are supposed to be weak against conditions.

Restorative illusions is not such a strong trait. There is a reason why bunkers didn’t exist before HoT (I know I tried): chaos and inspiration are not that strong. It’s really the alacrity which made bunker chrono over the top, nerfing it (which is planed) will most likely suffice in bringing chrono to a healthy level. Nerfing more may kill it.

Bountiful Disillusionment (trait). The stability is replaced with some other effect. Such a slippery profession such as Mesmer/Chrono with a pletora of escapes and active defenses should NEVER have such a high uptime of an anti CC buff. Leave that to more straight forward and more melee oriented classes such as Warrior or guardian. This trait just screams design failure all over again.

Same as previous point. This trait is almost the only source of stability we have. It’s duration can be adjusted, but stability have to remain.

I like eveythign you listed, by I think you could only apply half of the changes to revenants and make it fair. If you put everything for them, you make the class really bad imo.

Cynz.9437:

Ski Cask.1457:

Cynz.9437:

Ski Cask.1457:

Khenzy.9348:

True Shot. (longbow) CD increased to 6s. Increased oportunity cost. You don’t even need to stow weapon to bait dodges with a 4s CD, too rewarding of a skill.

I would agree even to 8s CD, if they reduce the cast time to at least 3/4 sec. It’s way too dodgeable/blockable/reflectable, you know.

then it should have better tell – most of the time i can’t even see it at all in all the shiny aoe crap (especially from dh traps)

dude, dragonhunter completely stops for a second and goes down on his knee, what more of a tell do you need? I mean, one of the few reasons to cease movement in the whole guild wars 2 pvp is to cast a “True Shot”

it is all fine in 1v1 situation, except pvp is about team play and it is not THAT easy to see what he does in the aoe spam… i am not even going to mention trapper rune~

you want cast time reduction which would leave target even less time to see and react to spell

If dh attack you from stealth (trapper runes) it wouldn’t make much of a difference between 3/4s or 1s cast time, right? And in team fight – if you don’t see the attacker “in the aoe spam” – you would probably get hit twice by true shot in that 8s (actually 10s) span with the current 4s cooldown. I just wanted to say that it’s only fair to reduce the cast time with the CD’s increase, which would possibly make it a wee bit more effective in 1v1 and less spammable while freecasting.

Being a Necro/Reaper main, I’ll focus on that. None of those nerfs are necessary except maybe a slight reduction to Chill damage scaling or as Silverkey said and I suggested a long time ago, change it to ‘Brainfreeze’ and make chill add torment instead which fixes the trait in a ton of ways. Other than that, Necromancer/Reaper aren’t exactly in a grand spot (though, not at the bottom.

Also, I disagree that ‘no buffs are needed’. While I absolutely hate power creep, there are a lot of base-class changes that need to be ‘buffed’ such as Necromancer Soul Reaping dependency (Soul Marks/Vital Persistence) and Death Shroud problems, Thief and preparation, Warrior and Adrenaline depletion (Sorry, not baseline Fast Hands. It’s been said to be a no-no) and so on.

More than balance, and while it is very important, a lot of base classes still need significant design fixes killing diversity and viability.

Also, it’d be cool if they nerfed Unrelenting Assault’s damage (especially since it’s a defensive and offensive combined skill) but added a functionality where the skill deals 25-50% increased damage when it hits a unique target from the previous strike (or alternatively, deals reduced damage when it strikes the same target more than once in a row, though that clashes with the skills name) so that the skill becomes a better cleave skill and doesn’t need excessively high damage to justify the skill hitting multiple targets.

Also I agree with moving damage from their AA to Sword 2.

ronpierce.2760:

Also, it’d be cool if they nerfed Unrelenting Assault’s damage (especially since it’s a defensive and offensive combined skill) but added a functionality where the skill deals 25-50% increased damage when it hits a unique target from the previous strike (or alternatively, deals reduced damage when it strikes the same target more than once in a row, though that clashes with the skills name) so that the skill becomes a better cleave skill and doesn’t need excessively high damage to justify the skill hitting multiple targets.

Also I agree with moving damage from their AA to Sword 2.

yeah i agree, sword 2 is bit lackluster atm

I wish half of your ideas gets implemented. But with their pve/pvp/wvw holistic approach I don’t expect anything but a few meaningless changes.

ANET don’t understand what power creep is, nor why it is killing PvP.

Last hope for mmo pvp is Crowfall.

I have lots for mesmer (such as spreading out some of its advantages along with ele to other classes) but for now I want to focus on illusions. If you target the mesmer then obviously you want to hit the mesmer and not clones. If you set it to the mesmer before they bring up clones then targeting will stay on the mesmer. Also greatly reducing confusion output since it’s purely unearned passive damage.

Agree with pretty much all changes.
Disagree with the stability nerf on necro though.

IMO, delete continuum split entirely. Why give mimic on steroids for no reason to an already beast class?

Khenzy is better at suggesting balance changes than most of us. Don’t cry cause your class needs nerfs QQQQQQ.

Here’s a good joke for you ele players: Shocking Aura spam + Sigil of Draining (steal life on interrupt) in WvW = ????

They aren’t going to nerf anything.

vlad.4871:

necros are already in a really bad state they don t need nerf at all without giving them some defensive buffs.

Necros is one of the most op class in the game right now, and If you fail to rofl on your reaper, then I dunno what to say to you!

Agemnon.4608:

I have lots for mesmer (such as spreading out some of its advantages along with ele to other classes) but for now I want to focus on illusions. If you target the mesmer then obviously you want to hit the mesmer and not clones. If you set it to the mesmer before they bring up clones then targeting will stay on the mesmer. Also greatly reducing confusion output since it’s purely unearned passive damage.

Oh, yeah!? Then buff mesmer dps to be in line with the rest of the classes! And some other stuff aswell! You seem to have no idea, do you!?

Khenzy.9348:

These are all the balance changes I would make for a single balance patch. All these suggestions as specifically aimed towards shaking up the meta and reducing power-creep. That’s why I didn’t propose many buffs at all and that’s why I targeted all the meta builds and elite specs.

Chronomancer

Alacrity (prof. effect). It’s now considered a boon. It can now be stripped and corrupted. Corrupting it turns it into Chill.
Alacrity duration needs to go down significantly, it’s a ridiculously powerful effect. Even more so now that I consider it a boon which can have its duration extended by boon duration (Concentration) and other sources. Consider reducing Alacrity duration from All’s Well tha ends well (trait), Flow of time (trait), Improved Alacrity (trait), Well of Recall (utility), etc.
Continuum Split (prof. mechanic). It no longer affects Elite skills. Double Gravity Wells, Moas, Time Warps and Mass invis go bye bye… for obivous fraking balance reasons, that’s why Sherlock. Stop crying, you know I’m right.
Tides of Time(shield). Changed stun into a daze. It may seem random, but CC as a whole from Chronomancers needs to go down significantly. This particular skill is incredibly strong on its own, a 1sec stun is just way over the top.
Gravity Well and Signet of Humility. Cast times increased to 1.5s. With so much quickness nowadays such 1s cast times might as well not be there. These CCs skills are SO strong they need harsh drawbacks.
Restorative Illusions (trait). The condition removal effect from this trait now has an ICD of 5s. Base healing reduced. Mesmers/Chronos, even if they are bunker, are supposed to be weak against conditions.
Bountiful Disillusionment (trait). The stability is replaced with some other effect. Such a slippery profession such as Mesmer/Chrono with a pletora of escapes and active defenses should NEVER have such a high uptime of an anti CC buff. Leave that to more straight forward and more melee oriented classes such as Warrior or guardian. This trait just screams design failure all over again.

Tides of time, increased cast times, restorative illusions etc. The hell you suggesting here!? Your gimping the hole class with ur “balance suggestions”… And theres alot of other rubbish you suggest here aswell! Only thing you can and should even touch is alacrity, but you have to be careful when you do this aswell! Quickness can go aswell, but thats it… If you run into grav well thats your problem, study and learn the class carefully before you calling for huge nerfs!

Seriously, iam happy you are not class dev in this game!

I can hardly take you seriously because for some prof, all you do is nerf EVERYTHING, regardless of whether they’re really strong or not, instead of just focus on the truly op stuffs. You also fail to address how to compensate the nerf. All you do here is trashing a profession entirely to the degree that it becomes unusable.

For starter, Rev’s real problem is Banish Enchantment, Riposting Shadow, Impossible Odds, and traits that grant stability on dodge with no ICD.

Banish Enchantment problem can easily be solved with cd implantation which you already mentioned. (3 is too low btw)

Riposting Shadows problem can be solved by removing the endurance gain and increase the energy cost (35 or something)

Impossible odds can use a 5~10 sec CD too. (This skill will be less of an issue when quickness no longer affect reviving speed though)

Stability on dodge could use an ICD of 5 secs too.

Other skills really don’t need alot of nerf really. Sword and UA is not really such a big problem without the above tools I mentioned. Rev’s weapon skills are pretty balanced.

Btw, it’s cute that you totally miss the Tempest Truly OP skill: Earrth Overload.
An overload that has high stability when channel (meaning it’s unstoppable most of the time), grant a total of “30 seconds” -40% protections to FIVE targets, and also grant PROJECTILE REFLECTS on all of them, with a CD of “20 seconds”. To make it more ridiculous, the protection of this skill also uses pulse effect, so boon removal doesn’t help that much here.

So are you a Tempest main?

I play Marauder Staff Tempest, and I am not sure how you plan that I play this class with Elemental Bastion nerfed, no more 40% protection, no more stuns on shocking aura (RIP Tempest Defense, RIP Lighting Rod).

Then, I don’t know how you plan to have elementalist survive the lack of celestial amulet after butchering an interesting non-meta build from collateral damage.

Elemental Shielding is one trait that would need an extra utility if it’s to be nerfed drammatically (33% duration reduction is quite rough, especially for core ele). Also, people running earth are probably going to head for Armor of Earth at 50% health. It means a trait put to dumbster.

You wish to nerf Hardy Conduit, yet, without it, Tempest would have been very close to Berserker tier. Historically, Tempest was extremely low in rating before the last minute changes. I know you wish to see something else replacing it, but I don’t see the dev team having so many ideas for Tempest when looking at the Grandmasters. Hardy Conduit is a nice trait and I heard it’s only the protection on the elementalist.

And as much as I hate Revenants, your list of nerf will make them worthless, and I don’t like that.

“For starter, Rev’s real problem is Banish Enchantment, Riposting Shadow, Impossible Odds, and traits that grant stability on dodge with no ICD.”

1.Yes, banish enchantment is bull.

2.Riposting shadow is a needed ability within the context of this CC heavy meta.

3.Impossible odds will be brought back in line when quickness no longer effects rezzing speed. It’s also energy expensive.

4.Stability on dodge again is needed in this CC/interrupt heavy meta. Can’t be cheated out of a stomp with gust or point blank shot.

Khenzy.9348:

Chronomancer

Alacrity (prof. effect). It’s now considered a boon. It can now be stripped and corrupted. Corrupting it turns it into Chill.
Alacrity duration needs to go down significantly, it’s a ridiculously powerful effect. Even more so now that I consider it a boon which can have its duration extended by boon duration (Concentration) and other sources. Consider reducing Alacrity duration from All’s Well tha ends well (trait), Flow of time (trait), Improved Alacrity (trait), Well of Recall (utility), etc.
Continuum Split (prof. mechanic). It no longer affects Elite skills. Double Gravity Wells, Moas, Time Warps and Mass invis go bye bye… for obivous fraking balance reasons, that’s why Sherlock. Stop crying, you know I’m right.
Tides of Time(shield). Changed stun into a daze. It may seem random, but CC as a whole from Chronomancers needs to go down significantly. This particular skill is incredibly strong on its own, a 1sec stun is just way over the top.
Gravity Well and Signet of Humility. Cast times increased to 1.5s. With so much quickness nowadays such 1s cast times might as well not be there. These CCs skills are SO strong they need harsh drawbacks.
Restorative Illusions (trait). The condition removal effect from this trait now has an ICD of 5s. Base healing reduced. Mesmers/Chronos, even if they are bunker, are supposed to be weak against conditions.
Bountiful Disillusionment (trait). The stability is replaced with some other effect. Such a slippery profession such as Mesmer/Chrono with a pletora of escapes and active defenses should NEVER have such a high uptime of an anti CC buff. Leave that to more straight forward and more melee oriented classes such as Warrior or guardian. This trait just screams design failure all over again.

1) Alacrity as a boon would be a bit mental. Better to just adjust one of the other things and leave it as a separate buff.
2) I actually agree that elites shouldn’t be allowed to be double-cast. When I whack a group with a double gravity well or Time Warp I always laugh because I can’t quite believe I’m being allowed to do it.
3) Tides of Time seems fine to me. The wave animation is pretty obvious and it’s also easy to avoid the retuning wave. I’d happily see the stun duration decreased though but with compensatory increase wave speed and/or a 1/4 time so it can be used for clutch group interrupts.
4) Gravity Well casts and Signet of Humility casts are pretty obvious. I don’t think the cast times need to be increased.
5) Restorative Illusions needs seems like a non-issue. Mesmer can burn through shatters to remove a condi burst = those shatter likely weren’t used for offence. Other condi removal traits on Mesmer are very specific and not particularly viable, so I think Restorative Illusions needs to remain in its current form. The healing always felt redundant to me.
6) Bountiful Disillusionment could do with some toning down, although the presence of stability is fine itself. Would be better to reduce the duration to 3 seconds and see how that goes. It is just a single stack after all

I’d nerf thief/daredevil mobility and even energy regeneration but give them more single target CC options. I’d steer them into a mostly 1v1 role but still relatively weak in teamfights. I’d make scorpion wire a profession ability and increase its range and be good for pulling stompers, rezzers, and keeping an eye on that mesmer or ele’s tells to interrupt them. The primary goal for the ability is creating 1v1 scenarios (all those are why I run sword/sword with revenant but there you need to be near the target) by isolating targets for a short time. Steal on mesmers also gives an item that grants group alacrity.

im just glad you dont work on the balancing team jesus your hate towards some profession is noticeable

Agemnon so you want to need the main two viable thief survivability methods and give them more single target cc, in a game mode that is geared for team fights. That would make thief highly unusable due to the amount of Aoe and passive a every other class have access to, and Anet stated their goal for thief to be The mobility class.

I am surprised some people complain about nerfs when Op clearly said his suggestions are mostly nerfs. I do agree with OP overall that we need massive nerfing across all classes (yes even thieves in some areas) to cure the power creep we have atm. I find a lot of suggested changes reasonable actually.

Rezzet.3614:

im just glad you dont work on the balancing team jesus your hate towards some profession is noticeable

Interesting bit (not backing anyone, just providing some info)- multiple tier list threads have been made and on every single one of them there were two groups that stayed the same.

“God Tier” or “Tier 0”- Mesmer, Druid (no tempest or rev, as those were “tier 1”)
“Garbage Tier” or “Tier 4”- Warrior, Thief

:) So that would incline you to believe buffing Warrior/Thief but nerfing Mesmer Druid, yes? Ideal balance area for this game is Tier 3.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Agemnon so you want to need the main two viable thief survivability methods and give them more single target cc, in a game mode that is geared for team fights. That would make thief highly unusable due to the amount of Aoe and passive a every other class have access to, and Anet stated their goal for thief to be The mobility class.

I’d increase their stunbreak options (so roll for initiative and shadowstep aren’t required utilities anymore and may even be redundant in many purely stunbreak situations) but also dial way back on everyone’s AoE CC. I’d still keep up mobility but just give it a slight nerf to balance out its greater 1v1 potential.

epouvante.7392:

For example, 12sec for the rocket charge is justified in pvp but in pve you kill the power hammer build.

I would love to hear other alternatives then. Maybe removing the evade frames?

Miles Smiles.8951:

I would agree even to 8s CD, if they reduce the cast time to at least 3/4 sec. It’s way too dodgeable/blockable/reflectable, you know.

TS already has a ¾s cast time, just enough to see it coming and dodge it, a slight reduction on cast time would make it that much harder to dodge which would make it a very tricky skill in terms of balance.
A 100% increase on CD as you propose wouldn’t it be too much?
As Cynz very well stated, it could also use a higher tell, as female characters don’t kneel down when casting this.

vlad.4871:

necros are already in a really bad state they don t need nerf at all without giving them some defensive buffs.

When playing on legendary division all I see is Reapers, Tempests, Chrono Bunkers, Revenants and the ocassional Druid and very few DH. But mostly the first 4.
Please consider that I’m nerfing Diamond Skin which is keeping Reapers in check and also significantly nerfing Revenants/Heralds as a whole, which also keep them in check.
Base necros may not be that strong, but…

…as a note to everyones reading this thread: this is a thread specifically aimed towards toning down meta specs and reducing power-creep. Core specs are obviously going to be affected and should be compensated somewhere else, but that’s a topic for an entirely different thread altogether.

Zodi.8932:

You basically want to Nerf Rev into the ground then. GG

Becouse Revenants/Heralds are one of the main culprits of this bunker meta, otherwise they would kill everything in seconds. Revs/Heralds need to be brought down to earth. If you feel/think I overnerfed them, I would like you to point out how/where I did that and what other alternatives you have in mind. Otherwise, refrain from posting on my thread again if you don’t have anything constructive to say.

Silverkey.2078:

A few comments

Heavy Light (trait). Removed some of the randomness of the knockback. It now causes your True Shot to knockback enemies within the range threshold. CD increased to 12s so you know the knockback happens every second True Shot. Random knockbacks with an unblockable Deflecting Shot are no longer possible.

Same: I don’t like this being random. Actually, I would have put the CC on deflecting shot, so that there is no need for ICD.

But why would you put a secured knockback on an unblockable shot that already has utility on its own? I don’t like this kind of stuff that removes a lot of counter-play. On the other hand, putting it into TS which is just a damage skill makes more sense and you can actually dodge such a strong effect if you see it coming, you’re also highly rewarded if you land it.

Reaper
Infusing Terror (trait). Duration reduced to 5 seconds, Stability reduced to 2 seconds. Vulnerability to CCs should still be a thing for necros, more so in their shroud form where they can do increased damage while having another pseudo HP bar.

I actually disagree with that. Being vulnerable to CC is one thing, hopeless to CC is another one. The problem of necro is not its survivability (which is still bottom low) but its scary damage.

Please, consider I’m nerfing all CCs across the board, which would buff current Infusing Terror significantly. Even with all the CC flying around nowadays I feel the uptime is just too much. It basically lasts for the duration of an entire Shroud bar and I think it was intended to last just a few seconds if you are getting focus fired, being instant cast and whatnot. This nerf doesn’t make Reapers hopeless to CCs by any means, but I also think necro shroud should not go from one extreme (0 resistance against CCs) to another (almost perma stability on shroud).

Chilling Victory (trait). Life force gain reduced to 0.5 and might stack duration reduced to 5s. Over the top life force regen and might stacking anyone?

I don’t see how this trait is over the top. Really not.

Decent might stacking. That belongs to the spite line. Reaprs already have a ridiculously easy time stacking 25 might and 25 stacks of vulnerability, which makes them walking nuclear bombs. Their life force gain is also incredibly high, much higher than any Core necro could ever dream off making Reaper a very clear upgrade, and remember, the purpose of this thread, is just that, to reduce this blatant power-creep. I won’t get tired of saying this.

Suggestion: Daze durations from Glyph of Equiality and Lunar impact reduced to 1.5s. Now with Moment of clarity it’s 3 seconds instead of 4.

I would have gone for 1s. long duration AOE CC must stop. And no entangle on CC, that is just too much.

Actually, I agree with you here. 3second dazes are too much but I didn’t touch them that much becouse druid is all about CC and some heals here and there. If I’m nerfing their pet damage and changing celestial amulet I’m afraid of hindering their viability a little too much. Remember druids have much more clear weaknesses than other Elite specs (DHs not included).
I don’t know what to think about the Entagle on CC. This version is only single target and it can also be really strong in some cases and pretty useless in some others. What do you propose in its place?

Gravity Well and Signet of Humility. Cast times increased to 1.5s. With so much quickness nowadays such 1s cast times might as well not be there. These CCs skills are SO strong they need harsh drawbacks.

I think they are just fine. They are strong only because you can cast them twice, and even that…

Moa can almost secure a kill on its own, how it not that strong? Now that resses are going to be nerfed significantly, this skill becomes that much stronger indirectly.
Gravity Well is a tripple AoE CC skill that can turn team fights on its own…

Restorative Illusions (trait). The condition removal effect from this trait now has an ICD of 5s. Base healing reduced. Mesmers/Chronos, even if they are bunker, are supposed to be weak against conditions.

Restorative illusions is not such a strong trait. There is a reason why bunkers didn’t exist before HoT (I know I tried): chaos and inspiration are not that strong. It’s really the alacrity which made bunker chrono over the top, nerfing it (which is planed) will most likely suffice in bringing chrono to a healthy level. Nerfing more may kill it.

You explained exactly where the problem lies. This trait becomes too strong in the hands of a chronomancer. If you remove alacrity altogether, trust me, Chronos would still be ridiculously strong.

Bountiful Disillusionment (trait). The stability is replaced with some other effect. Such a slippery profession such as Mesmer/Chrono with a pletora of escapes and active defenses should NEVER have such a high uptime of an anti CC buff. Leave that to more straight forward and more melee oriented classes such as Warrior or guardian. This trait just screams design failure all over again.

Same as previous point. This trait is almost the only source of stability we have. It’s duration can be adjusted, but stability have to remain.

I already explained this on some quote I made above. I refuse to touch Mesmer’s/Chrono’s invulnerabilities, blocks, teleports, dazes,blurs, evade frames and whatnot because that’s their thing. But all of that now suddenly becomes too strong when you have such strong uptime on stability.

ronpierce.2760:

Also, I disagree that ‘no buffs are needed’. While I absolutely hate power creep, there are a lot of base-class changes that need to be ‘buffed’ such as Necromancer Soul Reaping dependency (Soul Marks/Vital Persistence) and Death Shroud problems, Thief and preparation, Warrior and Adrenaline depletion (Sorry, not baseline Fast Hands. It’s been said to be a no-no) and so on.

I think buffs and overhauls on some weapons we never use, and even to traits that never get any use are absolutely needed. But first and foremost we have to tone down this ridiculous power-creep before improving other things or else we end up with some weird amalgamation of a buff/nerf cycle with no balance in mind whatsoever.

Improving stuff as a whole is a subject for an entirely different thread altogether.

WhiteRabbit.6931:

Tides of time, increased cast times, restorative illusions etc. The hell you suggesting here!? Your gimping the hole class with ur “balance suggestions”… And theres alot of other rubbish you suggest here aswell! Only thing you can and should even touch is alacrity, but you have to be careful when you do this aswell! Quickness can go aswell, but thats it… If you run into grav well thats your problem, study and learn the class carefully before you calling for huge nerfs!

I already stated very clearly my own reasons about why I think those should be nerfed. I’m expecting from you a well thought out refutal as to why you think I lack knowledge regarding the Mesmer profession, why do you think I posted some ‘rubish’? Why do you think I should only touch alacrity? Why do you think quickness should go?

Seriously, iam happy you are not class dev in this game!

I was fully expecting responses driven by emotion instead of reason, but this remark here was totally unecessary.

“Please, consider I’m nerfing all CCs across the board, which would buff current Infusing Terror significantly. Even with all the CC flying around nowadays I feel the uptime is just too much. It basically lasts for the duration of an entire Shroud bar and I think it was intended to last just a few seconds if you are getting focus fired, being instant cast and whatnot. This nerf doesn’t make Reapers hopeless to CCs by any means, but I also think necro shroud should not go from one extreme (0 resistance against CCs) to another (almost perma stability on shroud).”

The concept of the skill and its function perfectly match what the devs aim was when constructing the spec. Your thought, in bold, i feel didnt quite hit the mark of its design not the theme of the spec. Reaper has limited ranged potential yet it is supposed to be near unstoppable in its efforts to eventually get into your face by walking towards you. The lack of active defence and mobility is why the skill provides such a high uptime of stability. Vulnerability to CC should come while you are not in a form specifically designed by the devs to be unrelenting and unstoppable.

“Decent might stacking. That belongs to the spite line. Reaprs already have a ridiculously easy time stacking 25 might and 25 stacks of vulnerability, which makes them walking nuclear bombs. Their life force gain is also incredibly high, much higher than any Core necro could ever dream off making Reaper a very clear upgrade, and remember, the purpose of this thread, is just that, to reduce this blatant power-creep. I won’t get tired of saying this.”
Necromancers lack a) damage modifiers and b) team support but are incredibly self sufficient hence why they can stack so much might on their own. The trait also does 2 other things. Provides an alternative for might stacking meaning you dont have to take spite to get more might and also as fuel for the grandmaster blighters boon, allowing its use in any build that doesnt use the spite line since they nerfed the trait to only work with your own boons…of which necros have….only really might ( like 95% ).

Its not that reaper is power creep, besides somethings that obviously need tuning, its that base necro is quite a few regards is undertuned.

These two nerfs , while well thought out, actually reduce build diversity lower than it is now as well as rendering part of the design and theme of the spec moot.

“As a general suggestion, chilling uptime across the board should be reduced, it’s a very very strong condition on its own. STOP with the obvious and blatant POWERCREEP!!” Its always been high, its just never been viable to use. Even on non-necromancer classes.

I agree with everything you said op. Something else that could be neat is all druid astral skills get their base healing reduced, but get much better scaling. This way if you want to bunker you got to invest in to healing power.
And tempast aura share, maybe reduce the radius of the share effect of powerful aura trait and the shout aura application effects from 600 to lets say 450. Magnetic aura has a large uptime and with the current radius it is easy to give it to all allies in a team fight. This heavily pushes out longbow rangers, dragon hunters, and core necromancers (ranged shroud aa) out of the meta (dh not as much).

Aomine.5012:

I can hardly take you seriously because for some prof, all you do is nerf EVERYTHING, regardless of whether they’re really strong or not, instead of just focus on the truly op stuffs. You also fail to address how to compensate the nerf. All you do here is trashing a profession entirely to the degree that it becomes unusable.

I will say it very clear once again: this is a nerf thread. It’s pretty obvious if I’m nerfing some core profession traits, said core professions should recieve some compensation somewhere else, this is not the point of this thread. But I agree this little detail seems pretty hard to grasp. So point taken.

For starter, Rev’s real problem is Banish Enchantment, Riposting Shadow, Impossible Odds, and traits that grant stability on dodge with no ICD.

Banish Enchantment problem can easily be solved with cd implantation which you already mentioned. (3 is too low btw)

Riposting Shadows problem can be solved by removing the endurance gain and increase the energy cost (35 or something)

Impossible odds can use a 5~10 sec CD too. (This skill will be less of an issue when quickness no longer affect reviving speed though)

Stability on dodge could use an ICD of 5 secs too.

Other skills really don’t need alot of nerf really. Sword and UA is not really such a big problem without the above tools I mentioned. Rev’s weapon skills are pretty balanced.

You may percieve the nerf list as a little too long, I wont blame you for that. But I still think all my proposed changes to revenants are more than fair (I even improved the staff significantly) and even added some slight condi cleanse to power Heralds. Anet even agrees on my nerfs to Sword damage. Impossible Odds cuold very well use a CD instead of my ‘exhaustion’ suggestion, sure.

Btw, it’s cute that you totally miss the Tempest Truly OP skill: Earrth Overload.
An overload that has high stability when channel (meaning it’s unstoppable most of the time), grant a total of “30 seconds” -40% protections to FIVE targets, and also grant PROJECTILE REFLECTS on all of them, with a CD of “20 seconds”. To make it more ridiculous, the protection of this skill also uses pulse effect, so boon removal doesn’t help that much here.

So are you a Tempest main?

What you just said is totally fair and I agree! That’s why I posted this on forums! My sugestions are not the be all end all! I actually totally agree with you when it comes to Earth overload and the protection uptime it provides and also the uptime of AoE magnetic aura.

On my defense, I was genuinely afraid of touching overloads at all because of how controversial their implementation was in the proccess, from being too risky to being too rewarding. But now that I think of it, Earth overload applies stability baseline. What if we removed the baseline stability instead of touching the protection uptime? Just one CC and that channel goes bye bye putting earth attunement on a 20s CD? The risks would now be definetly there. They would be forced to trait into Harmonious Conduit. If that proved to be too strong still, nerfing the proc uptime would be the next step.

I play Ele/Tempest fairly well but it’s not my current main. I reached legendary division by 90% soloq with DH, Warrior and Druid.

Alekt.5803:

Elemental Shielding is one trait that would need an extra utility if it’s to be nerfed drammatically (33% duration reduction is quite rough, especially for core ele). Also, people running earth are probably going to head for Armor of Earth at 50% health. It means a trait put to dumbster.

Tempest currently provides the highest uptime of protection boon in the game, which is actually a ridiculously strong boon. To give you some perspective, some other game with similar levels of damage to mitigation ratio to GW2 have skills with 2min CDs and higher that only provide -20% damage reduction.
Not only that, but Tempests/Eles have among the highest passive mitigation in the game. And we’re talking about what’s supposed to be a flexible caster class with lots of active defenses, something seriously went wrong down the line. Also, a little less protection uptime (which it would still be 100% uptime for the elementalist) and 7% less damage mitigation from protection would not butcher anything much less puts such a trait into a dumbster.

You wish to nerf Hardy Conduit, yet, without it, Tempest would have been very close to Berserker tier. Historically, Tempest was extremely low in rating before the last minute changes. I know you wish to see something else replacing it, but I don’t see the dev team having so many ideas for Tempest when looking at the Grandmasters. Hardy Conduit is a nice trait and I heard it’s only the protection on the elementalist.

How is removing 7% damage mitigation from a boon that otherwise still gives 33% being very close to Berserker tier?

And as much as I hate Revenants, your list of nerf will make them worthless, and I don’t like that.

How? Why? What nerfs do you think would be too much specifically?

Rezzet.3614:

im just glad you dont work on the balancing team jesus your hate towards some profession is noticeable

I’m slightly offended by this statement. I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about these suggestions while trying to be as unbiased as possible, for the overall health of the game. I’m one of the very few posters in this forum section that actually dares to post some suggestions and feedback, and also promote constructive discussion. Please, point to me where do you think I made my bias noticiable, I would appreciate that as maybe I am and I’m not realizing it.

Khenzy.9348:

Alekt.5803:

Elemental Shielding is one trait that would need an extra utility if it’s to be nerfed drammatically (33% duration reduction is quite rough, especially for core ele). Also, people running earth are probably going to head for Armor of Earth at 50% health. It means a trait put to dumbster.

Tempest currently provides the highest uptime of protection boon in the game, which is actually a ridiculously strong boon. To give you some perspective, some other game with similar levels of damage to mitigation ratio to GW2 have skills with 2min CDs and higher that only provide -20% damage reduction.
Not only that, but Tempests/Eles have among the highest passive mitigation in the game. And we’re talking about what’s supposed to be a flexible caster class with lots of active defenses, something seriously went wrong down the line. Also, a little less protection uptime (which it would still be 100% uptime for the elementalist) and 7% less damage mitigation from protection would not butcher anything much less puts such a trait into a dumbster.

You wish to nerf Hardy Conduit, yet, without it, Tempest would have been very close to Berserker tier. Historically, Tempest was extremely low in rating before the last minute changes. I know you wish to see something else replacing it, but I don’t see the dev team having so many ideas for Tempest when looking at the Grandmasters. Hardy Conduit is a nice trait and I heard it’s only the protection on the elementalist.

How is removing 7% damage mitigation from a boon that otherwise still gives 33% being very close to Berserker tier?

If you remove 7% damage mitigation, Tempest ends up with a trait line without minor traits, again. You ask it to be replaced by something else, but what could it be? I am usually the sort of guy with a ton of idea for elementalist, but for this one, I simply don’t see. I read some people wanting to remove stability of Earth Overload too, sure, let’s make that overload worthless.

About Elemental Shielding, reducing the duration would be something I agree with, then I thought about how it could hurt certain core elementalist builds; because lets face it, 2 seconds of protection with the vanilla aura applications is pretty weak.

Wow, you make me cringe.

Reducing Chill up time may very well end up being a thing but it will hamstring power builds who exploit that Chill not for damage but to hold people still long enough to hit them. Its obvious you don’t play Powermancer. Reducing Chill up time is also an inadvertent nerf to Greatsword. The animations are very slow and it is still workable though thanks to Chill.

You say Reaper should still be as vulnerable to CC as vanilla Necromancer. This is just patently false. Reaper is still highly vulnerable to CC and the main reason it needs Stability while vanilla Necro didn’t is because we are always in people’s faces. We face tank a lot and unlike vanilla Necro we don’t have the luxury of doing it from 600 meters away.

Life Force regen is fine, and it is just barely enough to squeeze out a win against competent players when you start with none.

Its nice you want to give suggestions, but there is really only one suggestion here I find necessary. L2P.

I agree with maybe 3 of these ideas… I don’t mean to sound pretentious when I say I don’t think you have the handle on class mechanics that you think you do, again not trying to come off overly negative, but these sound horrible to me, and would defeat class purposes and destroy game balance.