Got some good reviews in the thread I originally posted this in. In order for it to see a little bit more review and bring a not so negative thread into this forum I am going to post it here and get it reviewed by you guys. If you have concerns, or things I can add especially for classes I’m not super solid on with changes feel free to leave some constructive feedback or things that could be added in to make this better.
Big post inc:
Runes:
Removal-
Trapper (not sure why this was ever put into the game mode)
Mercy (with the idea of normalizing res this rune being removed would assist with that idea as it will no longer be a way to boost res speed)
That list was shorter than I thought it’d be… oh well, on to sigils
Sigils
Removal-
Geomancy (passive procs like that sway combat too much when combined with doom and/or leech)
Hydromancy (again passive proc damage for doing something not related to actually dealing damage is dumb and it is even worse when on chill reaper)
Nerfed-
Energy (just needs to have endurance restored be about 33% of endurance to stop every bunker from having mega evades but at the same time benefit those few builds that rely on pure dodging ability to survive)
Amulets:
Removed-
Celestial (replaced with multiple 4 stat bruiser type amulets that can still allow classes to achieve similar things to what they had before but not being all around amazing at everything) (p.s. nerfing might access and prot access will help with this)
Issues that need to be addressed relating to amulets:
Condi duration bases need to be lowered overall if viper is going to remain in pvp and with it people have condis that last an absurd amount of time. Even DOT builds should have to constantly be engaged in combat in order to win fights, not just able to stack 30 yrs of 10 stacks of condis and then leave and wait til the enemy dies.
Base damage and healing everywhere needs to be reduced and have scaling increase. If someone invests in a bunker build, why should they be able to do significant damage? If someone invests in pure dps, why should they be super hard to kill when they face tank you or be able to full heal themselves any time they want? I know you want to avoid the holy trinity style of play but there is too much base stuff that people don’t have to focus on investments in stats hence why cele ammy becomes a problem when applied to certain classes.
Boon access needs to be toned down for most classes. Nobody should ever be able to maintain perma 25 might and/or perma prot. That eliminates the need for investments and serves to only allow boon heavy classes into the meta. Boons should serve as small buffs used to turn the tide in a crucial moment or benefit a team in a fight when it’s most needed. Right now builds are being made around boons so you have bunkers getting 4k crits on other bruisers while being mega tanks as opposed to zerkers who get maybe 4.5k on the same targets. That is not a big enough margin between the dps focused players and bunkers.
Professions:
Elementalist-
DS being reworked is great but with tempest there is still the issue with ridiculous amounts of reflect uptime. Hardcounters are bad and the amount of reflects they have are near hard counters to ranged builds and then the heavy aoe they have makes them strong anti melee fighters. There needs to be counters but not this level of a counter. Small number tweaks to duration will go a long way to making this a wonderfully balanced class with skillful play required to be good. I’m not an ele main so I’m not comfortable going further into base mechanics on this class as I do not possess the exp necessary with this class to tell you those things. But I will say scepter needs better autos and I think we all agree on that.
Guard-
Trap interaction with ports needs to be addressed. Right now porting through one of their traps like dragon’s maw or test of faith will still proc the cc or damage from the trap. That eliminates the biggest possible counter to a class that already hardcounters the classes that focus on ports. Unblockable cc needs to be looked at too as that is just unhealthy design. What’s the point of blocking vs a guard or DH if their attacks can just go through your blocks? Outside of that a few buffs to base guard to make it a real choice between that and DH are in order but seeing as how I don’t main it I don’t feel I should speak on what that should be.
Thief-
Mostly in a good spot, I would prefer DD didn’t give damage on dodges as it eliminates dodging as a strictly defensive tactic but others would disagree. A few weapon buffs (not to autos or to d/p) would be nice to allow thief to have greater build diversity. For example I would like to see sword 2 return cure 2 condis and have a quicker cast. Also would like to see sword 3 cycle on blocks as the hit still connects it just has it’s damage mitigated. Also Double dagger needs some looking at without buffing d/p at the same time (otherwise it will continue to overshadow the set). Can’t speak a ton on traits as we don’t know what acro looks like yet but I will say preparedness out to be made baseline and mug should maybe be looked at as being baseline (right now our class mechanic requires too much traiting to be effective for us to use and it’s not healthy imo for that to be a thing). Revealed should be normalized across the game at 3 sec again for the sake of possible D/D builds emerging in pvp. Revealed needs to be looked at as other classes imo should be able to rip the thief out of stealth (being able to extend reveal like sic em and analyze I can see as a possible ok thing but taking them out of stealth is just not good as it shuts down half of what the class can do)
For the three classes above: Buff hp pools (at least to 15k like Mesmer) to allow them to have greater diversity in how they make their builds (I’d suggest normalizing hp pools across the game but maybe that’s just me)
Warrior:
Seems like you guys have the right idea, giving them the ability to sustain in combat better. I don’t have intimate knowledge of warrior so unfortunately there’s not much I can say here. This one I will leave to the professionals. (p.s. defiant stance needs to have the same functionality as infused light)
Mesmer:
Gravity well I think should be looked at. It is a large cc with pretty heavy damage and can be used twice. Seeing as how it is unique to the chronomancer I could argue nerfing the duration on it as every person who uses it will be able to channel it twice. Or you can keep the duration but remove the cc for every pulse except the last one and then MAYBE buff the damage so it can still be an influential skill but it doesn’t function as a “gg” button. Rest of it you seem to be handling pretty well with your post so I will leave it as is for now.
Necromancer:
Reduce base chill damage and take steps towards removing the large hitting passives on the class. If the nerfs to boon access go through then this class should be fine in terms of not having ridiculous damage. At the same time it does need a bit more utility in the form of heals not tied to shroud or AI.
Revenant-
Reducing the amount of base healing goes a long way. But they also need to not be able to pulse perma boons to their party. If the suggestions I put above for general balance go through rev should be fairly under control. (most of its issues are boon access and spammable condis that last for a long time). A reduction on confusion stacks from banish enchantment would be great. Maybe just from 3 to 2.
Ranger-
Pet damage is silly. A bunker druid should never be able to kill someone and the fact that with pets like smokescale and bristleback they are able to burst heavily is bad. Now all the pets ranger has should hit as reliably as those two, but the damage should not be that significant if it’s going to be hitting you as much as pets will with reliability increases. Reduction of base heals (with scaling increase to benefit investment) and base pet damage should be a strong start to fixing this problem. Now to avoid the class becoming trash tier they would need to be compensated by giving the weapons on ranger more synergy with trait options and some of the damage taken from pets would need to be given as base damage onto the actual ranger.
Engineer-
Hammer 3 could be changed from 3 leaps to 1 to help cut down on sustain for mara builds. Hammer 2 needs to be either a defensive or offensive skill, not both. Cutting down on might stacking overall will also help with the issues on this class. Reducing hammer base damage would be good, and changes to stealth gyro would be awesome (removing the reveal and giving it a cast time to avoid the whole instant stomp avoidance.)
General balance and QoL improvements:
I realize not all of this can be done right away but looking into the future it would be great to start working on these things-
Stealth needs to be unique to thief to allow for it to be balanced as a defensive tool for the class. Other effects can be given to other classes to balance losing the stealth on their skills (possibly even a parallel effect called invisibility or something to still keep the effect but have stealth be an actual tool for the thief to utilize and allow anet to balance easier without the hassle of having to worry about making mes or engi too strong)
Boon base durations need to be reduced if there are going to be stats and amulets giving boon duration as a benefit in order to help deal with the whole perma boon build thing going on now.
Passives (invulns, counter cc’s, etc.) need to be removed from the game. It does not promote healthy gameplay (as was seen with vamp runes pre nerf) and the counter cc’s punish players for timing bursts properly with cc which should never happen in any game that wants to build a pvp playerbase.
I’d love and support a split in balance for pvp and pve if the resources are acquired, if not then I’d like to see pvp be the balance focus as pve can still be completed with any build on any class so there’s not too much of an issue there outside of elitists who will never be pleased.
Class stacking (even in queues) needs to go. Balance issues are just exacerbated when you have the ability to use multiple of the same op build in a team. Yes queue times may be slightly longer for some but if it means more balanced and enjoyable matches I’m sure most would be okay with that.
We need to be able to queue from outside of Hotm, whether that means letting us pve or letting us duel/hotjoin is up to anet but pvp players need something else to do while they wait in queue (which could help balance out the long queue time that may come out of removing class stacking).
Over time it’d be pretty cool to see people instead of picking 1 amulet for use in pvp be able to pick choices for stats on armor, weps, and trinkets just to add some extra diversity and make more builds transferrable from wvw and pve to pvp. Also lessens the chance of “1 meta build to rule them all” type situations as customization options will be greater also preventing the issue you encounter with amulets where some combos are completely overshadowed by other options.
That’s my list atm, I will add in more if I think of it. Great start on balance changes from the post Josh, love them so far and can’t wait to see where this takes us in the future
Edit: oh I almost forgot, the amount off cc overall is too much. Maybe some skills need a functionality change to stop this perma cc nonsense we are seeing. It is not healthy for a game trying to be competitive in pvp for the amount of cc present right now to be there.