Guild Wars 2

Now i’ll need to wait to the next patch, maybe in 2016-2017 =\

Hambow never dies

No nerf to celestial amulet? O_O

Narkodx.1472:

Why did you not actually nerf engineers?

These changes will not change much simply a nudge in the right direction

We need a LEAP in the right direction

maybe in another 2 years you will get it.

I’ve seen quite a few people complaining that the changes are too small… Personally, I’d rather see more frequent, smaller changes.

It’s difficult to balance a game like Guild Wars 2 which is pretty complex in terms of combat, so I’d rather they did small stuff like this.

People seem to forget that if, even with the reduction to might and might stacking, cele is still a problem, then the amulet can be adjusted far more accurately.

I’m happy with the changes but, well, 6 months is a hell of a long wait for this sort of balance. Do this scale balancing far more often (e.g. every 3 months) and I’d be content.

I’m also super happy that they’ve fixed the LW bug. I always hated that.

The only thing I’m disappointed in so far is no nerf to turret engineers. I don’t really have an issue as a player playing against them. However, they and other AI bad are generally bad for skill progression of players in general.

Brigg.6189:

mercy rune hambow still cheesin. not dead yet

mercy rune hambow? what is even that.
shoutheal can rez people 1000 times better.

Hello everyone!

• Hmm, not many and really small changes.
  Would expect something like that every month.

• Steady and small tweaks to underperforming or overperforming
  skills, traits, runes, sigils and amulets. Every month!

• And on a quarterly period some bigger changes like the implementation of
  new Amulets, Weapons, Skills etc.

• PvP feels really stale. We have only one gamemode.
  And build diversity is really not that great.

• Please Anet for the good of all change the way you approach on PvP.

Ps:
The traps for thief are still bad, but nice try ....

Best regards!

Just some new documentation on the true problem with iMage

• 1. iMage cast within range can potentially hit a target walking away slowly. No speed buffs. (opening seconds)
• 2. iMage cannot hit a target at max range walking away slowly (10s)
• 3. iMage well within range is very likely to miss moving targets within range. This includes mid range attacks, and even point blank range. (1:04, 1:38)
• 4. iMage can be “dodged” simply by jumping while moving. (1:00)

Test subject (thanks Tealot) was able to do all this without even realizing what the test was. In other words he wasn’t even trying to avoid the incoming attacks. He was jumping at random.

iMage confusion stacks and duration do need improvement. But no amount of stacks or duration is going to matter if the application is ineffective. iMage needs his buff, but he also needs a redesign to do with it.

Possible solution: iMage uses his own version of Confusing Images. Traited iMage removed condition on pulse within beam. ICD to match current attack/bounce time?

You should just remove celestial amulet and nerf rocket turret.. this “balance” patch looks like april fool joke

I am not sure how impressed to be yet with the impact to celestial builds.

• The might changes impact to engineer = old avg from might (7.5) ~262 – new average from might (5) ~140. Net impact is ~120 power and condi dmg. This is 30 less burning damage per second (so 300 less damage over 10 seconds) and 7.4% less direct damage.
• The might impact to elementalist = old avg from might (19) ~665 – new average from might (16) ~480. Net impact is ~185 power and condi dmg. This is 46 less burning damage per second (so 460 less damage over 10 seconds) and 9.1% less direct damage
• The might impact to shoutbow = old avg from might (16) ~560 – new average from might (13) ~390. Net impact is ~170 power and condi dmg. This is 42 less burning damage per second (so 420 less damage over 10 seconds) and 8.8% less direct damage

Besides might engi is basically unnerfed, minus a 17% redux on one of their bleed durations.

The ele changes are more significant. It amounts to probably ~40% reduction in healing during lightning whip usage, based on what I’m reading. The damage decrease to lightning whip could round out to be an extra 2% less in an overall fight assuming 3 seconds of use every 15 seconds.

I think the buff to dancing dagger is unnecessary. I’d rather see a lesser buff of that go to cluster bomb to make it move more on par with grenades, or an aftercast reduction on cluster bomb.

Like I mention in my previous post on this thread, I’d prefer it if they not buff Nightmare rune…

Anyways, the celestial changes will be noticeable, but I’m not sure how noticeable they’ll actually be as what I was presenting were averages. So the intermittent burst they have in addition to high (but now less high) pressure over time may still prove to be a dominating force, but maybe it’ll have been shaved enough for more build diversity to appear at the top of the meta. Only time will tell, but hopefully not 6+ months of time.

Nova Stiker.8396:

• Mesmer
  … So, torment on critical hit, more confusion and Sigil of Doom still running amok.
  /facepalm this is NOT GOOD ArenaNet, this only encourages more condition removal. This isn’t buffing Mesmers, it’s only buffing PU Mesmers.There is now 0 reasons to run something else on a Mesmer.
  Fail. Just fail.
  …
  I miss Mind Wreck Mesmers, now it looks like ArenaNet only wants them to run PU condi-spam. As for the other classes, this is riding a lot on nerfing builds that use Superior Sigil of Battle.
  Mesmers will be out of bottom tier which is great but a PU Mesmer will be impossible to 1v1 against and making defending a point even more difficult, with even more torment and confusion spamming I think this would be a terrible change.

Says you know little of Mesmer in general. It may buff PU specs, sure, but in no way will this[I believe] overshadow shatter mesmer. Not sure if trolling or sarcastic, but I’ll give you reasons why people would not run PU in PvP: as you said, can’t take points well. Also power shatter will have that immediate burst damage people crave so much. There’re also lockdown specs which have similar burst potential with lots of CC to dominate fights.

If anything, these won’t affect PU Mesmer’s standing so much as it will Power Shatter’s evil twin, Condi Shatter. No idea how by how much these buffs will actually help, but they’re appreciated in ANet’s attempt to increase the usefulness of a sub-meta build.

And, like everyone said, a 10-30% increase on iMage’s projectile speed would be appreciated.

Solid tweaks in the right direction, prudent patch so far ANet.

Good stuff.

I think most of us are just sitting here wondering how Arenanet manages to ignore balance issues with Engineer so well. cough cough Cele Rifle cough cough

I’m still wondering how they managed to ignore Incendiary Powder after calling Dhuumfire bad design and changing it to something with good design.

It’s also funny that they are apparently ignoring air/fire/doom.

Locust Swarm: The casting time of this skill has been reduced from 1 second to 0.5 seconds.

• Dev note: This change will give necromancers a bit more mobility.

Whoever wrote this deserves a troll bonus.

leman.7682:

Locust Swarm: The casting time of this skill has been reduced from 1 second to 0.5 seconds.

• Dev note: This change will give necromancers a bit more mobility.

Whoever wrote this deserves a troll bonus.

+1 lol’d

infantrydiv.1620:

I think most of us are just sitting here wondering how Arenanet manages to ignore balance issues with Engineer so well. cough cough Cele Rifle cough cough

I’m still wondering how they managed to ignore Incendiary Powder after calling Dhuumfire bad design and changing it to something with good design.

It’s also funny that they are apparently ignoring air/fire/doom.

I think we know the answer is Grouch

IP will hopefully be changed someday, hopefully the 16 second recharge 3 second dot block as well.

infantrydiv.1620:

I think most of us are just sitting here wondering how Arenanet manages to ignore balance issues with Engineer so well. cough cough Cele Rifle cough cough

I’m still wondering how they managed to ignore Incendiary Powder after calling Dhuumfire bad design and changing it to something with good design.

It’s also funny that they are apparently ignoring air/fire/doom.

Clearly, Sigil of Battle was the big problem?

Seriously though, out of all the Sigils and Runes, some divine magic, Sigil of Doom gets untouched. Explain ArenaNet…

Look only the clowns think might stacking is the problem. Its the cool thing to say. O its the might stacking not other Op kitten or the 25% more stats.

This patch changes nothing with engineers. Totally nothing. Maybe they just don’t run battle and run the new torment sigil or geomancy/doom instead. It really doesn’t matter. There are so many good on swap sigil choices. This means that if battle isn’t totally broken Op then there are other totally broken Op choices.

Not surprised to see all the engineers saying “good patch wp anet”. I would think it was a good patch if some of the best comps involve TWO of my class. And yet anet decided to not nerf it AT ALL.

Ele gets hit in a minuscule way too. In fact the only change which will do anything at all is the bug fix to ele auto attack. Less burning on drakes breath is irrelevent. If you have burning on you for 3s instead of 4s from 1 hit of this you will die anyway if you dont cleanse it. Nerfing the duration of conditions is always a very very soft nerf which has little to no effect. Same with the engi nade “nerf”, again this will factor out to have ZERO impact on anything espicially with the amount of condi cleanse flying around.

Honestly it is that simple. These patch notes could of read the following:

The end

Seriously. Makes no difference. Nobody is going to be scrambling round thinking “fuccckkkkkk, need to rework our comp now, fml!”. Mesmer/thief will still be strong beyond believe and so will celestial comps.

A balance patch where clear outliers who pop up multiple times in winning teams are not nerfed is not a balance patch at all.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Just some new documentation on the true problem with iMage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT0LXhcZ5ek

• 1. iMage cast within range can potentially hit a target walking away slowly. No speed buffs. (opening seconds)
• 2. iMage cannot hit a target at max range walking away slowly (10s)
• 3. iMage well within range is very likely to miss moving targets within range. This includes mid range attacks, and even point blank range. (1:04, 1:38)
• 4. iMage can be “dodged” simply by jumping while moving. (1:00)

Test subject (thanks Tealot) was able to do all this without even realizing what the test was. In other words he wasn’t even trying to avoid the incoming attacks. He was jumping at random.

iMage confusion stacks and duration do need improvement. But no amount of stacks or duration is going to matter if the application is ineffective. iMage needs his buff, but he also needs a redesign to do with it.

Possible solution: iMage uses his own version of Confusing Images. Traited iMage removed condition on pulse within beam. ICD to match current attack/bounce time?

Nice video. Hopefully balance team from Anet can notice this and fix the problem.

FYI everyone, celestial has 37% more stats than most amulets.

People keep saying 25…

Sube Dai.8496:

FYI everyone, celestial has 37% more stats than most amulets.

People keep saying 25…

Well at this point I think they should just add gear grind to pvp. Seen as they are giving some classes/players the ability to have better gear and more stats anyway.

Will there be a fix for Protection Injection not proccing on Launch?

Gob.3964:

Will there be a fix for Protection Injection not proccing on Launch?

Well its an engineer issue so they are more likely to fix it than any other classes bugs :P

Patchi.9061:

Sorry for the spam —

Another one is the staff elemantlists – As d/d eles are gonna get nerfed the replacement to that will become staff eles – the never dying menace that will take forever to kill. Nerfing sigil of might will not effect staff eles all that much as they have a lot of blasts on their own and a lot of sustain as well — keep an eye on that i’m sure they will become “meta” soon after you shave d/d eles.

---

Staff eles only have 1 blast: Eruption (2 if we include Evasive Arcana: Earth). Let me remind you that Eruption is a 1.25 second cast with about a 3 second delay until the ‘eruption’ and blast actually happens.

DD eles on the other hand have 3 blasts: Frozen Burst, Earthquake and Churning Earth (4 with evasive arcana) and access to Fire Aura by leaping with Magnetic Grasp through the fire field. All of the DD ele blasts are easy to use except for Churning Earth. Let me also remind everyone that Frozen Burst did not ‘blast’ until the April 2014 patch.

I’m not sure where the meta will go. But I am upset about the nerfs to Might and Battle Sigil. It seems like it is just scratching at a couple extremely op builds (cele dd ele, shout war, engi) and gimping Might/Battle for the rest of Guild Wars 2.

Celtus.8456:

Patchi.9061:

Sorry for the spam —

Another one is the staff elemantlists – As d/d eles are gonna get nerfed the replacement to that will become staff eles – the never dying menace that will take forever to kill. Nerfing sigil of might will not effect staff eles all that much as they have a lot of blasts on their own and a lot of sustain as well — keep an eye on that i’m sure they will become “meta” soon after you shave d/d eles.

---

Staff eles only have 1 blast: Eruption (2 if we include Evasive Arcana: Earth). Let me remind you that Eruption is a 1.25 second cast with about a 3 second delay until the ‘eruption’ and blast actually happens.

DD eles on the other hand have 3 blasts: Frozen Burst, Earthquake and Churning Earth (4 with evasive arcana) and access to Fire Aura by leaping with Magnetic Grasp through the fire field. All of the DD ele blasts are easy to use except for Churning Earth. Let me also remind everyone that Frozen Burst did not ‘blast’ until the April 2014 patch.

I’m not sure where the meta will go. But I am upset about the nerfs to Might and Battle Sigil. It seems like it is just scratching at a couple extremely op builds (cele dd ele, shout war, engi) and gimping Might/Battle for the rest of Guild Wars 2.

Staff ele is still exceptionally strong. In addition it has probably overtaken bunker guardian as the easiest spec to play in the game. You literally just do some rotation on a point and dodge in between. It is just spam and is the ultimate in brainlessness.

Celtus.8456:

Patchi.9061:

Sorry for the spam —

Another one is the staff elemantlists – As d/d eles are gonna get nerfed the replacement to that will become staff eles – the never dying menace that will take forever to kill. Nerfing sigil of might will not effect staff eles all that much as they have a lot of blasts on their own and a lot of sustain as well — keep an eye on that i’m sure they will become “meta” soon after you shave d/d eles.

---

Staff eles only have 1 blast: Eruption (2 if we include Evasive Arcana: Earth). Let me remind you that Eruption is a 1.25 second cast with about a 3 second delay until the ‘eruption’ and blast actually happens.

DD eles on the other hand have 3 blasts: Frozen Burst, Earthquake and Churning Earth (4 with evasive arcana) and access to Fire Aura by leaping with Magnetic Grasp through the fire field. All of the DD ele blasts are easy to use except for Churning Earth. Let me also remind everyone that Frozen Burst did not ‘blast’ until the April 2014 patch.

I’m not sure where the meta will go. But I am upset about the nerfs to Might and Battle Sigil. It seems like it is just scratching at a couple extremely op builds (cele dd ele, shout war, engi) and gimping Might/Battle for the rest of Guild Wars 2.

Exactly. 4 blasts to every other classes 1-2 (on bad weapon sets) so they nerf might for everyone…

Meh.

Is my only reaction to those changes.

Still nothing to fix condition stacking.

Good

• Addressed the true problem of might stacking instead of giving into the uninformed with a celestial amulet nerf.

Bad

• I was really expecting a nerf to Incendiary Powder. This trait is way too strong for being impossible to avoid. Cutting one second off would be an appropriate starting point.

Not Sure

• The patch is small and shaving some strong things while slightly improving weak things. If this happens every 1-2 months, it’s good. If this is all we see until summer, it’s really bad.
• Sigil of Torment: Adding another condition to engineer to cover the multitude of conditions they already have makes their condi pressure even stronger.
• Rune of Nightmare: Lower duration is much needed, but lower cooldown may make the seemingly random aspect of it even worse. I’d rather the fear just be changed to something that isn’t a CC.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Staff ele is still exceptionally strong. In addition it has probably overtaken bunker guardian as the easiest spec to play in the game. You literally just do some rotation on a point and dodge in between. It is just spam and is the ultimate in brainlessness.

I would say that is a design flaw. The build that you mention (as I’m imagining it) is not really impacted at all by this nerf, as they don’t always equip battle sigil or might runes. It is just an annoying attrition build that tries to outlast and rely on bad timing/positioning of enemies on point (and is absolutely terrible off-point at anything other than surviving). I would like for there to be more viable options for staff elementalists to play at a high level, do not think I defend the build you describe.

I digress though, my main point was that basic game mechanics (Might) are seemingly being modified just because a couple of builds are over-performing.

Does anyone know if that was all of the balance changes, it seem majorly small compared to what they normally release in terms of balance. Really didn’t do much….

I only hope the next balance patch won’t be in 6 months.

Before every change, this is the main issue to fix.

3 months are enough for a meta.

I honestly cannot believe it took 6 months and this is all they have.

Other than the might changes, which affects EVERYTHING btw. the changes feel redundant, and very little advancement. All the apex predators are going to keep their crowns, and nothing is being buffed strong enough to put them in line.

Very little has come down, and very little has gone up I’d be rather surprised if there much was of a difference.

Even the might changes kind of don’t do much, you make might stacking builds less strong yeah, but a lot of builds generate might or uses it in some way.

I think the most likely outcome is that some already sub-meta builds are going to take the hit worse than actual meta builds.

bs update… the problem isn’t might, condi cleanse times need to be updated for all classes, and why buff engi when they are already the best pvp class? At least gaurd got a small buff to keep up with the new meta, doubt it will help tho.

Nice balance patch,but need more,plz
And can u stop buff engi ? its already op…

Lordrosicky.5813:

A balance patch where clear outliers who pop up multiple times in winning teams are not nerfed is not a balance patch at all.

A lot of people won’t be happy until the blood of Engi/Ele is pooled on the floor and it will have to be removed from the comps. Fair enough, every profession should have their spotlight.

However, you’re straight up too dismissive of the changes we’re looking at right now.

Meta Engi/Ele/War are eating in the realm of 130/190/190 stat reduction, respectively.

That is a nerf that will help level the playing field with professions who don’t have overall as beneficial of might stacking options: (Mes, Necro, Guard, Ranger, Thief.)

With Ele Lightning whip sustain nerfed, Drake’s Breath nerfed, and Shrapnel Bleed duration nerf, these will be felt, and they will be especially beneficial to professions like Mesmer, I can’t see any reason to say literally, and I quote: “Not nerfed”.

You’re saying nothing has happened and yet last week:

Lordrosicky.5813:

10 magical balance steps

2, Remove ele lightning glitch which makes healing too high
9, Lower dps/burning of fire dagger no.2 on ele as it seems very strong currently

They did two of your MAGICAL balance suggestions verbatim and then hit Engi Shrapnel Bleed duration, battle sigil, and might itself.

I was expecting more Cele Engi nerfs as well as a 50pt stat reduction to Celestial Amulet, but don’t be too upset.

Sol.4310:

Does anyone know if that was all of the balance changes, it seem majorly small compared to what they normally release in terms of balance. Really didn’t do much….

They’re not going to release a major patch just before WTS.

Josh Davis,

Your employers seem to dislike and/or neglect necromancers. After dhuumfire nerf, we’ve been getting nothing but marginal buffs and we still paid a price for the marginal buffs w Lich form nerf. To sum it all up, our class have received negative returns from balance updates.

Chaith.8256:

Lordrosicky.5813:

A balance patch where clear outliers who pop up multiple times in winning teams are not nerfed is not a balance patch at all.

A lot of people won’t be happy until the blood of Engi/Ele is pooled on the floor and it will have to be removed from the comps. Fair enough, every profession should have their spotlight.

However, you’re straight up too dismissive of the changes we’re looking at right now.

Meta Engi/Ele/War are eating in the realm of 130/190/190 stat reduction, respectively.

That is a nerf that will help level the playing field with professions who don’t have overall as beneficial of might stacking options: (Mes, Necro, Guard, Ranger, Thief.)

With Ele Lightning whip sustain nerfed, Drake’s Breath nerfed, and Shrapnel Bleed duration nerf, these will be felt, and they will be especially beneficial to professions like Mesmer, I can’t see any reason to say literally, and I quote: “Not nerfed”.

You’re saying nothing has happened and yet last week:

Lordrosicky.5813:

10 magical balance steps

2, Remove ele lightning glitch which makes healing too high
9, Lower dps/burning of fire dagger no.2 on ele as it seems very strong currently

They did two of your MAGICAL balance suggestions verbatim and then hit Engi Shrapnel Bleed duration, battle sigil, and might itself.

I was expecting more Cele Engi nerfs as well as a 50pt stat reduction to Celestial Amulet, but don’t be too upset.

They also did NOTHING to fix the turret engi issue. It is still too strong at all levels except for the very high end matches.

Cele rifle engi still does need some toning down. 2 seconds off the bleed is not enough.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Celestial has 25% more stats. It is that simply. If you can use all those stats then you are just 25% better.

Its “math”. There is nothing else to it. There is no debate. Celestial amulet provides too many stats. Nothing will change. Their sustain is the main problem. They will still out last everything.

Uh… Celestial provides more stats because every single stat is much lower than even the secondary stats on other amulets! Celestial performs much worse than bunker amulets when you talk about sustain and much worse than Berserker or Rabid when you talk about offense! The issue with Celestial is that with might stacking, you have the damage of an offensive amulet with extra defensive stats that synergize well with defensive traits! So yes while the Celestial Amulet numbers should be shaved down a tiny bit, your math is just wrong!

Lordrosicky.5813:

The reason its hard in a 2vs 2 vs an ele/engi is because of the sustain. They simply tank everything and outlast you. The longer the fight goes on the more their additional stats (from celestial) take effect. The result is that they just win the fights.

Eles are pretty beefy but Engis are fragile! They don’t have nearly as much protection if at all, don’t have 100% vigor uptime, are extremely weak to condis, don’t trait 100% for defense and still deal high damage! What are you even saying bro! Engi tanks! Good joke!

Lordrosicky.5813:

But it is irrelevant at this point. Everyone knows Grouch and other devs main engi. Everyone knows they are friendly with NA players who abuse engi/ele. Everyone knows there is real money up for grabs. So the result is that engi/ele/celestial will continue to be protected. If you dont play these classes then good luck carrying kitten.

I don’t think any of the devs main Engi! Grouch mains Engi but he’s not a dev! Get your facts straight mang!

style.6173:

They also did NOTHING to fix the turret engi issue. It is still too strong at all levels except for the very high end matches.

Cele rifle engi still does need some toning down. 2 seconds off the bleed is not enough.

Turret Engis are garbage and aren’t an issue! Cele Engi still needs toning down I agree! But they did more than just shave 2 seconds off the bleed! The might and Battle Sigil changes will be pretty noticible! Celestial does pretty poop damage without might, and the Engi’s only way of stacking might was through Battle Sigil! The total amount of power/condi damage they get from might will literally be halved!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

I want to see Scepter/torch become a viable weapon set in pvp.
This means Buffing iMage further; Projectile speed has to happen.

You can basically strafe the scepters Confusing Images if you’re face to face range, and the precast for it is just crazy… Compare it to unload… :/ and Pistol isn’t even used that much.

I want to see this set have good pressure in a high skill cap shatter build.
Counterspell should be a little faster ;(

They need to nerf might stacking on specific builds, not might in general >>

I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy that I never sold my soul to cele and might stacking. YAY! WOHOO

The Necro changes are pretty weak this patch. I don’t even know a single necro who uses Corrosive Poison Cloud. Cast time on locust swarm so tiny change does so little for usefulness of the skill which is a swift.

DrDivine.5378:

Do you think shoutbow will still be viable?

Sadly, yes. The condi cleansing/healing/sustain/mobility remains the same.

Dredrum.2563:

The Necro changes are pretty weak this patch.

Not just this patch but every patch except one but that was back in Spring 2013 and was nerfed to the ground almost immediately after.

Cool changes, better than nothing. i’ll adapt.

Minor changes again when bigger changes are needed to make GW2 improve from something that is slightly above F2P quality (if that even).

Really poor management decisions again.

1) MINOR SHAVING only works with frequent updates, not 6 months apart.

2) You nerf might as a boon which EVERY class utilises, not just celestial rather than nerf the celestial classes that ABUSE it (eg. should have nerfed d/d eles access to might stacking/ regen survivability rather than nerf actual might which mesmers, warrs, thieves, dps guards need to be considered viable)

3)No news on any new maps/modes!? I’ve just accepted this game is going to be a 1 mode bore-fest for ever or until a better, more exciting MMO pvp game comes out. This is extremely disappointing as i love this games mechanics and classes.

4) Nerfing the ticks/duration of skills like drakes breath does kitten all. You said it yourself, it wont harm the intensity, you will just have to TRY a tiny weeny bit hard to keep burn up. Doesnt seem logical.

5) the only positive changes in my opinion are the fear proc duration on nightmare runes, and the cd duration on time warp.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GET A BALANCE TEAM/ TESTING SERVER FOR THE TOP PLAYERS RATHER THAN BLINDLY DOING MINOR CHANGES ONLY TO FIX 6 MONTHS LATER

:D