Guild Wars 2

New changes

Bug fixes
-Fixed an issue in which initiative would occasionally be removed during the resurrection process.
-Fixed an issue that caused the player to stop moving momentarily when using this skill on opponents behind the thief.

Smoke Screen: Fixed a bug that sometimes caused this skill to appear at the target’s position instead of the player’s position.
Steal: Fixed a bug in which this skill would be obstructed after shadowstepping to the target if there was an obstacle between the thief and the target upon activation.
Basilisk Venom: Fixed an issue that caused the target to interrupt themselves, instead of the thief being the source of the interrupt.
Cloaked in Shadow: Fixed a bug in which this trait would blind enemies while the thief was already stealthed.
Whirling Axe: Fixed a bug in which this skill would interact with combo fields incorrectly.

Skill facts update
Black Powder: Added a radius skill fact (120).
Signet of Agility: Updated the skill fact to display the correct amount of precision gained.
Signet of Malice: Added a might boon skill fact when the player has the Signets of Power trait.
Backstab: Updated the skill fact to display the correct damage amount with Dagger Training.
Shadow Refuge: Updated the skill fact to display the correct healing amount.
Venomous Knife: Updated the poison skill fact to scale with the Potent Poison trait.
Escape: Updated the poison skill fact to scale with the Potent Poison trait.
Exploding Venom Sack: Updated the poison skill fact to scale with the Potent Poison trait.
Rusty Scrap Strike: Updated the poison skill fact to scale with the Potent Poison trait.
Throw Scale: Updated the poison skill fact to scale with the Potent Poison trait.
Tripwire: Added strike, cripple, and knock down skill facts.
Twisting Fangs: Updated the skill facts to show damage from multiple hits.
Flanking Strike (Dual): Updated the skill facts to show the bonus damage from Combined Training.
Stab (Dual): Updated the skill facts to show the bonus damage from Combined Training.
Shadow Strike: Updated the damage skill fact for the second strike to display the correct damage amount.
Infiltrator’s Arrow: Added a skill fact for number of targets: 3.

New Traits

Deadly Arts
Revealed Training: Gain up to 200 extra power when striking an enemy from stealth, based on your level.

Critical Strikes
Invigorating Precision: You are healed for 5% of outgoing critical strike damage.

Shadow Arts
Resilience of Shadows: Stealth effects that you apply reduce incoming attack damage by 50%.

Acrobatics
Assassin’s Equilibrium: Gain 1.25 seconds of stability when striking an enemy from stealth.

Trickery
Bewildering Ambush: Stealing also applies 5 stacks of confusion for 5.25 seconds.

Nerfs
Pistol Whip:
-This skill has been split between PvP and PvE.
- It will now cost 6 initiative in PvP, while maintaining a 5 initiative cost in PvE.
-Updated the skill facts to show the bonus damage from Combined Training.
-Added an evasion skill fact.

Disabling Shot (Shortbow):
-Reduced the length of this skill’s evasion component from 100% of the skill’s duration to 64% of the skill’s duration—an overall reduction of .3 seconds.
-Evasion is still applied immediately upon using the skill.

Choking Gas:
-Reduced the poison per pulse from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.
-Added a weakness skill fact when traited with Lotus Poison.

Buffs
…

Add this to the nerfs:
“Cloaked in Shadow: Fixed a bug in which this trait would blind enemies while the thief was already stealthed.”

It WAS needed imho, because it was not working as inteded and was extremely annoying to fight against (even if it gives away the thief’s position, it was still annoying as hell to be constantly blinded).

hihey.1075:

Add this to the nerfs:
“Cloaked in Shadow: Fixed a bug in which this trait would blind enemies while the thief was already stealthed.”

It WAS needed imho, because it was not working as inteded and was extremely annoying to fight against (even if it gives away the thief’s position, it was still annoying as hell to be constantly blinded).

i classified it as a bug fix, i don’t see a need to change it

Not impressed at all… where are the new builds to try? All we got was lyssa trashed and more powercreep on other professions.

Was hoping for a venom rework but then again it was never mentionned to start with.

The thing they neglected to mention with Resilience of Shadows, the BIG thing about it…IT EFFECTS PLAYERS YOU STEALTH.

That’s the draw of the trait, it’s for a support build. Thanks to it I went 0/0/6/4/4, took that and Shadow Protector, along with Thrill of the Crime and Bountiful Theft. I can give regen and lower damage to others through stealth, give Fury/Might/Swiftness/Vigor through stealing as well. Zergs beware, my stealthed allies won’t die as fast now.

In regards to the change to Lyssa Runes, it seems the first few boons you receive are Protection, Regen and Swiftness.. it still cleanses Conditions but the boons you may receive are pretty useless now – for Stealthless Builds it makes alot of difference.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

In regards to the change to Lyssa Runes, it seems the first few boons you receive are Protection. Regen and Swiftness.. it still cleanses Conditions but the boons are now pretty useless.

The boons you get should be based on the conditions it cleanses.

IIRC:

Fear→Stability (but you will never get it, because you can’t use Basilisk Venom if you are feared)
Cripple→Swiftness
Blind→Fury
Poison→Regeneration
Vulnerability→Protection
Weakness→Might (3 IIRC)

Can’t remember what Chilled, Torment, Bleed and Burn give you though…

@BobbyT

You (and ANet) forget one thing: The Thieves Guild is now useable underweater.
The only good thief change in trhis patch.

muscarine.5136:

Was hoping for a venom rework but then again it was never mentionned to start with.

They wont change or buff the venoms, as long as Venomous Aura keep untouched.

As far as I’m concerned, Anet has simply kitten nerved my thief into nirvana. Unless they change (buff) something, I’m switching from my 3.5k + hours played thief with full legendary Equipment to elementalist…

/Edit: At least my elementalist can use the incinerators…

hihey.1075:

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

In regards to the change to Lyssa Runes, it seems the first few boons you receive are Protection. Regen and Swiftness.. it still cleanses Conditions but the boons are now pretty useless.

The boons you get should be based on the conditions it cleanses.

IIRC:

Fear->Stability (but you will never get it, because you can’t use Basilisk Venom if you are feared)
Cripple->Swiftness
Blind->Fury
Poison->Regeneration
Vulnerability->Protection
Weakness->Might (3 IIRC)

Can’t remember what Chilled, Torment, Bleed and Burn give you though…

Chilled is either vigor or swiftness, but damaging conditions become regen

At the end he included this word “Buffs”, can anyone tell me what it means…? He didn’t seem to write anything under it… Does it mean blank space or nothing? Void changes?
Guessing the word “Nerfs” stands for normal changes (though it’s a weird abbreviation).

Zero Day.2594:

Guessing the word “Nerfs” stands for normal changes (though it’s a weird abbreviation).

It appears to stand for ‘changes reducing effectiveness’, a common meaning for it’s use, and that indeed is what the changed skills listed under nerfs have in common.

frans.8092:

Zero Day.2594:

Guessing the word “Nerfs” stands for normal changes (though it’s a weird abbreviation).

It appears to stand for ‘changes reducing effectiveness’, a common meaning for it’s use, and that indeed is what the changed skills listed under nerfs have in common.

O well, I just thought with the consistency of “nerfs” from patch to patch that they stood for normal changes.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If you’re looking for buffs, you’re looking at the wrong places. Example;

Warrior:
Merciless Hammer: Damage to stunned and knocked down foes has been decreased from 25% to 20%.
Healing Signet: Reduced the passive heal by 8%.
Pin Down: Added a new warm-up effect. Increased the cast time from .25 seconds to .75 seconds.

Those are buffs for every other professions including Thieves.

Ah so a buff is a nerf but that benefits other classes indirectly. I get it now… so other classes got buffed because of the thief “nerfs”. Wow they sure buff other classes a lot using the thief…

(Ha, actually if you do think that way, we sort of do receive indirect buffs… well so does every other class except for the one getting the nerfs)

Ah, I see, that way, yes, got used to it I suppose :s

If you’re looking for buffs, you’re looking at the wrong places. Example;

Warrior:
Merciless Hammer: Damage to stunned and knocked down foes has been decreased from 25% to 20%.
Healing Signet: Reduced the passive heal by 8%.
Pin Down: Added a new warm-up effect. Increased the cast time from .25 seconds to .75 seconds.

Those are buffs for every other professions including Thieves.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If you’re looking for buffs, you’re looking at the wrong places. Example;

Warrior:
Merciless Hammer: Damage to stunned and knocked down foes has been decreased from 25% to 20%.
Healing Signet: Reduced the passive heal by 8%.
Pin Down: Added a new warm-up effect. Increased the cast time from .25 seconds to .75 seconds.

Those are buffs for every other professions including Thieves.

Healing signet got an 8% nerf.
High crit damage builds got a 10% nerf
> healsig got a 2% buff by that roundabout logic.

I will say that I’m going to be investing more in vitality and less in toughness now though.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If you’re looking for buffs, you’re looking at the wrong places. Example;

Warrior:
Merciless Hammer: Damage to stunned and knocked down foes has been decreased from 25% to 20%.
Healing Signet: Reduced the passive heal by 8%.
Pin Down: Added a new warm-up effect. Increased the cast time from .25 seconds to .75 seconds.

Those are buffs for every other professions including Thieves.

That until you met a Warrior with Skullcrack + the new Sigil of Paralyzation.

Pro-tip: Start walking with an extra stun breaker.

^ Doesn’t change the fact that the nerf that Warriors got are buffs for Thieves.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

^ Doesn’t change the fact that the nerf that Warriors got are buffs for Thieves.

What a bullkitten.

Since when is a nerf for one class, a buff for all other classes?

That would mean, that thieves are now stronger against every class, therefore Ele,Mesmer,Ranger,etc. just because the warrior gets a nerf.

And this is not true and a stupid way of thinking.

Black Teagan.9215:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

^ Doesn’t change the fact that the nerf that Warriors got are buffs for Thieves.

What a bullkitten.

Since when is a nerf for one class, a buff for all other classes?

Since “balance” was defined.

That would mean, that thieves are now stronger against every class, therefore Ele,Mesmer,Ranger,etc. just because the warrior gets a nerf.

You jumped to a wrong conclusion.

And this is not true and a stupid way of thinking.

An increase in damage to Thief means killing a Warrior sooner than later.
A decrease in healing to Warrior means Thieves can kill them sooner than later.

I don’t see the difference in result.

The difference is a buff is a potential increase in effectiveness. A nerf to another class simply means their effectiveness against others or for their own preservation may be decreased; your effectiveness remains unchanged.
A buff may also be true in all scenarios. i.e A buff to thief is a buff to thief vs warrior, and a buff to thief vs elementalist. A nerf to a warrior is not a buff for a thief vs elementalist.

Impact.2780:

The difference is a buff is a potential increase in effectiveness. A nerf to another class simply means their effectiveness against others or for their own preservation may be decreased; your effectiveness remains unchanged.

So not true. Your effectiveness is relative to your target.

Why else would you try to weaken their defenses or hinder their offense if not to improve your effectiveness?

A buff may also be true in all scenarios. i.e A buff to thief is a buff to thief vs warrior, and a buff to thief vs elementalist. A nerf to a warrior is not a buff for a thief vs elementalist.

A buff on a Thief is not necessarily a buff across the board or against every other profession.

Example; Thief gets +200 damage per attack, but Warrior gets -200 Damage for each incoming damage. Did you receive a buff against Warrior then?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

So not true. Your effectiveness is relative to your target.

Why else would you try to weaken their defenses or hinder their offense if not to improve your effectiveness?

No it’s not. How effective you are depends on your stats. The word can be used with respect to scenario or opponent with given attributes, but those are variables which change with each scenario. Therefore, your real effectiveness is concerned with only your own stats.

Hindering a person’s offense is affecting their attributes, thereby decreasing their effectiveness – not increasing yours.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

A buff on a Thief is not necessarily a buff across the board or against every other profession.

Example; Thief gets +200 damage per attack, but Warrior gets -200 Damage for each incoming damage. Did you receive a buff against Warrior then?

Hence why I said “may” and “potential”. I don’t presume to know what builds every player uses at any given time. That being said, it would be “a buff to the thief” and “a nerf to the warrior”, simply. Not “a buff to thief against warrior”. That’s combining two results into a single statement that is missleading.

You can argue all day, and it’ll feel like you’re right because the results of what you describe are the same. This is a semantics issue. You’re confusing equivalent with equality.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Impact.2780:

The difference is a buff is a potential increase in effectiveness. A nerf to another class simply means their effectiveness against others or for their own preservation may be decreased; your effectiveness remains unchanged.

So not true. Your effectiveness is relative to your target.

Why else would you try to weaken their defenses or hinder their offense if not to improve your effectiveness?

A buff may also be true in all scenarios. i.e A buff to thief is a buff to thief vs warrior, and a buff to thief vs elementalist. A nerf to a warrior is not a buff for a thief vs elementalist.

A buff on a Thief is not necessarily a buff across the board or against every other profession.

Example; Thief gets +200 damage per attack, but Warrior gets -200 Damage for each incoming damage. Did you receive a buff against Warrior then?

No but you did against the other 7 classes
quit trolling

Impact.2780:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

So not true. Your effectiveness is relative to your target.

Why else would you try to weaken their defenses or hinder their offense if not to improve your effectiveness?

No it’s not. How effective you are depends on your stats. The word can be used with respect to scenario or opponent with given attributes, but those are variables which change with each scenario. Therefore, your real effectiveness is concerned with only your own stats.

It seems that the way you determine your effectiveness is a little skewed.

Here’s an example of effectiveness:
My basic attack is more effective against light armor than it is against heavy armor.

If Elementalist starts wearing heavy armor, my effectiveness against them goes down. But if the Warrior starts wearing light armor, my effectiveness against them goes up.

No changes to my own stats nor buffs, yet my effectiveness changes because my target changes.

Hindering a person’s offense is affecting their attributes, thereby decreasing their effectiveness – not increasing yours.

If their defense increase proportional to my damage increase, my effectiveness remains at zero.

Think of it as a weighing scale. You know what that is right?

Ok, so on your side of the scale, you have a pile of grain. As I increase the amount of grain on my side, so was your side, thus the scale doesn’t tip.

If I poke a hole under your pan so that your grain starts dropping, I would eventually tip the scale. Relative to your weight, I just gain some weight.

Do you understand this concept?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

A buff on a Thief is not necessarily a buff across the board or against every other profession.

Example; Thief gets +200 damage per attack, but Warrior gets -200 Damage for each incoming damage. Did you receive a buff against Warrior then?

Hence why I said “may” and “potential”. I don’t presume to know what builds every player uses at any given time. That being said, it would be “a buff to the thief” and “a nerf to the warrior”, simply. Not “a buff to thief against warrior”. That’s combining two results into a single statement that is missleading.

The statement “a buff to Thief against Warrior” is not misleading since the buff that the Thief receives is relative to the Warrior and will only work against Warrior.

You can argue all day, and it’ll feel like you’re right because the results of what you describe are the same. This is a semantics issue. You’re confusing equivalent with equality.

That’s the problem, you want equality when it holds no meaning in this game. As I pointed out, even if Anet equally buff every profession with +200 damage per hit, then buff all profession with -200 damage from incoming hit -- there’s not going to be a difference since relative to each profession, nothing have changed.

Shemsu.8721:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Impact.2780:

The difference is a buff is a potential increase in effectiveness. A nerf to another class simply means their effectiveness against others or for their own preservation may be decreased; your effectiveness remains unchanged.

So not true. Your effectiveness is relative to your target.

Why else would you try to weaken their defenses or hinder their offense if not to improve your effectiveness?

A buff may also be true in all scenarios. i.e A buff to thief is a buff to thief vs warrior, and a buff to thief vs elementalist. A nerf to a warrior is not a buff for a thief vs elementalist.

A buff on a Thief is not necessarily a buff across the board or against every other profession.

Example; Thief gets +200 damage per attack, but Warrior gets -200 Damage for each incoming damage. Did you receive a buff against Warrior then?

No but you did against the other 7 classes
quit trolling

lol @ trolling

Yes, that’s true and that’s a dangerous way of issuing buff since it affect other professions that Thieves already in balance with. That will only make Thieves OP against those profession.

The way Anet does this is they look at what profession we are having trouble with and nerf that profession instead, rather than giving Thief more damage that they can abuse.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

It seems that the way you determine your effectiveness is a little skewed.

Here’s an example of effectiveness:
My basic attack is more effective against light armor than it is against heavy armor.

If Elementalist starts wearing heavy armor, my effectiveness against them goes down. But if the Warrior starts wearing light armor, my effectiveness against them goes up.

No changes to my own stats nor buffs, yet my effectiveness changes because my target changes.

That’s the second time you’ve attempted to counter a point I made which didn’t require countering. I clearly stated that “effectiveness” can be used with respect to a scenario or opponent, but that those details are variables for that scenario or opponent. So, in terms of a global effectiveness – which is the purpose of a buff or nerf since they are to deal with balance issues – it concerns only your own attributes.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

If their defense increase proportional to my damage increase, my effectiveness remains at zero.

Think of it as a weighing scale. You know what that is right?

Ok, so on your side of the scale, you have a pile of grain. As I increase the amount of grain on my side, so was your side, thus the scale doesn’t tip.

If I poke a hole under your pan so that your grain starts dropping, I would eventually tip the scale. Relative to your weight, I just gain some weight.

Do you understand this concept?

See above.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

The statement “a buff to Thief against Warrior” is not misleading since the buff that the Thief receives is relative to the Warrior and will only work against Warrior.

It is missleading because it implies that – assuming you “understand the concept” of effectiveness where buffs and nerfs are concerned (overall balance… global.. repetition and all that) – that a thief received a tweak to make them stronger specifically against warriors, such as +200 to a thief when attacking a warrior. Note that I say “stronger” not “more effective” because the tweak would be dependent on the class of the opponent, and would therefore be an external attribute.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

That’s the problem, you want equality when it holds no meaning in this game. As I pointed out, even if Anet equally buff every profession with +200 damage per hit, then buff all profession with -200 damage from incoming hit -- there’s not going to be a difference since relative to each profession, nothing have changed.

I don’t “want” equality. Equality is boring. That’s why games have multiple classes and numerous build options for each. Semantics isn’t a question of who wants what. It’s the logic of meaning. Equal means the same, and concerns the entirety of the given operands. Equivalent only concerns part of the given operands – the result or value. Not every buff is equivalent to a nerf, and no buffs are equal to a nerf.

This can be easily demonstrated with a computer, the circuitry of which is designed for fundamental logic operations known as Boolean logic. Computation is based on concepts found by mathematicians and logicians. If you create a program, and in that program have two String objects named stringOne and stringTwo, and initialise both independently with the same value, (stringOne == stringTwo) will be false, while (stringOne.equals(stringTwo) will be true. This is because == checks if they are the same, while the equals method is defined to compare specific parts of the entity, most commonly a single attribute or result thereby determining equivalence. This is a common problem and confusion for many new programmers that they have to overcome and realise the difference.

I realise I probably could have left out that last paragraph. It is a bit of an extreme measure to explain the concept, but I don’t appreciate being replied to as if I’m too slow to keep up with the conversation.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Shemsu.8721:

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Impact.2780:

The difference is a buff is a potential increase in effectiveness. A nerf to another class simply means their effectiveness against others or for their own preservation may be decreased; your effectiveness remains unchanged.

So not true. Your effectiveness is relative to your target.

Why else would you try to weaken their defenses or hinder their offense if not to improve your effectiveness?

A buff may also be true in all scenarios. i.e A buff to thief is a buff to thief vs warrior, and a buff to thief vs elementalist. A nerf to a warrior is not a buff for a thief vs elementalist.

A buff on a Thief is not necessarily a buff across the board or against every other profession.

Example; Thief gets +200 damage per attack, but Warrior gets -200 Damage for each incoming damage. Did you receive a buff against Warrior then?

No but you did against the other 7 classes
quit trolling

lol @ trolling

Yes, that’s true and that’s a dangerous way of issuing buff since it affect other professions that Thieves already in balance with. That will only make Thieves OP against those profession.

The way Anet does this is they look at what profession we are having trouble with and nerf that profession instead, rather than giving Thief more damage that they can abuse.

I guess that’s a very optimistic way of looking at things… Bring everyone down to the same level as opposed to bringing them up to the same level.

:/ In a strange way it does actually make a bit more sense than buffing…
If you buff a class to be on par with an OP class, then there will be two… everyone will kitten about those two, until other classes are brought on par. So instead, bring the OP class down to the same level of “suckiness” (defined by the weakest class), anyone one deemed OP after the first has been brought down will be brought down to that level as well.

If that’s kind of the thought here, then buff’ing is still a bit better. If you consider people that switch to OP classes when they arise this is what will happen in each situation. If classes are buffed to the OP status (which will mean eventually all will be equal) one at a time then it gives more options to choose from between which OP class you want to play. If the classes are nerfed down to a certain level of “suckiness” then those people mentioned will keep switching to the new OP class once their old is nerfed down, until ofc all the classes become equal. In terms of the UP (under powered) classes in both situations, they will remain kind of bottom feeders and will have either one OP class to QQ (nerfing down) about or multiple (buffing up).

Also with nerfing classes down, the people that “win” are those that can switch between classes and are not tied down by things (preferences, gold for gear). While buffing classes up, the people that can’t switch might benefit too as their class might be the one that gets buffed up earlier.

(Though I highly doubt all classes will be “equal” or balanced. Quite honestly, I’m starting to not care about balance, and more about roles I can do as a thief in comparison to my guard/warrior (which is ofc still leads to balance))

The point of that I believe is work load. It’s less work to nerf one thing than buff everything else. The same goes for the opposite, but people don’t tend to think too much about the reasoning behind a buff, they just take it and run =P.

Sometimes it creates problems with game content, since everything over time gets more nerfs than buffs. The devs combat that by introducing a next level or tier of equipment to obtain and gear up with, which also gives their players something new to work toward. The fact about it introducing new goals for players is what makes the gradual reduction of effectiveness across all classes favourable to a gradual increase, because then existing content needs to be increased in difficulty and players will want new dungeons which is more work than a new tier of equipment - again, comes to work load. ANet doesn’t have much to worry about with GW2 anyway since they don’t release expansions for it, and have already demonstrated they are more than happy to nerf dungeons when a significant number of players (not necessarily the majority) complain about the difficulty.

Buffing everyone to OPness is not fun because it will comes down to who ever gets the first strike. This is the main complain about stealth, it gives a lot of advantage to the one who strike first — and if that is a Thief using backstab, the fight is already on the Thief’s favor.

The choice is really simple: To nerf one profession or to buff seven professions.

It’s more manageable the fewer you’ll have to change.

@Impact & Vince

So, work load is about the same in both cases, nerfing down/buffing up.
You can either, buff all 7 professions at once, to the same level, which is yeah a BIG work load, I agree there.
You can buff 1 (or a select few) profession at a time, which creates the same amount of work as…
You can nerf 1 profession down, to a “UP” or “balanced” level.
The catch on the last one becomes, well okay you hit the nail that sticked out the most, but now another nail is sticking out the most (since at the “start” of this, everything is on different levels). So you will need to nerf another one down, and once again you will (most likely) find that another class needs a nerf. (Till you nerf all 8 down to the same level).
(And funny enough, the opposite is true as well, while you’re buffing each class up, there will be that one class that’s still below…. unless you DO manage to bring everyone to the same level (up/down), which is amazing – congrats you “won” the balancing game)

In terms of game content problems that can arise…
Buffing up will make the content too easy, the expectancy will be new content (persistent one at that too). However you can always buff content up as well.
Nerfing down will make the content too hard, the expectancy will be to nerf the content as well. Or to release a new set of gear (personally, kitten that, ascended is still atrocious, in all it’s aspects (won’t go off on a tangent) – so new gear, ha, no thanks) so players can work to wards.
“Content” in both cases can be seen as something you can sink your time into (gearing, new dungeons…), so either way you’re releasing content unless you modify the existing to compensate for either the nerfing or buffing overall.
Depends on the crowd, releasing a new set of gear (my crowd) might not be what they like, at the same time releasing another pointless dungeon might also be not fun (okay i got nothing here… who doesn’t want a new dungeon… :| i’m sure someone doesn’t though… weird people do exist, look at me for instance… or better yet burnfall(wonder if he talks in real life the same way he does on the forums…)).
Actually about the dungeon/content, you’re going to want to release more if you want people to log in and have a chance at buying something in the gem store ( $.$ ).

The “first strike” deal, I’m interrupting it in two ways.
First, literally the first strike in combat. Buffing doesn’t necessarily mean damage, the classes that are victim to the first strike might get buffed by getting better defenses (equal to those of the striker) and maybe damage too. This is the “same” amount of work, determining what to buff (when only buffing) and determining what to nerf (when only nerfing).
For this case, if nerfing down, say the damage of the first striker, the striker will then complain that the victim has become OP since they now have more survivability. (Which is what’s happening with the current 10% nerf, and glass cannons no longer dropping ele’s)

Second, “first strike” as in the first one to be buffed up to OPness. This solely effects people that chase/switch to OP classes, as they will have now a variety to choose from. The previous “bottom feeders”, might get lucky, and become OP. Either way, the new “bottom feeders” will be unhappy because there’s still (and now two clearly OP) classes that dominate them.
For this case, if nerfing down, then the “bottom feeders” will be happy that their OP rival was brought to their level. Soon after they will sets sights on the next “OP” (previously decent/good) class that’s above them. Those that chase OP classes will simply switch to the next OP class, the bottom feeders will remain where they are however (:/ sorry no luck, since we can’t buff anyone up).

And in writing all this, it kind of becomes clear that whether we’re nerfing down only or buffing up only, we’re looking at the same coin, just it’s different sides.

The last side (coin analogy, out the window! unless you count the thickness of the coin as a side, which can still apply to this) is effectively giving buffs and nerfs at the same time. Although it may be the same amount of work as solely buffing up/nerfing down, it produces the risk of throwing a class more out of balance.

This becomes a strive for perfection in terms of balance. Perfection – cannot be achieved. (And if perfection is achievable, then things one by one will come to a halt in development (No I’m not high) since they’ve reached their “perfect” state. Which can also mean, when development stops, w/e it is becomes at it’s “perfect” state. So in a strange way, things exist in a imperfectly prefect state).
(And brain power died here…. pizza arrived… Also… 1 hour flood control till I can post again)