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Surprise! Balance changes need more..... balance
maskedweasel
Member LegendaryPosts: 12,195
I logged in today for the new balance changes... they streamlined the traits and changed conditions entirely... anyone that logs in at this time and goes to the HotM will see tons of people complaining that their builds are no longer useful -- but in all honesty its not that builds aren't useful as much as many builds.. and conditions.. are just waaaay more effective.
My celestial elementalist went from being able to solo 1 person and stay alive through a fight against 2 people to being able to run into a group of 3 or 4 people and successfully down a couple. Fire damage just does not scale very well.. without trying very hard I can stack 5 - 8 stacks of fire on to multiple foes that tics for about 1500 - 5000 damage per tic and can last for 5+ seconds. meanwhile I can stack bleeds pretty much as high as I want, and toss multiple other conditions at the same time which makes it tough to cleanse all the DPS. Classes like mesmers, rangers, thieves and engineers that don't have much in the way of condi cleanse drop almost instantly.
Other classes are seeing similar success with moderate condition builds or celestial builds. This update has been in the works quite a bit.. but balancing seems to be extremely off.
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I don't know if its good or bad, but it certainly is a huge change. Its like they upped the tempo of the game for many builds. I basically can't play my thief anymore because I die so fast (although I have seen other thieves do great). You just have to react so much more quickly now, any lag/ping or hesitation means death. I get the feeling a lot of people like that extra intensity.
And yeah, some elementalists seem almost godlike- tanking several players and pumping out quite a bit of damage. I have never been able to get a grips with playing ele, but luckily I can still kind of fumble through with my guard since it has heaps of condition cleanse and hard defences.
Its interesting though, it feels almost like I am playing a new game with how radically the game has been changed.
My thief is amazing now, the build options are really awesome. I think people are overreacting everywhere, a lot of people are thinking they need to make the exact same build they had before, rather than looking into new build options which exist all over the place. Just last night I made a build.. .here I'll link it, http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-g3RV;1Vw-1-6-FOFd0;9;4IKM;0147247237;4INl6I;1IBl3IBl3a0h.... and an alternative test version for fun, http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-g3RV;1RwVa0J5R-kd0;9;4IKM;0237147237;4INW5;2IBl3IBl35l and both are really awesome right now. The first being more traditional, and the second being more to surprise people who expect the normal d/p build.
Back on point though, people who are upset just need to add more condi cleanse and don't be afraid to try something a little different just because it's not "meta" doesn't mean it can't be really effective for your personal playstyle. Just my opinion though.
I suspect a Burn nerf, but not soon. I am having more trouble with the mobility nerf, jsut gotta switch guardian to fire and burn away while i can. ELE remains pvp god.
RIP necro.
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Well, my current thief build is useless now but when a door closes another opens up.... Need to field test a few things before I become competetive again though.
I have to admit that this basic system is far better then the last, it feels more natural and more streamlined.
I'm using Maelzrael's condi cleanse thief built.
I can no longer crit like I used to but I'm also not so squishy anymore and most importantly - I'm having fun.
Thanks for sharing mate.
"It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself."
Charles Darwin ~
I wouldn't take advice on the subject of survival from a dead man.
Nailzzz ~
SO when you say stack 1500-5000 dmg,is there no resists at all?There should be elemental properties that resist for example Fire and you won't know it by looking which would add fun to the game.
If it is as simple as just stack your best dps spell,then it is not a combat system worth playing,might as well play Diablo then.Also there should be decent timers to keep a player from stacking a ton of damage in a short time,then you need to give players the ability to react.
That is what makes great combat,a slower action and reaction design.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Well no, its not as simple as resists. There are some classes that do have resistance abilities. For example thats why the elementalist right now is kind of the godlike elephant in the room. One of the traits you can take is called Diamond Skin, where you cannot have conditions applied to your character over a health threshold ( the threshold is about 10 % of your health, this could be 2000 of max health, or it could be 5000 of max health - or more.. or less depending on spec)
Otherwise you have to handle everything based on condition cleansing. For the most part condition cleansing works based on the amount of conditions you have on you.
For example, I can put on _ immobilize - bleeding - vulnerability - burning - weakness and poison without really trying too hard. The person I'm fighting might use a condition cleanse that removes 2 conditions, but that only clears the 2 conditions I applied first, so they would no longer suffer from immobilize or bleeding. The only REAL saving grace is that conditions stack now -- so even if I apply 10 stacks of burning and ONLY 10 stacks of burning, 1 condition cleanse will cure it despite me having to use 4 skills to apply it.
But therein also lies the power of the elementalist, each attunement (consider them to be like stances) applies different conditions, and weapon swaps and crits also apply conditions. On your elementalist on top of direct damage, you just start applying conditions from normal battles. When spec'd properly, you can cleanse conditions much much faster than can ever really be applied or not be affected by them at all (water attunement is a strong healing stance, so getting topped off on health to apply diamond skin is very easy).
Originally the condition cap of 25 stacks wasn't so bad, because the highest damage conditions didn't stack, they only increased duration. Now they stack, so some skills alone can apply a fire damage intensity of 3, 4, 5, 6+ stacks of fire damage just from a single skill, so multiplying that damage happens very quickly, and durations still do stack.
That means that yes, if I back end load burning damage, they might have to cleanse up to 6 other conditions before they even touch my stack of burning that could be ticking for an average of about 3000 damage per second for up to 10 seconds (depending on if my conjured great sword skill was used). Thats a dead player in all cases just on a single condition.
Honestly, the more I play w/ this system, the less extreme the imbalances seem.
I do suspect some things will get toned down (like burning), but outside of maybe WvW the new system is actually very refreshing. I see a lot of people (and I was one of them initially) freaking out about it, but really it just comes down to you needing to try out new things. New builds, etc. And there are some very fun ones out there atm. I've got at least 1 char for each class, and I have yet to play a class that feels completely screwed by this latest update.
Eles are super strong, but they've been that way for a very long time. It's why they've been getting nerfed with every balance patch over hte past year or so. Because of the versatility of the class there is so much they can do, and when you start adding on items which augment that it gets somewhat complicated to balance. I will say that some of the newer traits they got from earth (diamond skin, and there's another where they can't be crit) are complete BS and should probably be removed. They're way too strong, and this current developing meta just highlights that.
Thief is awesome atm, and the double steal is quite good.
I'm having a ton of fun w/ the new mesmer.
Guardian seems mostly the same, but still very good & the new elite is amazing.
Necro seems mostly the same but still good (my build hasn't' changed much).
Warrior seems mostly the same.
Ele is super good.
LB Ranger isn't as ridiculous as it used to be (thankfully)
I'm still experimenting w/ Engi, but they seem pretty good from what Iv'e seen so far.
sPvP is a ton of fun atm, and there's a lot of experimentation going on. World Bosses are too easy w/ the new stacks (but they've been kinda easy for a while now). Dungeons feel about the same.
Really? I didn't think Diamond Skin was that great. The threshold is above 90% health, which is pretty easy to drop someone down to. Plus, you have to stay in Earth the whole time. Not terrible if you're going for a pure condi build, since it is good at stacking bleeds, but you sacrifice your versatility which I have always found to be the main strength of the class. I like that they toned down the Arcane line. It no longer feels like I HAVE to use it.
Still toying around with Engi. I was running full nades and those changed too drastically (Went from 1500 range to 900) for me to stick with. I like the security they offered by allowing me to remain far backline. Now they are a mid kit. My Engi feels tougher overall though, no matter which traits I am messing with.
Mesmer is my number one, favorite class, and I haven't had the time to really dig deep into the changes so I haven't even logged onto him yet. With a cursory look though it actually looks like my favorite build, which was already crazy strong in WvW, got buffed. Prismatic Understanding builds are soooo much fun. They added a talent that adds an additional +stealth duration on top of it. I always feel like the kid in the back of the class sticking his tongue out at people when I play this, and it just got better
ANet has a terrible way of just pushing stuff out without any thought as to the ramifications and why should they? Look at how many people put down their pitchforks after they were given a character slot. No matter how often or how badly they screw up their patches, they just throw people some free digital goodies and they forget all about it.
I think you're mixing a couple traits here. Under the earth tree you can either choose Diamond Skin or Stone Heart. Diamond skin doesn't allow conditions to be applied to you while you're health is above the threshold which is max health minus 10%.
Eles have a low health pool, so for example, my max health is 17K health and roughly 15K health is the threshold. HOWEVER this works regardless of the attunement.
Stone heart is the elite earth trait that will not allow you to be critical hit while in earth attunement. If you choose this, you are stuck to utilizing earth attunement as a crutch, which as you said, is good for condi builds focused around bleeds. A good ability to have but you can't have both stone heart and diamond skin.
That being said, my ele build makes it exceptionally easy to regain your health with a dagger/focus build. (scepter works well too, but I go dagger because DPS procs faster most of the time and you get an extra aura which applies stun and protection -- really can't wait to go sword focus though).
SO basically as long as you have the trait it shouldn't matter. This completely decimates condi builds, especially well necros and shout bow warriors that NEED the fire field to lay the majority of their DPS. Once you're above the threshold they need to rely on direct damage before you're really "vulnerable".
I really haven't spent much time on my other classes.. I have one of each, but haven't spent much time delving into the new traits.
I do agree the new changes aren't THAT bad.. HOWEVER, there still needs to be some balancing. They made these changes initially because they wanted to give players MORE build options.. but now we're sacrificing build options with skill necessities that focus around massive condition cleanses. The swings in PvP aren't subtle. The people that didn't get the condition cleanse memo drop fast... way too fast. I've only ever had blowout games these past few days. Our team is either 500 to their 100 or our team is 100 and theirs is 500. I'm not saying change everything back, I'm just saying.. a little more balance of the conditions.. or maybe some more inherent condi cleanses or resistances are needed per trait line.
That's when i uninstalled the game, and haven't looked back.
They really don't listen to Community anymore.
@Jonas_SG, so you quit an entire game based on 1 single tiny itsy bitsy skill removal? good, game is not for you if thats all you cared about.Good luck finding a new home.
I think they removed it for PvP reasons.
For months on release we begged Anet to add AoE ability to Pistol thieves, and when they finally did it by changing ricochet, i could finally enjoy Dungeons, Fractals, WvW, all the content that required a group. It was still only doing Medium damage compared to other AoE classes, but it was fun.
Now when they removed it - with out any reason - no one whinned on forums that Pistol thieves were overpowered - it was the last nail on the coffin for thieves. Another uneeded nurfe.
When the character you play becomes useless in the game - there is no more reason to stay.
Pistol Thieves was something Unique in the game. There are other much better Melee classes one can play, but there is no other class in the game that made use of Pistols the way thieves could. It was really fun.
Dual Pistols are just epic in every game.
I am bummed that they removed ricochet. Everyone plays D/P now... sometimes you'll find a shortbow... P/P thieves aren't really great in any setting now