Reviewing the November 28th Balance Patch Preview for World vs. World in Guild Wars 2

[@DrOctawius]

Cant wait to this patch. I really love it when devs give us more options to play and delivering a stab to the party is the last area where only one class shines atm. Personally, I gonna test Mirage/Core Mesmer as specs for the new Mesmer Support build. It seems it would be an interesting choice in a support slot in WvW fights. On the druid topic, I think this patch will kick out Turtle as one of the pets. Healing Feline will take over this place.

[@sheffplaysgames]

I agree. I can understand that there's a lot of people who are frustrated by Berserker and Barrier Scourge not getting changed, but come on. Firebrand has been an auto-include since the dawn of time. Anything that may break that up is interesting -- and I'm hopeful that this current iteration of the balance team can get stability and boon support to the same level as cleanse and healing support, with 3-4 different viable options that all have a slight niche.

[@EruElpidus]

The way I understand it, the changes to smash brawler might seem like a "skill-dependent change" but it really is a buff when playing gs/hammer. The extra 5s in berserk can hurt you if your commander decides to end the engage way before your berserk is done, meaning when your tag is not actively engaging the enemy blob, you are still stuck in berserk. This delays your berserk for the next engagement. With this change, if you aren't hitting anything with the F1, your berserk goes away when it is not needed. The condition to extend the new smash brawler is just to hit 1 single target, there is hardly any skill expression in that when all your burst skills have a 360 radius, setting the bar extremely low. On the topic of arc divider, many seem to think that it is the burst damage that is the problem but I'd argue that it is not the case. There are a few other low cd skills that can hit as hard if not harder than arc divider (vault, mighty blow, gravedigger, death spiral etc) yet virtually no one complains about these skills. This is because these skills are limited by their reach. Arc divider has a massive 360 radius around the player. Melee skills with a 360 radius around the player are usually limited by their huge cooldown (soul spiral) yet arc divider is somehow the exception. The berserker stands little to risk when he uses arc divider. He/she is bound to hit 5 targets by virtue of the large radius, while putting himself at a very low risk because there is no commitment required since the berserker can move while casting. This is in contrast to the many other low cd high burst skills. Consider nomad advance, it locks your movement (you cannot cancel unless you swap weapon which not always be available) in order to do damage and requires a target for precise positioning of the damage (and eats energy). There is risk involved when you initiate a nomad advance because you can die during that 0.75s. Moreover, the radius is only 180 so you have to carefully select your target to maximise the damage. The same goes for might blow/phantom onslaught/gravedigger. None of them have 360 range AND freedom of movement while casting. If you want to do high burst damage, there must at least be some risk/cost involved imo.

[@sheffplaysgames]

Nice points, Eru. Some general notes: = I agree with you on GS/Hammer being a buff on Smash Brawler, but running GS/Hammer in the first place is already a choice with drawbacks -- you're exceptionally dependent on melee, and it affords an enemy group a bit of counterplay to be able to just kite away from you while Berserk is active. = I think Arc Divider could probably stand to have its radius reduced to 240. I still think that doublecasting an Arc Divider, when a single Arc Divider is usually enough to get you pretty close to downstate, is one of the biggest issues at present. But there's a lot of different ways that Berserker could get tuned, and I'm pretty sure it's on ANet's radar, so we'll see what they go with. I think that's a great point about what it "costs" to use Arc Divider, and you've convinced me. Good insight. :)

[@EruElpidus]

@@sheffplaysgames Nice analysis by the way, it does look like a nice patch although I was hoping tempest could be brought up to par with support druid/vindi in open field. I fully agree with you that going full melee on berserker has some tradeoff and that waiting for it to expire is a good strategy for the enemy. However, the point I am trying to make is that the non traited berserk duration fits very nice for a typical engage, meaning that by the time the non-traited berserk ends, you would already be regrouping for the next big push. When the melee engage actually happens, your berserk would be available again. However, with the extended berserk duration, you would still be stuck in berserk. When the next big push beings, you would therefore have just left berserk, putting it on cooldown for a big melee push. With a longbow, you can still make use of the extended duration by spamming scorched earth but you don't have this when going gs/hammer. With the new trait, you can sort of control when you exit berserk, meaning this mismatch is less likely to happen. With regards to arc divider's damage being too high, I still think the biggest issue is the range. You could be standing next to your commander/driver and still get spiked. There are many combos that can down a player from 100 to 0(vault spamming, vindi's nomad advance + gs2 + gs3 etc., guard gs4 + gs2 + whirling light + gs3) but all of these combos require the player to be in very close contact with their targets. Using 2 arc dividers back to back is to me part of a combo and I would be careful to tune the damage down too much imo.

[@Taygeta]

Great summary!

[@zebriod8046]

Sheff with the great info as always!

[@Saint_Cuthbert]

Thanks Sheff!

[@nitocris6349]

My opinion that warrior damage being high is derserved. reason why is warrior lacks sustain boons like other classes can just vomit those. If warrior loses damage it becomes bad for lack of boons that are not offensive. (Banners are bad cause you need to stand around the banner to get the boons. also you can't even stun break yourself with the skill that is a stun break)

[@sheffplaysgames]

You do get boons on placement with Tactics, for what it's worth. Any skill that gives multiple stacks of Stability is always going to be worth looking at. But I think the biggest thing that sets Warrior apart from other DPS classes is that it's exceptionally tanky compared to other high DPS options like Dragonhunter, Weaver, or Holosmith. It's got a big base health pool, and then a bunch of great defensive utilities like Defiant Stance, Balanced Stance, or Dolyak Signet, if you need to survive in melee. Defensive boons are a big part of value in WvW, but it's not everything.

[@nitocris6349]

@@sheffplaysgames i see where you coming from... however i would take a health reduction if i get more protection, resolution or a more on demand defensive boons that are not needed to stand around. banners require to stand around the banner and signet and stances can't share to allies like soul beast can.

[@LootHunt]

Prediction, all wvw support chrono's will switch to dps virtuoso, because veil is the only useful support skill they have and don't have to be support to use it.

[@LootHunt]

The only problem with the current meta in wvw is people not knowing to use it while getting farmed.

[@LootHunt]

5:17 scrapper... move your gear from scrapper to druid. Done. Tempest.. move your gear to ... support necro. Done. Weaver... there are fun buttons on holo, go look.

[@sheffplaysgames]

I've heard that EU really doesn't like Support Tempest anymore, and is generally playing Druid and Support Necro. Hasn't really been the case in NA at all though. I didn't realize that the two regions were that far apart in what was considered meta.

[@LootHunt]

@@sheffplaysgames The EU iterates meta faster than NA because there is three times as many people. If you run tempests in EU, you get W keyed. Weaver love their many buttons, holo has that, play style transition for them is similar. WvW BvB/GvG support though, barrier scourge is S tier and mostly the same gear as Tempest.

[@sheffplaysgames]

Interesting. The few groups that I've commanded against in NA that are running Barrier Scourge, you just stand on top of their Transfuse and follow the trail of downs with melee cleave. Groups running it are either giving up a damage slot to do it, so they have no punish damage, or they're giving up a Druid or Vindi to do it, and struggle a lot with condition clears and raw healing over a drawn-out fight. I have heard, anecdotally, that it's a problem profession in the GvG environment, but I don't have the free time to commit to GvGs these days, unfortunately.

[@LootHunt]

​@@sheffplaysgames To be clear there are barrier scourges that martyr clean and one barrier scourge that transfuses. One counter, is for the scourge to precast Undeath at himself, then f4 for a instant rez of one. A zerg counter would be to precast a banner on the other side of a cross where main stack will buff and the F4 will scoop many to stack. The amount of time a scourges F4-rez's take increase with how long the down bleeds out. Most rez's are 1/4 sec if no cc, and CD on transfuse is every 8 sec with a druid in the party. When you say push on to the transfuse, I don't think you are saying push w/o cd's on to the 40+ stacked enemy standing on their transfused friendly. Transfuses from a stationary stack are good. For off tag transfuses the zerg can centaur protective solace, glyph of stars and be ready to burst counter if the enemy eposes itself to push a solo transfuse. For squad 10 fb, 10 sup-scourge, 5 sup-vindi, 2 chrono, the rest can be burst-dps. The druids are most useful tp counter condi pressure, and long sustain like cloud or seige, but not necessary. Trans party FB sup-scourge, druid, chrono, zerk with banner.

[@Jl5St]

anyone have build for the bubble necro?

[@sheffplaysgames]

I'll be doing one after the update next month, just want to see if anything changes before then. In the meantime, Taygeta (kzbin.info/www/bejne/mnqtqmN_o5qrfdk&ab_channel=Taygeta) and Metallone (kzbin.info/www/bejne/imLHaYt9eNqCbrM&ab_channel=metalloneGW2) have some good videos of it.

[@pospi3120]

Will there be expansion on sale?

[@sheffplaysgames]

I haven't heard anything, unfortunately. Keep an eye on Steam, if you're a Steam player. Otherwise, keep an eye on Dak's wiki page, they update with current expansion sales. Link: wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Dak393/Expansion_Sales

[@sheffplaysgames]

HoT, PoF, and EoD are on sale until the 28th, if you needed any.

[@TheHyBriD3I6]

I am waitinf for thief to have a playable build

[@sheffplaysgames]

I think a lot of people are. :(

[@olsonbrandon91]

Thief is nutty always what u mean!?

[@sheffplaysgames]

@@olsonbrandon91 I'm generally only talking about groups and squads on my channel. Not much of a roamer. Thief doesn't really contribute anything to a party, despite its established niche as a roamer.

[@KuchiKopi179]

​@@sheffplaysgamesprobably the fault of the game mode.

[@olsonbrandon91]

They never do anything cool for rev lol