The MMORPG Guild Wars 2 has announced a new balance patch that will make changes to all classes and game modes. The focus is on a general reduction of damage and healing.
What changes with the patch? Due to the expansions Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, all classes have become stronger overall. This leads to more one-shot builds, but also to stronger tanks and healers. Generally, the game has become much faster.
This is exactly what the developers want to change now with a huge balance patch. The “power creep” should be removed and the overall pace of the game should slow down. The most important changes are:
- Adjustment of damage overall: Skills that deal only damage will remain strong, while skills with additional bonuses such as CC or defense will become weaker. Additionally, condition damage should be reduced.
- Healing will also be reduced in accordance with the damage.
- Cooldowns on skills will generally be increased to encourage more cautious usage.
- Instant effects should be weakened.
- Passive skills for defense will be weakened or have longer cooldowns.
When will the huge balance patch be released? There is currently no release date for the update. However, a release in February seems very likely. It is announced for the first quarter of 2020 in any case.
After the update, a more regular balance rhythm is intended. The developers plan to release a new, but much smaller update every 4 to 6 weeks.
The changes seem to be a direct result of the restructuring in the area of balancing that took place in October 2019.
What changes in general for PvP and WvW
The balance patch splits into the three areas PvE, PvP, and WvW and has each received a post about it in the official forum. The overall patch notes are extremely long, so we want to summarize the most important changes here for you.
What changes in PvP? In PvP, there have been many changes to the values of amulets and some runes:
- 4-amulets now always have the distribution of 1,000/1,000/500/500 instead of the previous 1050/1050/560/560, significantly reducing the value counts.
- The Sigil of Nullification and the Sigil of Agility have been removed from the PvP equipment.
- The following amulets have been removed: Death Shot, Viper, Wanderer, Seer, Devastating, and Seeker.
- Overall, the bonuses of blessing or condition duration have been reduced on many runes.
However, the biggest change concerns weapon damage. This is always specified in “from-to” values. In PvP, the exact average is now taken.
What changes in WvW? In WvW, not much has changed this time. Many balance changes to the classes refer to both PvP and WvW.
However, it was announced that there will be a stronger differentiation between both game modes in the future.
What changes to the classes
Many changes also occur in individual classes. Here we only want to give you a rough overview. You can find the complete changes here:
- General changes (translated from Guildnews)
- General changes on Forum.guildwars2.com (English)
- Changes in PvP/WvW (translated from Guildnews.de)
- Changes in PvP/WvW on Forum.guildwars2.com (English)
Class-independent changes
- Auras are now more noticeable and receive new icons in the buff bar.
- The effect “Unblockable” is now standardized and even stackable.
- The symbols for the downstate on the minimap and the world map have been adjusted.
Thief
General:
- The skills from the pistol have been revised and the skill Ankle Shots has even been completely replaced.
- Additionally, the bundles obtained from stealing have been revised.
PvP and WvW:
- The damage of many weapon skills has been reduced.
- However, little has changed with the dagger. “Heart Seeker,” for example, has not been adjusted at all.
- “Backpedal” is one of the few healing skills whose healing has been increased. However, the recharge time has also been slightly increased.
- The damage coefficient of the elite “Uppercut” has been changed from 2.25 to 0.01.
Elementalist
General:
- Elementals now live longer. Minor elementals can no longer be commanded, though you can now have multiple of them at once.
PvP and WvW:
- Overall, the damage from fire and air skills and the healing from water skills has been significantly reduced.
- The earth skills have lost nearly all their damage if they contained an additional defensive effect. The skill Sand Wall now grants only 0.5 seconds of protection instead of 2 seconds and hits only 5 players instead of 10.
- In the skill Tornado, the damage coefficient has been reduced from 1.1 to 0.01. At the same time, the cooldown has been reduced from 90 to 60 seconds. The skill now mainly serves as CC.
Engineer
General:
- The specialization “Explosives” is getting a major update aimed at making the line more exciting.
- The trait Dodging Powder has been removed and replaced with a new one.
- The grenades have been updated for better visibility.
PvP and WvW:
- Overheating no longer disables Holosmith skills, but adds a recharge time of 15 seconds upon use.
- The animations of some photon skills have been adjusted to take longer.
- Many weapon and utility skills have seen damage reductions.
- The elite skill Supply Crate now has a damage coefficient of only 0.01, but the stun duration has been increased from 2 to 3 seconds, and the recharge time has been reduced from 120 to 90 seconds.
Warrior
General:
- The rifle from the warrior has been buffed and gains the ammunition trait on some skills.
- The hammer now deals proportionally more damage to enemies under the influence of CC.
PvP and WvW:
- Overall, the damage of many weapon and utility skills has been reduced. The shield was particularly affected.
- The nerf for the rifle is smaller. Here, even the stacks of vulnerability on two skills have been increased instead of reduced.
- Skills like “Bull Charge” or “Wild Strike” now only have a damage coefficient of 0.001 due to their CC.
- The elite skill “Signet of Rage” has been revised. It now grants 20 stacks of might for 4 seconds instead of 5 stacks for 25 seconds. The recharge time is reduced from 60 to 40 seconds. It will thus become a skill that can have a short but noticeable impact on combat.
Mesmer
General:
- The skills from the greatsword and the specialization “Dominance” have been adjusted to ensure that the mesmer gets a reliable ranged build.
- The trait “Confusing Insight,” which has often led to balance issues, has been replaced with a new one.
PvP and WvW:
- The damage of shatter skills has only been slightly reduced.
- The greatsword has been weakened relatively little compared to other weapons.
- The recharge time for mass invisibility has been increased from 60 to 75 seconds.
- The well of gravity has been weakened in damage, but its recharge time has been reduced from 90 to 60 seconds.
- Illusion Mantle for the illusionist now consumes 50 endurance in PvP/WvW.
Necromancer
General:
- Stability is removed from many necromancer skills. Instead, stun-breakers are intended to become stronger.
- Additionally, the minions of the necromancer have been improved.
PvP and WvW:
- The damage from Death Shroud is barely touched, while the damage in Shroud of the Reaper has been nerfed more significantly.
- The Sands of the Plaguebringer now causes less damage but now also uses the ammunition mechanic in PvP/WvW, with a recharge time of 8 seconds.
- The focus comes out completely unscathed and even gets a buff that adds more stacks of vulnerability.
- Charge from the Flesh Golem now causes significantly less damage but has a lower recharge time of 30 seconds. This shifts the focus more toward CC.
Guardian
General:
- Some traits in the specialization “Virtue” have been revised.
- “Distracting Shot” from the Dragonhunter has been modified so that it now applies stronger CC on its own but takes longer to activate.
PvP and WvW:
- Many weapon skills have been weakened.
- The recharge times of healing effects have been increased.
- The elite mantra has been heavily nerfed. The recharge time has been increased from 40 to 60 seconds, and the duration of stability has been reduced from 5 to 1 second on the first activation and from 5 to 4 seconds on the second activation.
Ranger
General:
- The Soulbeast specialization can now only use one animal companion in total. This significantly reduces versatility, which is acceptable given the strength of the Soulbeast.
PvP and WvW:
- The healing of the druid in avatar form has been significantly reduced.
- The skills of the soulbeast have seen significant reductions in damage or increases in recharge time.
- The damage coefficients for the animal companion have been significantly reduced, especially when their skills carried useful properties like fear or stun.
- The damage of all weapon skills has been reduced. In particular, “Path of Scars” now deals much less damage.
Revenant
General:
- The specializations Devastation and Corruption have been significantly overhauled.
- The revenant loses complete access to the condition “Confusion.”
PvP and WvW:
- The nature aspect has been significantly weakened.
- The damage from weapon skills has been significantly reduced.
- Many skills from Glint have been nerfed in various forms.
What do you think about the big balance patch? Does it make PvP and WvW more interesting again?
