The latest update of Guild Wars 2 brought a major overhaul of the runes and sigils. However, instead of improving the balance, it has caused unintended interactions. These must primarily be dealt with by the necromancer players.
What went wrong with the patch? During the overhaul of the runes and sigils, the Rune of Refuge was also changed. Its sixth bonus now ensures that players receive a barrier (shield above the hit points) equal to 20% of the healing they cause.
This led to an unintended synergy with the necromancer’s life stealing.
A necromancer was able to permanently generate smaller barriers with simple auto-attacks. With a special trait from the specialization Pestbringer, he automatically gained power for each barrier and removed conditions. This caused problems primarily in PvP.
ArenaNet nerfs the necromancer: As developers, they could have adjusted or disabled the rune. Instead, ArenaNet chose to change the Pestbringer with a hotfix.
They gave the trait “Rolling Pebbles” a cooldown of five seconds. Thus, the Pestbringer only gains power and condition removal at fixed intervals.
Reactions of players to the hotfix
Did the community expect this? Just shortly after the interaction became known, players joked on Reddit that ArenaNet would definitely nerf the necromancer instead of adjusting the rune. Over the past few years, necromancer players have already had to endure some strange nerfs.
After the hotfix was released, the community initially reacted with mockery and scorn.
The problem with the change: The Reddit user Lazarus-TRM has taken a more analytical approach. He particularly criticizes that ArenaNet is weakening a trait that worked flawlessly until the change of another content and was also important.
This trait was part of a support Pestbringer build, which was used in the raids of Guild Wars 2. He also suspects further negative interactions with the Rune of Refuge, which could be best resolved by adjusting the rune.
This change was one of many balance mistakes that ArenaNet has made recently:
