necropola

MightyTeapot's July 18th Balance Patch Analysis

Allow to persistently order or at least lock the slots of the character select screen.

These were all pretty obvious questions and Rubi (ArenaNet) already needed to pull the "special case" argument with +25% run speed being a stat increase. But this is only one topic with a weird “We're making it up as we go" vibe. Legendary Relics being another of course.

In cases like this, we’ll be making sure that runes with duplicate 1-5 bonuses have unique 6 slot stats. In this example, 25% movement speed will count as a stat increase and will be seen on a handful of rune 6 pieces.

Consistently inconsistent. As we know it. And it's obvious that the whole system is far from being thought through.

Unique 2 and 4 slot bonuses will become raw stats. (Boon and condition duration increases are not considered unique and will not be removed from runes.)

So my beloved Runes of the Traveler are unchanged and I get to equip a Relic on top of it. Deal!

GW1 had way fewer attributes to spend points on, but if you did, you would increase the damage and crit chance of certain weapons or the power (damage, healing, duration, ...) of certain abilities. What I was mainly referring to (and what I would like in GW2, too) was the principle of freely spending a budget (with increasing cost) on attributes which improve certain offensive or defensive abilities. Anytime you want outside of combat.

GW1 also has/had Runes and Insignias which require(d) (perfect) salavage kits to move around and hence are/were less flexible. But this has/had less impact on your build than the distribution of attribute points.

Originally GW2's trait system also had stat increases baked in, but this was later removed and more attributes (precision, ferocity, concentration, expertise) have been added.

So why not replace Stat Sets, Runes and Sigils as they are now with freely distributable attribute points and let Relics and whatever the successor of Sigils will be have unique (not stat-related) effects?

... or Guild Wars Reloaded, since GW1 already had that system.

Or imagine gear just had attribute points (item budget) which you could spend on stats as you like. Obviously this would invalidate stat sets (pseudo content) entirely and stat swapping on legendary gear, too. But why not let the majority of players enjoy the build craft meta game instead of just a tiny fraction which has full legendary gear, runes and sigils?

I mean with a large enough set of (Viper, Celestial, Marauder, Berrserker/Assassin) account bound armor, weapons and trinkets (maybe a few legendary ones) you can mix and match the optimal stat set for pretty much any open world build anyway. But it is very tedious and no fun.

Not sure how I feel about this. Another system coming to the game (did anybody ask for this?) and it does not seem like ArenaNet has fully thought it through one month before it goes live.

I was hoping for a change that makes gearing for different/multiple builds more accessible.

What do we see at 33% when Lord Hizen uses the Grappling Hook Hideout for the second time? Did Ellen KIel think he needed some movivational speech before coming back to the fight?

jul.19.2023: fixed missing guids for effects since previous.
jul.19.2023: fixed cbts language since previous.
jul.19.2023: changed cbts_effect2 orientation (again, sorry) to original*1000 clamped to int16.

Because I can. 😎

A Patch for a Patch of a Patch 😎

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/134006-game-update-notes-july-18-2023/?do=findComment&comment=1945970

• Written in Stone: This trait now has a 25-second internal cooldown when granting an aura in PvP only.
• Signet of Restoration: Increased cooldown from 25 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Signet of Water: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP only.
• Flamestrike: The first strike of this skill no longer inflicts burning in PvP only. Reduced the secondary burning duration from 1.5 seconds to 1 second in PvP only.
• Dragon's Tooth: Reduced burning duration from 10 seconds to 5 seconds in PvP only.
• Desert Empowerment: Fixed an issue that caused this trait to grant more barrier than intended in PvP and WvW.
• Fixed an issue in the Silent Surf fractal that caused pets to be affected by the final encounter's boon stealing mechanic.
• Removed a context menu "Invite" option that was erroneously enabled.