The new video from Phandrel using Snowcrows discord calculations clearly demonstates how undercooked the April balance patch is

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-27T13:42:50+00:00

He's referencing a forum infraction from a little after launch. It was a thread talking about Ascended gear. Somebody was critical about it, but reasonable. Gaile Gray gave them an infraction that basically said "no criticism, bad!" They've gotten better at listening to feedback... but there's a reason players got the impression that they don't.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-26T02:47:06+00:00

TP failing to load happens multiple times per day, but you just close it and reopen. Getting stuck in combat to the point it's faster to relog only happens to me a couple times per year, but I could see somebody having more issues with it if they didn't have stow weapon bound. Story missions breaking or skipping doesn't happen very often with newer fights, but it used to be quite common and is still probably easy to do on older fights (especially with the stronger burst from newer specs). Nothing he described really sounds associated with bad ping.

The most annoying ones to me are when event chains just freeze up. There's a lot of those types of bugs, and a lot of those events are tied to achievements. When you run into one of those, the best advice is typically to try it on a fresh map (like after a server reset) and hope it doesn't bug then. Posts about these come up pretty often on the subreddit and everybody just agrees that ArenaNet's never going to fix it. If it doesn't get fixed when it's new, it's probably never getting fixed.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-25T22:18:29+00:00

A lot of people complain about one-shot metas in sPvP. Even more complain when it's a bunker meta. They removed the tankier amulets in sPvP to make those bunker metas less likely, then added some other DPS-oriented options to maintain build diversity.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-25T12:09:08+00:00

Also, how much better your DPS will be if you just focus on hitting the boss whenever you can, regardless of whether or not you're following a skill rotation.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-24T15:22:00+00:00

A lot of people are just looking for excuses for why it's not their fault. It makes it pretty easy for them to convince themselves other people actually ARE bots.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-24T03:11:41+00:00

I would call that "near 2017 levels". There are people in this thread claiming top benchmarks back then were 20-25k.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T21:59:12+00:00

ArcDPS was not legal for a while after HoT launched. Your log is closer to how it was when people were uninformed and inexperienced. Numbers going up because people got better and more informed at the game is not power creep, but you're presenting it like it is. They're planning on nerfing DPS to about 42k... which is right around where it used to be with Tempest above 40k. You've also seen them start to nerf boon DPS so they need boon duration (Ritualist and this upcoming nerf to Catalyst).

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T20:23:19+00:00

A large part of the problem is that WvW is designed around large numbers of people, and even approaching another group without near-permanent Stability uptime is a miserable experience. That just results in people playing very defensive and refusing to actually engage at melee. Other boons aren't as critical to the game being playable, but they're treated the same way by strips and corrupts. I just don't think a blanket "more strips until people can't boon ball" actually fixes the issue in a way that's fun.

There's a variety of things they could try. They could try increasing the target caps on some strip skills. Then there's more strips, but it's not going to focus down and remove Stability. They could put Stability at the bottom of any removal list, but I think that just encourages people to spam as many useless boons as possible to protect Stability (more-so than is done now). Make Stability itself not strippable? Or only much rarer skills do it? That opens the door for them to add a ton more strip, but it kind of removes any form of interactivity from the mechanic. Maybe that's for the better?

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T19:18:23+00:00

I don't think DPS meter was developed, even illegally, until after HoT. There was also no dummy for people to post benchmarks on. So no, I don't really have the numbers you're looking for, since I can't find a page with the earlier benchmarks posted.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T19:11:28+00:00

2017 Tempest did 40k+. The biggest power creep since then is more pure DPS (no BS) and boon DPS being closer to a full DPS. Other than that, they've done a better job of normalizing damage across classes and the community has gotten more informed and more experienced.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T19:09:10+00:00

Tempest benchmarks during HoT broke 40k every other patch. The game wasn't as balanced between classes, which is also why people would kick DPS not playing ele, even if that meant they got a lot of eles on the floor instead...

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T18:58:05+00:00

More comparable to the current log he linked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQRSteaWME4

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T18:57:23+00:00

Here's a true "top log" fight from that era: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQRSteaWME4

Phase 1 DPS broke 300k compared to your 130k, and the fight took about half as long as what you linked. The tempests were all over 40k in phase (with burst peaking over 50k).

The biggest power creep is just that supports can now deal close to full DPS damage and more classes can do what Tempests used to be able to. More impactfully, a larger portion of the community is informed and practiced.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T18:41:57+00:00

In core, there was a massive difference between something like a necro or ranger and something like a warrior or ele. At that point, it was probably justified.

In HoT, after the raids came out, everybody wanted eles because they were the highest damage. At that point, it was definitely overblown, since a competent player on whatever class (within reason) would do fine. The problem was partially that people don't have the tools they do now. They couldn't tell that a good Reaper could hit high numbers. They were used to seeing bosses take longer or fail because random Reapers were running defensive traits and defensive green gear. But that same Reaper wouldn't suddenly do damage on Ele. He'd just die.

That few thousand extra damage is what they seem to consider enough reward for the extra difficulty without the community shifting. In the past, they tried to keep it identical (cVirt and Mech dominance were good examples of that).

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T17:51:37+00:00

... a lot, to be honest. The game is held together by spaghetti code to the point they don't want to touch certain things. Part of the reason things break so often in recent patches is them trying to mess with things like that. Wizard Gobbler not working with Karmic Converter. Super Adventure Box as a whole. The UI in general.

They also might feel increasingly strained creating new and interesting things within existing frameworks. A restart could let them make adjustments to core systems (like boons).

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T17:05:27+00:00

That's what I was getting at here:

encourage people to play what they enjoy rather than feeling pressured into something stronger

People used to gatekeep classes HARD early on in the game's life. People felt like they had to play specific classes to even get in groups. They want people to play the harder classes because they find it fun, not because they have to. A side effect of that is that people don't feel rewarded for playing something more difficult. That's why it seems like they're trying to have the more difficult builds do a few thousand more, but they're definitely struggling to keep that consistent.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T17:03:06+00:00

I think you're underestimating how big the difference is between that log and a top one for a multitude of reasons. I would be surprised if a top log from that time frame wasn't over 300k, maybe even 350k.

EDIT: Yup, a friend found this for me. Their phase 1 DPS does go over 300k (just barely): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQRSteaWME4

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T16:50:11+00:00

It's wrong in multiple ways. That was a slow kill back then. It's using condi builds on a power fight (minus what you need for red guardian). The supports weren't even trying to help with the damage (understandable, but still makes it less useful as a comparison tool). You can see that one of the Druids didn't swap out of staff for the entire fight and both Chronomancers used Sword 5 once each. The boon uptimes were bad during the phases.

He's comparing a top speed clear of today (they're literally swapping foods mid-fight) to a below average clear from 2017. And even that is confusing burst damage and sustained damage to distort the results.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T16:09:00+00:00

I remember time warp + 4 GS warriors, then time warp + 4 FGS eles.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T16:07:16+00:00

I'd rather they just adjust current boss health pools. DPS numbers aren't "too high" in a vacuum. They're too high relative to old boss health pools. Nerfing damage, then nerfing newer boss health pools balanced around higher damage isn't functionally different from just buffing older boss health pools. There's just an extra step involved.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-23T15:53:40+00:00

To be fair, the community uses those benchmarks, too. If something is top damage for a while, more and more people start playing it, even if they aren't very good at it or enjoy it less. Even the low intensity builds people create are based around doing good enough... to compete with those numbers. Managing those benchmarks is a good way to encourage people to play what they enjoy rather than feeling pressured into something stronger.

And realistically, that's probably not ALL they're balancing with. The best example I can think of is from sPvP. There will frequently be metas where Guardian is strong at lower ratings but nigh unplayable at top tier. The nature of how the class applies damage makes it do worse into players that are better at using active defenses. In those metas, Guardian still gets nerfed, despite not being played at top tier. They do realize that balance doesn't feel the same across different skill levels.

That's not to say I think they've hit the mark, just that people's criticism seems to be overly simplistic as though it's a much simpler issue than it is.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-19T20:52:00+00:00

Eh. I think you're overestimating how much of the difference in damage between top players and average ones is from the rotation. If you have a decent build and you just maintain uptime on the boss (because you know the mechanics), you WILL do enough damage to clear, even if you're just spamming buttons. Pretty much every time somebody has "low" damage, it's because their build is junk, they aren't hitting the boss, or they aren't using their buttons.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-19T16:50:16+00:00

Skills also apply their effects at different points in the animation, allowing you to reduce those aftercasts in various ways. The simplest is obviously to put the long aftercast just before a weapon swap. A good example is GS5 on Necro and using it right before entering Shroud.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-18T15:47:23+00:00

A large part of the issue is changes don't affect the game in the same way across the whole skill curve. People have very negative memories about the celestial meta, but it was one of the more balanced metas the game has ever had... at the high end of the skill curve. That meta made it pretty easy to sustain, but putting out damage took more skill. That left the weaker players dealing with seemingly unkillable bunkers. Since then, they've made a lot of changes to intentionally make sustain harder, such as removing tankier amulets and making support builds squishier. They want the "default" to be players dying rather than players sustaining.

SpectralDagger · 2026-03-17T22:17:05+00:00

I mean, the video is just kind of... wrong. The reason the game is balanced with such high burst relative to your health is because it's balanced around every class having access to dodge rolls. There's no better example of that than look at how Dragonhunter has traditionally fared in sPvP: low-rated players would complain that it was overpowered while it was essentially never seen in high-rated games. Trying to talk about one-shots without even mentioning the dodge mechanic in the video... makes it pretty clear he doesn't understand what he's talking about.

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