the new balance preview is up!

forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/…/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview

Warriors should have nothing changed and thief's are also fucked.:(

byebye hammerstuns? :p

Elementalist:

Changes are meh, the ones to Arcana wont affect us as much, though Staff builds will only require 10 in Arcana to work, still going 20 will be more beneficial because of the Elemental Attunement moved to Master tier.

However: Earth XI – Diamond Skin. This trait has been redesigned. Conditions cannot be applied to you when your health is above the threshold. 90%. - VERY Powerful!

The general cd decrease on attunements is nice and will benefit staffies more than d/d.

Mesmer:

Domination XII – Confounding Suggestions. Changed to increase daze duration by 25%.

don't like this one, I like stuns much more than dazes but it's not really a commonly used trait as it's placement is awkward because interrupt focussed builds usually dont have the points to go into 30 the Domination line

Dueling VI – Protected Mantras. Moved to Master Tier. Increase Toughness from 400 to 600.
Dueling VII – Mantra Mastery. Moved to Adept Tier.

those two are nice the Protected Mantras is a nice to have but not must have, this change opens the possibilitiy of taking dueling X (clones on dodge) or even putting 10 points somewhere else

Chaos 25 – Chaotic Transference. Increased conversion from 5% to 10%.

Its a nice change

Chaos I – Chaotic Revival. Reduced cooldown from 35s to 10s.
Chaos VII – Mirror of Anguish. Reduced cooldown from 90s to 60s.

Both Traits are not really useful imo, and these changes wont affect that.

Inspiration IV – Mender’s Purity. Now removes 2 conditions.
Inspiration XI – Shattered Conditions. Increased radius from 240 to 600.

Both nice changes, makes the Inspiration Line certainly better

Illusions VI – Illusionary Invigoration. Recharge reduced from 90s to 60s. Moved to Master Tier.
Illusions VIII – Dazzling Galmours. Moved to Adept Tier.

This I dont understand, these dont change anything to be totally honest. The first one is used in Shatter Builds, while the change is nice to the reduced cooldown, its placement in the Master Tier doesnt change anything.
Shatter Builds usually run I, VI and XI, using the Master Slot already for it.
The second is the Glamour Fields cause Blindness. Usually used in Glamour Confusion builds and also here it's placement doesnt really affect things.

Glamour Confusion builds pick the Traits V (Confusion lasts longer) VIII (Glamour Fields blind foes at target location) and IX (Confuse when you blind) none of these is a grandmaster trait so the change doesnt affect these builds either.
However, it gives mesmers faster access to the blind utility thus making Perplexity runes more efficient (because you need less traitpoints to trigger it)

Illusions 15 – Shattered Strength – Moved to Grandmaster tier.
Illusions 25 – Illusionist’s Celerity – Moved to Master tier.

This change is great, the first one gives might per shattered illusion, the second one reduces the cooldown on skills that summon a "Clone" (Not a phantasm!) these are: Decoy, Mirror Images, Illusionary Leap (Sword #3), Illusionary Riposte (Sword #4), Illusionary Counter (Scepter #2) and Phase Retreat (Staff #2)

Hehe ninja guardian getting a buff

Because it Anet they will Nerf us for a month and reliese how shit of an idea it was then just give us it back:P

i shed little black tears for you.

I dont mind warriors getting nerfed or whatever, as long as other classes have had their equal share of buffing, because only then we wont have to freak out if we have a low number of hammerstunning warriors in our raids

To be fair, this warrior nerf was needed. Atm with the brutal earthshaker build I do up to 6k crits. Considering it's aoe and I can do this every 6 sec and yet give stun aoe .... it was hell op. I don't even mind the staggering blow skill nerf as it's more control skill (special after the buff) than dmg skill. Warriors will still be more then viable.

Do I read it correctly that you won't be able to hammerstun through a whole zerg and will need to fill the lulls with other cooldowns? Battle static fields might wanna have a word with us in that case, you know. We should get used to keeping max 1 static for running around and the rest for CC.

The symbol of swiftness is getting buffed, It will now provide 4 seconds of swiftness every pulse instead of 8 seconds with no swiftness and 1 second with swiftness! This is going to help us maintain swiftness easier for sure

The symbols are a nerf as they used to stack the 8sec duration per symbol now it will only add 1 sec ontop instead of another 8 sec

Pax i dont know why you keep insisting its a nerf when clearly they said it on their forums

Symbol of Swiftness: This skill now applies 4 seconds of swiftness per pulse, rather than 8 seconds if you have no swiftness and 1 second if you have swiftness.

Because you would now have to stay in it for 2 pulses to get the initial effect. Our guardians were pretty used to watching their own swiftness and recasting it as it runs out. Saw that more than once in our events. Made me happy. 1 static, symbols, warhorns...should be enough to keep our speed up. We should focus on having at least 1 static for the fights. Then it depends on the number of eles we have.

If a 5 man party of guardians place symbols on themselves and stay in for 4 seconds, they will each get 1m 20 seconds of swiftness each after the patch. This is awesome Symbols currently give 1 second of very pulse if you already have swiftness, however, 4 seconds for everyone running through them is gonna help us maintain swiftness for the whole group from Dec 10th! Overpowered! Save those statics for fights!!

You are right on track with that it will be much more usefull, though it would be more beneficial to split guardians into parties especially with mesmers and necros (party prio) and I doubt we will stay in the field for the full duration. Plus swiftness now stacks as other buffs max 5 times. That means that you would get max 5x4sec = 20 sec - 4 sec (time spent in field for pulses to stack it up) = 16 sec. Static, warrior horn and windborne speed are still the best ones (if our guardians won't start using Retreat, which I'm against). Symbol of swiftness is imo best used on the move.