Guild Wars 2 Is Getting A Massive Balance Update To Boons, Conditions, And Profession Skills

Guild Wars 2 will be receiving a significant balance update later today which will feature changes to the game’s boons and conditions in response to negative player feedback. The upcoming changes will include new boons and conditions duration caps, an overhaul of Retaliation and Resistance Boons, and a rework to the bonus-damage applied by the Torment condition.

“It’s been a long while since our last major balance patch,” said ArenaNet. “In this update, we're preparing for Cantha by cleaning up longstanding frustrations with boons and conditions, as well as by positioning existing builds as new potential sources of alacrity and quickness in group play.”

Here are some of the changes that will be rolling out with the update:

The Retaliation boon will be renamed to Resolution and will reduce incoming condition damage by 33%. Both the name and effect changes will apply to all skills and traits that currently grant or use the Retaliation boon unless otherwise specified. The Resistance boon will make all non-damaging conditions applied to the player ineffective while the Torment condition will deal damage every second and will deal additional damage to enemies that are not moving.

The Engineer Scrapper’s Kinetic Stabilizers and Applied Force skills will also be reworked along with nearly all profession skills. The full patch notes can be found on the Guild Wars 2 official forums if you want to dive into the details.