This perception is the source of many balancing problems from Solar days, more so since CMC and Roy took over...
Let me be clear, I'm not skill-shaming anyone here, neither am I pretending to be a "sweaty" player or trying to preach, also I'm not trying to discourage anyone from watching his streams/videos. I actually enjoy his content from time to time and truly believe that he's someone who has a very good insight in certain aspects and has a very deep love for the game.
But... over the last couple of patches it has become more than evident that people within the balance team are in direct contact or are active followers of teapod's content. And this is a very big problem.
All voices should at the very least be taken into account to a certain degree and within the limits of reason, but content creators, in general, come in many types, some only care about what could make their stream more interesting/popular, some are just happy with sharing their enjoyment, some showcase a masterclass in gaming capacities, and there are some who pretend to play at a level they don't play at.
Teapod in particular, being one of the most prominent content creators GW2 has at the moment (if not the most), has opened the window to many, and I mean MANY "controversial" balancing decisions in the last two years. The problem lies in that he is a person who pretends, or believes to have an understanding of combat mechanics which he doesn't.
Why is this a problem if all voices should be listened? When developers, and players offering suggestions take a sub 67% parsing person's words as facts, patches like the last two June patches become a reality.
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Regarding these changes I can only say, meh, it doesn't address the main problems that this patch, and previous ones generated for the most part.
Quickness Herald, Scrapper and Firebrand: are more than capable of fullfilling their roles, but they feel too clunky to play, Herald's upkeep is to deep and makes it unfun to play with, Scrapper needs too much setup to be properly used, invisible gyro might as well be deleted, and regarding firebrand there are many, many ways they could have balanced mantras and gave them an unique flavor without making them an annoyance to deal with, QoL and fun matters.
Druid: This has been said countless times, but please don't place booms on throughput skills, this is spamming gyros for quickness all over again take alaracity away form avatar, spirits need a complete overhaul at this point.
Ranger, Willbender: can we move on from less than 350 range or less mobility skills? pretty please with sugar on top, why should ranger's sword have two? it makes no sense, willbender's offhand says hi o/
Untamed, Catalyst: At this point... no, since alpha days, these classes are in very need of a complete overhaul WITH A CLEAR vision of what they want us to achieve with them.
Mesmer: Could a developer please play the class for a couple of days? Wells are all over the place and lack any form of identity, Signet of inspiration is as dull as it is lazy in design, many skills still have legacy cooldowns that make no sense, I understand wanting to reduce virtuoso's defensive capabilities, but wouldn't it have been easier to take it back to f4 and give it distortion instead of making it nigh useless?
Necromancer: Reaper's animation issues still are a thing, weapon stowing shouldn't be "an advanced gameplay mechanic" in 2023, please revert scourge's shades duration...
and more important than anything, and this is something that has been said countless times. PLEASE OPEN A PTR (Public Test Server) before pulling balance patches like this one... limit participants to a certain number of players randomly selected if you must, but PLEASE OPEN IT. I refuse to believe that anet doesn't have the infrastructure to do this when beta weekends are a thing, or the resources for it when so many maps have different IPs...
