All upcoming changes can be found on the Guild Wars 2 Official Wiki. This is not a full overview of all changes, but just a brief comment about the implications of the changes that are relevant for builds of the raid encounters we cover. Professions, or Elite Specializations not mentioned are not receiving major, noteworthy changes.

Highlights

• Condition Alacrity DPS Willbender will get a significant buff and will essentially become a relevant and strong build!
• The changes to Legendary Centaur Stance improves Heal Revenant builds and the Vindicator rework gives it a very strong projectile denial build.
• Condition Virtuoso and Condition Berserker get a substantial buff and look like they will do exceptional next patch in the encounters they already work well in.
• Guardian builds playing Virtues receive practical dps buffs in lessened reliance on Aegis.
• Might and Alacrity output for Scourge is buffed, elevating the generic boon output to standard levels compared to other healers.

General

Various traits that have 10 Condition, or Boon, count requirements as a modifier were changed from 10 stacks with 1% each, to 5 stacks with 2% each. This means the gap between golem dps and practical in-fight dps is now much smaller or nonexistant in case your subgroup didn't cover 10 Boons on you, or 10 unique Conditions on the boss. The only outlier is Thief, which didn't receive the same treatment and loses some dps from the Exposed Weakness changes, which will be reduced to 5 stacks similarly to the other skills, but the modifier will only go from 2% to 3% per stack (and not 4%).

Affected Traits and builds:

• Empowered: Power Bladesworn, Power Quickness Berserker
• Exposed Weakness: Power Daredevil (Greer CM), Power Daredevil (HT CM), and Power Deadeye
• Premeditation: Power Deadeye
• Bountiful Hunter: not relevant for any existing build
• Target the Weak: not relevant for any existing build
• Inspired Virtue: Power Dragonhunter (Virtues), Power Alacrity Luminary (Virtues), Power Alacrity Willbender, and Power Willbender
• Modified Ammunition: every Power Engineer build (too many to list).

Harvest Temple CM

Engineer can look out for the Blunderbuss change, which could either be a flat buff, if the double hit functionality stays the same, or a nerf if this change will fix the double hits. We won't know before the patch hits, so stay tuned! Furthermore, all Engineer builds will be affected by the change to Grenadier. This is specifically that the radius increase is baseline now, which gives those builds an easier time to cleave with Grenade Kit. Amalgam suffers from a nerf to Double Helix, making the default trait change to Symbiotic Synergy, so prepare for some slightly different rotations.

Necromancer and specifically Scourge can take a breather when it comes to Might and Alacrity generation. Might from Abrasive Grit will be buffed from 6s to 8s base duration and Alacrity from 1.5s to 2s. This should make Heal Scourges boon output smoother, especially for Zhaitan and Soo-Won phases, which have a lot of kiting. Axe will be buffed, but it remains to be seen if this is enough to make it worthy of a pick. Both Harbinger and Ritualist will get traits nerfed: Cascading Corruption and Spirit's Strength, respectively, which will bring down the damage a bit. Both builds will still be fine overall though, but more in the middle of the pack compared to other dps.

Thief remains relatively untouched. Rifle will get a small bump in dps and Antiquary a small nerf, but neither is particularly common in Harvest Temple CM.

For the Mesmer specs, Chronomancer is getting nerfed in general from Chronophantasma going down from 105% to 100% and Virtuoso is getting hit by the change moving Phantasmal Disenchanter into Focus. It is likely that Virtuoso will swap to Rain of Swords as its third utility skill slot instead of Phantasmal Warden. This means relatively speaking, next patch is looking like Portal DPS Troubadour can finally shine.

Virtues Guardian builds get some practical buffs through Unscathed Contender’s requirement being changed to Aegis or being above 75% HP. The latter will be true most of the time, whereas previously it was easy to lose Aegis and with it some dps, especially during Soo-Won. You should see minor dps increases for Power Dragonhunter (Virtues), Power Alacrity Luminary (Virtues), Power Alacrity Willbender, and Power Willbender. Furthermore, Phoenix Protocol will give its boons baseline to allies now, which means Alacrity Willbender builds won't need Battle Presence anymore. This will be a dps gain for Power Alacrity Willbender, since it can pick Permeating Wrath now for more F1 procs, and a utility buff for Heal Alacrity Willbender because it can pick Indomitable Courage for extra Stability now. Luminary also received a minor dps buff from Empowered Armaments going from 10% to 13%. Overall, this patch sounds promising for all Virtues builds! Finally, Quickness DPS Firebrand is being reworked. While we don't yet know all of the details, the preview sounds promising, potentially allowing to drop Mantra of Potence depending on the final numbers. One downside of the changes are that Stoic Demeanor will lose Resistance access, which cuts down the Resistance uptime that Heal Quickness Firebrand had.

Elementalist will get some buffs to Staff, but if that is enough to make it a relevant weapon for DPS builds remains to be seen. Weaver is seeing some Power dps buffs, which might be enough to make it worthwhile playing again.

Untamed and Soulbeast receive some power focused adjustments. Untamed will be nerfed slightly, which unfortunately makes it even less relevant in Harvest Temple CM than it already is, mostly because it is suffering from Hammer Defiance modifiers not working against the Dragonvoid. Soulbeast’s Oppressive Superiority is reworked and while we don’t know the exact numbers yet, if it turns out being a buff, it could be valuable again to pick it up. Soulbeast always had a strong AoE burst and outside of Frost Trap placement is fairly straightforward to play, so a bump in overall dps could make it a strong pick for DPS again.

Power Renegade will receive nerfs from Lasting Legacy being reduced from 5% to 4% per stack, which makes it weak enough such that Vindicator will by far be the better choice again. Although Vindicator also gets some changes with the reworked Grandmaster traits, so we won't know until the patch hits.

Temple of Febe CM/EoS/LM

Scrapper benefits from the Grenadier change to increase the radius of Grenades, which will make cleaving Malices slightly better.

Condition Virtuoso will be affected by the changes to focus, swapping Phantasmal Warden with Phantasmal Disenchanter. This is the final push to play Pistol Off-hand, since it benefits from this change by being able to pick Phantasmal Warden as new Utility skill, which is a significant dps increase. For safety and Distortion resets you might still want to play with Signet of Illusions, dropping Signet of Domination instead for Phantasmal Warden.

Greer CM

Mesmer gets some changes from Warden's Feedback. The wording leaves some room for interpretation in how it will affect Temporal Curtain, particularly if it will still give projectile reflect to it. If this is removed, then it'd would affect Heal Quickness Troubadour (Reflect) and essentially remove that build and strategy from being viable. If not, then nothing substantial will change for this build. However, with Vindicator being buffed in that it has projectile block available in both legends, this will likely become the go to and best build for Bubble duty.

Bubble Vindicator gets quite an upgrade. Amongst the new Grandmaster trait there will be a new trait that gives Vindicator a new and additional projectile block skill. How this works exactly remains to be seen, but it will make Heal Vindicator likely the strongest Bubble build for Greer CM, especially since the dps check is not relevant anymore and being able to comfortably run triple healers. Unfortunately though, while it's great that Vindicator gets new Grandmaster traits, the lack of overall boon output is still not being adressed. This means it will remain a specialised build for prolonged bubble usage, but remains behind many other healer builds for general play. The rework to Legendary Centaur Stance skills will yield more empowered skill usage, which is nice overall. It will introduce added complexity in that you may want to know when to use a non-empowered ability in order to have an empowered ability ready for the next casts, which will require some energy planning and skill usage ahead of time. Empowered Energy Expulsion giving Stability immediately, instead of when it explodes, is a nice Quality of Life change that makes any Heal Revenant build a bit more nice to play. While Heal Vindicator will still have some overall boon issues if not using ally targeting with Scepter skills, this, combined with the reworked Vindicator traits, will definitely be an improvement. 

Decima CM + Ura CM/LM + Nexus of Eternity CM

The change to Phoenix Protocol, giving boons to allies, allows Alacrity DPS to run Permeating Wrath for a huge dps increase. This will enable Condition Alacrity DPS Willbender as a new, incredibly strong build, in particular for Ura!

Elementalist, specifically Condition focused builds will see some nerfs from Dust Storm and Wildfire, getting reduced hits and reduced Burning. This will especially affect Weaver and Evoker Builds and for Evoker, the simplified rotation which always resets Dust Storm will now always be a loss compared to the stricter rotation. Condition Tempest is receiving some minor buffs, which counteract some of the Warhorn nerfs.

Conduit receives some minor buffs for both Power and Condition, bringing it up in line with other builds again, after it had been nerfed heavily in previous balance patches.

Druid will receive a mix of buffs and nerfs. Overall, it looks like Condition Druid will end up being buffed overall, while Alacrity DPS Druid will end up slightly nerfed.

Warrior classes focused on Condition dps will be buffed thanks to the various changes to Longbow (buffs on Fan of Fire, Arcing Arrow, Smoldering Arrow, Pin Down).

Thank you for riding along! <3