Hey folks,

I wanted to pop in today to give you all a preview of some upcoming changes to fall damage and revival that we'll be rolling out in an upcoming balance update. The quick summary is that we are removing trait functionality that reduces fall damage and increases passive revival speed.

While fall damage reduction traits were useful when the game first launched we feel that they are currently over-complicating trait descriptions in a post-glider/mount world. Falling damage reduction is already pretty niche and in the past we have added additional functionality to make them more generally useful. However for most of these traits, that bonus functionality eventually became the main reason to take the trait. At this point we felt it just makes more sense to remove the fall damage portion, which leaves some design space if we want to buff these traits in the future.

For revival traits we want to focus more of that power onto active revival rather than simply increasing the speed of "press F to revive". You may have noticed that we've slowly been removing some of these traits already as was the case with the Tactics rework. We like how revival traits like Necromancer Transfusion and Elementalist Arcane Resurrection actively tap into existing skills and augment them so we added similar functionality to a few other revival traits when we removed the revival speed increase. In addition you'll also see some improvements to skills which revive allies directly.

Here's the list of changes by profession:

Elementalist

Arcane Abatement: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Arcane Restoration."

Glyph of Renewal: Reduced recharge to 90 seconds in all game modes. Lowered cast time from 3.25 seconds to 2 seconds.

Arcane Resurrection: This trait no longer increases revival speed. Auras granted by this trait are now granted only to the elementalist at the start of a revival attempt rather than at the end. This effect has a 20 second cooldown.

Engineer

Grenadier: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Additionally this trait now casts Lesser Grenade Barrage on your location when using a healing skill.

Toss Elixir R: This skill no longer removes 1 condition when thrown. Increased projectile speed by 25%. The projectile thrown by this skill is now unblockable. Fixed an issue where the land and water versions of this skill moved at different speeds.

Guardian

Protectors Impact: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Protector's Restoration".

Signet of Mercy: Reduced recharge to 90 seconds in all game modes. Changed passive effect from granting 180 healing power (216 when traited) to granting 120 concentration (150 when traited).

Protective Reviver: This trait no longer increases revival speed and no longer grants boons on a successful revival. Fixed skill fact to show correct 3 second duration. Fixed a bug which prevented the recharge of Lesser Shield of Absorption from being affected by Stalwart Defender. Lesser Shield of Absorption now heals nearby allies when it ends. This trait now causes all versions of Shield of Absorption to revive allies by 15% when it detonates.

Courageous Return: This trait has been reworked and it has been renamed to "Stalwart Courage". It grants the guardian Protection for 3 seconds in PvE and 1 second in PvP/WvW whenever aegis on the guardian is removed due to blocking an attack.

Mesmer

Descent into Madness: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Method of Madness"

Medic's Feedback: This trait no longer increases revival speed. It now causes Feedback to revive allies inside it by 5% per second.

Necromancer

Terrifying Descent: This trait has been reworked. It has been renamed to "Insidious Disruption". It now causes control effects to inflict torment on foes.

Signet of Undeath: Reduced recharge to 75 seconds in all game modes. Reduced cast time from 3 seconds to 1.5 seconds. Reduced number of allies revived from 3 to 1. Added additional health cost of 50% of base health to this skill. Increased passive lifeforce gain by 100%.

Ranger

Soften the Fall: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait. Renamed to "Child of Earth"

Allies' Aid: This trait no longer increases revival speed. Reduced cooldown of this trait from 85 seconds to 60 seconds. Fixed a bug which caused the version of "Search and Rescue!" associated with this trait to be considered a Shout skill instead of a Command.

Revenant

Planar Protection: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait.

Thief

Uncatchable: Removed fall damage functionality from this trait.

Warrior