What kind of mechanics could increase class/build diversity in raids?

Most of the raid group composition is built around "What can you offer to the team". You have some roles that cover all buffs, healing and aggro taking so that dps roles build pure offense without having to consider any kind of self sufficiency.

But what if you had a phase where some players were forced to solo mini bosses without any support from the rest of the team? Say you have a phase where the main boss retreats through some doors or something, and in order to follow him you have to defeat 3 separate mini bosses in 3 separate rooms. Only one player at a time can enter each room, and they are unable to receive buffs or support from the main group of any kind.

So 3 players will have to duel each boss while the main group holds off waves of powerful mobs outside the 3 doors. If one of the 3 players is killed, another group member must enter and attempt to finish off the boss, reducing the number of players fending off the waves of mobs. For additional group synergy requirements, maybe these 3 mini bosses must be killed within 15 seconds of each other, or else they regenerate like in AB meta.

The bosses must require you to have at least moderate dps to finish them in time so you don't just have like people in full minstrels safely taking forever to kill them. But they should be a challenge to fight, forcing you to dodge a lot and use additional defenses to survive, not just be punching bags for glass cannons to wail on.

Due to not having group support, this would require some self sufficient builds to be run. My first thought is power herald, because I play mostly rev. Power herald is irrelevant in high level content because a lot of its strength is invested into it's self sufficiency, like ability to easily might stack itself and maintain permanent fury and some self quickness. All of this is pointless in a group, where all that matters is raw dps. But an encounter that forces periods of self sufficiency could see some interesting builds.The health of the main boss should probably be lower to compensate for people having to take less optimal dps for solo phases.

Or maybe grouos will just start requiring 5 chronos to do those parts to because that class is so hilariously overloaded, idk.

Get 3 new players in your group increase your group damage by 500% - :p :p :p :p

"Diversity" forced by arbitrary mechanics hardly is diversity.

@"CptAurellian.9537" said:"Diversity" forced by arbitrary mechanics hardly is diversity.

You're right, let's just make another giant punching bag with some circles to occasionally stand in so we can keep rolling with 2 chrono 2 druid 1 bs comps for everything.

As if the 2C2D1BS combo would be affected by your suggestion. At least be consistent, please.

Now, if you want to break that trinity, you'll hardly be able to do it by any kind of encounter design unless it becomes truly outlandish. Getting diversity into the support roles in a general way, which doesn't affect just a few select bosses, is a question of class balance. The devs are slowly moving in that direction - I'm curious whether we may even see chronos and druids reduced to one of each in the near future, with FB and renegade taking over one subgroup. LN's recent 5-man Sabetha kill looked promising enough to reasonably expect such a change even without another balance patch.

With regard to the dps roles, current balance is the best we've had for quite a long time. Some aspects could and should be tweaked, like thief having sub-optimal dps although it offers nothing special to the group, but at least every single class has one or more viable (= >30k) builds for that role. But don't expect every conceivable build to become viable.

nerf chrono and druid into the ground for 3 months to force people to start playing other things, and then revert the nerfs. tada, amazing diversity

If Anet stayed true to their 'no holy trinity' philosophy, they would have done it.

People would get rekt against their 1v1, especially if it is like going up against player AI.

They rely too much on their Chrono and Druid. :^]

@Lilyanna.9361 said:People would get rekt against their 1v1, especially if it is like going up against player AI.

They rely too much on their Chrono and Druid. :^]

Depends how it is designed. If the add deals a lot of damage people would stack tanky dps like Scourge to deal with that mechanic.If it was deal X amount of damage in Y amount of time or you get one shotted like how Anomalies in 100cm arkk are then it might be possible but I feel it will just turn into people stacking Holo to burst it down instantly which does not solve the diversity problem.

As others have said, including new fight mechanics that need to be dealt with by specific kinds of builds which aren't normally used may feel like it's adding diversity to raiding as a whole. But for that particular fight it's not affecting diversity at all, as the optimal group composition will still be "solved" by the players and then it just becomes a matter of "oh for that fight we'll need 3 necros with X build, 2 more of Y class, and then 5 dps".

Diversity within groups comes from when multiple classes can fulfill the same roles, which for most raid bosses we see 4 roles of: Damage, Tanking, Healing, and Utility (buffs, CC, mobility/positioning, etc.). The reason why we see a current relative lack of diversity is because certain classes are capable of fulfilling multiple of those roles better than any other classes. Aside from composition-specific speedruns, the dps meta on a whole is pretty healthy, which each class having a build that sits within the overall range of 30-36k dps (for small hitbox benchmarks), and enough variety in fight mechanics that most every build has a place where it can do better than average. The tank/heal/utility meta currently lacks diversity because a small subset of classes offer very strong unique buffs for the "utility" role while simultaneously being able to function in another role. Chrono is so required because it is the only class that can keep up both alacrity and quickness, and has sufficient defenses to be a tank as well. Druid because ranger is the only class that can give spotter and spirits, while also being able to maintain might stacks, and then can heal as well. And warrior because it is the only class that can bring the buffs from banners and empower allies, while also still pumping out moderate damage. So not only do we have these classes that are able to vastly improve the performance of their dps allies, but they also cover the other necessary roles of the group without much wasted overlap.

WoW struggled with this problem of having class-specific unique buffs everywhere 10 years ago, and with the larger raid size it was pretty much mandatory to have one of every class so that your group would have all the buffs. Their first solution was to merge several of the unique buffs from different classes together, so for example if you wanted the +5% crit chance buff you now had one of several classes that you could bring for it. In some ways this felt good because now you had a wider range of builds to choose from to get all of your buffs, but in other ways it wasn't because you'd come across things like "oh we already have 5% crit buff from X class, so we don't need your Y class that would provide it too but does less dps". So while guild wars is still on the one end of the extreme where a single class can provide enough buffs that it increases group damage more than a dedicated dps class even in a 5 person group, WoW ended up taking the other end of the extreme where almost no classes provide strong enough unique group-wide buffs to require taking it over any other class.

Right now, GW2 is slightly towards the middle ground, with boons acting as shared buff categories but still a large amount of unique buffs as well. Personally, in terms of promoting diversity, I'd like to see them include a bit more homogenization at least among the unique stat buffs. For example having a single +180 precision unique buff you can get from either Spotter trait, Banner of Discipline, or your class's own signet (and maybe make it available from another class or two as well). Warrior would still have a place with being able to provide most of these buffs through its banners like it does now, or with a healthy mix of other classes you wouldn't specifically need a banner slave warrior to get your buffs. And it would open up more dps classes to be able to slot in actual utility skills instead of the un-interactive passive damage increases signets are required for now, which could potentially lessen the burden on classes like druids and chronos trying to overload themselves on fight mechanics because dps are using all of their slots for pure damage.

Just stop making bosses into HP sponges.

@Rhyse.8179 said:Just stop making bosses into HP sponges.

Ah right, we could need some more mechanics-heavy bosses like Deimos or Dhuum.

There are quite a few self sufficient builds in the current META. Dragonhunters, holosmiths, soulbeasts and berserkers are able to solo fight champions quite effectively. There would be the option to run cDruid, the perfect balance between defense and offense. Meaning this would change very little unless the entire thing was deliberately designed to punish blocks, dodges, kiting, positioning, pet usage or anything else these builds could use.

"But what if you had a phase where some players were forced to solo mini bosses without any support from the rest of the team? Say you have a phase where the main boss retreats through some doors or something, and in order to follow him you have to defeat 3 separate mini bosses in 3 separate rooms. Only one player at a time can enter each room, and they are unable to receive buffs or support from the main group of any kind."

WOW had a raid like that, cant recall the Boss right now but yea, it sucked. Especially if the person that soloed couldn't cut it...wipe anyone? So pass on that, its been done, not "fun" and I reckon ANET is doing ok thus far!

@"Flauvious.6195" said:Most of the raid group composition is built around "What can you offer to the team". You have some roles that cover all buffs, healing and aggro taking so that dps roles build pure offense without having to consider any kind of self sufficiency.

But what if you had a phase where some players were forced to solo mini bosses without any support from the rest of the team? Say you have a phase where the main boss retreats through some doors or something, and in order to follow him you have to defeat 3 separate mini bosses in 3 separate rooms. Only one player at a time can enter each room, and they are unable to receive buffs or support from the main group of any kind.

So 3 players will have to duel each boss while the main group holds off waves of powerful mobs outside the 3 doors. If one of the 3 players is killed, another group member must enter and attempt to finish off the boss, reducing the number of players fending off the waves of mobs. For additional group synergy requirements, maybe these 3 mini bosses must be killed within 15 seconds of each other, or else they regenerate like in AB meta.

The bosses must require you to have at least moderate dps to finish them in time so you don't just have like people in full minstrels safely taking forever to kill them. But they should be a challenge to fight, forcing you to dodge a lot and use additional defenses to survive, not just be punching bags for glass cannons to wail on.

Due to not having group support, this would require some self sufficient builds to be run. My first thought is power herald, because I play mostly rev. Power herald is irrelevant in high level content because a lot of its strength is invested into it's self sufficiency, like ability to easily might stack itself and maintain permanent fury and some self quickness. All of this is pointless in a group, where all that matters is raw dps. But an encounter that forces periods of self sufficiency could see some interesting builds.The health of the main boss should probably be lower to compensate for people having to take less optimal dps for solo phases.

Or maybe grouos will just start requiring 5 chronos to do those parts to because that class is so hilariously overloaded, idk.

This type of encounter will simply put more pressure on the dps classes. "Self-sufficient" builds are overrated. A normal dps build designed for group play will not perform that worse than a self-sufficient one solo and it will be clearly better in the rest of the fight. In your case, my first instinct is "take Mirages to handle the solo fights". They have tons of dodges and their dps is extremely reliable. They'll be done in no time, with hardly any trouble. Diversity gained: 0.

Small fights that rely on burst, longer fights that rely on sustained dps, boon corrupts, boon tranfers, existance of adds, their agro range, their density, how easily can they skipped, how viable it is to stealth, conditions like slow or chill that effect skills, healing, cc. Fights with only a boss, fights with the boss and some adds, fights with multiple bosses, fights were adds are extremely importand to deal with and are multiple. 1 tank encounters, 2 tank encounters etc. Fights with alot of small hitting mechanics that are followed up with big 1 hitters if the group is not topped off (to promote actuall healers). All these can aply to fractals as well.

Mobility is a major aspect of this game which is heavily underutilized in raids. Having some encounter where people need to run out and eliminate targets that are very spread out would possibly give things like thief and shiro rev a bit of a niche. I am thinking something like bandit trio mortars but make it part of an actually difficult encounter where the longer the person is gone taking care of the mechanic, the longer the rest of the group is stuck low Manning. Also multiple targets so it isn't just mesmer runs out and instantly ports back.

Raid meta is simply designed around a 10 man team having as much DPS output as possible, with the bare minimal defensive mechanisms required. To really change things to offer more intra-class diversity, every class would need to be able to spec and compare to a Heal Druid or spec and compare to a Chrono Alacrity/Quickness bot. Bosses would need to be granted more condi clear/resistance functions to make physical DPS more viable and the AI would need to be changed so players couldn't hide behind a tough tankard "which in turn would employ individual builds to front more defensive mechanisms".

But even then, no matter what happens in terms of balancing, there will always be a clear identified "best setup for a 10 man raid team" or least a preferred one.

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:Raid meta is simply designed around a 10 man team having as much DPS output as possible, with the bare minimal defensive mechanisms required. To really change things to offer more intra-class diversity, every class would need to be able to spec and compare to a Heal Druid or spec and compare to a Chrono Alacrity/Quickness bot. Bosses would need to be granted more condi clear/resistance functions to make physical DPS more viable and the AI would need to be changed so players couldn't hide behind a tough tankard "which in turn would employ individual builds to front more defensive mechanisms".

But even then, no matter what happens in terms of balancing, there will always be a clear identified "best setup for a 10 man raid team" or least a preferred one.

A lot of people have an issue with certain specs like druid and chrono being used on every fight no matter what the comp is because they just bring too much utility to not take. Even the best dps in the game have a few encounters where they are not optimal and do not deal ideal numbers like ele on mathias vs KC for example.

@ArthurDent.9538 said:Mobility is a major aspect of this game which is heavily underutilized in raids. Having some encounter where people need to run out and eliminate targets that are very spread out would possibly give things like thief and shiro rev a bit of a niche. I am thinking something like bandit trio mortars but make it part of an actually difficult encounter where the longer the person is gone taking care of the mechanic, the longer the rest of the group is stuck low Manning. Also multiple targets so it isn't just mesmer runs out and instantly ports back.

You can optimize the task by either optimizing the time to go there (mobility) or the time to kill the adds (damage). Or both, obviously. But why in the name of the Six would you focus on mobility? It is only useful in that part of the fight. A good damage output is useful 100% of the time.

i think it's not what mechanics but the meta kills class diversity.

@"Hex.2579" said:i think it's not what mechanics but the meta kills class diversity.

The Meta is presumably a creation of the players who were sick and tired of nomad guardian tanks and condi settlers eles dragging teams down back in W1. With balance being the way it is, "meta" builds tend to far outperform the majority of "viable" builds when played correctly under the right circumstances.

Is it unfair my favourite classes/loadouts can't find a half decent raiding party without being carried? Maybe, but I can't fault people for simply wanting to get it done.

Ultimately, I can't see the class gaps changing unless each raid panders its mechanics do a certain classes niche.

Answer me this, why do they need "build diversity" I mean, really, so what if the best make up is a Druid,Crono, PS Warrior, and 7 max DPS classes. So what if half the classes in the game are not optimal, every MMO is like that with some classes just being better There is no need for diversity really. In fact, having optimal classes makes it easier for people to build those classes and play them, and thus easier for them to get into raids. Less choices means easier choices.

Build diversity can only be kept at a minimum and would be only acceptable for a veteran raider. Example instead of berserker you can use maurader, assasin, or valkyrie at a dps lose of course. And for condi, vipers, you can use rampager, trailblazer or sinister. As far as classes go I feel any class who can do 15k minimum is acceptable. It's acceptable but you still don't want a group comprised of players doing just that as it causes more room for error. For me, personally, having 8 star meta players leaves room for the 2 meme builds or newer players. This does not apply to raid bosses like dhumm where everyone needs to be on top of their game.

I believe we already have a few encounters like this such as Deimos and maybe Soulless Horror?

I think your request will come naturally as Arenanet provides more creative raid encounters and testing the limits of the Special Action Key. It was a very good gesture to give the Tank Swap capability on that key for instance.