RAIDS LACK CLASS DIVERSITY- Possible Solutions.

RAID COMPS ARE FAR TOO LIMITED

So I've been raiding for about a year now and I always had this complaint which goes as follows. If you want to Raid consistently you need to have two raid ready builds and those builds need to be a certain class Ill write them down below for those interested. Some classes are only suitable for certain bosses. NOT certain specs, certain builds but certain classes cannot do some bosses or at least are seen as not viable by the rest of the raiding community. The biggest bug bear I've seen is with Demos and the new boss Duhuuum. With Demos you have to use range while someone kites him away from you while you have another person kite the spawning hands. This is one of the only bosses raiders will accept a Reinvent and its that new ventari build. If you don't have a viable ranged damage spec ontop of your melee spec this boss is also kinda just impossible till you get something that does damage at a range. With Duhuuum you can't even take in a thief most people find the thief impossible to use.

CLASSES/SPECS YOU CAN USE

Chrono Tank - Must have sometimes two are requiredDruid Healer- Must have sometimes two are requiredBURN Slave Warrior - You used to be able to use Phalenx Strength but that got nerfed so this is a buffer and a DPS Required for every bossElementalist DPS- Top Tier DPS, if you could fill a team with this you would be solidDD and Condi Thief - Can be used in every boss but DuhuumEngineer- Tough class to play and can be used for nearly anything unfortunately most people do not have the finger dextarity to play thisNecro/Guardian/Revinant- Only can be used on certain bosses due to a certain ability that is subject to getting nerfed in future.

HOW TO FIX THIS

Class buffs. To avoid people stacking on the same class we should use class buffs, buffs that are given to the whole raid by certain classes so long as they are alive. This would promote class diversity and it would give a chance to necro/Guard/Rev mains to have a chance of raiding.

Then we would have 10 fixed slots instead of 4.

Unique buffs is the biggest reason why the comps are so limited in the first place. If anything they need to get rid of class buffs, massively tone them down or distribute them to all classes so you don't have to take certain classes for their buffs.

The only solution is introducing 100% trinity system where every tank / dps / healer is standarized and all professions are basically the same in their group.

Eh? I don't know about Dhuum but Deimos has more than one strategy. Ranged is the easiest for average groups. If you want to be a ventari revenant it's not a problem. You can kite hands. Or just do heals.

If you don't need special handling of mechanics by druids (namely immobilize or more breakbar damage) you can also just have a healing rev or tempest take the healer role. For DPS there's a ranged or mid ranged option for most classes. Dragonhunter with scepter. Berserker and longbow. Mirage with staff or scepter.

Class diversity is higher than it's ever been. What is this even

@Tinker.1586 said:With Demos you have to use range while someone kites him away from you while you have another person kite the spawning hands. This is one of the only bosses raiders will accept a Reinvent and its that new ventari build. If you don't have a viable ranged damage spec ontop of your melee spec this boss is also kinda just impossible till you get something that does damage at a range. With Duhuuum you can't even take in a thief most people find the thief impossible to use.

1.) What dps class played in raids have only meele weapons? (i don't play every class, that why i ask)Guard have scepter, Ranger have shortbow, Warrior have longbow and so on. sure you can't play the meta rota but it's just enough.

2.) Stay in mid and range attack Deimos is just one tactic. There is also a tactic where everyone go melee. You have to watch for blacks but thats it. I have seen both tactics in pug groups.

Necro/Guardian/Revinant- Only can be used on certain bosses due to a certain ability that is subject to getting nerfed in future.

Take the necro aside, why could you play Guard and Rev only on certain bosses?Let me count.RevenantWing 1 VG: Yes | Gorseval: No (never tried) | Sab: Yes (Dps, Kiter, Healer)Wing 2 Sloth: No (never tried, healer is a thing there i guess) | Trio: Yes | Matthias: Yes (it's pretty fun because he run all the time and you have very much torment)Wing 3 Escort: Yes (like the easiest Backwarg, also good as normal dps) | KC: No (because zerk dps required) | Xera: Yes (never tried myself but was asked to stay rev for Xera)Wing 4 Thats easy, Yes Yes Yes and Yes. I do the whole Wing with Rev. (Yes, Shortbow do good dmg there)Wing 5 Desmina: No (just never tried nor seen) | River: Yes (there is almost a rev healer in group) | Statues: Yes | Dhuum: Yes (only as kiter i guess but it's in)

GuardianWing 1 VG: Yes | Gorseval: Yes | Sab: YesWing 2 Sloth: Yes | Trio: Yes | Matthias: Yes (but i just prefer to play Soulbeast here)Wing 3 Escort: Yes | KC: Yes | Xera: YesWing 4 Cairn: Yes | Mursaat: Yes | Samarog: Yes | Deimos: YesWing 5 Desmina: Yes | River: Oh Yes (mostly every dps slot is taken by a guard) | Statues: Yes | Dhuum: also Yes

Well Necro is a thing of it's own i guess. (only play necro in open world, so i don't matter)Saw them at Sloth, (Trio i guess, not sure. Maybe a few times), Escort (mostly Backwarg), Xera (Shardclear), Mursaat (Addclear) and Desmina (also Addclear / Golem Epi)But there isn't more than on Necro in this groups and the main reason they are in is Epi.

But i guess that is the same thin as you solution. Not a class buff but an unique class skill.Atleast i don't think you can bring a usefull, raid capable, class buff to every class. Rev can bring +225 ferocity (+15% dmg) but don't have a fix slot in raidgroups (like bs or chrono). Engi can bring +150 condition damage and also don't have a fix slot.

According to the folks that work on GW2 Raider:

Our data shows you can clear raids with pretty much any comp and build for the most part.

Thus, any lack of diversity we see is a social and/or psychological issue, not a technical one, i.e. it isn't going to be resolved primarily by changing class mechanics.

Basically, there are commanders who don't trust PUGs to know their class and/or mechanics and believe that the best way to avoid wasting time is stick to the narrow set of meta builds. It's comparable to the mindset that asks people for kill proof, even though neither tells the commander what they really want to know: is this PUG going to pull their weight or not? Mind you, it's hard to blame commanders. No one likes to have their time wasted and it's hard to evaluate player skill, experience, or knowledge, even in the best of circumstances.

tl;dr raids can be cleared with all sorts of comps; we just (as a community) choose to stick with a narrow subset because: reasons.

@NikeEU.7690 said:Class diversity is higher than it's ever been. What is this evenFractals have 1 viable dps slot with weaver. There is no point in playing something else there.

In raids thats true unless you look at the broken dps. Named scourge, weaver and mirage. Weaver is just the best power dps right now. Scourge epi bounce outperforms every dps build there is by a huge margin and mirage is just the best condi build in all other cases.Well for bosses like Xera most of the dps builds are almost equal but bosses like dhuum, matthias or SH have the worst class diversity ever.

@Nephalem.8921 said:

Fractals have 1 viable dps slot with weaver. There is no point in playing something else there.On the contrary, there's no need to play Weaver in Fractals unless you are speedclearing or are carrying 2-3 others. And, of course, it's far better to play with almost any class than a lot of weavers we see.

There are tons of viable comps for fractals (even CMs). There might be only a narrow comp for speedclears, but that's not what most of us do most of the time.

@"Tinker.1586" said:

So I've been raiding for about a year now and I always had this complaint which goes as follows. If you want to Raid consistently you need to have two raid ready builds and those builds need to be a certain class Ill write them down below for those interested. Some classes are only suitable for certain bosses. NOT certain specs, certain builds but certain classes cannot do some bosses or at least are seen as not viable by the rest of the raiding community.

clipped

I feel like this is a lot of really dated information that you're using here...?

• Lots of people do Deimos melee strategy too, not just ranged.
• People take Revenants as dps to a lot of fights these days, but especially vs large hitbox bosses (except kc). They haven't been "Hand Kite or gtfo" status for like five months now...
• I don't see why people would specifically not want condi dd for dhuum? I mean, I haven't seen one in there, but I also haven't seen anyone get hated out of a group for it.
• Only one druid is required due to gotl and spirit changes... Although in pugs you do generally take two since you rarely trust a rando-druid to maintain might and a little extra cc never hurts.
• Banner Slave War's don't bring Phalanx Strength as might is not their job now... They're there for banners, ea, cc, and respectablish dps.
• While condi DD is still well liked in a lot of fights, people hate on power dd's hard... Although you do see some thief's meme'ing with power deadeye in some of the fights since the last pve balance patch.
• While condi engi was quite difficult to play, it's not really a thing anymore (rip) and engineer is actually one of the easier dps classes to play now with Power Holo. Not to take anything away from the talented Holo's out there putting up great numbers, but it's also very easy for untalented Holo's to hit good numbers since the really technical parts of the rotation amount to only a small fraction of their damage output.
• Firebrand/Renegade/DH are still popular dps picks, and while DH really suffered with the alacrity nerf, they're still pretty popular in several fights due to their burstiness and how they can cheese mechanics with aegis/shield of courage (plus signet share for their weavers.)

As far as needing a bunch of geared classes to raid... It really depends how hardcore the people you're playing with are. Yes, there IS a class that is the best choice for every fight if you're dps, but also any class can get the job done--it's just all about how much you want to be #1 on arc. And let's be honest, it's not even that big of a deal... Anet makes it incredibly easy to level and gear alts (they even let you share gear). I would say that raiding in GW2 is really less about "This is my main, how can I use it" and more about "This is my role, how should I best do it."

I must disagree. Raids are playable with every class at the moment.Revenant: Herald elite is used as a healer mainly true but condi renegade? In a perfect team you yould always want a renegade for the power buff (almost all bosses) while it still does great damage.Necromancer:Yes it is a support class and it should stay as such. While solo necro is not that great it is strong if you epi bounce. Can be done on: VG, sabetha, sloth (is shit but still), Matthias ( off sacrifice if you feel like it), xera, MO, desmina.Guard:Playable everywhere and still decent.

Think there was another similar post on this? (Vaguely familiar)

CLASSES/SPECS YOU CAN USE

Chrono Tank - Must have sometimes two are requiredDruid Healer- Must have sometimes two are requiredBURN Slave Warrior - You used to be able to use Phalenx Strength but that got nerfed so this is a buffer and a DPS Required for every bossElementalist DPS- Top Tier DPS, if you could fill a team with this you would be solidDD and Condi Thief - Can be used in every boss but DuhuumEngineer- Tough class to play and can be used for nearly anything unfortunately most people do not have the finger dextarity to play thisNecro/Guardian/Revinant- Only can be used on certain bosses due to a certain ability that is subject to getting nerfed in future.

:sweat_smile: Doesn't that mean all class are viable?

Somehow I was hoping for some meaningful contribution towards the druid/chrono issue, but this thread is a severe disappointment. There's hardly anything correct about the OP -.-

Class buffs/unique buffs are not good for the game in general. Druid is an excellent example of this issue since GotL, spotter, dmg glyph and spirit give it so many unique buffs that having one is mandatory. Anet even had to nerf GotL to bring it more in line with other classes. The way you truly make class diversity good is by making classes have different build variations to fill each role and removing unique buffs. The different builds should be comparable in effectiveness but work differently for individuality.

Are we talking about making everything 'viable' or making everything 'optimal' for all situations and roles? Poeple always seem to miss the difference there.

@Tinker.1586 said:HOW TO FIX THIS

Class buffs. To avoid people stacking on the same class we should use class buffs, buffs that are given to the whole raid by certain classes so long as they are alive. This would promote class diversity and it would give a chance to necro/Guard/Rev mains to have a chance of raiding.

Um... no. What this would make is create an even stricter meta. Yes, it will feature more classes, but will be less variety. Actually the way to counter is precisely the opposite - make the options available to classes more alike. However, this comes at the cost of losing class identity, so it's a give and take. And then there will always be a single best comp that becomes meta, so the status quo really isn't that bad. I'm looking forward to see the next wave of elite specs. Until then, we have a decent meta.

Because your oponent is not a player the only way to everything be balanced is if everything is the same.

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@NikeEU.7690 said:Class diversity is higher than it's ever been. What is this evenFractals have 1 viable dps slot with weaver. There is no point in playing something else there.

I take my 6k dps DH over 5k weavers every day.

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@"NikeEU.7690" said:Class diversity is higher than it's ever been. What is this evenFractals have 1 viable dps slot with weaver. There is no point in playing something else there.

Granted that before HoT the only professions used for "high end" PvE were warriors, elementalists and thiefs (Occasionnaly mesmers), I'm pretty sure that NikeEU is right in saying that class diversity is higher than it's ever been...

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Nephalem.8921" said:

Fractals have 1 viable dps slot with weaver. There is no point in playing something else there.On the contrary, there's no need to play Weaver in Fractals unless you are speedclearing or are carrying 2-3 others. And, of course, it's far better to play with almost any class than a lot of weavers we see.

Lets compare weaver per boss in cms to the 2nd best option which is dps chrono. I use the 90th percentile for this:

99cm:

• MAMA: 35,1% ahead
• Siax: 35,4% ahead. 66,9% ahead of Holosmith
• Ensolyss: 28,3% ahead. 49,3% ahead of Holo

  100cm:

• Skorvald: 13,1% ahead. But Weavers can phase skorvald in just one breakbar preventing him from rushing around. This results in very high Weaver dps not represented in 90th percentile. Not sure if chronos can do this too.
• Artsariiv: Chrono is 2,8% ahead.
• Arkk: Weaver is 3,4% ahead. 27,6% ahead of Holo.

Out of 6 Bosses only 2 are fairly close when compared to 2nd best option. Chrono is even bugged and i'm not sure how many of the stats are corrupted by exploiters. Weaver is miles ahead of DH and Holo and this gap becomes even larger if you use the 99th percentile to the point of weaver dealing twice the damage.Its not even limited to cms. Want to burst underground boss in 1 bucket? Take weavers. Want to do TO fast? Take weavers for opening burst on every add. Only Fractals where weavers aren't miles ahead and behind are underwater, aetherblade and maybe urban battleground endboss but weaver is still the best for the adds.

Everything is viable sure. You can solo all the bosses but Weaver does 50% and more damage than all the other professions. Even "burst" professions like Dh have way lower burst and trash dps. Holo and heat mechanic doesn't really work with short phases and agony + self damage isn't helping aswell.

@Feanor.2358 said:I'm looking forward to see the next wave of elite specs. Until then, we have a decent meta.The problem is simple, have the last elite specs changed anything substantial with the problems that remain from the HoT era? I don't think so. The Unholy Trinity cannot be solved by new elite specs, unless they're supposed to become ridiculously overpowered.

I would say remove boon share unique buffs healing others would solve this since then all can focus on their own survival

@CptAurellian.9537 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:I'm looking forward to see the next wave of elite specs. Until then, we have a decent meta.The problem is simple, have the last elite specs changed anything substantial with the problems that remain from the HoT era? I don't think so. The Unholy Trinity cannot be solved by new elite specs, unless they're supposed to become ridiculously overpowered.

Well, in theory other comps are perfectly capable of tackling the content. It's just that chrono/druid/warrior are the most efficient one. But... there will always be a most efficient support comp. And it will be the meta and people would play that no matter what, because that's what these players do.

New elite specs add new options in theorycrafting, particularly when it comes to theorycrafting a comp for a specific fight. See how Spellbreakers became a thing here and there because of their boonstrip capabilities. This is a different kind of diversity, and I would say a more feasible one.

Yes, there will always be a most efficient combo. However, I am solidly opposed to any notion that it's ok for such a combo to be lightyears ahead of any alternatives - and that's the case for chrono/druid in anything but the most extreme niche situations. It probably wouldn't take too much to make FB/Ren serious contenders, but as long as that doesn't happen, I will keep complaining.

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Nephalem.8921 said:

Fractals have 1 viable dps slot with weaver. There is no point in playing something else there.On the contrary, there's no need to play Weaver in Fractals unless you are speedclearing or are carrying 2-3 others. And, of course, it's far better to play with almost any class than a lot of weavers we see.

• MAMA: 35,1% ahead
• Siax: 35,4% ahead. 66,9% ahead of Holosmith
• Ensolyss: 28,3% ahead. 49,3% ahead of Holo
  100cm:
• Skorvald: 13,1% ahead. But Weavers can phase skorvald in just one breakbar preventing him from rushing around. This results in very high Weaver dps not represented in 90th percentile. Not sure if chronos can do this too.
• Artsariiv: Chrono is 2,8% ahead.
• Arkk: Weaver is 3,4% ahead. 27,6% ahead of Holo.

Applying elitist stat site reports to general pug environment. That's one way to be out of reality.