Should the difficulty level of skill rotation reflect in the amount of DPS? Or being melee/ranged?

Having been reading this discussion for awhile, there have been arguments stating that with more complex skill rotation one should be potentially be able to dish out more DPS than with a more simple rotation. Should this be the case really? We are talking about a MMO game with merely 10 skill buttons for most classes, which is very little compared to other MMOs, and this will lead to most classes having rather short rotations. Personally I think that since most of the classes have a tiny skill pool to begin with, this isn't really a valid argument since it doesn't touch majority of the jobs, and is only affecting couple niche specs.

Another thing people have been saying is that being as a melee class you should be able to deal more damage than being ranged. The main argument for this statement has been that playing ranged is safer than playing melee. Is it really though? Are all the mechanics around the bosses only happening next to it? Nothing for the ranged people to watch out? In the fights where that holds true, yes I can see melee should be able to do bit more if holding optimal melee uptime is abyssal compared to holding ranged uptime. Having battles where ranged people can just stay still and dps while melee specs have to do all mechanics just cause they need to be at melee range is just bad game design in my opinion. If this isn't the case though, and you can still stay next to the boss as much as the ranged person can stay at range while attacking it, then I don't think there is a problem.

I can't help but think that this is all about veiled Thief and Ele complaints. However I digress:

IMO the idea of making easy and hard rotations is silly. It is not an ideal feature of any game to spend your time fighting the interface to try to get your toon to do stuff well. Near maximum DPS against a stationary target should be an expectation of competent play through moderate effort, not an elusive reward for players to grind for days training to achieve. Aside from my wrists hurting because of special diseases, putting too much mental stress on class performance means that it is harder to see and react to enemy behavior. Skill should be about minutia, dealing with the unexpected, and dealing with the classes innate strengths and weaknesses, not whether you can keep track of all the resource management in a convoluted class mechanic.

Problem is, this is an inevitability of the system. By nature of making things different, the system will end up with easier and harder rotations. The prospect of balancing giving harder rotations more damage has two ideas behind it. First, in PVP balance you'll want to balance for skill, so the more difficult maneuvers will need to have more damage to counter-balance their difficulty. Second, players work hard to learn a complicated rotation, and they expect hard work to be rewarded. It's a fair expectation, but that does not necessarily make it good. There is no necessary link between difficult rotations and DPS.

There's a dozen other ways to draw the connections. The DPS can be balanced to frailty, or difficulty can be balanced to versatility, or the difficult rotations can have different benefits aside from their DPS output. You can even leave the difficult rotations up to personal flair. Second, balancing disparate skill rotations just leads to overt class favoritism. No class should be rendered impotent because its themes are simpler. Changing the themes to be more complicated to compensate is an equally bad idea, since simple themes can be a big attraction to the class. You might inadvertently cut out the playerbase by instituting a global high skill floor. This doesn't hold true for the opposite, though, since making it easier to do maximum DPS on hard rotation isn't going to squeeze out players.

The melee/range divide, however, does make sense. Placement is a big thing in this game. Ranged weaponry has a wide space to choose their placement, but melee weaponry has a very narrow area.. Melee can be hit by everything, but ranged can only be hit by ranged. This is true for PVP and PVE. The relationship here isn't the difficulty of the rotation for reward, but risk vs. reward.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:I can't help but think that this is all about veiled Thief and Ele complaints. However I digress:

IMO the idea of making easy and hard rotations is silly. It is not an ideal feature of any game to spend your time fighting the interface to try to get your toon to do stuff well. Near maximum DPS against a stationary target should be an expectation of competent play through moderate effort, not an elusive reward for players to grind for days training to achieve. Aside from my wrists hurting because of special diseases, putting too much mental stress on class performance means that it is harder to see and react to enemy behavior. Skill should be about minutia, dealing with the unexpected, and dealing with the classes innate strengths and weaknesses, not whether you can keep track of all the resource management in a convoluted class mechanic.

Problem is, this is an inevitability of the system. By nature of making things different, the system will end up with easier and harder rotations. The prospect of balancing giving harder rotations more damage has two ideas behind it. First, in PVP balance you'll want to balance for skill, so the more difficult maneuvers will need to have more damage to counter-balance their difficulty. Second, players work hard to learn a complicated rotation, and they expect hard work to be rewarded. It's a fair expectation, but that does not necessarily make it good. There is no necessary link between difficult rotations and DPS.

There's a dozen other ways to draw the connections. The DPS can be balanced to frailty, or difficulty can be balanced to versatility, or the difficult rotations can have different benefits aside from their DPS output. You can even leave the difficult rotations up to personal flair. Second, balancing disparate skill rotations just leads to overt class favoritism. No class should be rendered impotent because its themes are simpler. Changing the themes to be more complicated to compensate is an equally bad idea, since simple themes can be a big attraction to the class. You might inadvertently cut out the playerbase by instituting a global high skill floor. This doesn't hold true for the opposite, though, since making it easier to do maximum DPS on hard rotation isn't going to squeeze out players.

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The melee/range divide, however, does make sense. Placement is a big thing in this game. Ranged weaponry has a wide space to choose their placement, but melee weaponry has a very narrow area.. Melee can be hit by everything, but ranged can only be hit by ranged. This is true for PVP and PVE. The relationship here isn't the difficulty of the rotation for reward, but risk vs. reward.

Just an addendum to melee vs ranged, a further balance point as you touched on as well is frailty. Although ranged is by and large safer it can be counterbalanced by making ranged attacks from enemies deal more damage and thus a harsher punishment to messing up when playing ranged. Additionally, being ranged can put you outside of the area of effect for allied support. This is why stacking works so well and can actually improve survivability by taking all the hits and healing them with party support over trying to stay at range and avoid damage in the first place.

I think this is about choosing dps versus having more options.

With a shorter rotation you have more possibilities to shine. You aren't as affected by mechanics as you can hop right back into your rotation. This ability to deal with a variety of situations should come at the cost of lower peak-performance. If there is a build that was designed for one specific encouter, it should always outperforme the default builds.But I guess the problem here is rather that difficult rotations outperform simpler ones on almost every encounter. But who should ANet balance for? Should they aim to have mostly equal benchmark numbers? Should they balance for the actual combat-results of the top raid guilds? Should they balance for the average raid guild instead? Should they balance for pugs? Balancing around the average raid player automatically makes the difficult rotations' benchmarks leave the simpler rotations' ones in the dust.

As for melee vs ranged: As a ranged player you can play both ranged and melee. As a melee player you can only play melee. And yes, the ranged player should have to trade something in for this advantage.

Basically it ends up being a question about balancing risk and reward.

Think of it this way - the more things there are that could be messed up in a specific gameplay (or rotation), the greater the risk of using it. It isn't necessarily always "risk" as in "getting downed" or "wiping", it's rather about its reliability. Greater reliability means more predictable, less chaotic results. When I say "greater risk" I mean the opposite of that. This risk can be caused by any different factors - mechanical difficulty (high APM) of the rotation, susceptibility to interrupts and general fragility, gameplay-specific quirks (like ele conjures or the hidden cooldowns on engi kits) or range limitations. They all affect the risk in the end, but the magnitude will vary from factor to factor and will often depend on context. For instance, being limited to melee range isn't very important on VG, but can severely hurt your dps if your group decides to stay mid and range Deimos.

I think it is rather obvious greater risk needs to be balanced with greater reward. The risk reduces your "expected" performance. In the long run, something is bound to go awry, you can't get around that. If two builds performed exactly the same, the more reliable one would have an edge because of that - every time something gets messed up, it would pull ahead. We've seen that happen with condi Engi in the past. Despite it having highest potential on small targets, the overall "risk" of playing one was too high and the expected performance was too low to justify bringing or taking one. Which resulted in the build falling out of favor and being forgotten for months.

There's also the subjective feeling of wasted effort. Trying your best playing a complex build and achieving similar or worse results to a simple one can be rather disheartening. Games should reward such effort, not indirectly tell you your efforts do not matter.

Yes, but very minimally.

This creates different "high-end" and "pug" meta's and offers variable play. Which is great to avoid the game getting stale, providing alternatives which are "best" depending on situation and so forth. However, a lot more than "difficulty in rotation" needs to be taken into account.

i.e. amount of CC, effectiveness depending on hitbox, access to range, mobility, blocks, invulns, group support, ...Also not /every/ meme build in the game can be balanced. That will never happen. But the more viable builds the merrier.

Also who cares about DPS. DPS has millions of fairly decent alternatives. Even weaver is fine for clearing even if it isn't worth the effort at all. Time to gut supports; chrono is dull, druid is duller and warrior would be playable even if they straight up deleted banners from the game. Which by the way, I fully support.

@Frozey.8513 said:Should the difficulty level of skill rotation reflect in the amount of DPS?No, definitely not. The game should provide options for casual players to play more simple but effective builds in order for them not to become a burden for the group. "High difficulty rotations" should only be there for people who seek a challenge for themselves or are otherwise bored by the "simple stuff" but that's about it.

@Frozey.8513 said:Or being melee/ranged?The fact that ranged has it easier is a common misconception, melee focused builds have generally more HP, toughness and dodges/mobility at their disposal. They also are far more likely to be attacked by the more basic stuff while ranged fighters usually have to deal with AoE / CC spam (e.g. the golem hero point in verdant brink). Close ranged fighters are also more likely to be affected by support skills from other players which usually also forces ranged builds into close range combat and most of the big endgame bosses focus on big room sweeping AoEs anyways. There's really no point in keeping the damage of ranged builds low just cause they're ranged.

Answering the title, because no one has time for walls of text:Yes and Yes.If you're melee you have a higher degree of risk (you'll get hit more), so higher reward is warranted.If your rotation is complex, you should be getting a better DPS output, otherwise, why do it at all?

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Frozey.8513" said:Should the difficulty level of skill rotation reflect in the amount of DPS?No, definitely not. The game should provide options for casual players to play more simple but effective builds in order for them not to become a burden for the group. "High difficulty rotations" should only be there for people who seek a challenge for themselves or are otherwise bored by the "simple stuff" but that's about it.

I used to play condi engi. I now play holosmith.

I have very little reason to go back to playing condi engi other than nostalgia. Fighting the interface and keeping track of internal cooldowns for several minutes is not a "fun challenge."

To answer the original question: Yes, but not by so much that they supplant the simpler rotations. More complex rotations should get rewarded, but not by more than 20-25% of the damage a simpler rotation is doing.

Personal opinion no. I think all professions should be within a few thousand DPS of each other benchmark wise. I think more difficult rotations should be marginally higher, but rotations should be purely there for what the player finds more fun.

As above, I played Holosmith since PoF and the rotations to me are so much more fun than standard engie, I have no reason to go back. If the Holo took a big nerf and cut a few k off the dps would I change? No, I find it fun.

That being said I recently started playing condition mirage in PVE and I find that mega fun, might not be meta, but I plan to do content and full ascend that character now. I think they are about the same difficulty, Holo is a much higher DPS on benchmark, but again, I am having fun and to me that is what most counts.

The difficulty level of skill rotation should indeed be rewarded but for the health of the game it shouldn't be rewarded by more dps than simpler rotations. That is what I think.

In other words, a complex rotation should provide roughly the same amount of damage but add to it more "extra" (support/CC/even defense) than simple rotation. This would open dps spot to any profession while support would eventually end up caped.

People imbue phrases like, "risk & reward" with too much meaning. There's no formula that says the best balance comes from giving Y more damage with X more complexity.

Moreover, it's not ANet who invents these complex builds. The benchmark builds are literally the maximum in-game damage that can be done by the best players in the game under ideal conditions. These are people for whom the complexity is relatively meaningless, if it gets them 1% extra DPS.

And even then, the problem isn't the benchmarks, it's that we treat them as critical to making choices. There's nothing in the game that requires damage classes to have top DPS; content can be swiftly and smooth cleared with 70-80% of benchmark & even less usually. I care more about actual damage than benchmark damage and there are plenty of not-meta builds that deal near-benchmark damage, with less complex rotations. (We've already seen adaptations to the recent power SB to simplify it, without much DPS loss.)

@"Vagrant.7206" said:I used to play condi engi. I now play holosmith.

I have very little reason to go back to playing condi engi other than nostalgia. Fighting the interface and keeping track of internal cooldowns for several minutes is not a "fun challenge."For you, it's not hard to find people saying stuff like always spamming AA is to dull for them.

The problem is that the idea of a 'rotation' is the same as the 'meta'. They are player constructs aimed at playing the game in a very specific way to maximize damage output. With the most confidence, I am going to say that Anet cares zero about how much damage you do and so would have also zero interest in adopting the idea of a 'rotation' as a way to balance the damage being done. I don't even think that objectively, that could be accomplished in the first place.

why is this important though? isn't pve kinda easy mode? i mean sure you raids and fractals are not to be played lightly but after sometime you get to know the programmed AI and it becomes like reading a book, so why the fuss about silly pve dps numbers?

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:why is this important though? isn't pve kinda easy mode?Yes and no, what you're doing is easy but you can still fail if there's a general lack of DPS thaks to how the scaling works in this game. For example I've done the Auric Basin meta on an almost empty map with just 4 people on west but I've also seen it fail with 30+.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@"Frozey.8513" said:Should the difficulty level of skill rotation reflect in the amount of DPS?No, definitely not. The game should provide options for casual players to play more simple but effective builds in order for them not to become a burden for the group. "High difficulty rotations" should only be there for people who seek a challenge for themselves or are otherwise bored by the "simple stuff" but that's about it.

20-25% is a huge difference. And it's about the right one IMO, for exactly the reasons that caused your switch to holo.

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:why is this important though? isn't pve kinda easy mode? i mean sure you raids and fractals are not to be played lightly but after sometime you get to know the programmed AI and it becomes like reading a book, so why the fuss about silly pve dps numbers?

It's the same for PvP thought, after experiencing other professions you basically know their script. You know how a mesmer will engage you, what to expect when a thief will sneak attack you, how to control a necromancer, how to shut down an elementalist. You just need to grasp the foe's build and it's basically PvE easy mode.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Fat Disgrace.4275 said:why is this important though? isn't pve kinda easy mode? i mean sure you raids and fractals are not to be played lightly but after sometime you get to know the programmed AI and it becomes like reading a book, so why the fuss about silly pve dps numbers?

What? No it isn't the same at all. The builds may be the same or conquest may be the same in rotation wise but people play differently and change executions/decisions on the fly.

This is about Ele's and Thieves ain't it?Ele's are still more desireable overall. Unlike thieves, they are desired in every gamemode, or at least they were. Thief has never been a desireable class for group play until now. Besides, Ele's are still far more versatile than a thief will ever be. It's just poor raid design that makes DPS the only thing that matters.

I guess I'll entertain you by answering the actual question...

Should a more complex rotation give you more damage?Depends on what's included in those rotation. As I already said, Ele's gain far more than just offensive skills when they swap elements, they get some fairly decent utilities as well, varying between leaps, auras, evades, and if they are played well they will always have a card to play. PvE wise this is useless since all that matters is DMG, but it makes a world of difference in PvP scenarios.

Should ranged or melee affect DPS?Yes. Absolutely. Ranged characters have far more freedom when they engage or disengage and don't have to worry as much about positioning. Melee users have to weave in-between giant circles of death on the ground and will probably still eat a lot of them simply because of how abundant they are. Melee users at some point has to take a hit, ranged characters only take a hit if they are hit with ranged abilities. This is a matter of risk/reward.

@"TwiceDead.1963" said:Ele's are still more desireable overall.

Statistics disagree with your statement.

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"TwiceDead.1963" said:Ele's are still more desireable overall.

Oh look it's Raidar, a part of PvE, one part of three available gamemodes. Meanwhile, Ele's are happy and dandy being accepted left and right in sPvP and WvW for multiple roles. On the other side, thieves receive all the blame for a loss in sPvP, and all the hate for daring to join a commanders squad in WvW. So yeah, that's still 2 outa 3, compared to thiefs 1. Overall, still more desirable.

Just adapt, dude, no use being salty over this. Odds are really high that when the next balance patch rolls around, thief will be nerfed into the ground, so ride the meta, or wallow in self-pity until then.

@TwiceDead.1963 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Ele's are still more desireable overall.

Thief is more meta than weaver in PvP.Thief is more meta than weaver in small scale WvW.Weaver is currently meta in large scale WvW only because of the meteor bug - we'll re-evaluate after.

I agree that he's biased towards weaver for raids. That said, your assessment isn't exactly accurate. Eles aren't in a great spot in PvP or WvW and they definitely aren't being accepted for multiple roles. They're accepted for... bugged meteor. Before the nerfs weaver was a situational class in large scale, while thief is meta in pvp and small scale wvw.

@Etheri.5406 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@TwiceDead.1963 said:Ele's are still more desireable overall.

Are we talking Weaver or Ele in general? Since the latter is what I'm on about.

sPvP, Ele's are still better at fighting on point, which is primarily what matters in sPvP. Thieves really can't, besides they are delegated to decap duty, which is basically like playing with one less player on your team until they decide to +1. Holding their own? Anet doesn't want them to do that.

Don't get me wrong, Thieves when played really well can be a nightmare, but this is fucking RARE. You're either really good with thief, or you outright suck. Guess which side the majority is at.

Really? I've seen more Ele's running around in small-scale the past week. Not weavers though, Tempest mostly. Maybe I don't see thieves because they're in the trend of being perma-stealthed lately.

Weaver has never been situational in large-scale. The amount of hard-hitting AoE's you spew around you is asinine with Staff, and the ease you down and kill downed opponents from relative safety is a luxury not shared by many other classes. I play Weaver Ele's in WvW large-scale, and I always find something useful to do for any situation that is combat oriented. Only instance you're useless would be when you get caught on your own away from the commander fighting someone who's stronger in 1v1 fights, or doing something you obviously shouldn't be doing.

It is very very easy to balance a game... even if it has PvE and PvP.... Ranged and Melee....4 buttons or 10 buttons.

But, what most seem to miss, is that the most important objective to have when designing a game.Is to make a game that is FUN to play., and which gives players many options to choose from.

Example: (note: the warrior does NOT work like this in the game currently, and never has, but they should!!!)Lets take Warrior...Warrior specc X is more direct dmg, and not dots.... dps at end is 35k dps. (just a number).Warrior specc Z is more dot dmg and less direct.... dps at end is 35k dps.Warrior specc melee, is direct dmg, and no dots and dps is 35 k.Warrior specc melee, is dots dmg, and dps is 35 k.Warrior specc ranged rifle is direct dmg and no dots and dps is 35 k.Warrior specc ranged rifle is dots dmg, and dps is 35 k.And the same SHOULD go for all classes..... It should not matter if you specc ranged or melee or direct dmg or dots... the end result should be the same.

Typically, it should not differ in dps if you play with 4 buttons or 10 buttons...(as that should just be a playstyle).(IF there is a difference in dps in 4 buttons vs 10, then you create imbalance, and you FORCE players in a special direction"fuck off, you need specc X for raiding or PvP with your class".... something that should NEVER be allowed).

The more options there is to choose from, the longer the game will live, as it gives the players many new ways to play."iam bored of playing warrior GS.... lets change to Ranged rifle........ or hammer... or sword/sword... or Mace/mace.. or Axe/axe".If it does not matter which weapon is picked, then you have a happy warrrior player base, as they can then change around for FUN and still yield same result at end.

Ranged or Melee.. or Rotations..... should not matter at all if you design the game correct.

Melee classes need a gap closer to get into melee...Ranged need a disengage to escape the melee...

If these are fulfilled, then they should deal the same dps at the end.... since a player skills should be the thing that change the outcome NOT a players class.And it should not matter either if you have 4 buttons or 10 buttons....the dps at end should still be the same... (inside the 5% rule).

5% rule = There should be a maximum 5% difference in dps at end between classes... NOT MORE!!!. and preferably less.(there should not be ANY difference INSIDE a class, well, unless if you go from full dps to full support obviously.... but dps is dps is dps).

Also something many seem to miss is that you need to have PvE and PvP separate screens/blankets instances.You deal X million dps in PvE.... its fine, its pve.You deal Z thousand dps in PvP...... as they are 2 different instances, and should have different % screens on their skills.If skill 2 and 4 is OP in PvP, but UP in PvE.... just fine tune them for each screen instance.The screens i mention gives maximum control and balance capability.

You should NEVER have PvP rule over PvE design..... or PvE rule over PvP design.... NEVER.Always keep them separate.And if you do not have a screen for each and separate them, Then you can NEVER EVER balance the game.

Since it is Arenanet, iam guessing they do not have anything of what i have mentioned sadly.Which is why the game is limited in options and have stupid meta and FotM.

Balancing a game is very very easy, if you have at least a half working brain.

/ Disappointed player