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A PvE Balance Manifesto


GammelTier.4875

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Hello fellow forum dwellers,

Becoming more and more annoyed with the PvE balance situation I have decided to finally write down my proposed changes.

Warning: This is a 15 page document. If you are not willing to read something that long, that is totally fine.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=12Sme_h0aNEsiMZq59Wsa0E1CG-vQEoDL

A quick overview:

This system proposes 3 support roles, leaving 7 DPS spots in raids and 2 in fractals.

The three roles are:

  • Tank
  • Healer
  • Buffer

The following steps are made to achieve this:

  • Step 1 - Remove Alacrity
  • Step 2 - Remove unique Buffs like Empower Allies or Ranger Spirits
  • Step 3 - Limit the Boons a role can share:

Quickness and "Defensive" Boons for Tanks;

Healing and "Supportive" Boons for Healers;

Might and "Offensive" Boons for Buffers

The suggested professions/specializations for each roles are:

  • Chronomancer, Scrapper & Firebrand for Tanks;
  • Tempest, Druid & Herald for Healers;
  • Scourge, Deadeye & Warrior for Buffers.

[Edit: Of course these are suggested specializations, and they should not be limited to these roles]

Lastly we bring the DPS Roles in line and allow every profession to have a DPS build that is within a 10% window.

If you have any questions or constructive feedback feel free to comment. (:(This is crossposted to the Guild Wars 2 Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/99p09j/a_pve_balance_manifesto/ )

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@GammelTier.4875 said:The three roles are:

  • Tank
  • Healer
  • Buffer

No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role.

Lastly we bring the DPS Roles in line and allow every profession to have a DPS build that is within a 10% window.Within 10% of ? How do you determine the benchmark? Do you use player-established benchmarks in which the top 1% of players use tricks to eek out extra damage? The DPS of the top 20% of players, in which case, there could be (and historically has been) huge variations across players of different skill?

It's not even theoretically possible to ensure that all DPS builds have roughly similar damage potential.

ANet's idea of balance is far from ideal, but this oversimplifies the issue.

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"No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role."

We already are in a situation where this is the case. When was the last time you have raided with a non-chrono tank? I at least cannot remember the day?

"Within 10% of ? How do you determine the benchmark? "

See the point i made in the document: "The simplest option of course is to ask the 1% guilds totest stuff for them. Heck, pay them for it if need be. It is just another kind of outsourcingso why not. But as we all know, people cannot keep their mouth shut so this may betricky. I, of course, do not know if something along these lines ever happened in the pastor if there are any other reasons for not doing it. Another option could be macros. Thinkabout what rotation would be the most optimised one, put it in a macro, compare tooutput to the window."

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@"GammelTier.4875" said:

  • Step 1 - Remove Alacrity
  • Step 2 - Remove unique Buffs like Empower Allies or Ranger Spirits
  • Step 3 - Limit the Boons a role can share:

Quickness and "Defensive" Boons for Tanks;

Healing and "Supportive" Boons for Healers;

Might and "Offensive" Boons for Buffers

You had my attention till right here.

Im okay with changing alacrity. In fact it should be personal only and given strictly to chrono. Not shared.Unique buffs shouldn't be removed but enhanced so that the classes that have them are desirable (within reason it should be for more than just the buff)Limiting what boons can be shared is good.

Quickness is offensive by nature. It shouldnt go to tanks. So big nope on this.Healing boons ? So regen...and only regen....Might and Offensive Boons for Buffers ? So the two offensive boons remaining since you want quickness to go to tanks .... Might and Fury.

This concept needs more work to be considered.

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You have not provided strong enough arguments for the removal of alacrity as the right solution. All of the issues you cite can be better solved by taking other actions.

It is weak enough that, without the flashy effect and the green numbers, most players likely will not even notice much of a difference having it or not.

I'm assuming this is targeted at raiders in which case I wholeheartedly disagree. Most raiders especially weaver and condi warrior players will notice the abscence of alacrity in combat situations almost immediately. Also anyone who has practiced their rotation will immediately notice that their rotation includes way more auto attack chains before their next skill comes up.

It is powerful enough that is has a huge impact on DPS numbers.

As does quickness. This isnt an argument for the removal of the boon.

It does not have the same benefit to every class (Thieves without weapon skill cooldowns!)

Much like how fury and frost spirit to condi builds or having quickness outside of hitting signet of inspiration is actually detrimental for the chrono's ability to tank. Having less reliance to perform in the absence of alacrity is a strength of the class since it can now pull respectable numbers when only quickness is available. There's no reasoning provided that all classes have to have all boons provide the same amount of power.

It has the most obnoxious boon effect in the game.

Again not an argument for removal. Better solution for this is to fix the visual.

At best theres a case for removal from chrono specifically, but adding alacrity to other classes accomplish class diversity as well and having a power disparity with boons has yet to be proven as a problem by you.

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@"TexZero.7910" said:Im okay with changing alacrity. In fact it should be personal only and given strictly to chrono. Not shared.Unique buffs shouldn't be removed but enhanced so that the classes that have them are desirable (within reason it should be for more than just the buff)Limiting what boons can be shared is good.

Quickness is offensive by nature. It shouldnt go to tanks. So big nope on this.Healing boons ? So regen...and only regen....Might and Offensive Boons for Buffers ? So the two offensive boons remaining since you want quickness to go to tanks .... Might and Fury.

This concept needs more work to be considered.

I agree with you that letting tanks share quickness is a bit dumb. I go over this exact problem in my FAQ.

I would count vigor and swiftness also as a supportive boon. what i meant is healing and "supportive" boons, not healing boons (:

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Game shouldn't be balanced around PvE at all; doing so completely eradicates the balance in the competitive game modes. They've proven they can't properly split the balance between the game modes.

The game had very little balance issues in it's first 2-3 years compared to now. This is due to the introduction of fractals and raids. They are far better off abandoning any semblance of balance when it comes to PvE and fully balance around the competitive modes, then bring raids and fractals in line with the new balance.

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Your argument to remove alacrity is weak. Lets start with this:

Seriously, there is no good answer to this question. Because you either:• Work around it, taking it into account for balancing and thus create a situation where every party and squad ever will take one of two professions in the game that can >share it (Chronomancer or Renegade).• Or you ignore it, refuse to acknowledge it when balancing possibly creating broken builds.

Same as every other boon. Should an encounter be balanced around dps when we have 25 might or when we have 0? What about quickness? Should the boss do large attacks often enough that you need vigor? Having a dynamic boon system comes with this question, there is nothing unique to alacrity.

Next:

• It is weak enough that, without the flashy effect and the green numbers, most players likely will not even notice much of a difference having it or not.• It is powerful enough that is has a huge impact on DPS numbers.Obvious contradiction is obvious? Is it strong or is it weak? I doubt any player in this discussion would not notice a lack of alacrity?

Next:

But you still have the problem that is does not affect all professions to a similar level. A Thief benefits from it far less than a Weaver for example. And in the end, it is just >another problem we have to balance around, and let’s be honest, we already have enough of them.This also applies to every other boon in the game. Fury doesn't help necro, because either its a power necro with 100% crit chance without fury, or its a condi necro who has something like at most 5% of its damage come from power? Quickness doesn't help classes with lots of insta cast skills like kitless holo as much as classes without them. Weaver really needs swiftness, Guard really needs retal or aegis, etc. Do you think power warrior cares as much about vigor as a mirage does? Meanwhile vigor can actually hurt power daredevil. Etc.

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@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@GammelTier.4875 said:The three roles are:
  • Tank
  • Healer
  • Buffer

No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role.

Lastly we bring the DPS Roles in line and allow every profession to have a DPS build that is within a 10% window.Within 10% of ? How do you determine the benchmark? Do you use player-established benchmarks in which the top 1% of players use tricks to eek out extra damage? The DPS of the top 20% of players, in which case, there could be (and historically has been) huge variations across players of different skill?

It's not even theoretically possible to ensure that all DPS builds have roughly similar damage potential.

ANet's idea of balance is far from ideal, but this oversimplifies the issue.

My thoughts exactly. Some people reach well beyond the stars and need to realize that such drastic changes across the board will not happen (very unlikely to happen).

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TBH if i wanted to play WoW then i would be playing it instead of trying to make gw2 more like WoW.

Right now the only role that is (almost) totally locked in place is the chrono (The fb/ren combo works even if FB is not really the top rn) so the argument of already having an unspoken trinity is invalid. The problem here is the chrono and the fact that no other class can do what the chrono can achieve.

If we are talking about viability then you should know that a lot of classes are already viable in the healer spot, almost all dps classes are viable (maybe just reaper is the black sheep), the only real problem is the chrono spot that is hard to replace cause he does A LOT.

You are trying to address in the game what is a community problem, in PuG everybody wants druid heal cause they are used to it. Everybody wants chrono cause they are used to it and they know the tactics with chrono.If you find yourself a static you will see that things are not so much set in stone as you claim they are, you can try to experiment new things

If we are talking about META then...there will always be the meta, it will never exist a meta where everyone is ok. It's against the core idea of meta

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@"GammelTier.4875" said:"No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role."

We already are in a situation where this is the case. When was the last time you have raided with a non-chrono tank? I at least cannot remember the day?

"Within 10% of ? How do you determine the benchmark? "

See the point i made in the document: "The simplest option of course is to ask the 1% guilds totest stuff for them. Heck, pay them for it if need be. It is just another kind of outsourcingso why not. But as we all know, people cannot keep their mouth shut so this may betricky. I, of course, do not know if something along these lines ever happened in the pastor if there are any other reasons for not doing it. Another option could be macros. Thinkabout what rotation would be the most optimised one, put it in a macro, compare tooutput to the window."

I raid every week with a firebrand healer/main tank so every time would be my answer.

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@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Game shouldn't be balanced around PvE at all; doing so completely eradicates the balance in the competitive game modes. They've proven they can't properly split the balance between the game modes.

The game had very little balance issues in it's first 2-3 years compared to now. This is due to the introduction of fractals and raids. They are far better off abandoning any semblance of balance when it comes to PvE and fully balance around the competitive modes, then bring raids and fractals in line with the new balance.

Nostalgia gogles are a bad thing. The game had several glaring balance issues in years 1-3. Core Warrior says hello as being game and meta defining in all modes. Hambow stance dance was a thing for a reason.

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@"GammelTier.4875" said:I would count vigor and swiftness also as a supportive boon. what i meant is healing and "supportive" boons, not healing boons (:The problem with this is that all boons are by nature supportive. So you're ending up in a very poor design spot unless you completely redo all boons and how they function. This is unlikely to occur 6 years into the games life.

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@"GammelTier.4875" said:"No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role."

We already are in a situation where this is the case. When was the last time you have raided with a non-chrono tank? I at least cannot remember the day?

"Within 10% of ? How do you determine the benchmark? "

See the point i made in the document: "The simplest option of course is to ask the 1% guilds totest stuff for them. Heck, pay them for it if need be. It is just another kind of outsourcingso why not. But as we all know, people cannot keep their mouth shut so this may betricky. I, of course, do not know if something along these lines ever happened in the pastor if there are any other reasons for not doing it. Another option could be macros. Thinkabout what rotation would be the most optimised one, put it in a macro, compare tooutput to the window."

I'm sorry, but the fact that a Support-Tank-damage meta developed in raids is how of consequence for the rest of the game?

How big was the raid population again? Around 10-15%?

We are NOT in your established meta, not for 95% of the rest of the game. Not for spvp, not for wvw, not for fractals and not for any other pve content. A tiny fraction of the pve game has in some fights an efficiency based meta, that's it (and not even for all the boss fights in this tiny fraction).

Would I enjoy more alternatives Beside chrono tank? Sure.

Does this warrant an entire rework of how the game is designed. Not at this point in time.

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@"GammelTier.4875" said:"No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role."

We already are in a situation where this is the case. When was the last time you have raided with a non-chrono tank? I at least cannot remember the day?But the system isn't insisting on it; we are. That's markedly different from what you propose, in which a build "archetype" has no other role.

"Within 10% of ? How do you determine the benchmark? "

See the point i made in the document: "The simplest option of course is to ask the 1% guilds totest stuff for them. Heck, pay them for it if need be. It is just another kind of outsourcingso why not. But as we all know, people cannot keep their mouth shut so this may betricky. I, of course, do not know if something along these lines ever happened in the pastor if there are any other reasons for not doing it. Another option could be macros. Thinkabout what rotation would be the most optimised one, put it in a macro, compare tooutput to the window."

But the 1% guilds don't represent the rest of the population. The DPS of the next 10% already has more variation and by the time you get to the 50%ile, the variation is incredibly wide. The reason everyone seems to think there's only one way to do raids is that we have decided to self-select the top 1%'s idea of builds/comp and apply it to every group. ANet's job isn't to balance for just 1% of the community; it's to balance for everyone.

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It won't solve anything by reshuffling the current system. As long as the system remains, it will allows us players to choose traitline lines, it's just reshuffling the skills and roles distribution. In short changing the META class compositions.

Possible by streamlining builds, limiting and making it simple eg. If a player pick the role of a tank, he is limited to certain trait line only. Which will push the game to create a 'trinity' or role specifics limitations.

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@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"GammelTier.4875" said:"No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role."

We already are in a situation where this is the case. When was the last time you have raided with a non-chrono tank? I at least cannot remember the day?But the
system
isn't insisting on it; we are. That's markedly different from what you propose, in which a build "archetype" has no other role.

"Within 10% of ? How do you determine the benchmark? "

See the point i made in the document: "The simplest option of course is to ask the 1% guilds totest stuff for them. Heck, pay them for it if need be. It is just another kind of outsourcingso why not. But as we all know, people cannot keep their mouth shut so this may betricky. I, of course, do not know if something along these lines ever happened in the pastor if there are any other reasons for not doing it. Another option could be macros. Thinkabout what rotation would be the most optimised one, put it in a macro, compare tooutput to the window."

The reason everyone seems to think there's only one way to do raids is that we have decided to self-select the top 1%'s idea of builds/comp and apply it to every group. ANet's job isn't to balance for just 1% of the community; it's to balance for everyone.

Players showing they have no clue what balance is or why it's important only to then rant about the effects of perpetually having awful balance states and the downsides that they bring is a local sport.

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@Etheri.5406 said:

@"GammelTier.4875" said:"No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role."

We already are in a situation where this is the case. When was the last time you have raided with a non-chrono tank? I at least cannot remember the day?But the
system
isn't insisting on it; we are. That's markedly different from what you propose, in which a build "archetype" has no other role.

"Within 10% of ? How do you determine the benchmark? "

See the point i made in the document: "The simplest option of course is to ask the 1% guilds totest stuff for them. Heck, pay them for it if need be. It is just another kind of outsourcingso why not. But as we all know, people cannot keep their mouth shut so this may betricky. I, of course, do not know if something along these lines ever happened in the pastor if there are any other reasons for not doing it. Another option could be macros. Thinkabout what rotation would be the most optimised one, put it in a macro, compare tooutput to the window."

The reason everyone seems to think there's only one way to do raids is that we have decided to self-select the top 1%'s idea of builds/comp and apply it to every group. ANet's job isn't to balance for just 1% of the community; it's to balance for everyone.

Players showing they have no clue what balance is or why it's important only to then rant about the effects of perpetually having awful balance states and the downsides that they bring is a local sport.

As Mark Rosewater said once in a presentation about game design: players are very good at finding problems with the game, but they are bad at solving those.

We actually know for sure that balance, at least for PvE, is in a not very desirable spot and it brings a lot of issues when it causes a very polarizing meta that's practically enforced perpetually by the community. We're not talking about small imbalances here, there are classes that are dominating at every fight (every raid squad needing two Chronos, one Druid, one Warrior, every meta fractal party having a Chrono and a Warrior) and the difference in performance between a meta comp and a non-meta comp being pretty significant.

In fact, there is an obsession that if you need to bring a second healer it needs to be a Druid because... they only know Druid as a healer class because it's the only one actually listed on sites like SC? Spotter alone isn't enough of a reason if you're trading a dps slot to have the additional safety of another healer, you might as well go for something with more sustain as a single Druid is enough for might and other buffs.

We also have the specific boss dps stacking, even if there are a bunch of dps viable builds for multiple specializations, some perform so well on certain bosses that there's no reason to not stack them because when played at an average level they can easily outperform other professions played even at the highest level, this also polarizes the choices of dps you can bring to some fights to an extreme narrow sample.

Do we know how to solve these? Probably not. We can make suggestions, but these will probably be too biased and won't be accurate. Yet, you don't need to be a game design genius to see that the current meta is very rigid and that things like the Weaver and Deadeye changes in the last balance patch were poorly thought out.

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@"GammelTier.4875" said:The following steps are made to achieve this:

Step 1 - Remove AlacrityStep 2 - Remove unique Buffs like Empower Allies or Ranger SpiritsStep 3 - Limit the Boons a role can share:

Your "solution" is to remove unique buffs like Alacrity and Spirits... why not do the opposite and give more of those buffs to other professions (that do not stack)?

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@thrag.9740 said:

But you still have the problem that is does not affect all professions to a similar level. A Thief benefits from it far less than a Weaver for example. And in the end, it is just >another problem we have to balance around, and let’s be honest, we already have enough of them.This also applies to every other boon in the game. Fury doesn't help necro, because either its a power necro with 100% crit chance without fury, or its a condi necro who has something like at most 5% of its damage come from power? Quickness doesn't help classes with lots of insta cast skills like kitless holo as much as classes without them. Weaver really needs swiftness, Guard really needs retal or aegis, etc. Do you think power warrior cares as much about vigor as a mirage does? Meanwhile vigor can actually hurt power daredevil. Etc.

There is a different case here with thief. Thief litteraly does not have cooldowns on weapons skills, so alacrity does not affect those at all. It not build related, its class related in this case. Every other example you gave here is build related.However, this also has an opposite. Chill will not decrease the weapon cds on thief, while on every other class it will.

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@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@GammelTier.4875 said:The three roles are:
  • Tank
  • Healer
  • Buffer

No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role.

Agreed 110%.

I say that as a raider. Raids are OK but I very much feel like falling back to the trinity was an enormous mistake on Anet’s part. I would’ve loved to have seen them make a truly unique form of raiding that (like the rest of the game) didn’t rely on it.

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@nsleep.7839 said:

@"GammelTier.4875" said:"No, thanks, then. Any system that formalizes any sort of trinity won't make the game more fun to play. (At least not for me nor the people with whom I play.) Especially any system that insists that specific specs have only one role."

We already are in a situation where this is the case. When was the last time you have raided with a non-chrono tank? I at least cannot remember the day?But the
system
isn't insisting on it; we are. That's markedly different from what you propose, in which a build "archetype" has no other role.

"Within 10% of ? How do you determine the benchmark? "

See the point i made in the document: "The simplest option of course is to ask the 1% guilds totest stuff for them. Heck, pay them for it if need be. It is just another kind of outsourcingso why not. But as we all know, people cannot keep their mouth shut so this may betricky. I, of course, do not know if something along these lines ever happened in the pastor if there are any other reasons for not doing it. Another option could be macros. Thinkabout what rotation would be the most optimised one, put it in a macro, compare tooutput to the window."

The reason everyone seems to think there's only one way to do raids is that we have decided to self-select the top 1%'s idea of builds/comp and apply it to every group. ANet's job isn't to balance for just 1% of the community; it's to balance for everyone.

Players showing they have no clue what balance is or why it's important only to then rant about the effects of perpetually having awful balance states and the downsides that they bring is a local sport.

As Mark Rosewater said once in a presentation about game design: players are very good at finding problems with the game, but they are bad at solving those.

We actually know for sure that balance, at least for PvE, is in a not very desirable spot and it brings a lot of issues when it causes a very polarizing meta that's practically enforced perpetually by the community. We're not talking about small imbalances here, there are classes that are dominating at every fight (every raid squad needing two Chronos, one Druid, one Warrior, every meta fractal party having a Chrono and a Warrior) and the difference in performance between a meta comp and a non-meta comp being pretty significant.

While true, these differences are also MUCH SMALLER than they were in the past. At least between DPS. Do you think DPS in the past was as close as they are now? Even for "bad classes"? I don't think DPS has ever been as balanced as since we've gotten raids, fractals, dps meters and benchmarks. The real difference is we now have NUMBERS to prove how big these differences really are.

Sorry but in vanilla GW2, the inbalance was WAY bigger. But players just literally said "I don't believe you, this does X Y Z" and outside of manual benchmarking on dungeon mobs testing comps and measuring results was pretty difficult. I think entire PvE becomes far more balanced because of rigorous high-end balancing.

In fact, there is an obsession that if you need to bring a second healer it needs to be a Druid because... they only know Druid as a healer class because it's the only one actually listed on sites like SC? Spotter alone isn't enough of a reason if you're trading a dps slot to have the additional safety of another healer, you might as well go for something with more sustain as a single Druid is enough for might and other buffs.

We also have the specific boss dps stacking, even if there are a bunch of dps viable builds for multiple specializations, some perform so well on certain bosses that there's no reason to not stack them because when played at an average level they can easily outperform other professions played even at the highest level, this also polarizes the choices of dps you can bring to some fights to an extreme narrow sample.

Specific boss DPS stacking is definitely a thing, because these dps perform best for this boss. I don't think it's bad, because the other classes are viable and often perform pretty closely. When it comes to pugs, unless the classes enable eachother (e.g. more necros for more epis, or more weavers so you can burst phases instantly which puts more value into the high burst of weaver - an aspect of raids which most anti-meta snowflakes happily ignore) most DPS that perform reasonably well are accepted. The value of having higher burst phases for the high-end really cannot be understated enough.

And when it comes to players playing with TWO healers, sorry but most high-end groups that run with 2 healers don't mind alternative healers as long as they PERFORM WELL FOR THE BOSS. I agree some new groups that don't know what these specs / classes can do will often refuse them but that's their lack of knowledge / understanding of the game and frankly that's OK. It's OK to not know everything and prefer to stick to an option that you know works.

I'm a big fan of heal FB and I'm not going to join any random boss forcing players to let me play it because it can heal. But I do not struggle with playing it, both in statics with most players having 500+ if not 1k+ li and in random pugs. Groups ask for druids, and I'll just pm lead / join and ask if I can replace one druid as alternative healer. Maybe 30% of the groups at best says no. Helps if you have LI / killproof / titles. I'm at a point where if friends are redoing SH cm or sama CM they'll ask for a FB because of how easily it can rectify mistakes that players make. But I'll also tell them fairly if i think it doesn't work.

For monday clears, we do the majority of bosses with 1 healer. Among the bosses where we want 2 healers for safety / smoothness, we'll swap a dps to a second healer. And frankly, outside dhuum (where I think double druid is actually pretty damn good over most alternative healers, given how the druids can alternate mechanics leaving you with one on stack); almost all of them we'll use alternative healers. As for pugs... I see EVERYTHING in pugs except replacements for chrono. I see scourges. I see scourges outdps'ing everyone. I see weavers outdps'ing everyone. I see a lot of holos and DH's. I see every off-healer in the game... altho half of them are worse than GF druids. I see pugs who manage to run with 1 druid. I see the wonkiest DPS in the game including goddamn tempest and 3x signet power reaper. Ok I admit I suggested kicking the power reaper.

But hey... I can actually do the bosses. And I don't need them. And I can play whatever I want, and if I don't wanna play what is needed I can leave. You know, game's kinda easy but everyone's fucking spoilt. OMAGOD THEY WON'T LET ME PLAY WHAT I WANNA PLAY??? :tantrum:

Do we know how to solve these? Probably not. We can make suggestions, but these will probably be too biased and won't be accurate. Yet, you don't need to be a game design genius to see that the current meta is very rigid and that things like the Weaver and Deadeye changes in the last balance patch were poorly thought out.

I think they tested weaver WITH the bug; and the moment it turned out meteo damage was completely out of wack they didn't wanna hot-fix because that's not how anet rolls. I think the changes were in a great direction : it's the FIRST TIME we have a meta that isn't dominated by weaver and epi since HoT. That's a full year. Frankly, I want them to do the same to chrono and BS and to some extent druid.

However; I also expect them to slightly buff / adapt both next balance patch. And would I like them to come sooner? Of course. But frankly - weaver is VERY MUCH viable and balance between DPS in the game is better than its ever been. Because people care, we have the numbers and they finally realise that it matters...Even if you're not a speedrunner.

Of course there's forever increasing conflict between the snowflakes who believe meta is some sort of conspiracy theory against them, and there's a lot of those... But even they benefit from having improved balance ;)

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@Glider.5792 said:

But you still have the problem that is does not affect all professions to a similar level. A Thief benefits from it far less than a Weaver for example. And in the end, it is just >another problem we have to balance around, and let’s be honest, we already have enough of them.This also applies to every other boon in the game. Fury doesn't help necro, because either its a power necro with 100% crit chance without fury, or its a condi necro who has something like at most 5% of its damage come from power? Quickness doesn't help classes with lots of insta cast skills like kitless holo as much as classes without them. Weaver really needs swiftness, Guard really needs retal or aegis, etc. Do you think power warrior cares as much about vigor as a mirage does? Meanwhile vigor can actually hurt power daredevil. Etc.

There is a different case here with thief. Thief litteraly does not have cooldowns on weapons skills, so alacrity does not affect those at all. It not build related, its
class
related in this case. Every other example you gave here is
build
related.

Yeah, but alacrity does still affect steal plus 5 utility skills, several of which are used off cool down. Additionally it affects your allies who in turn give you boons or put conditions on your target, which effect your damage modifiers. You know why thief gets to do benchmarks under conditions where they have 9 boons and the enemy has 10 conditions? Its because alacrity affects your allies too.

You can't approach balance by looking at the modular parts, you need to look at the whole picture.

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For alacrity:First: it could stay IMOSecond: Chrono shouldn't be able to put out alacrity and quicknessBoonshare should be limited by a huge amount and it shouldnt be on 1 spec only.

For the roles:I think the idea behind that is good. Problem is that you would restrict all professions in their own cappabbilities regarding boons.

For removing Unique Buffs:These should be compensated for boon ofc and a subsequent spirit and banner rework would be needed.

On everything elsr i will answer later. (i have to read 15 pages first)

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