Off-seasons don't make sense w/o balance patches when seasons end

Off-seasons would make sense if the purpose of them was to test new balance patches off season, not to let bugged builds play ranked.Why do we still have them then?

P.S. above I haven't called builds imbalanced not to turn the point into sarcasm.

I know the balance patch is coming, it is confirmed. However, my fear is that is will be a relatively small patch, the usual menial 15% damage increase for shatterstone, a couple of nerfs to skills/traits nobody uses on mirage, soulbeast and holo, while giving a "shifting of power" for other skill that somehow makes the skill stronger (im looking at you, dolyak stance, soulbeasts), another nerf to ele's defense/sustain because we can't have more than 1 ele every 3 matches it is not fun to play a class that can stall far for hours (while soulbeast, spellbreaker, holo and mirage do the same but the difference is that they can actually kill you if you dont bring a buddy to help ya).

I dont mind small patches, in fact, thats how it should be, the problem is, we wont get another patch in 4-5 months, anet will pat themselves in the back and call it a season. At this point I learned that expecting nothing and being "pleasantly" surprised is the best thing you can do to yourself.

@"Fortus.6175" said:I know the balance patch is coming, it is confirmed. However, my fear is that is will be a relatively small patch, the usual menial 15% damage increase for shatterstone, a couple of nerfs to skills/traits nobody uses on mirage, soulbeast and holo, while giving a "shifting of power" for other skill that somehow makes the skill stronger (im looking at you, dolyak stance, soulbeasts), another nerf to ele's defense/sustain because we can't have more than 1 ele every 3 matches it is not fun to play a class that can stall far for hours (while soulbeast, spellbreaker, holo and mirage do the same but the difference is that they can actually kill you if you dont bring a buddy to help ya).

I dont mind small patches, in fact, thats how it should be, the problem is, we wont get another patch in 4-5 months, anet will pat themselves in the back and call it a season. At this point I learned that expecting nothing and being "pleasantly" surprised is the best thing you can do to yourself.

Yeah, definitely expecting nothing works great! However these offseasons might stand for testing purposes, but we don't test anything while seasons are off.We are just having the worst sPVP experience for the sake nothing (unranked everywhere).

What could be is:

• Right after a season is ended, Anet releases a balance patch, intended to increase build diversity based on intermediate results of the last season.
• Fixes bugs within a week or two and starts a new season.

P.S. regarding balance patches: it would be great to see play stats of guys who work for the game balance department. Just to know for example:5 men working on balance patches have played 15 sPvP games this season in total + a breakdown by professions/builds.Then we could help them take a look around and point out some important stuff, e.g.:

• going to nerf a Deadeye, play thief a bit before nerfing all other thief specs (hint: buff thiefs, remove power signet; then continue what to do with ur Deadeyes)
• going to nerf Mirages, play some games on condi mirage and see whether physical damage of axe 3 is an issue (hint: no)

P.S.2. One could say what I am doing here then, just leave: I'd say go play other MMORPG having just 5-10 hours a week :)

What should happen:

• Season finishes, a small balance patch comes out that shifts around some numbers (X skill increased power by 14.6%, Y skill decreased condi duration by 2s) etc. to try and respond to outliers and smooth out classes. Think of these as "band-aids".

• Periodic, large balance patches that actually change the functionality of problem/underused/overused skills that have more fundamental issues.

The truth is, EVERY skill has a power level at which is worth using, but that doesn't make it a well designed skill. I will use shatterstone as an example. There is some power level (maybe even, but most likely somewhere short of "this skill literally 1-shots you if it lands") at which is worth using, even situationally. Those are the things you try to hit with small balance passes. Then, there are the fundamental problems, like "shatterstone is never used, regardless of how hard it hits, because it never actually hits ANYTHING." Those are the redesigns that should happen in quarterly balance passes, where they add new functionality (this skill now hits with some damage half-way through, or it now chills at the first animation, or it now acts sort of like a mark that explodes when someone steps on it), adjust the animations (so it doesn't take a year to arm up), or make other more substantive changes that fix a poor/broken design.

However, it has never actually worked correctly like this, and as such the game has always had terrible balance. When you finally get tired of it being handled so poorly, move onto something more fun.

Balance hard. Gem store easy.