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How to fix the WvW meta with two changes


RisenHowl.2419

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Since the balance team doesn't seem to understand what's broken or how to fix it, here =D

_Sand savant, https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Savant_

Why this is brokenIncreases your target cap from 3/6 to 5/10. That's a 60% increase in scourge's damage, barrier, corruption, and cleansing. 60% increase for the entire profession mechanic. That's why it's broken. It pushes out every other melee class because no other class has comparable output. Neither of the other two grandmaster traits have or ever will be taken because it's no competition. It's maybe a 10% damage increase to run Demonic lore if you don't get cleansed. Feed from corruption is a nothing trait. It's been two years, sand savant has remained the only choice for scourge grandmaster regardless of stat spread, it's that strong.

Video of how absurd sand savant is

How to fix it-Keep the radius increase and the target cap-Sand savant now modifies manifest sand shade (which is the damaging part of each f skill activation) so that it heals instead of doing damage.-200 base, keep the .666 healing power coefficient-Increase manifest sand shade size to 240, keep the 3 target cap. 180 radius is far too clunky for a profession mechanic, if it stays that small it'll be almost impossible to land on moving targets.

What the results would be-Scourge can now be a viable support elite spec in pve, pvp, and wvw. You know, like it was advertised to be-Carpet bombing goes away, reducing load on the servers. Two birds, meet one stone-Other melee classes become viable. Shakes up the meta after two years of pirate ship


_Superior rune of Antitoxin, https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Antitoxin_

Why this is brokenThis doubles the cleansing output of any class using it, both personal and aoe cleanses. There's no ICD. This rune alone almost completely removes condition damage classes from the meta. For daredevil and mirage it gives 2 cleanses on every dodge instead of one, very strong in a 1vX setting. In large scale wvw, it makes tempests and scrappers nullify the condition output of an entire map queue. If the balance team thinks cleansing is too strong on scrapper (which it is) the issue is with this rune, not with purge gyro.

Video of how absurd Antitoxin runes are

How to fix it-5s or 10s ICD-Change the bonus to something else, like cleanse a condition when using a leap finisher

What the results would be-Solo players would be forced to add condition cleansing into their builds, reducing the number of other offensive or defensive CDs available to them-We might see squads run condition builds again, increasing build variety-Bunker comps would have to adjust and bring condition cleanses on other classes. Again, reducing the number of offensive or defensive CDs available to them


Thank you for finally addressing Coalescence of Ruin by both shaving the top end damage and making it visible, that's going to go a long way towards adjusting the stale meta. These are the other two changes that are needed!

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Sand Savant should have been a tradeoff. Instead increasing the targets and reducing the recharge, it should increase the targets, but with some negative change, like a longer activation time, longer recharge, etc

Way more Major traits need to be tradeoffs. Not in minor traits like Impact Savant, but the Major ones, so people can pick their poison. I'd start with the most popular grandmaster major trait in each specialization, and little by little make the strongest 2 major traits of each tier in each specialization have a form of tradeoff.
When traits only add positive effects, then people will compare the positives and pick what's the best, and that's how you get a meta.
If you add also negatives, then they'll have to also weigh in the negatives and how they interact with other parts of the build.

And yeah, antitoxin needs a 10CD, just like every other passive condition removals with no CD or with a DC under 10s.

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This is an example of why Anet really shouldn't listen to people when it comes to changes. Your video shows exactly why Sand Savant on it's own is pathetic for damage. The problem people have is they are getting hit by multiple shade bombs, or shade bombs in combination with other melee and ranged bashing them at once. This doesn't mean Sand Savant or shades are a problem; it means too many people are playing (or required to play) scourges due to their boon corrupting abilities because boons themselves are out of control.

This is further amplified by the kingpin or the mother of all problems with this meta; the Guardian does way too much (thus 1 role is helping Scourges survive because they are extremely vulnerable). Your idea of the Sand Savant change would only encourage people to bring more scourges (so instead of being hit with say 3 shade bombs, you maybe hit with 7-10), or people are going to gravitate to another class such as Rev which is going to make things even worse for melee.

If people really want to shake up the melee.. like I mean really really shake it up, gut the Guardian. Instead of being able to crap out Stab, Aegis, Resistance, Healing, Reflects, and to a lesser extent retaliation at will, narrow it down to doing one of those well, and medicore at best for another; then remove the 3 of them. For example, let them keep their party stab, but take away their ability to share Aegis, completely take away their ability to give resistance to themselves and others, and drastically lower their ability to heal themselves and the party. No more reflects, give it to another class, and class, but let them keep their retaliation but relegate to an AoE effect of 200 around them (not killing rangers or Ele's from 1200 away by their own attacks. Or even dragonhunters with their own traps from god knows how far away.

That will shake things up, because now it will force other classes to come in and heal. It would then put more focus on Rev's to actually be running more of a support/resistance build instead 1-2 hit KO'ing people from the back line. This will then make scourges far more vulnerable to kill (even though they are still easy to kill for people who actually know what they're doing). Groups overall are going to have to figure out another method of fighting instead of running in nearly invulnerable under a veil of blocks, resistance, and healing. At least not all coming from 1 class, the idea of that is just asinine.

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@MithranArkanere.8957 said:Sand Savant should have been a tradeoff. Instead increasing the targets and reducing the recharge, it should increase the targets, but with some negative change, like a longer activation time, longer recharge, etc

Way more Major traits need to be tradeoffs. Not in minor traits like Impact Savant, but the Major ones, so people can pick their poison. I'd start with the most popular grandmaster major trait in each specialization, and little by little make the strongest 2 major traits of each tier in each specialization have a form of tradeoff.

When traits only add positive effects, then people will compare the positives and pick what's the best, and that's how you get a meta.

If you add also negatives, then they'll have to also weigh in the negatives and how they interact with other parts of the build.

And yeah, antitoxin needs a 10CD, just like every other passive condition removals with no CD or with a DC under 10s.

dont know if i have overseen something in your post so i maybe missunderstood you, but sand savant IS INCREASING sand shade recharge time by 100% in wvw.

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@"DeadlySynz.3471" said:This is an example of why Anet really shouldn't listen to people when it comes to changes. Your video shows exactly why Sand Savant on it's own is pathetic for damage. The problem people have is they are getting hit by multiple shade bombs, or shade bombs in combination with other melee and ranged bashing them at once. This doesn't mean Sand Savant or shades are a problem; it means too many people are playing (or required to play) scourges due to their boon corrupting abilities because boons themselves are out of control.If only there were a dps meter on the screen that could tell us both the total damage output and the damage per second so we can gauge how hard the burst hits... oh wait!

Show me a video of any other class hitting 80k dps. Sand savant increases total output by 60%, without it the best you can get is around 50k, which brings it in line with every other class

This is further amplified by the kingpin or the mother of all problems with this meta; the Guardian does way too much (thus 1 role is helping Scourges survive because they are extremely vulnerable). Your idea of the Sand Savant change would only encourage people to bring more scourges (so instead of being hit with say 3 shade bombs, you maybe hit with 7-10), or people are going to gravitate to another class such as Rev which is going to make things even worse for melee.Dude, they were dead before the firebrands could even react. My idea removes the damaging component completely if you take the sand savant trait, so you choose between 10 target support or 6 target damage. Do you not know how scourges deal damage?https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Manifest_Sand_Shade

get learned

That will shake things up, because now it will force other classes to come in and heal. It would then put more focus on Rev's to actually be running more of a support/resistance build instead 1-2 hit KO'ing people from the back line. This will then make scourges far more vulnerable to kill (even though they are still easy to kill for people who actually know what they're doing). Groups overall are going to have to figure out another method of fighting instead of running in nearly invulnerable under a veil of blocks, resistance, and healing. At least not all coming from 1 class, the idea of that is just asinine.

firebrands are terrible healers. go download arcdps and compare it to scrapper, tempest, or rev. It's literally half the healing and cleansing they put out. Firebrand is taken for the aegis, stab, retaliation, MI, and unique effects in f2/f3.

nerfing antitoxin runes will force people to run condi clear. They're already nerfing rev hammer. nerfing sand savant makes other melee classes viable.

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Just to clarify with Antitoxin Runes: it doesn't inherently double all cleanse output, but adds an additional cleanse per cleanse proc. So if you use "Shake it Off!", for example, you'd only be cleansing 7 conditions (6+1) as opposed to 12. It just has absurdly broken synergy with Scrapper more than anything and it does indeed double the cleanse output on them since the meta build's cleansing choices are all pulsing. It boggles my mind how this has remained in game when comparing it to other cleanse runes. Just for fun, let's compare:

  • Antitoxin: (6) -10% Incoming Condition Duration; upon removing one or more conditions, remove an additional condition. [No ICD]
  • Nature's Bounty: (6) -10% Incoming Condition Duration; cleanse a condition from nearby allies after using a healing skill [10s ICD]
  • Trooper: (6) +125 Toughness; remove a condition from each affected ally after using a shout skill. [No ICD, but only one additional cleanse per shout]
  • Water: (6) +10% Boon Duration; remove a condition from you and nearby allies after using a Healing skill. [20s ICD]
  • Lyssa: (6) +10% Condition Duration; convert up to 3 conditions into boons after using an elite skill. [45s ICD. This is self only too, by the way]
  • Leadership: (6) +10% Boon Duration; convert up to 3 conditions into boons for nearby allies after using an elite skill. [45s ICD]
  • Altruism: (6) +125 Healing Power; transfer 1 condition from 5 allies within a 600 radius to yourself after using an elite skill. [No ICD, but limited by elite skill usage, which mostly have very high cooldowns. Mortar kit swapping is the most abusable usage of this rune, but it also transfers the conditions onto the user, and limits some other actions due to having to swap kits. I guess a Ventari Rev could also spam its elite, lol.]
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Scrappers only reason for being in the meta is because they can convert conditions into boons....that’s it. Anti toxin makes that synergy better, but they will still see a place in Zerg as it was even before rune changes.

On my tempest healer, I am not specced for condition cleanse at all. And what I notice is that I cleanse just as many conditions as my scrappers...I usually end up 3rd in the cleanse meter...mind you I’m not specced for condition cleanse at all, and rarely do I ever even think about cleansing while on staff tempest ( rune of the monk over antitoxin)

The bigger thing I noticed was how many cleanses show up from scourges...they are usually right behind me on the cleanse meter... all of them...and it’s due to the trait that grants cleansing and might on barrier to allies. For the most part, the scourges are doing the MAJORITY of the cleansing.

what it boils down to is that you think the problem is the rune...but in reality it’s just class mechanics...it always has and always will be these mechanics that exploit runes that in my opinion are perfectly balanced 99% of the time. And thus, The changes uve proposed won’t change anything about wvw other than make it more stale.

As for scourges...

Most of the time you don’t even need to do that much DPS in order to win a push in a ZvZ. 3-5k DPS per damage dealer, in a 3 man support setup is enough to wipe people with a 20 man....that’s a total 24k-40k DPS in total going out from your zerg. Even that’s considered a pretty high number.

Again the reason is class mechanics...not individual skills or players doing “big deeps.” Scourges do one important job and that is to rip boons while doing their damage. Ripping the boons makes it easier for the entire Zerg to do their maximum potential in damage on a per skill basis. So instead of your AOE ticking for 600 per tick, it’s ticking 3000 per tick...instead of opposing healers counter healing with Aegis and stability, your landing stuns and cc’s. This is all because scourges are ripping and converting the boons during the push.

My guild runs variably between 12-22 people...either running heavy 3 man support structure or going very DPS heavy with only 3 or 4 healers. In both scenarios we win pushes against zergs of 30 or more. The only reason we can pull it off is because we are aware of the mechanics that are necessary to win a fight. I even run support tempest (because it’s by far the best healer in the game, and can easily keep a squad of 15 topped off during a push)

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@style.6173 said:@OP: So the entire meta is better if we buff scourge and nerf the counterplay to it?

Scourge is not currently an issue in the meta. It's in a good place.

Where are you seeing buff scourge? Are you aware of how scourge damage works?

Each time you press a f skill it triggers the damage from f1. My proposed change is when you take the sand savant trait (which currently increases your everything by 60%) it modifies f1 so it no longer deals damage.

So you have to choose between 10 target support or 6 target damage. No more 10 target aoes.

Believe it or not, no other class has that kind of area denial. Remove 10 target sand savant and all of the other melee classes can push in, increasing diversity.

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@hunkamania.7561 said:If you think only changing 2 things will fix wvw you're sadly mistaken. Tons of nerfs to damage/healing/boon spam/condi spam/stealth are needed to get it respectable. The power creep in wvw is off the charts in a game mode that has large fights with a lot of people.

They're already nerfing hammer Rev/firebrand and they're already giving methods to apply reveal reliably. Sand savant and antitoxin runes are the next biggest outliers.

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ITT people that don't know about antitoxin runes. It's ridiculous they still exist in their form.

Oh btw 10 person Stand Your Ground has to be the silliest change of all time.

And nerfing guardian alone doesn't do anything. I mean it's like nobody remembers when two guardians were needed per party. That just makes people stack even more of them. Even when stability barely worked in early HoT, people still used mostly guardians. People aren't going to stop using firebrand unless you create a viable alternative to it. You know, maybe unnerf chrono by a few degrees....

If you ask me, projectile hate is the biggest problem here, since it eliminates a great deal of abilities in the game. It also doesn't help that necros are best countered by that sort of thing.....

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In my opinion, the amount of conditions is the main problem.

Even after all this time with healscrappers around and all zergs going power-damage, zergs don't have a choice regarding cleanse-supporters.There is just this huge amount of conditions floating around, partly from corruption, but mostly from free scourge-condis.Most dmg-condis (bleeding/pain/burn/conf) don't do much damage, but soft-CC (bind/slow/chill/crippled) and modifiers (poison/weakness/vuln) are hiding under all that.That's why you can be in a 5min fight constantly cleansing 5 conditions per second with an antitoxin scrapper, going 4-digit in the dps-meter cleanse-section.And also, why your damage as a burn-guardian depends on how many scourges you have in your zerg to hide your burns.

If non-condition builds (primarily scourge) would have no/little condition output, most scrappers would go monk-rune.Then there would be a choice for guilds to base their zerg on condi (good against zergs with effective heal-scrappers) or power (good against zergs with antitoxin-scrappers who run a useless rune 50% of the time).

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@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@hunkamania.7561 said:If you think only changing 2 things will fix wvw you're sadly mistaken. Tons of nerfs to damage/healing/boon spam/condi spam/stealth are needed to get it respectable. The power creep in wvw is off the charts in a game mode that has large fights with a lot of people.

They're already nerfing hammer Rev/firebrand and they're already giving methods to apply reveal reliably. Sand savant and antitoxin runes are the next biggest outliers.

Step in the right direction but still not enough IMO. Healing(brain dead easy spam) and stealth(stack 15 second every engage. Should be capped at 3 to 6 etchings tops.)

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I don't see how your changes shift the numbers advantage balancing to coordinated teamplay advantage.I believe plenty quit simply because the balance is shifted from coordinate teamplay to simply numbers and individual skills. Such balance simply means just having higher numbers with some sense of rotations will exponentially increase the victory rate. In other words, the balance encourage numbers and more numbers.A real fix to the meta would be trying to emphases coordinate teamplay once again like in core.

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