Intra-Class Balance Dynamic - My Perspectives - Things I'd Like To See Happen - 8/29/2020

[Shiyo.3578]

Yes, passive CC/blinds being given out like candy to literally every new trait revamp is one of the biggest issues right now.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:You know what, on a different note, here is a list of class balance commentary:

• War - Should stay the same as it is now. It's in a good place balance wise/feel wise.
• Spellbreaker - Same as War. If it weren't for OP classes, Spellbreaker feels good to play and play against.
• Guard - Needs either a damage or sustain shave. Should stay the way it is other than that. It feels good to play right now.
• Dragonhunter - I feel like it's balanced nowadays, but underused due to presence of broken classes. Though it isn't in a sweet spot.
• Firebrand - It's right where it should be for once. Leave it alone.
• Herald - Needs a decrese in its teleportation frequency and it would be balanced. Leave it as is.
• Renegade - Feels balanced at times. Other times I feel like Kalla needs reviewing. I don't know Ren enough to really comment.
• Engi - Only reason it's not being used is due to how strong Scrapper/Holo are right now. Wouldn't say it's in a sweet spot though.
• Scrapper - Balanced. It would see a lot more play if it weren't for other super specs.
• Thief - Balanced outside of Deadly Arts line as usual. Leave everything else alone.
• Daredevil - Balanced. Leave it alone.
• Ranger - Balanced. Leave it alone. Some would say it fell out, but that's only because of the presence of OP things. If those things were nerfed, Ranger would be sitting in a nice sweet spot. Even the way core ranger plays right now, is how it should have always felt.
• Druid - In a bad place. See the link in my signature about Druid competitive suggestions.
• Mes - Balanced if in a world without god tier specs. It actually feels good to play at this point. Leave it alone, nerf the out of control specs.
• Chrono - ^ same as Mes
• Ele - Kind of weak tbh. Tempest & Weaver provide really really powerful mechanics that Ele simply does not have access to.
• Weaver - These are actually really strong right now and I'm not really sure why I don't see them being used more often. I suppose it's because "Why roll Weaver when you could roll Tempest Aura Share?" But Weaver is on the verge of being OP if other things were to be nerfed.
• Tempest - Shocking Aura seriously needs to be heavily nerfed. The CC could be changed to a 1/2 daze and it would be functional. It does not need to be a 1s stun for such a ridiculously persistent passive effect.
• Scourge - Exactly where it should be. Leave it as is.

I was about to make a thread about this but it seems we share the same opinions apart from a few. Assume I agree if I haven't touched it below:

• Deadeye - 1/2 a step away from no longer playable. If you don't want to give it back its damage, give it some passive sustain that comes from DE trait line abilities so it's at least playable in spvp.

Generally speaking, the further away a thief is from you, the less damage it should do. If anything is done to their damage, it should scale based on their distance to the target, be in exchange for their roll on stealth passive, or otherwise require that they commit to a kill, either through an initiative increase or otherwise.I'm fine with this being exactly where it is. Its whole premise is based around +1ing from an area that is hard to access by their targets. Allowing them to do high damage from far away and then also run when someone makes it to them is a recipe for trouble.

Maybe, instead, we can give them increased stealth duration as long as they are not in combat, so they can set up on perches/boxes without having to burn their resources as much?

• Berserker - It's actually not bad in the absence of the current OP classes. Don't feel like it's sitting in a cherry spot though.

Not sitting in a cherry spot is an adequate description. i can't complain much now that mending is also a cleanse, but it's still a bit more arduous than just running warrior. If I had slightly more damage on Burst skills (And maybe a bit more access to adrenaline baked in to the traitline? On hit/while in combat/while under HP?) , I'd be perfectly happy playing this. It's hard to chase or go toe to toe with other close range classes without being outmatched, especially if they can pump out blind or chill.

• Soulbeast - Balanced. Leave it alone. If the god tier specs were nerfed, Soulbeast would be sitting in a sweet spot. And aside from what many people may say, I actually agree with the no pet swap drawback.

I think there are some damage modifiers that need to be adjusted here still. They're niche and do not often see play, though.

• Rev - Never see it in play, no idea

It's... okay. They removed a lot of the resistance on corruption line, but echo now procs Jalis properly, so you can mitigate condibombs. mallyx could use a little buffing though. It's punishing to play compared to the other specs.

• Mirage - Needs its 2nd dodge back and compensation for losing expertise stat.

No it doesn't. I am still seeing strong mirage plays, even with the one dodge metric.. If we are going to buff mirage, we can do so in terms of damage modifiers tied to specifically that line, or by looking at how we can give them a little more defense against thieves, but this solution isn't what I'd look at.

• Necro - Kind of fell out but you know what? It's where it should be for a core spec. Though I do have to say that Vampiric Rituals needs to be put right back where it once was. It was a bad idea to remove that trait and tinker with wells. It removed an entire category of niche builds that many people really enjoyed the feel of.
• Reaper - Too strong right now. Though I feel like this is more of a symptom of the disease that is Tempest Shocking Aura Share. The Reaper became super OP when he's running around with Shocking Aura all of the time in team fights. That's pretty much exactly what happened. If Shock Aura was nerfed, leave Reaper as is. It's in a good place.

They also need to do the same for spectral lines AND signets. This has become a running theme for nerfing Necro. They buff skills and remove the traits, then nerf the skills to worse than they were AND leave the traits nerfed. Necro needs to be looked at to get those niche builds returned.RE: Reaper, I'm fine with it being as strong as it is. you cant blame reaper for being op synced with shocking aura.Lich needs to have auto toned down and a mild CD reduction as compensation though. (Also, the other elites need to be buffed. Lich is the only good core elite they have.)

• Holo - It's packing way too much after flashbang. Imo forge needs to go to a 9s CD and flashbang needs to be removed.

No to forge, yes to flashbang. At the very least an ICD of 10 seconds needs to be added to it. Forge is fine as is.

Just my opinions.

I feel like if the actual problems were addressed next time around rather than a stir the bucket approach, we'd have a good balanced meta on our hands.

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This is important. For all the whine on the forums, it is important to note two things:

Damage still exists. It is still entirely possible to melt players running glass, healing power fueled, or bruiser specs if you run a glass spec.People seem to be, instead of opting for damage specs, insulating their builds as much as possible, because easily memorized combos that reduce hp from 100 to 0 without needing to account for the players responding to their burst have largely been toned down. I think that's more an issue with mentality than balance.

I thiiink we can work with what we have at the moment. The next patches will need to be surgical though.