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Firebrand is allowed to do Too Much in fractal


Jacky.7658

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@Laila Lightness.8742 said:

@Brandon Uzumaki.1524 said:Can't help that healing is is not that powerfull after the instabilites rework, compared to other healers FB is mediocre at best, with the exception of the very potent burst you get on F2, but pure raw healing it's not that great.But Fractals nowadays are all about dying in one or two hit by the most basic mob, let's say you are a Berserker Ele, playing any fractal, and today instabilitires are Outflanked and Frailty, you take any other healer that's not a Firebrand or a Barrier Necro (maybe Scrapper), and you will be on the ground 9 out of 10 times, you have 8k HP, most mobs will hit for 10k from behind, you can't heal or regen that lol.

Then dont wear berserker use maurader or soldier gear

Yeah, use soldier gear, so that even reapers do twice your damage, while still being more survivable.

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Lets take a look:Heavy DPS? Check.Heavy self healing? Check.Heavy group healing? Check.Heavy cleansing? Check.Heavy boon output? Check.Heavy group Stability? Check.Heavy reflects? Check.Heavy tanking ability? Check.

Having a Firebrand in your party is a massive DPS increase entire group, Not just because of the DPS they can bring, but because of how much protection it offers other players, sometimes to the extent of ignoring mechanics entirely.

Chronomancer and Druid could never do this. They didn't even come close.

That said, I've always believed Firebrand is what other classes are meant to be, and should aspire to.

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@Hannelore.8153 said:Lets take a look:Heavy DPS? Check.Heavy self healing? Check.Heavy group healing? Check.Heavy cleansing? Check.Heavy boon output? Check.Heavy group Stability? Check.Heavy reflects? Check.Heavy tanking ability? Check.

Having a Firebrand in your party is a massive DPS increase entire group, Not just because of the DPS they can bring, but because of how much protection it offers other players, sometimes to the extent of ignoring mechanics entirely.

Chronomancer and Druid could never do this. They didn't even come close.

That said, I've always believed Firebrand is what other classes are meant to be, and should aspire to.

Well, as a note here, yes, Guardian can do all of those things, but not at the same time - which as you say is ideal design and what Anet should aspire to for all professions.

Quickbrand for example sure offers decent DPS and a massive group DPS increase with Quickness, which is just the nature of anything that can apply that incredibly powerful boon, but it's also extremely vulnerable at 11k HP and only a little 1k Heal Skill as self-heal, relying on blocking everything with the short duration Aegis, making Berserker Ele feel like a tank in comparison.

Support FB, while ofc having great support and being able to spec into one or two of decent cleansing, heavy healing, heavy stability or reflects with it's utility choices, can't do all of those at once (outside of long CD short bursts of it with Tomes, while still providing 100% Quickness, for which it is taken in the first place) while also doing essentially no damage at all - generally between 2-5k.

Also while Aegis is an incredibly powerful boon as well which FB can pump out quite frequently to carry through most non-vital mechanics, let's remember Distortion Share (5 man Invulnerability) on Chrono was a thing, which could protect an entire party/subgroup from even unblockable oneshot failstate mechanics.

Just when we combine Firebrand + Renegade we get somewhere close to what old Chrono was just alone in terms of boon support, boon rip capability, CC, mechanic skips, etc., while still falling short in terms of things like ad pull, (portal) skipping capability etc.So especially just FB is not the godmode old Chrono was by a long shot.

It's just the best Quickness source right now which slots in well with the also incredibly strong Renegade and it's Alacrity, CC, perma Prot, boon rip/stability, etc.With only one profession that can do group Quickness, one profession that can do group Alacrity, and one profession that can do both in the game (and one profession able to do 10 man Might), it's not surprising those professions are the meta across 5 and 10 man content.

Unlike old Chrono though, non of them are sole and uncompetable gods in everything though, and I'm fairly sure that if for example Scourge had alacrity it could quite nicely swap in for Renegade in the Alacrity, boon strip and CC slot, and if Tempest had Quickness it could swap well into the Boon Support and heal slot of Firebrand.

While I'am going to admit to my bias here as someone who really enjoys and mains Firebrand, I do not think Firebrand + Renegade, while both really strong, are at the old Chrono level where nothing could ever compete with them unless they are nerfed first (but not saying they may not need shaves after anyway). Without addressing the Quickness/Alacrity situation as two boons which are so powerful that you will always want to have 100% group wide uptime of them while only 3 specs are able to provide one or two of them though, ofc nothing ever will compete unless access to them is spread around more.

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@Brandon Uzumaki.1524 said:Can't help that healing is is not that powerfull after the instabilites rework, compared to other healers FB is mediocre at best, with the exception of the very potent burst you get on F2, but pure raw healing it's not that great.But Fractals nowadays are all about dying in one or two hit by the most basic mob, let's say you are a Berserker Ele, playing any fractal, and today instabilitires are Outflanked and Frailty, you take any other healer that's not a Firebrand or a Barrier Necro (maybe Scrapper), and you will be on the ground 9 out of 10 times, you have 8k HP, most mobs will hit for 10k from behind, you can't heal or regen that lol.

What do you mean with nowadays? Almost everything used to oneshot in old 50s. Mossman could even oneshot a warr out of stealth. Weavers play without a healer all the time. Facetanking was just never good.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:Lets take a look:Heavy DPS? Check.Heavy self healing? Check.Heavy group healing? Check.Heavy cleansing? Check.Heavy boon output? Check.Heavy group Stability? Check.Heavy reflects? Check.Heavy tanking ability? Check.

Having a Firebrand in your party is a massive DPS increase entire group, Not just because of the DPS they can bring, but because of how much protection it offers other players, sometimes to the extent of ignoring mechanics entirely.

Chronomancer and Druid could never do this. They didn't even come close.

That said, I've always believed Firebrand is what other classes are meant to be, and should aspire to.

Well, as a note here, yes, Guardian can do all of those things, but not at the same time - which as you say is ideal design and what Anet should aspire to for all professions.

Quickbrand for example sure offers decent DPS and a massive group DPS increase with Quickness, which is just the nature of anything that can apply that incredibly powerful boon, but it's also extremely vulnerable at 11k HP and only a little 1k Heal Skill as self-heal, relying on blocking everything with the short duration Aegis, making Berserker Ele feel like a tank in comparison.

Support FB, while ofc having great support and being able to spec into
one or two
of decent cleansing, heavy healing, heavy stability or reflects with it's utility choices, can't do all of those at once (outside of long CD short bursts of it with Tomes, while still providing 100% Quickness, for which it is taken in the first place) while also doing essentially no damage at all - generally between 2-5k.

Also while Aegis is an incredibly powerful boon as well which FB can pump out quite frequently to carry through most non-vital mechanics, let's remember Distortion Share (5 man Invulnerability) on Chrono was a thing, which could protect an entire party/subgroup from even unblockable oneshot failstate mechanics.

Just when we combine Firebrand + Renegade we get somewhere close to what old Chrono was just alone in terms of boon support, boon rip capability, CC, mechanic skips, etc., while still falling short in terms of things like ad pull, (portal) skipping capability etc.So especially just FB is not the godmode old Chrono was by a long shot.

It's just the best Quickness source right now which slots in well with the also incredibly strong Renegade and it's Alacrity, CC, perma Prot, boon rip/stability, etc.With only one profession that can do group Quickness, one profession that can do group Alacrity, and one profession that can do both in the game (and one profession able to do 10 man Might), it's not surprising those professions are the meta across 5 and 10 man content.

Unlike old Chrono though, non of them are sole and uncompetable gods in everything though, and I'm fairly sure that if for example Scourge had alacrity it could quite nicely swap in for Renegade in the Alacrity, boon strip and CC slot, and if Tempest had Quickness it could swap well into the Boon Support and heal slot of Firebrand.

While I'am going to admit to my bias here as someone who really enjoys and mains Firebrand, I do not think Firebrand + Renegade, while both really strong, are at the old Chrono level where nothing could ever compete with them unless they are nerfed first (but not saying they may not need shaves after anyway). Without addressing the Quickness/Alacrity situation as two boons which are so powerful that you will always want to have 100% group wide uptime of them while only 3 specs are able to provide one or two of them though, ofc nothing ever will compete unless access to them is spread around more.

You're misunderstanding my point entirely.

On most classes the build you take hard limits what you can do, this isn't the case on Firebrand because of the Tomes. No matter what you take as your traits, your weapon, and your utility skills, the Tomes will always provide alot of what I listed in my earlier post, regardless of the other workings of the build; that's why the class is impossible to balance through nerfing.

For example, Firebrand always has an on-demand reflect no matter what utility skills they set. Even Core Guardian has to sacrifice a utility skill slot for Wall of Reflection in order to handle the projectile mechanics of an encounter.

My point was that other class mechanics should work similarly, that we should balance by buffing them instead.

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@Hannelore.8153 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:Lets take a look:Heavy DPS? Check.Heavy self healing? Check.Heavy group healing? Check.Heavy cleansing? Check.Heavy boon output? Check.Heavy group Stability? Check.Heavy reflects? Check.Heavy tanking ability? Check.

Having a Firebrand in your party is a massive DPS increase entire group, Not just because of the DPS they can bring, but because of how much protection it offers other players, sometimes to the extent of ignoring mechanics entirely.

Chronomancer and Druid could never do this. They didn't even come close.

That said, I've always believed Firebrand is what other classes are meant to be, and should aspire to.

Well, as a note here, yes, Guardian can do all of those things, but not at the same time - which as you say is ideal design and what Anet should aspire to for all professions.

Quickbrand for example sure offers decent DPS and a massive group DPS increase with Quickness, which is just the nature of anything that can apply that incredibly powerful boon, but it's also extremely vulnerable at 11k HP and only a little 1k Heal Skill as self-heal, relying on blocking everything with the short duration Aegis, making Berserker Ele feel like a tank in comparison.

Support FB, while ofc having great support and being able to spec into
one or two
of decent cleansing, heavy healing, heavy stability or reflects with it's utility choices, can't do all of those at once (outside of long CD short bursts of it with Tomes, while still providing 100% Quickness, for which it is taken in the first place) while also doing essentially no damage at all - generally between 2-5k.

Also while Aegis is an incredibly powerful boon as well which FB can pump out quite frequently to carry through most non-vital mechanics, let's remember Distortion Share (5 man Invulnerability) on Chrono was a thing, which could protect an entire party/subgroup from even unblockable oneshot failstate mechanics.

Just when we combine Firebrand + Renegade we get somewhere close to what old Chrono was just alone in terms of boon support, boon rip capability, CC, mechanic skips, etc., while still falling short in terms of things like ad pull, (portal) skipping capability etc.So especially just FB is not the godmode old Chrono was by a long shot.

It's just the best Quickness source right now which slots in well with the also incredibly strong Renegade and it's Alacrity, CC, perma Prot, boon rip/stability, etc.With only one profession that can do group Quickness, one profession that can do group Alacrity, and one profession that can do both in the game (and one profession able to do 10 man Might), it's not surprising those professions are the meta across 5 and 10 man content.

Unlike old Chrono though, non of them are sole and uncompetable gods in everything though, and I'm fairly sure that if for example Scourge had alacrity it could quite nicely swap in for Renegade in the Alacrity, boon strip and CC slot, and if Tempest had Quickness it could swap well into the Boon Support and heal slot of Firebrand.

While I'am going to admit to my bias here as someone who really enjoys and mains Firebrand, I do not think Firebrand + Renegade, while both really strong, are at the old Chrono level where nothing could ever compete with them unless they are nerfed first (but not saying they may not need shaves after anyway). Without addressing the Quickness/Alacrity situation as two boons which are so powerful that you will always want to have 100% group wide uptime of them while only 3 specs are able to provide one or two of them though, ofc nothing ever will compete unless access to them is spread around more.

You're misunderstanding my point entirely.

On most classes the build you take hard limits what you can do, this isn't the case on Firebrand because of the Tomes. No matter what you take as your traits, your weapon, and your utility skills, the Tomes will always provide alot of what I listed in my earlier post, regardless of the other workings of the build; that's why the class is impossible to balance through nerfing.

For example, Firebrand always has an on-demand reflect no matter what utility skills they set. Even Core Guardian has to sacrifice a utility skill slot for Wall of Reflection in order to handle the projectile mechanics of an encounter.

My point was that other class mechanics should work similarly, that we should balance by buffing them instead.

If you really need Reflects in some content, a 75 second CD Tome isn't going to cut it usually though and you will still have to take WoR (24-30 sec CD with more than double the duration) on top of that anyway.Don't get me wrong, the Tomes are nice to have, but they are imo pretty far from OP or impossible to balance.

Generally as QB you never use Tome of Resolve and Courage other than in downtime, because the cast times etc. are simply not worth the DPS downtime.Take bosses like Artsariiv for example in which you want high/perma reflect uptime. You don't just want to sit in your Tome and do nothing else (DPS as QFB, healing and boons on HFB), so you end up taking WoR anyway.It's not like, especially a non-support FB like Quickbrand, can just carry all cleanses and reflects just with the high CD tomes without trade off.

They are nice for short bursts of support in downtimes (Cleanses, Stab, Reflects), but then that's kind of it. You maybe get to go into Tomes 1 or 2 times per fight, especially in Fractals - at the cost of your DPS/Weapon skills.

I wouldn't call some Stab or Reflect on a 75 sec CD as "heavy" supply, as you did. For that you still need to spec into that with Utilities and such. Similarly Resolve isn't really heavy healing, unless specced for support, but rather just a nice group condi cleanse on a 50 sec CD (with a fairly lengthy almost 2s cast time+aftercast of going into Tome + Oasis).

Personally, if I could pick, at least on Quickbrand I would swap out Tome of Courage and Resolve instantly for DH's instant cast Wings of Resolve and Shield of Courage in most scenarios.Tomes are nice for supplementing what HFB already does though, but honestly it would be fine without them as well.

They used to be really strong at PoF launch, but with the heavy nerfs to them since, I wouldn't consider them a major or even broken feature, with them actually being imo weaker than at least DH's Virtues on anything but full support FB.The CD's are just too long to solely rely on them for any job, and you do kind of need to quickly spam them out not fully utilising them or just dip in for a few uses anyway in most cases, as they otherwise lock you out of your weapon skills for too long for boon uptime on HFB or DPS uptime for QFB.

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Some time ago I played support-scrapper in deepstone T4. with blast- and bullwark- gyro, shield I had provided some might, protection, regen and stability plus dmg-mitigation and projectile protection... I think I took experimental turrets+rifle to provide fury as well. Medkit and mortar-5 was enough heal and provided some vigor.

It worked out pretty well, but it still felt like going a roundabout way to do 70% of what a heal-brand should do plus missing the quickness.

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@Hannelore.8153 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:Lets take a look:Heavy DPS? Check.Heavy self healing? Check.Heavy group healing? Check.Heavy cleansing? Check.Heavy boon output? Check.Heavy group Stability? Check.Heavy reflects? Check.Heavy tanking ability? Check.

Having a Firebrand in your party is a massive DPS increase entire group, Not just because of the DPS they can bring, but because of how much protection it offers other players, sometimes to the extent of ignoring mechanics entirely.

Chronomancer and Druid could never do this. They didn't even come close.

That said, I've always believed Firebrand is what other classes are meant to be, and should aspire to.

Well, as a note here, yes, Guardian can do all of those things, but not at the same time - which as you say is ideal design and what Anet should aspire to for all professions.

Quickbrand for example sure offers decent DPS and a massive group DPS increase with Quickness, which is just the nature of anything that can apply that incredibly powerful boon, but it's also extremely vulnerable at 11k HP and only a little 1k Heal Skill as self-heal, relying on blocking everything with the short duration Aegis, making Berserker Ele feel like a tank in comparison.

Support FB, while ofc having great support and being able to spec into
one or two
of decent cleansing, heavy healing, heavy stability or reflects with it's utility choices, can't do all of those at once (outside of long CD short bursts of it with Tomes, while still providing 100% Quickness, for which it is taken in the first place) while also doing essentially no damage at all - generally between 2-5k.

Also while Aegis is an incredibly powerful boon as well which FB can pump out quite frequently to carry through most non-vital mechanics, let's remember Distortion Share (5 man Invulnerability) on Chrono was a thing, which could protect an entire party/subgroup from even unblockable oneshot failstate mechanics.

Just when we combine Firebrand + Renegade we get somewhere close to what old Chrono was just alone in terms of boon support, boon rip capability, CC, mechanic skips, etc., while still falling short in terms of things like ad pull, (portal) skipping capability etc.So especially just FB is not the godmode old Chrono was by a long shot.

It's just the best Quickness source right now which slots in well with the also incredibly strong Renegade and it's Alacrity, CC, perma Prot, boon rip/stability, etc.With only one profession that can do group Quickness, one profession that can do group Alacrity, and one profession that can do both in the game (and one profession able to do 10 man Might), it's not surprising those professions are the meta across 5 and 10 man content.

Unlike old Chrono though, non of them are sole and uncompetable gods in everything though, and I'm fairly sure that if for example Scourge had alacrity it could quite nicely swap in for Renegade in the Alacrity, boon strip and CC slot, and if Tempest had Quickness it could swap well into the Boon Support and heal slot of Firebrand.

While I'am going to admit to my bias here as someone who really enjoys and mains Firebrand, I do not think Firebrand + Renegade, while both really strong, are at the old Chrono level where nothing could ever compete with them unless they are nerfed first (but not saying they may not need shaves after anyway). Without addressing the Quickness/Alacrity situation as two boons which are so powerful that you will always want to have 100% group wide uptime of them while only 3 specs are able to provide one or two of them though, ofc nothing ever will compete unless access to them is spread around more.

You're misunderstanding my point entirely.

On most classes the build you take hard limits what you can do, this isn't the case on Firebrand because of the Tomes. No matter what you take as your traits, your weapon, and your utility skills, the Tomes will always provide alot of what I listed in my earlier post, regardless of the other workings of the build; that's why the class is impossible to balance through nerfing.

For example, Firebrand always has an on-demand reflect no matter what utility skills they set. Even Core Guardian has to sacrifice a utility skill slot for Wall of Reflection in order to handle the projectile mechanics of an encounter.

My point was that other class mechanics should work similarly, that we should balance by buffing them instead.

You mean that super short reflect wich you cast at cost of one very usefull stab output

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Funny thing, hfb is not even meta on cm fractal, it's the heal renega with a quickbrand that is meta. and if you want to be ever more meta, you go with prenegat and no heal.HFB is just pug "meta" because it's can be more forgivin for failed mechanics oposed to heal ren

Not sure how i feal now with the new cfb that is meta on 100 and guardian being everywhere in endgame (including wvw and raids) but he, i guess main gardian are happy. I have one endgame content where my ele is meta (old cms) and i'm happy that i can play it in one part of the endgame even if it's not everywhere.

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@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:A change is to make quickness a personal boon wich can only be applied once per 50seconds or simply replace the the trait quckness with swiftness wich makes more sence than quickness and tone down mantra of potence maybe drop might no skill in my opinion should give more than 1 boon. Change axe symbol to provide resistance unstead of fury and raise cd on sword symbol

Im glad you are not part of the balance team. Cd increase on sword symbol would just make it worse than scepter. Resistance on axe would be the most broken thing. Removing quickness would just completely remove it from the group and we would be back to mesmer only comps.

I agree that these changes are not the whole solution, but making Quickness more of a selfish boon instead of being dependant on 1 supplier (and only a few professions who are actually capable to do so), is not balanced imo.Let me explain, cause obviously there's more to it. First of all, in the PvE endgame the boons Quickness and Alacrity are not just on a different level than the others, but in a complete different galaxy, pretty much. They're incredibly in demand, in combination with very limited supply (only a few classes that reliably can provide), you can rightfully call them the elite boons of PvE. They're a musthave.Imo there's 2 options:

  • Either you make them widely available to every profession, much like Might and Fury, which are also very strong boons and in high demand (much like Quickness and Alacrity), but are generally not a big issue anymore when it comes to supply, because of the wide availability (I do say generally, there are some classes that could have a bit better access to mostly one of those boons).
  • Or you (significantly) nerf Quickness and Alacrity in a way that the demand is not going to be that high anymore. Supply can then stay the same or made even more exclusive like you mostly have with Alacrity (very exclusive supply). This way you do promote class uniqueness, or at least the feeling of it (in the end, Quickness and Alacrity are mostly used for 1 thing only: boost DPS).
  • Or you do a bit of a combination of both or better yet even think out of the box: I.e. You make the boons more available between all classes but also more selfishly, except for maybe a few very short duration share skills/traits, but far from enough to maintain 100% uptime on 10 people! I.e. if you and your build needs/wants/demands it you have to bring it yourself, you're not going to be completely dependant on 1 supplier.AND, you change the boons to stacking intensity instead of stacking duration. You could do this in a way of 1% per boon with a cap of 25 (like Might) (nerfing Quickness in the process). Or 5% per boon with a cap of 5. Just examples of course, the numbers could be different of course.But like I said before, in this way it's paramount that all professions across the board get much easier selfish access to these 2 boons!
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Hfb is really good at carrying players that don't know what they're doing. That much is true. I'm honestly surprised of a lack of "lol i dun need healer" replies. Therefore, with a group of randoms, it's safest to bring a healbrand because you have no idea of their abilities.

But healers aren't meta anyways, so you can't really do anything with heal specs that don't give offensive buffs. Healbrand is popular because people are lazy and don't need world class speedruns or learn mechanics. So indeed it is very useful for farmers, but honestly in these cases you don't really pursue an optimal comp anyways and are just farming.

The other issue is that fractals are more or less phasing races. There just isn't enough time in the fight for healing over time to really matter, and survival is guaranteed if one can just mitigate the few big incoming attacks and maybe a burst heal if people are struggling.

They probably shouldn't be able to give 100% quickness so easily though.

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@"ArchonWing.9480" said:Hfb is really good at carrying players that don't know what they're doing. That much is true. I'm honestly surprised of a lack of "lol i dun need healer" replies. Therefore, with a group of randoms, it's safest to bring a healbrand because you have no idea of their abilities.

But healers aren't meta anyways, so you can't really do anything with heal specs that don't give offensive buffs. Healbrand is popular because people are lazy and don't need world class speedruns or learn mechanics. So indeed it is very useful for farmers, but honestly in these cases you don't really pursue an optimal comp anyways and are just farming.

The other issue is that fractals are more or less phasing races. There just isn't enough time in the fight for healing over time to really matter, and survival is guaranteed if one can just mitigate the few big incoming attacks and maybe a burst heal if people are struggling.

They probably shouldn't be able to give 100% quickness so easily though.

I feel no boon should have 100% uptime

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@Gogdarth.6741 said:Hot take, Guardian is actually fine and has strong builds across all gamemodes that work well with healthy variety of use cases and functions. How about instead of making this one thing that is actually good in this game worse... we make other things better instead?

You know, like about 4 possible supports that are just not viable in PvE because they offer less? Making chrono less tedious for boonsupport, perhaps? Bringing druid back? Tempest having more stuff to offer as a support? Revenant's pony mode being a thing that isn't downright annoying to use at last? Scourge leaving meme status by having actual synergy with other specs?

Because in general, nerfing OP classes is better than buffing UP classes. This is how you end up with runaway power creep.

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@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Gogdarth.6741 said:Hot take, Guardian is actually fine and has strong builds across all gamemodes that work well with healthy variety of use cases and functions. How about instead of making this one thing that is actually good in this game worse... we make other things better instead?

You know, like about 4 possible supports that are just not viable in PvE because they offer less? Making chrono less tedious for boonsupport, perhaps? Bringing druid back? Tempest having more stuff to offer as a support? Revenant's pony mode being a thing that isn't downright annoying to use at last? Scourge leaving meme status by having actual synergy with other specs?

Because in general, nerfing OP classes is better than buffing UP classes. This is how you end up with runaway power creep.The question always is, though, if a class is so good because it is OP, or is it so good because all other are bad.

Remember, that constantly nerfing those that stand out will eventually lead to everyone being equally miserable. And that's not good at all.

So, no, in general nerfing OP classes is not better than buffing UP classes. What you really need is to decide on what level you want your classes to be and then balance all classes to it..

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Gogdarth.6741 said:Hot take, Guardian is actually fine and has strong builds across all gamemodes that work well with healthy variety of use cases and functions. How about instead of making this one thing that is actually good in this game worse... we make other things better instead?

You know, like about 4 possible supports that are just not viable in PvE because they offer less? Making chrono less tedious for boonsupport, perhaps? Bringing druid back? Tempest having more stuff to offer as a support? Revenant's pony mode being a thing that isn't downright annoying to use at last? Scourge leaving meme status by having actual synergy with other specs?

Because in general, nerfing OP classes is better than buffing UP classes. This is how you end up with runaway power creep.The question always is, though, if a class is so good because it is OP, or is it so good because all other are bad.

Remember, that constantly nerfing those that stand out will eventually lead to everyone being equally miserable. And that's not good at all.

So, no, in general nerfing OP classes is not better than buffing UP classes. What you really need is to decide on what level you want your classes to be and
then
balance all classes to it..

Yet, there is no profession that is actually is miserable.Warrior, for example, is in a decent state and should be the bar for every profession to be balanced around.

Buffing up professions only ends up with power-creep, which causes the need for the PvE content to be power-creeped as well.Doing so will not only end up with PvP being a joke, but the entire game becoming one as well.

Thus, toning down over-performers to a decent level would be much healthier for the game.

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@Fueki.4753 said:

@"Gogdarth.6741" said:Hot take, Guardian is actually fine and has strong builds across all gamemodes that work well with healthy variety of use cases and functions. How about instead of making this one thing that is actually good in this game worse... we make other things better instead?

You know, like about 4 possible supports that are just not viable in PvE because they offer less? Making chrono less tedious for boonsupport, perhaps? Bringing druid back? Tempest having more stuff to offer as a support? Revenant's pony mode being a thing that isn't downright annoying to use at last? Scourge leaving meme status by having actual synergy with other specs?

Because in general, nerfing OP classes is better than buffing UP classes. This is how you end up with runaway power creep.The question always is, though, if a class is so good because it is OP, or is it so good because all other are bad.

Remember, that constantly nerfing those that stand out will eventually lead to everyone being equally miserable. And that's not good at all.

So, no, in general nerfing OP classes is not better than buffing UP classes. What you really need is to decide on what level you want your classes to be and
then
balance all classes to it..

Yet, there is no profession that is actually is miserable.Warrior, for example, is in a decent state and should be the bar for every profession to be balanced around.

Buffing up professions only ends up with power-creep, which causes the need for the PvE content to be power-creeped as well.Doing so will not only end up with PvP being a joke, but the entire game becoming one as well.

Thus, toning down over-performers to a decent level would be much healthier for the game.My point is that you need to decide what constitutes "decent level" first, and
then
use it as a baseline to balance
everything
. As long as you keep balancing in a relative way, only looking at a performance of builds/classes against each other, you will always have a problem. Because, in such a relative balance, there will
always
be a build that could be considered OP (compared to others). Even if objectively looking that build would be bad.

A build being way better than the others can mean that the build is OP, but it can also mean that the builds you compare it to are just so much trash. Thus, you need some outside baseline for comparison.

One of the reasons why the balance in GW2 keeps jumping up and down constantly is that we do not have such a baseline.

In this specific case, to properly balance, we would need to answer some questions first:

  • what is the overall support impact we want to have in this game?
  • how many slots we think should be dedicated to support in 5-man parties? How many in 10-man squads?
  • should there be some types of support that are class-specific?
  • how flexible should the support be (how easy should it be to slot one support class in place of another, without rearranging the whole party/squad composition)?
  • is it appropriate for a primary support build to do more than one thing at once (support+heal, support +dps, heal+dps)?

Only after we answered that and have a vision of what the end result should be can we start balancing support classes around said vision. Just whacking with a hammer the build that is currently on top doesn't really get us anywhere. Sure, it may pacify the people that are angry now, because they run different classes, but it doesn;t really help balance in the long run.

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:

My point is that you need to decide what constitutes "decent level" first, and then use it as a baseline to balance everything. As long as you keep balancing in a relative way, only looking at a performance of builds/classes against each other, you will always have a problem. Because, in such a relative balance, there will always be a build that could be considered OP (compared to others). Even if objectively looking that build would be bad.

A build being way better than the others can mean that the build is OP, but it can also mean that the builds you compare it to are just so much trash. Thus, you need some outside baseline for comparison.

One of the reasons why the balance in GW2 keeps jumping up and down constantly is that we do not have such a baseline.

In this specific case, to properly balance, we would need to answer some questions first:

  • what is the overall support impact we want to have in this game?
  • how many slots we think should be dedicated to support in 5-man parties? How many in 10-man squads?
  • should there be some types of support that are class-specific?
  • how flexible should the support be (how easy should it be to slot one support class in place of another, without rearranging the whole party/squad composition)?
  • is it appropriate for a primary support build to do more than one thing at once (support+heal, support +dps, heal+dps)?

Only after we answered that and have a vision of what the end result should be can we start balancing support classes around said vision. Just whacking with a hammer the build that is currently on top doesn't really get us anywhere. Sure, it may pacify the people that are angry now, because they run different classes, but it doesn;t really help balance in the long run.

I consider the current state of warrior as what you call a "baseline to balance everything".It's a fine level and the other professions need to be shaved down.

But at the same time, Arenanet also needs to tone down all content that is only doable because of said over-performance.However, I doubt Arenanet is going to rework so much content.

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@"Fueki.4753" said:I consider the current state of warrior as what you call a "baseline to balance everything".It's a fine level and the other professions need to be shaved down.I actually don't agree with this. It may seems o on the surface, but in reality, the situation is more complex.Remember, warrior is the class whose position in party composition for raids has never been in danger. One that can't be replaced. It is the only such class. Think about it when you consider what can make a class to be considered to be OP.

That's the power of class-unique buffs. If you were to "shave down" other classes to warrior level, you would need to buff them considerably, to the point they would have a guaranteed slot in party.

Warriors are often overlooked, because they don't seem to do as many things as some other classes. But that completely ignores how strong the few things warrior can do are.

(Hint: i am saying that even though warrior is the class i have been using in raids probably the most, and one i'd be very sorry to see nerfed)

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@"Fueki.4753" said:I consider the current state of warrior as what you call a "baseline to balance everything".It's a fine level and the other professions need to be shaved down.

When you say that, are you referencing the warrior dps or banner builds? Because the banner build generally adds way more to a group than the dps one does.

But at the same time, Arenanet also needs to tone down all content that is only doable because of said over-performance.However, I doubt Arenanet is going to rework so much content.

What is the kind of content that is no longer doable without builds "overperforming"?

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@"Astralporing.1957" said:I actually don't agree with this. It may seems o on the surface, but in reality, the situation is more complex.Remember, warrior is the class whose position in party composition for raids has never been in danger. One that can't be replaced. It is the only such class. Think about it when you consider what can make a class to be considered to be OP.That's the power of class-unique buffs. If you were to "shave down" other classes to warrior level, you would need to buff them considerably, to the point they would have a guaranteed slot in party.Warriors are often overlooked, because they don't seem to do as many things as some other classes. But that completely ignores how strong the few things warrior can do are.

Other professions have unique buffs to bring, too.Some of them don't even need to spend utility slots on them.I wouldn't mind those banner boons being nerfed though.

@"Katary.7096" said:When you say that, are you referencing the warrior dps or banner builds? Because the banner build generally adds way more to a group than the dps one does.I think both the amount of support and the amount of damage are in a fine spot.Shaving damage down to Warrior levels and shaving down support to a level a bit above Warrior would be fine.

What is the kind of content that is no longer doable without builds "overperforming"?After the damage and support has been shaved, a lot of content deals far too much damage and has far too much HP.This includes most of the fractal additions and changes in the last few years, especially the newest HP Sponge: Sunqua peek.So far, I've been in a single successful group for Sunqua Peak.The HP of the bosses of Siren's Reef, Deepstone and Twilight Oasis would be quite high, too.With the support (and healing) being reduced, the rework of Molten Furnace would be problematic too. Those burning tornadoes with their broken hit boxes would be even more punishing than they already are.A lot of people also have problems with the reworked Bloomhunger fight.Too many people already are hardly able to finish these, so when their damage and supportive abilities get reduced, their chances are getting even slimmer.

EDIT: This would probably also affect raids and Challenge motes.Some story bosses (like the end boss of Season 4, Episode 2) would be affected too.But the story let's you continue after dying, so that's less of an issue than group content.

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@Fueki.4753 said:I think both the amount of support and the amount of damage are in a fine spot.But are you applying both of these statements to banner berserker, or are they split between banner berserker being fine in terms of support and dps berserker being fine in terms of damage output?Shaving damage down to Warrior levels and shaving down support to a level a bit above Warrior would be fine.How is one supposed to measure the support of a build that focuses on healing by comparing it to the support that a banner warrior build can provide? At that point we are comparing apples to oranges.After the damage and support has been shaved, a lot of content deals far too much damage and has far too much HP.This includes most of the fractal additions and changes in the last few years, especially the newest HP Sponge: Sunqua peek.So far, I've been in a single successful group for Sunqua Peak.The HP of the bosses of Siren's Reef, Deepstone and Twilight Oasis would be quite high, too.With the support (and healing) being reduced, the rework of Molten Furnace would be problematic too. Those burning tornadoes with their broken hit boxes would be even more punishing than they already are.A lot of people also have problems with the reworked Bloomhunger fight.Too many people already are hardly able to finish these, so when their damage and supportive abilities get reduced, their chances are getting even slimmer.For all fractal content the solution is simple: The people that struggle with the content can play it on a lower tier.EDIT: This would probably also affect raids and Challenge motes.Considering that those players like the idea of playing difficult content, it should not be an issue.

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@"Fueki.4753" said:I think both the amount of support and the amount of damage are in a fine spot.Shaving damage down to Warrior levels and shaving down support to a level a bit above Warrior would be fine.

Does that mean reaper gets a 20% dps buff? Warrior is already one of the top dps professions.

What is the kind of content that is no longer doable without builds "overperforming"?After the damage and support has been shaved, a lot of content deals far too much damage and has far too much HP.This includes most of the fractal additions and changes in the last few years, especially the newest HP Sponge: Sunqua peek.So far, I've been in a single successful group for Sunqua Peak.The HP of the bosses of Siren's Reef, Deepstone and Twilight Oasis would be quite high, too.With the support (and healing) being reduced, the rework of Molten Furnace would be problematic too. Those burning tornadoes with their broken hit boxes would be even more punishing than they already are.A lot of people also have problems with the reworked Bloomhunger fight.Too many people already are hardly able to finish these, so when their damage and supportive abilities get reduced, their chances are getting even slimmer.

EDIT: This would probably also affect raids and Challenge motes.Some story bosses (like the end boss of Season 4, Episode 2) would be affected too.But the story let's you continue after dying, so that's less of an issue than group content.

I hope you are joking. Most raids can be 5manned currently and they are tuned for way lower dps. You could cut dps in half and they would need to adjustments. The new fractal is one of the easiest in normal mode and the cm is easier than the other ones. People still struggling with bloomhunger shouldnt play t4 then.Not every fractal fight should be over in <30sec. Normal sunqua endboss is ~3min which isnt particularly long either. Shaving support just means going back to 5dps meta btw. Either have powerful support or its not worth taking it at all. I kinda enjoy the boon role in gw. Instead of healer, tank, dps you have healer, boons, dps or boons, dps.Warrior has almost no support outside of banners or mightstack. Shaving support down to this level would be a huge step backwards.

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@"Fueki.4753" said:Other professions have unique buffs to bring, too.Sure, but is there any other profession whose unique buffs practically guarantee them a slot?Again, throughout the whole GW2 raiding history, there was never a moment where warrior was out of meta squad composition. Even the other former fixtures (Chrono and Druid) were eventually put in a situation where they are no longer a certain choice, but warrior keeps its spot still. And all that is because of banners.

Warrior is a fixture in a raid composition now. So, if you were to "shave down" any other profession to the warrior level, it would have to end in a place where it is also guaranteed a spot. That's not a nerf - you are talking here about an overall buff to most professions. A very unhealthy buff at that, seeing as the end result would be a very locked meta, with 9 slots reserved for 9 professions, and only one last slot being potentially open (or one profession being guaranteed 2 slots instead of one).

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