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Instead Of Nerfing Firebrand We Buff Other Professions


Heisen.2315

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Condi Firebrand, Condi Renegade and Condi Weaver all are condi DPS specs doing about 37-38k DPS, "doing the same thing". Are they duplicates and redundant as choice?

HOLD ON ... you were asking why a CERTAIN CLASS can't have two viable specs doing the same thing ... FB, Weaver and Renegade are all DIFFERENT classes. Don't move the goalpost on me. Let me requote you and reanswer you to keep this discussion HONEST.

Why can't Guardian have two viable specs doing the same thing?

Because that makes no sense to do so. if you want two specs doing the same thing, you're basically duplicating specs ... that's redundant and worthless choice.

I'm not moving the goalpost, the question I'm asking is why does it arbitrarily matter if it's on the same profession?

It doesn't ... but then again that's not a very relevant question. Just because it can happen doesn't mean it needs to happen. The answer is that Anet doesn't need to put in a bunch of extra work to make a whole bunch of equivalent performance specs because of the decisions they have made to develop the game. You are applying an idea that there is some reason for more builds to be 'viable' ... but what is that reason? It's certainly NOT because we don't have enough choices to play builds that we can be successful with. THAT is why something can take a big nerf and it's OK ... you said it yourself ... there is plenty room for more variety ... so Anet can move builds around in that large room with class changes without having much of an impact on those builds ability to work in the game.

So basically, you want Anet to put forth the effort for something they don't need to do because of how they designed the game. That's a no-sale situation buddy. There isn't a need for equivalent performance ... so we aren't going to see Anet go out of their way to give it to us. At best, you get some random occurrences where it happens.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Condi Firebrand, Condi Renegade and Condi Weaver all are condi DPS specs doing about 37-38k DPS, "doing the same thing". Are they duplicates and redundant as choice?

HOLD ON ... you were asking why a CERTAIN CLASS can't have two viable specs doing the same thing ... FB, Weaver and Renegade are all DIFFERENT classes. Don't move the goalpost on me. Let me requote you and reanswer you to keep this discussion HONEST.

Why can't Guardian have two viable specs doing the same thing?

Because that makes no sense to do so. if you want two specs doing the same thing, you're basically duplicating specs ... that's redundant and worthless choice.

I'm not moving the goalpost, the question I'm asking is why does it arbitrarily matter if it's on the same profession?

It doesn't ... but then again that's not a very relevant question. Just because it can happen doesn't mean it needs to happen. The answer is that Anet doesn't need to put in a bunch of extra work to make a whole bunch of equivalent performance specs because of the decisions they have made to develop the game. You are applying an idea that there is some reason for more builds to be 'viable' ... but what is that reason? It's certainly NOT because we don't have enough choices to play builds that we can be successful with. THAT is why something can take a big nerf and it's OK ... you said it yourself ... there is plenty room for more variety ... so Anet can move builds around in that large room with class changes without having much of an impact on those builds ability to work in the game.

So basically, you want Anet to put forth the effort for something they don't need to do because of how they designed the game. That's a no-sale situation buddy. There isn't a need for equivalent performance ... so we aren't going to see Anet go out of their way to give it to us. At best, you get some random occurrences where it happens.

I'm not asking Anet to do anything, nor am I demanding that what I described needs to happen, just that it is okay when it coincidentally does. Quit being so hostile and confrontational all the time.

I'm simply questioning peoples assertion that Anet should or has to actively put work in to essentially ruin previously working and balanced Specs to "make room" for new ones, as if we had way to many options in how to play a profession (with most specs pretty much just having one or max two viable builds), or that two specs on the same profession filling the same or similar role in different ways for some reason isn't allowed to exist.

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@"Asum.4960" said:Chrono was a problem way before the late Chaos Chrono, and Chrono + Druid where the only viable support choices across all of endgame/coordinated group content for ~4 years, way overshadowing Firebrand and Renegade then and now.The game was getting incredibly stale and something needed to change.No. Chrono was not the problem. The problem was in lack of alternatives. But when some players were pointing out, that the solution would be to allow for existence of other true support builds that could take its place, most people were too busy shouting "nerf Chrono" to listen. And thus we're back again to the same spot, just with different classes at the stage.

Now we are in a different situation though, and unlike Chrono, which actively kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers (FB and Ren) completely irrelevant bc it was so insanely good and the whole package aloneNo, it kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers irrelevant because, first, up to PoF, there weren't any other quickness and Alacrity providers, and later, because FB and Ren builds weren't true full support builds, but hybrid ones (dps/support and/or heal/support), so you needed two of them to replace one chrono, and even then they weren't originally all that good at that.In order to make the switch, in addition to nerfing Chrono over and over again, Anet had to buff FB and Ren first. Which is why we're now in a thread asking for FB nerf.

right now there aren't any other Specs that can fill the roles of Quickness or Alacrity providers that are being kept down by either Chrono, Firebrand or Renegade.No other options exist. Nerfing either of those specs won't change that.That is completely true. Nerfing doesn't add options, it only removes them. Exactly the same as it was during the Chrono era.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:Chrono was a problem way before the late Chaos Chrono, and Chrono + Druid where the only viable support choices across all of endgame/coordinated group content for ~4 years, way overshadowing Firebrand and Renegade then and now.The game was getting incredibly stale and something needed to change.No. Chrono was
not
the problem. The problem was in
lack of alternatives
. But when some players were pointing out, that the solution would be to allow for existence of other true support builds that could take its place, most people were too busy shouting "nerf Chrono" to listen. And thus we're back again to the same spot, just with different classes at the stage.

Now we are in a different situation though, and unlike Chrono, which actively kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers (FB and Ren) completely irrelevant bc it was so insanely good and the whole package aloneNo, it kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers irrelevant because, first, up to PoF, there
weren't
any other quickness and Alacrity providers, and later, because FB and Ren builds weren't true full support builds, but hybrid ones (dps/support and/or heal/support), so you needed two of them to replace one chrono, and even then they weren't originally all that good at that.In order to make the switch, in addition to nerfing Chrono over and over again, Anet had to
buff FB and Ren first
. Which is why we're now in a thread asking for FB nerf.

right now there aren't any other Specs that can fill the roles of Quickness or Alacrity providers that are being kept down by either Chrono, Firebrand or Renegade.No other options exist. Nerfing either of those specs won't change that.That is completely true. Nerfing doesn't add options, it only removes them. Exactly the same as it was during the Chrono era.

As far as I can recall the only buff FB ever got was a range increase on the Mantras shortly after it's release in 2017, so people don't have to stack as tightly, everything else has been nerfs.As for Renegade, it was the Target Cap increase for Orders from Above from Righteous Rebel, which enabled it for Raids as 10 man Alacrity bot, but didn't change anything for Fractals.

(please do correct me if I'm wrong there though)

That leaves us with 2 years of Chrono post PoF actively barring alternative Quickness and Alacrity providing supports, which did not, and could not change until Chrono was nerfed - because Firebrand and Renegade both would have to be powercrept to all hell to compete with it.I mean, how would you have buffed Firebrand and or Renegade to possibly compete with both Quickness and Alacrity, focus pulls, boon strip, blink portal skips, tanking, solo CC, and on and on and on in one package?Chrono, both for PvE and PvP was imo the single most damaging and unhealthy thing ever added to GW2 in how utterly broken it was, even more so with it taking Anet 4 years to fix, out of which 2 years saw alternatives come to the game which could never hope to compete.

That was the situation then. Now we are in the situation where there simply is no Quickness and Alacrity alternatives to Firebrand, Renegade and Chrono. The reason they are the only boon supports people want is.. well, they are the only ones that exist, similar to the HoT days when there was just Chrono, and it would have been silly to nerf Chrono then.

If new ones are added and shown to simply not able to compete with Firebrand, Renegade and Chrono, then nerf away, supports across the board way overperform anyway (although that concerns especially some of the ones who don't have Quickness/Alacrity, like Tempest, which are just held down by the simply fact that they don't have Quickness/Alacrity).

Until those alternatives exist further nerfing FB, Chrono or Renegade is utterly pointless though.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Chrono was a problem way before the late Chaos Chrono, and Chrono + Druid where the only viable support choices across all of endgame/coordinated group content for ~4 years, way overshadowing Firebrand and Renegade then and now.The game was getting incredibly stale and something needed to change.No. Chrono was
not
the problem. The problem was in
lack of alternatives
. But when some players were pointing out, that the solution would be to allow for existence of other true support builds that could take its place, most people were too busy shouting "nerf Chrono" to listen. And thus we're back again to the same spot, just with different classes at the stage.

Now we are in a different situation though, and unlike Chrono, which actively kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers (FB and Ren) completely irrelevant bc it was so insanely good and the whole package aloneNo, it kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers irrelevant because, first, up to PoF, there
weren't
any other quickness and Alacrity providers, and later, because FB and Ren builds weren't true full support builds, but hybrid ones (dps/support and/or heal/support), so you needed two of them to replace one chrono, and even then they weren't originally all that good at that.In order to make the switch, in addition to nerfing Chrono over and over again, Anet had to
buff FB and Ren first
. Which is why we're now in a thread asking for FB nerf.

right now there aren't any other Specs that can fill the roles of Quickness or Alacrity providers that are being kept down by either Chrono, Firebrand or Renegade.No other options exist. Nerfing either of those specs won't change that.That is completely true. Nerfing doesn't add options, it only removes them. Exactly the same as it was during the Chrono era.

As far as I can recall the only buff FB ever got was a range increase on the Mantras shortly after it's release in 2017, so people don't have to stack as tightly, everything else has been nerfs.As for Renegade, it was the Target Cap increase for Orders from Above from Righteous Rebel, which enabled it for Raids as 10 man Alacrity bot, but didn't change anything for Fractals.

(please do correct me if I'm wrong there though)

Read up on skills bedsides Mantra of Potence. For example on Firebrand, the trait Liberator's Vow received multiple buffs. As did other not quickness related skills/traits. Firebrand+Renegade was superior to druid+chrono on release of PoF (starting November of that year to be exact when OfA was buffed for easy perma alacrity). This was mentioned by myself and others on the forums. It took 3-6 months for "regular" players to adapt, and multiple buffs to both Firebrand and Renegade as well as nerfs to chrono to "encourage" players to switch. I explain why this is the case further on, and why 2 equally strong composition does not make the new composition get adopted.

The same applies to Renegade. Read through some of the trait changes beyond Order from Above (and even that was buffed from 1 second to 1.5 seconds per interval, which makes permanent alacrity possible in the first place). The class was significantly buffed multiple times.

@Asum.4960 said:That leaves us with 2 years of Chrono post PoF actively barring alternative Quickness and Alacrity providing supports, which did not, and could not change until Chrono was nerfed - because Firebrand and Renegade both would have to be powercrept to all hell to compete with it.I mean, how would you have buffed Firebrand and or Renegade to possibly compete with both Quickness and Alacrity, focus pulls, boon strip, blink portal skips, tanking, solo CC, and on and on and on in one package?Chrono, both for PvE and PvP was imo the single most damaging and unhealthy thing ever added to GW2 in how utterly broken it was, even more so with it taking Anet 4 years to fix, out of which 2 years saw alternatives come to the game which could never hope to compete.

Players took a long time to adapt to a new meta. Mostly because chrono+druid was familiar and "worked". Firebrand and Renegade were superior almost out the gate on PoF launch, if not shortly after. You don't change a working system unless you have to.

As such it took a complete nerf of chrono+druid BELOW Firebrigade levels to even force a switch in meta. Easily explained in the fact that if a new composition appears which is as good as the old one, there is no reason to change. Why learn and gear new classes and setups when they are equivalent to the old composition? That does not mean that from a pure balance perspective, chrono was in no way gating Firebrand or Renegade. It simply means there was no incentive to switch away from chrono due to balance unrelated reasons.

We are now in a situation where Firebrand+Renegade is superior in 5 man groups, and only outperformed in 10 man content due to the insane utility and might generation (and Spotter) of druid. Ironically it used to be the chrono which carried the druid in the comp, now it basically turned. Outside of 10 player content, chrono+druid is strictly inferior to Firebrigade and has been for a long time.

@Asum.4960 said:That was the situation then. Now we are in the situation where there simply is no Quickness and Alacrity alternatives to Firebrand, Renegade and Chrono. The reason they are the only boon supports people want is.. well, they are the only ones that exist, similar to the HoT days when there was just Chrono, and it would have been silly to nerf Chrono then.

If new ones are added and shown to simply not able to compete with Firebrand, Renegade and Chrono, then nerf away, supports across the board way overperform anyway (although that concerns especially some of the ones who don't have Quickness/Alacrity, like Tempest, which are just held down by the simply fact that they don't have Quickness/Alacrity).

Until those alternatives exist further nerfing FB, Chrono or Renegade is utterly pointless though.

What is going to happen is exactly the same for Firebrigade as it was for chrono+druid. IF a new support duo does gets introduced, and that support duo is equal in performance to Firebrigade, there will be no reason for players to switch. As such you can be sure to expect heavy nerfs to Firebrigade once EoD launches. At least to the level of where chrono+druid is now.

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@Asum.4960 said:

@Thornwolf.9721 said:But Id also like to see the other supports be brought in-line with firebrand; Its support/damage and utility is unmatched when compared with druid/tempest/Heal-regade and I think those specs need to be brought up to the level where they can compete IN ANY GAME MODE with firebrand to make it so its really "Run the one you like" not "run this one because the others are dumb."

That means, for PvE, to give them Quickness or Alacrity access.In PvP, where stacking in Mantra range and providing perma Quickness is not a thing, Support Tempest (which is Meta) completely blows support Firebrand (which isn't Meta) out of the water, since it's a more powerful support spec, but just lacks Quickness for PvE content.

For WvW, Guardian has always been a mainstay because of it's stability application (which is essentially for WvW what Quickness is for PvE), for years before Firebrand was even a thing, so you would have to look at core Guardian there, which people would just return to should FB be obliterated by nerfs, over other things.

@Thornwolf.9721 said:Firebrand overshadows them, this needs to be addressed and needs to be fixed and I really hope it happens soon. Honestly I think Druid needs a hard look at, because for the utility and power firebrand has Id gladly trade my perma-roots that work wonders when solo-roaming in WvW to be able to help my team on friday nights more. Because CA just does not cut it..

Druid has been Meta for Raids without interruption since both were first introduced in 2015, pushing out any other heal/might support to offheal or bust status (for groups who run 2 heals only), and is along Banner Warrior and Chrono the only thing that comes to mind that has been uncontested in it's role for pretty much it's entire existence.

Removing 10 people target caps from CA (Grace of the Land) and Spirits and giving it 5 man Quickness instead could address both the issue that nothing can compete with Druid for 10 man support, as well as making it relevant for 5 man content again.

See everything you listed, doesn't matter when it comes to PvE. As Primarily Im not here for that; In WvW where my focus lays mostly Druid is really not that great and I mean it can be if you lean on the root build. Any other type of build that doesn't involve CC locking someone isn't really viable and core ranger just out-preforms it and soulbeast exists. I also haven't PvP'd since just after the Big balance patch and from the sounds of it likely just wont... So its me waiting for story, farming for legendaries and WvW roaming. Any other aspect of the game right now (Raids likely until the end of days) will be lost on me, and to me really doesn't matter and Id still like the classes I enjoy to be brought into the kind of polish that the PoF specs have. As many suffer from being earlier than their PoF counter parts (Berserker in WvW comes to mind.)

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@Cyninja.2954 said:What is going to happen is exactly the same for Firebrigade as it was for chrono+druid. IF a new support duo does gets introduced, and that support duo is equal in performance to Firebrigade, there will be no reason for players to switch. As such you can be sure to expect heavy nerfs to Firebrigade once EoD launches. At least to the level of where chrono+druid is now.That's a problem with support duos (and, in general, more strict group compositions). They lock the meta too much. You can't simply exchange one element, you need to exchange the whole setup at the same time. This prevents easy switch.If at the PoF launch FB was able to be slotted instead of chrono, and renegade instead of druid, (with the chrono+druid, chrono +rene, FB + druid and FB + rene being all working options, even if not necessarily of exactly the same quality) there wouldn't have been such an inertia to the switch. This (again) has been pointed out by quite a number of people even before PoF. But people were too busy being angry at Chrono to notice that being able to concentrate a lot of support options in one build instead of splitting them among many is better, because it allows for a potentially far less restrictive group setup, which allows for better flexibility and experimentation.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:What is going to happen is exactly the same for Firebrigade as it was for chrono+druid. IF a new support duo does gets introduced, and that support duo is equal in performance to Firebrigade, there will be no reason for players to switch. As such you can be sure to expect heavy nerfs to Firebrigade once EoD launches. At least to the level of where chrono+druid is now.That's a problem with support duos (and, in general, more strict group compositions). They lock the meta too much. You can't simply exchange one element, you need to exchange the whole setup at the same time. This prevents easy switch.If at the PoF launch FB was able to be slotted instead of chrono, and renegade instead of druid, (with the chrono+druid, chrono +rene, FB + druid and FB + rene being all working options, even if not necessarily of exactly the same quality) there wouldn't have been such an inertia to the switch. This (again)
has
been pointed out by quite a number of people even before PoF. But people were too busy being angry at Chrono to notice that being able to concentrate a lot of support options in one build instead of splitting them among many is better, because it allows for a potentially far less restrictive group setup.

Oh I fully agree. It was very funny to watch all those dps players who were angry at chronos demanding they get nerfed, somehow expecting that would free up spots for other classes (a very common misconception back then, one that even with a ton of advice from more experienced players took ages to overcome. I am still amazed how few players understood that nerfing chrono would never have gotten their damage dealer of choice easier access into raids).

There is another problem though: the problem with absolutely interchangeable classes is that the "best" class will mostly get chosen.

There are 2 possible approaches to this:

  • make classes interchangeable on a single class basis, in this case simply expanding the choice of how many classes can provide a certain boon or boonsor
  • make support setups interchangeable with differing benefits maybe suitable to different game modes. As we have it now with 2 core support setups.

Both have benefits and detriments.

Having interchangeable classes makes group setup more flexible, but at the cost of making only the most efficient class desirable (made even more problematic if unrelated issues slip in like ease of play or other utilities) and eventually making multiple classes far more "similar".

Having interchangeable setups makes group compositions more rigid, but allows for actual meaningful difference in classes. This is far harder to balance and poses the risk of making certain classes far less desirable in specific roles (see most "healer" besides druid as first healer in setups). At the same time this allows for specific setups to to excel at different content.

I am unsure what I personally would prefer. I guess this would depend on if we get another set of elites and if here is additional support options with them added. Being a multi class player myself, my primary concern is game play fun and a lot of interesting combinations, not a specific class being primarily important. We will have to wait and see.

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@Asum.4960 said:And that sounds good on paper, sure, but ingame it just means power Spellbreaker (which used to be a viable ~37k DPS) just got deleted from PvE endgame and now people just need to play something else if they want to contribute, and if they enjoyed how power Spellbreaker DPS played, they are just screwed, as Berserker plays quite differently.Meanwhile SPB would be completely fine on ~35k DPS, giving people more viable options in how to enjoy the game.

According to you it would be fine, but with that you have already made the decision, that spellbreaker's advantages are worth about 1,5k DPS when compared to berserker. The question is: Is that true?Not a fan of this attitude that anything that has some baked in defensive mechanic, no matter how minor it might be in practice, can never be relevant in PvE endgame, with everybody just wanting pure glasscannon DPS specs entirely reliant on supports carrying them.Having things like Full Counter, Barrier or (thankfully that attitude is slowly changing on Anet's part it seems) Shroud is not worth giving up 5-8k DPS. It never will be. Keeping a spec purposefully behind by that much bc it has some defense essentially just means that it doesn't exist for organised PvE.I am going to agree specifically in the case of shroud, since taking damage while shroud is active tends to reduce the necro's damage potential. In general though, I think there is validity in considering drawbacks to make up for inherently better defensive options. Perhaps in the case of PvE these could be applied to aspects other than damage output?

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@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Chrono was a problem way before the late Chaos Chrono, and Chrono + Druid where the only viable support choices across all of endgame/coordinated group content for ~4 years, way overshadowing Firebrand and Renegade then and now.The game was getting incredibly stale and something needed to change.No. Chrono was
not
the problem. The problem was in
lack of alternatives
. But when some players were pointing out, that the solution would be to allow for existence of other true support builds that could take its place, most people were too busy shouting "nerf Chrono" to listen. And thus we're back again to the same spot, just with different classes at the stage.

Now we are in a different situation though, and unlike Chrono, which actively kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers (FB and Ren) completely irrelevant bc it was so insanely good and the whole package aloneNo, it kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers irrelevant because, first, up to PoF, there
weren't
any other quickness and Alacrity providers, and later, because FB and Ren builds weren't true full support builds, but hybrid ones (dps/support and/or heal/support), so you needed two of them to replace one chrono, and even then they weren't originally all that good at that.In order to make the switch, in addition to nerfing Chrono over and over again, Anet had to
buff FB and Ren first
. Which is why we're now in a thread asking for FB nerf.

right now there aren't any other Specs that can fill the roles of Quickness or Alacrity providers that are being kept down by either Chrono, Firebrand or Renegade.No other options exist. Nerfing either of those specs won't change that.That is completely true. Nerfing doesn't add options, it only removes them. Exactly the same as it was during the Chrono era.

As far as I can recall the only buff FB ever got was a range increase on the Mantras shortly after it's release in 2017, so people don't have to stack as tightly, everything else has been nerfs.As for Renegade, it was the Target Cap increase for Orders from Above from Righteous Rebel, which enabled it for Raids as 10 man Alacrity bot, but didn't change anything for Fractals.

(please do correct me if I'm wrong there though)

Read up on skills bedsides Mantra of Potence. For example on Firebrand, the trait Liberator's Vow received multiple buffs. As did other not quickness related skills/traits. Firebrand+Renegade was superior to druid+chrono on release of PoF (starting November of that year to be exact when OfA was buffed for easy perma alacrity). This was mentioned by myself and others on the forums. It took 3-6 months for "regular" players to adapt, and multiple buffs to both Firebrand and Renegade as well as nerfs to chrono to "encourage" players to switch. I explain why this is the case further on, and why 2 equally strong composition does not make the new composition get adopted.

The same applies to Renegade. Read through some of the trait changes beyond Order from Above (and even that was buffed from 1 second to 1.5 seconds per interval, which makes permanent alacrity possible in the first place). The class was significantly buffed multiple times.

Were things like Liberator's Vow CD decreases technically buffs? I mean sure, but really they were just QoL improvements to make them actually align with the Mantra CD with Alacrity and Weighty Terms in mind, which Anet failed to consider with the release version of CD, leading to awkward gameplay of having to count seconds since last Mantra usage in your head to hit the Trait CD, even though the Mantra long recharged.

It wasn't a buff aimed at making the profession stronger or to compete with Chrono, nor one it needed to keep up Quickness. Just QoL.It didn't change it's (lack of) competitiveness with Chrono at the time.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Asum.4960 said:That leaves us with 2 years of Chrono post PoF actively barring alternative Quickness and Alacrity providing supports, which did not, and could not change until Chrono was nerfed - because Firebrand and Renegade both would have to be powercrept to all hell to compete with it.I mean, how would you have buffed Firebrand and or Renegade to possibly compete with both Quickness and Alacrity, focus pulls, boon strip, blink portal skips, tanking, solo CC, and on and on and on in one package?Chrono, both for PvE and PvP was imo the single most damaging and unhealthy thing ever added to GW2 in how utterly broken it was, even more so with it taking Anet 4 years to fix, out of which 2 years saw alternatives come to the game which could never hope to compete.

Players took a long time to adapt to a new meta. Mostly because chrono+druid was familiar and "worked". Firebrand and Renegade were superior almost out the gate on PoF launch, if not shortly after. You don't change a working system unless you have to.

As such it took a complete nerf of chrono+druid BELOW Firebrigade levels to even force a switch in meta. Easily explained in the fact that if a new composition appears which is as good as the old one, there is no reason to change. Why learn and gear new classes and setups when they are equivalent to the old composition? That does not mean that from a pure balance perspective, chrono was in no way gating Firebrand or Renegade. It simply means there was no incentive to switch away from chrono due to balance unrelated reasons.

We are now in a situation where Firebrand+Renegade is superior in 5 man groups, and only outperformed in 10 man content due to the insane utility and might generation (and Spotter) of druid. Ironically it used to be the chrono which carried the druid in the comp, now it basically turned. Outside of 10 player content, chrono+druid is strictly inferior to Firebrigade and has been for a long time.

I do agree on the first part that people are very slow to adapt to new alternatives, even when they are equal and I do think there is value in temporarily crippling the old status quo to highlight the new alternative, but to importantly then revert that once the alternative has gotten traction.Where I disagree with is that Firebrigade could compete with Chrono right out of the gate, especially since there are still many areas where they can't.Old Chrono + 3 DPS + BS (back in the Phalanx Strength days) offered everything that Alacrigade + Quickbrand + 2 DPS + BS does now, and more with things such as superior Blink Portal skipping.The difference is that DPS's have been creeped up since, especially things like DPS Soulbeast with it's insane burst while providing Spotter as well as Frost (and even Reflect), which wasn't available then. If we still had old Chrono with double old Humility and all that, with the DPS's and burst that we have available today, plus all the Chrono skips, there is no way anyone would run Ren+FB, which essentially had to be better in combat supports to make up for their lack of out of combat speed ups (save for some things like Molten Boss skip).

@Asum.4960 said:That was the situation then. Now we are in the situation where there simply is no Quickness and Alacrity alternatives to Firebrand, Renegade and Chrono. The reason they are the only boon supports people want is.. well, they are the only ones that exist, similar to the HoT days when there was just Chrono, and it would have been silly to nerf Chrono then.

If new ones are added and shown to simply not able to compete with Firebrand, Renegade and Chrono, then nerf away, supports across the board way overperform anyway (although that concerns especially some of the ones who don't have Quickness/Alacrity, like Tempest, which are just held down by the simply fact that they don't have Quickness/Alacrity).

Until those alternatives exist further nerfing FB, Chrono or Renegade is utterly pointless though.

What is going to happen is exactly the same for Firebrigade as it was for chrono+druid. IF a new support duo does gets introduced, and that support duo is equal in performance to Firebrigade, there will be no reason for players to switch. As such you can be sure to expect heavy nerfs to Firebrigade once EoD launches. At least to the level of where chrono+druid is now.

Oh I don't disagree, I'm fully expecting old specs to be worthless for potentially years as soon as EoD hits, trying to sell the expansion by invalidating old options.I just don't agree with that approach.

I do think it's fine to overnerf old specs slightly along with the introduction of new ones, just to shake up the meta. But that's imo something that should be readjusted back within max 3 months. The problem with Anet is that they always make changes (that go half way) and then just leave them for years, causing so many specs and builds and alternative comps which just need a very minor push to rot for years.

@Katary.7096 said:

@Asum.4960 said:And that sounds good on paper, sure, but ingame it just means power Spellbreaker (which used to be a viable ~37k DPS) just got deleted from PvE endgame and now people just need to play something else if they want to contribute, and if they enjoyed how power Spellbreaker DPS played, they are just screwed, as Berserker plays quite differently.Meanwhile SPB would be completely fine on ~35k DPS, giving people more viable options in how to enjoy the game.

According to you it would be fine, but with that you have already made the decision, that spellbreaker's advantages are worth about 1,5k DPS when compared to berserker. The question is: Is that true?Not a fan of this attitude that anything that has some baked in defensive mechanic, no matter how minor it might be in practice, can never be relevant in PvE endgame, with everybody just wanting pure glasscannon DPS specs entirely reliant on supports carrying them.Having things like Full Counter, Barrier or (thankfully that attitude is slowly changing on Anet's part it seems) Shroud is not worth giving up 5-8k DPS. It never will be. Keeping a spec purposefully behind by that much bc it has some defense essentially just means that it doesn't exist for organised PvE.I am going to agree specifically in the case of shroud, since taking damage while shroud is active tends to reduce the necro's damage potential. In general though, I think there is validity in considering drawbacks to make up for inherently better defensive options. Perhaps in the case of PvE these could be applied to aspects other than damage output?

Well, if we are just talking PvE, then no, it's not true, since defensive mechanics such as that are worthless.If there has to be a "tradeoff" though, then it needs to be minor at under 2k imo.If Berserker with it's lack of defenses is doing just fine, then it's not worth giving up 8k DPS to play something like Spellbreaker that has inbuild defenses.

At least I personally gladly play a build that does only 1-2k DPS less if I enjoy it much more. But ofc that's entirely subjective.

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@"Asum.4960" said:Well, if we are just talking PvE, then no, it's not true, since defensive mechanics such as that are worthless.From the perspective of what is optimal, yes. But what part of the playerbase has the ability to play the optimal build in a way in which it actually is optimal? How many times does a min-maxed team composition wipe because someone made a mistake, that they could have recovered from with a "worse" comp?If there has to be a "tradeoff" though, then it needs to be minor at under 2k imo.If Berserker with it's lack of defenses is doing just fine, then it's not worth giving up 8k DPS to play something like Spellbreaker that has inbuild defenses.

At least I personally gladly play a build that does only 1-2k DPS less if I enjoy it much more. But ofc that's entirely subjective.That is a reasonable statement. Though especially in the case of power spellbreaker being behind 1-2k in benchmarks would not make much of a difference. Whenever you are looking for builds with good burst, spellbreaker is dismissed right from the start.

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@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Chrono was a problem way before the late Chaos Chrono, and Chrono + Druid where the only viable support choices across all of endgame/coordinated group content for ~4 years, way overshadowing Firebrand and Renegade then and now.The game was getting incredibly stale and something needed to change.No. Chrono was
not
the problem. The problem was in
lack of alternatives
. But when some players were pointing out, that the solution would be to allow for existence of other true support builds that could take its place, most people were too busy shouting "nerf Chrono" to listen. And thus we're back again to the same spot, just with different classes at the stage.

Now we are in a different situation though, and unlike Chrono, which actively kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers (FB and Ren) completely irrelevant bc it was so insanely good and the whole package aloneNo, it kept other Quickness and Alacrity providers irrelevant because, first, up to PoF, there
weren't
any other quickness and Alacrity providers, and later, because FB and Ren builds weren't true full support builds, but hybrid ones (dps/support and/or heal/support), so you needed two of them to replace one chrono, and even then they weren't originally all that good at that.In order to make the switch, in addition to nerfing Chrono over and over again, Anet had to
buff FB and Ren first
. Which is why we're now in a thread asking for FB nerf.

right now there aren't any other Specs that can fill the roles of Quickness or Alacrity providers that are being kept down by either Chrono, Firebrand or Renegade.No other options exist. Nerfing either of those specs won't change that.That is completely true. Nerfing doesn't add options, it only removes them. Exactly the same as it was during the Chrono era.

As far as I can recall the only buff FB ever got was a range increase on the Mantras shortly after it's release in 2017, so people don't have to stack as tightly, everything else has been nerfs.As for Renegade, it was the Target Cap increase for Orders from Above from Righteous Rebel, which enabled it for Raids as 10 man Alacrity bot, but didn't change anything for Fractals.

(please do correct me if I'm wrong there though)

Read up on skills bedsides Mantra of Potence. For example on Firebrand, the trait Liberator's Vow received multiple buffs. As did other not quickness related skills/traits. Firebrand+Renegade was superior to druid+chrono on release of PoF (starting November of that year to be exact when OfA was buffed for easy perma alacrity). This was mentioned by myself and others on the forums. It took 3-6 months for "regular" players to adapt, and multiple buffs to both Firebrand and Renegade as well as nerfs to chrono to "encourage" players to switch. I explain why this is the case further on, and why 2 equally strong composition does not make the new composition get adopted.

The same applies to Renegade. Read through some of the trait changes beyond Order from Above (and even that was buffed from 1 second to 1.5 seconds per interval, which makes permanent alacrity possible in the first place). The class was significantly buffed multiple times.

@Asum.4960 said:That leaves us with 2 years of Chrono post PoF actively barring alternative Quickness and Alacrity providing supports, which did not, and could not change until Chrono was nerfed - because Firebrand and Renegade both would have to be powercrept to all hell to compete with it.I mean, how would you have buffed Firebrand and or Renegade to possibly compete with both Quickness and Alacrity, focus pulls, boon strip, blink portal skips, tanking, solo CC, and on and on and on in one package?Chrono, both for PvE and PvP was imo the single most damaging and unhealthy thing ever added to GW2 in how utterly broken it was, even more so with it taking Anet 4 years to fix, out of which 2 years saw alternatives come to the game which could never hope to compete.

Players took a long time to adapt to a new meta. Mostly because chrono+druid was familiar and "worked". Firebrand and Renegade were superior almost out the gate on PoF launch, if not shortly after. You don't change a working system unless you have to.

As such it took a complete nerf of chrono+druid BELOW Firebrigade levels to even force a switch in meta. Easily explained in the fact that if a new composition appears which is as good as the old one, there is no reason to change. Why learn and gear new classes and setups when they are equivalent to the old composition? That does not mean that from a pure balance perspective, chrono was in no way gating Firebrand or Renegade. It simply means there was no incentive to switch away from chrono due to balance unrelated reasons.

We are now in a situation where Firebrand+Renegade is superior in 5 man groups, and only outperformed in 10 man content due to the insane utility and might generation (and Spotter) of druid. Ironically it used to be the chrono which carried the druid in the comp, now it basically turned. Outside of 10 player content, chrono+druid is strictly inferior to Firebrigade and has been for a long time.

@Asum.4960 said:That was the situation then. Now we are in the situation where there simply is no Quickness and Alacrity alternatives to Firebrand, Renegade and Chrono. The reason they are the only boon supports people want is.. well, they are the only ones that exist, similar to the HoT days when there was just Chrono, and it would have been silly to nerf Chrono then.

If new ones are added and shown to simply not able to compete with Firebrand, Renegade and Chrono, then nerf away, supports across the board way overperform anyway (although that concerns especially some of the ones who don't have Quickness/Alacrity, like Tempest, which are just held down by the simply fact that they don't have Quickness/Alacrity).

Until those alternatives exist further nerfing FB, Chrono or Renegade is utterly pointless though.

What is going to happen is exactly the same for Firebrigade as it was for chrono+druid. IF a new support duo does gets introduced, and that support duo is equal in performance to Firebrigade, there will be no reason for players to switch. As such you can be sure to expect heavy nerfs to Firebrigade once EoD launches. At least to the level of where chrono+druid is now.

The biggest changes that made firebrgade meta was the release of diviners armour in Jan 2019 with thunderhead. Before that alacrigade as it currently is did not exist. Before that you had to run a heal ren to get the alacrity to run a quickbrand.

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@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:What is going to happen is exactly the same for Firebrigade as it was for chrono+druid. IF a new support duo does gets introduced, and that support duo is equal in performance to Firebrigade, there will be no reason for players to switch. As such you can be sure to expect heavy nerfs to Firebrigade once EoD launches. At least to the level of where chrono+druid is now.That's a problem with support duos (and, in general, more strict group compositions). They lock the meta too much. You can't simply exchange one element, you need to exchange the whole setup at the same time. This prevents easy switch.If at the PoF launch FB was able to be slotted instead of chrono, and renegade instead of druid, (with the chrono+druid, chrono +rene, FB + druid and FB + rene being all working options, even if not necessarily of exactly the same quality) there wouldn't have been such an inertia to the switch. This (again)
has
been pointed out by quite a number of people even before PoF. But people were too busy being angry at Chrono to notice that being able to concentrate a lot of support options in one build instead of splitting them among many is better, because it allows for a potentially far less restrictive group setup.

Oh I fully agree. It was very funny to watch all those dps players who were angry at chronos demanding they get nerfed, somehow expecting that would free up spots for other classes (a very common misconception back then, one that even with a ton of advice from more experienced players took ages to overcome. I am still amazed how few players understood that nerfing chrono would never have gotten their damage dealer of choice easier access into raids).

There is another problem though: the problem with absolutely interchangeable classes is that the "best" class will mostly get chosen.

There are 2 possible approaches to this:
  • make classes interchangeable on a single class basis, in this case simply expanding the choice of how many classes can provide a certain boon or boonsor
  • make support setups interchangeable with differing benefits maybe suitable to different game modes. As we have it now with 2 core support setups.

Both have benefits and detriments.

Having interchangeable classes makes group setup more flexible, but at the cost of making only the most efficient class desirable (made even more problematic if unrelated issues slip in like ease of play or other utilities) and eventually making multiple classes far more "similar".

Having interchangeable setups makes group compositions more rigid, but allows for actual meaningful difference in classes. This is far harder to balance and poses the risk of making certain classes far less desirable in specific roles (see most "healer" besides druid as first healer in setups). At the same time this allows for specific setups to to excel at different content.

I am unsure what I personally would prefer. I guess this would depend on if we get another set of elites and if here is additional support options with them added. Being a multi class player myself, my primary concern is game play fun and a lot of interesting combinations, not a specific class being primarily important. We will have to wait and see.

The thing is having interchange classes works. We see it work for both the dps role, where people are very accepting of a wide variety of classes on most bosses. And we also see it work with quickness, both quickbrand and stm chrono are treated interchangeably and most groups for most bosses will accept either.

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@Katary.7096 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:Well, if we are just talking PvE, then no, it's not true, since defensive mechanics such as that are worthless.From the perspective of what is optimal, yes. But what part of the playerbase has the ability to play the optimal build in a way in which it actually is optimal? How many times does a min-maxed team composition wipe because someone made a mistake, that they could have recovered from with a "worse" comp?If there has to be a "tradeoff" though, then it needs to be minor at under 2k imo.If Berserker with it's lack of defenses is doing just fine, then it's not worth giving up 8k DPS to play something like Spellbreaker that has inbuild defenses.

At least I personally gladly play a build that does only 1-2k DPS less if I enjoy it much more. But ofc that's entirely subjective.That is a reasonable statement. Though especially in the case of power spellbreaker being behind 1-2k in benchmarks would not make much of a difference. Whenever you are looking for builds with good burst, spellbreaker is dismissed right from the start.

Agreed, yea. I really don't know why Anet felt the need to Nerf it even back when it did 36-37k. I felt like it's ramp up time and lack of cleave was more than enough Tradeoff compared to things like DH and especially DH 2.0 Soulbeast now.

And I do agree ofc that some self-sustain is nice to have in less proficient groups, but with GW2's initial design goal in mind I kind of feel like every spec should have a bit of that (and most do), and I personally don't find Full Counter to be some overwhelming defense compared to what others have that requires some major drawback.

Same with Reaper Shroud, which is, at least in PvE, really just an offensive tool - in which you want to take as little damage as possible because dropping it early is going to drastically reduce your DPS - used as part of the rotation, rather than some extra major defense which you can actively use to mitigate damage/wipes.In fact, it can even screw you sometimes by missing something like the Druid burst healing everyone in CA, after which a Reaper can drop back out of Shroud at low health and eat a mechanic and get downed where others wouldn't have been.

I just don't consider those mechanics worth thousands of DPS as tradeoff, which rather than creating balance just keeps (or kept) those specs out of that aspect of the game.

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@"Asum.4960" said:Same with Reaper Shroud, which is, at least in PvE, really just an offensive tool - in which you want to take as little damage as possible because dropping it early is going to drastically reduce your DPS - used as part of the rotation, rather than some extra major defense which you can actively use to mitigate damage/wipes.In fact, it can even screw you sometimes by missing something like the Druid burst healing everyone in CA, after which a Reaper can drop back out of Shroud at low health and eat a mechanic and get downed where others wouldn't have been.

Yes. The problem with Reaper shroud, and it being used as a justification for "tradeoffs" that lower Reaper dps is that it, in itself, is pretty balanced in the way of advantages and disadvantages. It offers a defensive mechanic, but by using it you sacrifice dps. It offers a second healthbar, but it makes you unhealable when you use it.

Adding any other tradeoffs on top of that is neither necessary, nor justified. It's just a case of taxing someone for the same thing twice. Or actually far more than twice, seeing as this way of thinking about tradeoffs for shroud doesn't stop at keeping Reaper dps lower than it could otherwise be, but also resulted in Necro having a significant lack of other defence mechanisms.

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@"Mellow.7409" said:Nerfs is not fun for anyone (glances at crowd control damage as a Warrior), why not buff underperforming professions instead?

Because profession strength isn't the only thing that matters in the game, there's also the content those professions are used for. If anet want's the content to be cleared faster/easier then they buff the professions to their subjectively set 'line'; if they don't want it to be easier, but insist on moving classes closer to each other performance-wise, then the correct move is to nerf overperforming professions.Claiming that we should just buff everything and everyone will be happy is shortsighted and simply wrong.

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@Sobx.1758 said:

@"Mellow.7409" said:Nerfs is not fun for anyone
(glances at crowd control damage as a Warrior)
, why not buff underperforming professions instead?

Because profession strength isn't the only thing that matters in the game, there's also the content those professions are used for. If anet want's the content to be cleared faster/easier then they buff the professions to their subjectively set 'line'; if they don't want it to be easier, but insist on moving classes closer to each other performance-wise, then the correct move is to nerf overperforming professions.Claiming that we should just buff everything and everyone will be happy is shortsighted and simply wrong.

We need to nerf all classes who deals above 20k on golem

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@Laila Lightness.8742 said:

@"Mellow.7409" said:Nerfs is not fun for anyone
(glances at crowd control damage as a Warrior)
, why not buff underperforming professions instead?

Because profession strength isn't the only thing that matters in the game, there's also the content those professions are used for. If anet want's the content to be cleared faster/easier then they buff the professions to their subjectively set 'line'; if they don't want it to be easier, but insist on moving classes closer to each other performance-wise, then the correct move is to nerf overperforming professions.Claiming that we should just buff everything and everyone will be happy is shortsighted and simply wrong.

We need to nerf all classes who deals above 20k on golem

Let's hope you are joking because this kind of arbitrary threshold and unnecessary changes to achieve it is just as nonsensical as claiming everyone should just get a buff to X DPS.

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Hard nerfs are fine, great buffs are fine. But using both extremes to fix a single problem is too much. I am talking about harshly nerfing build A while also greatly buffing an already "okeyish" build B to make people use build B more often. Has this ever worked out? It usually led to people completely abandoning build A.

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I've never found firebrand to be overpowered but that's mostly based on PvP experience. It's not even just boon corruption that makes them easy to kill because I've killed them on druid too. If it's just that guardians are good at not dying in PvE that makes sense since their specialty is defensive magic and mobs are not particularly smart or creative.

As to @Asum.4960's point that reapers don't have any defense besides shroud, that's not true at all. You probably get more defense from using your self-healing skill than you do from going into shroud.

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@Obtena.7952 said:Nerfs aren't fun? Oh ... so steamrolling everything with faceroll skills is?

Buffs aren't the barrel of laughs you think it would be either. I mean, this game is ALREADY at the threshold of what most people would call not challenging ... but buffs, thumbs up? I don't think so. I mean, at this point really, just give everyone the I WIN buttons and be done with it if we want to push for buffs over nerfs.

The problem is that they do not nerf things in small gradual steps and give it time to get feedback and telemetry stats to check the effect of those changes. They grab the nerf stick and smash builds to the point they are unrecognizable.

Anet sure needs to practice patience and faster reactions (more frequent balance changes in patches, but those changes should be smaller and more gradual).

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@Coeruleum.9164 said:As to @Asum.4960's point that reapers don't have any defense besides shroud, that's not true at all. You probably get more defense from using your self-healing skill than you do from going into shroud.Well, that would just mean that shroud is very, very bad as a primary defence feature of a class, wouldn't it.And the point wasn't that the shroud is the only defensive option. Obviously, it does have self-heal (all classes do). It was about the lack of additional active defence options. Things like evades, blocks, invulns. All other classes have at least some of those (with some classes having more). All except Necro, because someone decided that Shroud (or Barriers, in case of Scourge) is so OP as a defensive measure that no other additional options are necessary. Which is... well, not quite true, to put it mildly.

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