Class HP / Power balancing suggestion

[Jski.6180]

If anet must have class base hp balancing (some classes simply have more hp because they are one class or another) why not have power base work the same way?

This game is very much HP dependent on how well your class can stay alive as most classes have the ability to full heal after a burst hit when some one or npc finds there way though evasion blocks and invabitly that all classes have. Its if you get one shot or not that makes your class a glass build or not. The thing is if your class has high hp to start with you simply get "free" room to go more dmg vs the class with low hp who will need to be an "if hit goes down" build or must give up dmg to not be a one hit build.

Why not let low hp classes be rewarded for this risk?

[rng.1024]

There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

[Jski.6180]

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

[otto.5684]

@rng.1024 If you think HP pools do not matter, next time you play guardian, thief or ele I want you to play without an HP amulet (support guardian does, but with other options that provide additional 5k hp). GL.

Also, there is a strong correlation between performance and HP pools. Except FB support, neither of the low HP pool classes have meta builds. You could argue it is a coincidence, but I would argue that the loss of stats is the main issue these classes face.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Seems like in this game higher hp/sustain classes are allowed to have everything on top but low hp classes get mobility and that's it lmao and if u argue the lower hp classes should be better at anything else,even one thing over the higher hp/sustain classes the non low hp classes ralley to to say nerf the low hp class cuz they have mobility. It's a joke just like it's a joke how the devs have balanced this game.

[otto.5684]

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Seems like in this game higher hp/sustain classes are allowed to have everything on top but low hp classes get mobility and that's it lmao and if u argue the lower hp classes should be better at anything else,even one thing over the higher hp/sustain classes the non low hp classes ralley to to say nerf the low hp class cuz they have mobility. It's a joke just like it's a joke how the devs have balanced this game.

The philosophy of the original designs, low HP pool classes had other major advantages. Ele had high healing and good mobility. Thief had superior mobility. Guardian had great damage avoidance, through blocking and healing. Boons were also a major factor. Guardian and ele had relatively good access to boons that most other classes lacked. That was all nice and dandy in 2012.

2015 started the power creep to damage with the patch that allowed using 3 full trait lines. And this is where we started to see cracks in this philosophy. HoT added to this issue. But PoF in particular made the logic HP pool non-existent.

Quick look at heavy HP pool classes. With the exception of FB support, guardian has the least mobility of three classes. In the good old days that was balanced around guardian having better tools to avoid damage. But now, guardian is much less effective in damage avoidance than SB or herald. You might think cuz guardian is behind in mobility and damage avoidance then they would lead in CC to prevent opponents from dealing damage. And that is the area where guardian is the least effective class. Finally damage and healing. Sure, guardian does really well here, but the margins are too small to justify all the other short comings.

I can do this for thief and ele, but it is really similar. The reasons why all low HP pool classes had the low HP pool is long gone, to the point that sometimes large HP pool class would lead in an area where the low HP class was designed with a low HP pool in result.

HP pools need major revision.

[Jski.6180]

@otto.5684 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Seems like in this game higher hp/sustain classes are allowed to have everything on top but low hp classes get mobility and that's it lmao and if u argue the lower hp classes should be better at anything else,even one thing over the higher hp/sustain classes the non low hp classes ralley to to say nerf the low hp class cuz they have mobility. It's a joke just like it's a joke how the devs have balanced this game.

The philosophy of the original designs, low HP pool classes had other major advantages. Ele had high healing and good mobility. Thief had superior mobility. Guardian had great damage avoidance, through blocking and healing. Boons were also a major factor. Guardian and ele had relatively good access to boons that most other classes lacked. That was all nice and dandy in 2012.

2015 started the power creep to damage with the patch that allowed using 3 full trait lines. And this is where we started to see cracks in this philosophy. HoT added to this issue. But PoF in particular made the logic HP pool non-existent.

Quick look at heavy HP pool classes. With the exception of FB support, guardian has the least mobility of three classes. In the good old days that was balanced around guardian having better tools to avoid damage. But now, guardian is much less effective in damage avoidance than SB or herald. You might think cuz guardian is behind in mobility and damage avoidance then they would lead in CC to prevent opponents from dealing damage. And that is the area where guardian is the least effective class. Finally damage and healing. Sure, guardian does really well here, but the margins are too small to justify all the other short comings.

I can do this for thief and ele, but it is really similar. The reasons why all low HP pool classes had the low HP pool is long gone, to the point that sometimes large HP pool class would lead in an area where the low HP class was designed with a low HP pool in result.

HP pools need major revision.

But high hp class even mid hp classes have high healing and high mobility. I am all for taking away war ability to Nike (a real build for the war class and name they call it) but i am not sure if that the best way of moving forward.

Added note it use to be that trate lines where you got you hp and power but that was removed but with out a rebalnacing to the classes hp and power. The balancing ideals are left overs from that massive trate line update.

[TorQ.7041]

Buff teef!

[rng.1024]

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

[rng.1024]

@otto.5684 said:@rng.1024 If you think HP pools do not matter, next time you play guardian, thief or ele I want you to play without an HP amulet (support guardian does, but with other options that provide additional 5k hp). GL.

Also, there is a strong correlation between performance and HP pools. Except FB support, neither of the low HP pool classes have meta builds. You could argue it is a coincidence, but I would argue that the loss of stats is the main issue these classes face.

I come from the full zerk core era, where I mained thief. In both PvP and WvW. Right now I main elementalist, the squishiest profession in the game. Trust me I know exactly what an HP pool is worth.

What are you talking about? Both those have meta builds (core thief and node-sustain Weaver in PvP), but if you talk WvW then it's like asking why rangers don't have a build for group play. Plus they wouldn't be alone as only Guardian/Necro/Scrapper is meta currently.

[otto.5684]

@rng.1024 said:

@otto.5684 said:@rng.1024 If you think HP pools do not matter, next time you play guardian, thief or ele I want you to play without an HP amulet (support guardian does, but with other options that provide additional 5k hp). GL.

Also, there is a strong correlation between performance and HP pools. Except FB support, neither of the low HP pool classes have meta builds. You could argue it is a coincidence, but I would argue that the loss of stats is the main issue these classes face.

I come from the full zerk core era, where I mained thief. In both PvP and WvW. Right now I main elementalist, the squishiest profession in the game. Trust me I know exactly what an HP pool is worth.

What are you talking about? Both those have meta builds (core thief and node-sustain Weaver in PvP), but if you talk WvW then it's like asking why rangers don't have a build for group play. Plus they wouldn't be alone as only Guardian/Necro/Scrapper is meta currently.

Ele does not have any meta builds. Weaver is viable, but definitely not competitive. Core thief is kinda meta? Maybe.. It definitely could be used competitively, due to SB 5, but that is about it.

[Jski.6180]

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

[rng.1024]

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

low hp was fine until the xpacs hit... in which we saw ez 25 might and might mods, power/ precision/ ferocity trait boosts, insane coefficient boosts and damage % multipliers, what else... cc spam on steroids, god like sustain, condi clears and condi spam... all is lost.

[Jski.6180]

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Eng is a mid hp class so it too is part of the hp imbalance.

[otto.5684]

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Since stats are minor component in the game, as you mentioned, I want high HP pool for guardian, ele and thief. After all, it does not matter. Does it? DOES IT?

[rng.1024]

@otto.5684 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Since stats are minor component in the game, as you mentioned, I want high HP pool for guardian, ele and thief. After all, it does not matter. Does it?

DOES IT?

Hehe, stats which need to be invested in are alot different from their base values, of which only base health and armor is affected between different professions. Good effort though :p

[rng.1024]

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Eng is a mid hp class so it too is part of the hp imbalance.

You can use any base hp variant you want. You can swap engi for necro in the prevous example, or compare Guardian to Mesmer (more healing oriented), the result is the same either way - that some professions benefit more from certain stats than others, whereof base health is a major deciding factor for the defensive ones. That's without even taking into account how condition damage affects different health values, scaling coefficients or viability as a whole.

But to be fair I get your argument because at a glance it seems unnecessary, however once you start taking traits and available skill types into the equation it starts to spin a out of control. T

hen those two would be the only deciding factor of a builds sustain. The bright side here is amulet choice would matter more since they are no longer needed to cover a deficit, but this too would lead to a locked meta where everyone use zerker f.ex - simply because else you can't kill the squishier professions anymore. A druid running permaprotection would now have direct 33% advantage over a thief at all times, support specs would contribute even less to overall pressure and all of a sudden condition builds require 2x the effort to bring down 7/9 professions, any healing skill would be reduced in efficacy by 50% on average and the balance would more than ever favor the profession who has access to innate boons and effects - something base health is the only prohibiting factor of as it currently stands.

You say some professions get a free build. Why doesn't everyone play them then? Because of roles that need to be filled. What decides your role? Base health mostly. Without it we would enter the tankiest node-sustain meta you can imagine, way worse than in the HoT days where people cap a node and stay there until the game times out. The winners will be the ones who get the first and only kill.

[otto.5684]

@rng.1024 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Since stats are minor component in the game, as you mentioned, I want high HP pool for guardian, ele and thief. After all, it does not matter. Does it?

DOES IT?

Hehe, stats which need to be invested in are alot different from their base values, of which only base health and armor is affected between different professions. Good effort though :p

Is this English? Cuz not one sentence here is coherent or makes sense. Try agin buddy. Please In English next time

[rng.1024]

@otto.5684 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Since stats are minor component in the game, as you mentioned, I want high HP pool for guardian, ele and thief. After all, it does not matter. Does it?

DOES IT?

Hehe, stats which need to be invested in are alot different from their base values, of which only base health and armor is affected between different professions. Good effort though :p

Is this English? Cuz not one sentence here is coherent or makes sense. Try agin buddy. Please In English next time

Nah, I'm good ;) You can safely ignore it if you are having issues.

[Nimon.7840]

@Jski.6180 said:If anet must have class base hp balancing (some classes simply have more hp because they are one class or another) why not have power base work the same way?

This game is very much HP dependent on how well your class can stay alive as most classes have the ability to full heal after a burst hit when some one or npc finds there way though evasion blocks and invabitly that all classes have. Its if you get one shot or not that makes your class a glass build or not. The thing is if your class has high hp to start with you simply get "free" room to go more dmg vs the class with low hp who will need to be an "if hit goes down" build or must give up dmg to not be a one hit build.

Why not let low hp classes be rewarded for this risk?

What risk?Low hp classes have a lot of evades or blocks or general mobility.

The only class that would get hit and nerfed super hard by this would be necro that has no defenses other than his healthbar (and his "second health bar" that isn't a health bar because it degenerates while infight.

If you'd do this you would also have to keep different armor value from different armor classes in mind.

So guard would stay the same as it has heavy armor but low healthNecro would stay the same: light armor but high healthWarrior would be nerfed, high health, heavy armorEle would be buffed, low health, light armor.

Not a very well thought post.

@rng.1024 and @Jski.6180But back to blocks and so on. Would ele then be nerfed because it has a lot of evades? And necro be buffed because it doesn't have a single block or dodge?

Blocks/invuln and evades provide infinite dmg reduction while health doesn't

But please, before making such suggestions, please use your brain and consider, what effect such changes would have for all classes!

[otto.5684]

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Eng is a mid hp class so it too is part of the hp imbalance.

You can use any base hp variant you want. You can swap engi for necro in the prevous example, or compare Guardian to Mesmer (more healing oriented), the result is the same either way - that some professions benefit more from certain stats than others, whereof base health is a major deciding factor for the defensive ones. That's without even taking into account how condition damage affects different health values, scaling coefficients or viability as a whole.

But to be fair I get your argument because at a glance it seems unnecessary, however once you start taking traits and available skill types into the equation it starts to spin a out of control. T

hen those two would be the only deciding factor of a builds sustain. The bright side here is amulet choice would matter more since they are no longer needed to cover a deficit, but this too would lead to a locked meta where everyone use zerker f.ex - simply because else you can't kill the squishier professions anymore. A druid running permaprotection would now have direct 33% advantage over a thief at all times, support specs would contribute even less to overall pressure and all of a sudden condition builds require 2x the effort to bring down 7/9 professions, any healing skill would be reduced in efficacy by 50% on average and the balance would more than ever favor the profession who has access to innate boons and effects - something base health is the only prohibiting factor of as it currently stands.

You say some professions get a free build. Why doesn't everyone play them then? Because of roles that need to be filled. What decides your role? Base health mostly. Without it we would enter the tankiest node-sustain meta you can imagine, way worse than in the HoT days where people cap a node and stay there until the game times out. The winners will be the ones who get the first and only kill.

So you can write coherent stuff :p

First, you say everyone would use zerker, but currently no one does. Zerker, sinister, diviner, assassin and viper are amulets that could be an option for some builds, some of which are currently under performing, like most of thief builds.

Second, "balance would more than ever favor the profession who has access to innate boons and effects," compared to.. now?! You know there is a reason FB, holo, scrapper and soul beast dominate sPvP. All these can stack a significant amount of boons. This problem is not connected to HP pools. It is an independent issue. It needs to be addressed, but it is not caused by current HP pools and should not be a gating for other changes.

Lastly, "Base health mostly. Without it we would enter the tankiest node-sustain meta." This goes directly against your first argument. If everyone is running highest damage amulets (which no one currently does) then why would we have the tankiest meta?! Yes, I could run demolisher on guardian, but thief, Mesmer and rev will run bersker. We will have more options across the board.

In addition, changing HP pools will not be done in a vacuum. There will be other adjustments. Cuz a build like FB support will be ridiculous with large HP pool (even more ridiculous than it currently is). So cutting down FB sustain will be necessary (even without increasing HP pools..). But you would see more FB dps builds and more DH and core guardian builds, which are dead, as balance currently stands. And that is the point. The original purpose of HP pools no longer exists, and it currently limits build diversity significantly.

No one expects this to be easy, or not require time investment. It comes down to devs moving their lazy butts to ensure we have more diversity across the board, instead of barely having 7-8 competitive builds. PoF has fucked balance in so many ways, and drastic measures need to be taken to regain balance and build diversity.

[Jski.6180]

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Eng is a mid hp class so it too is part of the hp imbalance.

You can use any base hp variant you want. You can swap engi for necro in the prevous example, or compare Guardian to Mesmer (more healing oriented), the result is the same either way - that some professions benefit more from certain stats than others, whereof base health is a major deciding factor for the defensive ones. That's without even taking into account how condition damage affects different health values, scaling coefficients or viability as a whole.

But to be fair I get your argument because at a glance it seems unnecessary, however once you start taking traits and available skill types into the equation it starts to spin a out of control. T

hen those two would be the only deciding factor of a builds sustain. The bright side here is amulet choice would matter more since they are no longer needed to cover a deficit, but this too would lead to a locked meta where everyone use zerker f.ex - simply because else you can't kill the squishier professions anymore. A druid running permaprotection would now have direct 33% advantage over a thief at all times, support specs would contribute even less to overall pressure and all of a sudden condition builds require 2x the effort to bring down 7/9 professions, any healing skill would be reduced in efficacy by 50% on average and the balance would more than ever favor the profession who has access to innate boons and effects - something base health is the only prohibiting factor of as it currently stands.

You say some professions get a free build. Why doesn't everyone play them then? Because of roles that need to be filled. What decides your role? Base health mostly. Without it we would enter the tankiest node-sustain meta you can imagine, way worse than in the HoT days where people cap a node and stay there until the game times out. The winners will be the ones who get the first and only kill.

So is hp the balancing tool for def or not then? Is it hp or is it def skills because all classes have def skill in one way or another.

At the end of the day if you have more hp you can build higher dmg every class has there means of saying alive for a moment but your still going to take dmg from reaction effect like retal burning on blocks etc.. things that you cant build for but for say your hp.

An ele thf and gurd should do more dmg because they lack hp that say a war has so these classes most often build with some def in mind. Classes like necro war and ranger can build with raw dmg in mind because they get "free" hp. You can say the same for mez eng and rev but its not as bad from the hp point of view.

As long as only def effect of hp very from class to class the game will always be not balanced.

The more free hp a class has the more zerker meta you will see that why the thing back in the day every one was able to build ok hp and def because of how trait lines worked. If any thing the high hp classes are still stuck in the zerker meta the other classes have to build with hp or some other type of def combo in mind.

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Jski.6180 said:If anet must have class base hp balancing (some classes simply have more hp because they are one class or another) why not have power base work the same way?

This game is very much HP dependent on how well your class can stay alive as most classes have the ability to full heal after a burst hit when some one or npc finds there way though evasion blocks and invabitly that all classes have. Its if you get one shot or not that makes your class a glass build or not. The thing is if your class has high hp to start with you simply get "free" room to go more dmg vs the class with low hp who will need to be an "if hit goes down" build or must give up dmg to not be a one hit build.

Why not let low hp classes be rewarded for this risk?

What risk?Low hp classes have a lot of evades or blocks or general mobility.

The only class that would get hit and nerfed super hard by this would be necro that has no defenses other than his healthbar (and his "second health bar" that isn't a health bar because it degenerates while infight.

If you'd do this you would also have to keep different armor value from different armor classes in mind.

So guard would stay the same as it has heavy armor but low healthNecro would stay the same: light armor but high healthWarrior would be nerfed, high health, heavy armorEle would be buffed, low health, light armor.

Not a very well thought post.

@rng.1024 and @Jski.6180But back to blocks and so on. Would ele then be nerfed because it has a lot of evades? And necro be buffed because it doesn't have a single block or dodge?

Blocks/invuln and evades provide infinite dmg reduction while health doesn't

But please, before making such suggestions, please use your brain and consider, what effect such changes would have for all classes!

I mean war has blocks and evasion so its not a low hp class vs high hp class type of balancing point.

[rng.1024]

@otto.5684 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Eng is a mid hp class so it too is part of the hp imbalance.

You can use any base hp variant you want. You can swap engi for necro in the prevous example, or compare Guardian to Mesmer (more healing oriented), the result is the same either way - that some professions benefit more from certain stats than others, whereof base health is a major deciding factor for the defensive ones. That's without even taking into account how condition damage affects different health values, scaling coefficients or viability as a whole.

But to be fair I get your argument because at a glance it seems unnecessary, however once you start taking traits and available skill types into the equation it starts to spin a out of control. T

hen those two would be the only deciding factor of a builds sustain. The bright side here is amulet choice would matter more since they are no longer needed to cover a deficit, but this too would lead to a locked meta where everyone use zerker f.ex - simply because else you can't kill the squishier professions anymore. A druid running permaprotection would now have direct 33% advantage over a thief at all times, support specs would contribute even less to overall pressure and all of a sudden condition builds require 2x the effort to bring down 7/9 professions, any healing skill would be reduced in efficacy by 50% on average and the balance would more than ever favor the profession who has access to innate boons and effects - something base health is the only prohibiting factor of as it currently stands.

You say some professions get a free build. Why doesn't everyone play them then? Because of roles that need to be filled. What decides your role? Base health mostly. Without it we would enter the tankiest node-sustain meta you can imagine, way worse than in the HoT days where people cap a node and stay there until the game times out. The winners will be the ones who get the first and only kill.

So you can write coherent stuff :p

First, you say everyone would use zerker, but currently no one does. Zerker, sinister, diviner, assassin and viper are amulets that could be an option for some builds, some of which are currently under performing, like most of thief builds.

Second, "balance would more than ever favor the profession who has access to innate boons and effects," compared to.. now?! You know there is a reason FB, holo, scrapper and soul beast dominate sPvP. All these can stack a significant amount of boons. This problem is not connected to HP pools. It is an independent issue. It needs to be addressed, but it is not caused by current HP pools and should not be a gating for other changes.

Lastly, "Base health mostly. Without it we would enter the tankiest node-sustain meta." This goes directly against your first argument. If everyone is running highest damage amulets (which no one currently does) then why would we have the tankiest meta?! Yes, I could run demolisher on guardian, but thief, Mesmer and rev will run bersker. We will have more options across the board.

In addition, changing HP pools will not be done in a vacuum. There will be other adjustments. Cuz a build like FB support will be ridiculous with large HP pool (even more ridiculous than it currently is). So cutting down FB sustain will be necessary (even without increasing HP pools..). But you would see more FB dps builds and more DH and core guardian builds, which are dead, as balance currently stands. And that is the point. The original purpose of HP pools no longer exists, and it currently limits build diversity significantly.

No one expects this to be easy, or not require time investment. It comes down to devs moving their lazy butts to ensure we have more diversity across the board, instead of barely having 7-8 competitive builds. PoF has kitten balance in so many ways, and drastic measures need to be taken to regain balance and build diversity.

First off, giving everyone high base hp will not instantly make every amulet viable. The only thing it will do is increase time to kill, no matter the build/profession. If the 10% lack of damage is what keeps you from being viable on thief, then a zerk amulet won't help in the least.

Second, what is meta now would be even more meta with this change, same goes for already poorly performing professions , simply because they already achieve a balance in this landscape of different healthpools from lowest to highest, infact this would be a direct buff to everything but warrior and necro. What makes you think the meta would shift in any way? Because if everyone becomes a nodeholder, current nodeholders would still rule since they already are better than the other 20k professions. Fewer kills, longer fights and more zerging would be the result. This is what I mean with a tanky meta.

You see now how a zerker will be the only one able to swing fights and rotate? Just because it's advantageous doesn't make it meta.

The moment you bring in a full rebalance then this discussion is no longer about base hp pools, because if it's the end all be all we would end with a more balanced game. Which we won't. In fact we would end up with more broken builds now tgat everyones sustain would go through the roof. Not to mention how much you would lose on having a support in your team, we would see way fewer of them.

You need to think beyond the immideate individual benefit and look at the meta that would form, because right now you don't even take that into consideration. Sure somewhere down the line we could get more balance, but at the cost of extremely boring slow games with every profession feeling alot more the same. Diversity is not the same as viability.

[rng.1024]

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Jski.6180 said:

@rng.1024 said:There are alot more factors at play than just power vs base health.

The more fair option would be to f.ex increase base armor, and then scale it inversely with base health. This would mean low hp character can better negate a burst than a high hp character, who in turn has more health to sustain prolonged exposure to damage.

What I mean by factors is how not all professions have equal access to power based weapon skills, high coefficients or active damage mitigation. What this means is basically with half the power removed, they will either not be able to kill anything no matter what, find ways to get perma mightstacks rendering the change moot or whittle you down anyways.

What's important here is to separate that which is scaleable and that which isn't. If warrior can kill you with a 2 shot combo, increasing it to 4 doesn't necessarily mean you'll survive it any easier, it just means he has to work harder - which is starting to become a common theme of core builds f.ex. The point is that if you don't dodge that first cc it's over anyways, so any further nerfing will make no difference, especially as you will be just as squishy.

This game is all about active mitigation at this point, 4-5 years ago numbers still could swing fights but not anymore with the powercreep. This is why we get the two camps of those who avoid getting hit by big skills and think the game is fine, and those that try to tank it and is annoyed by the damage. Notice how one is scaleable and the other is not.

But why not let the lower hp class kill faster then the war class whom has high hp?

As for coefficients it seems to over complex balancing when you can just standardize coefficients but have power very from class to class letting the player have much more control over there builds. Also 1 power for one class should be the same effect as another class or your always going to have massive imbalance.

Because the entire point of differing base health is to adjust time to kill to begin with - meaning warrior and necro are supposed to take a while to kill. The reason elementalist, thief and guardian have such a low healthpool, is to promote use of more hybrid amulets. You really want to give support guardian 9k more health? Or a FA ele who can burst from range more defense? Thief with mobility and stealth becoming 45% harder to pin down?

I've been playing with the same idea, that we could uniform coefficients and weapon skill cooldowns for a more predictable outcome. But then let's look at warrior for example, who has quite the low attacks/s. Compared to mesmer, who has fairly high a/s the warrior would always struggle and you create favourable matchups - which is what the expansions were made to remove.

At this point however, it's no longer a change we want to see implemented and a discussion of how we'd like it, in scope and complexity it has become a full rework which is either a pipedream or fit for gw3. The base health difference has been there since launch and I don't see it going anytime soon. It creates risk with using certain professions, diversifying amulets used and allow for multiple roles (with uniform values all would run zerker, if anyone could tank on node they would) which pretty much seems intended, and it gives flavour to the professions. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's the cause of the current balance issues, as it's quite far down the list showcased by how the core game was balanced before HoT.

So the other classes cant use hybrid amulets? Should we lock amulets to classes? And there are builds for all classes in the game to be burstly its just some classes get "free" build in tanklyness to land that burst and not get one shot them self.

The hp class balancing brakes down a lot in this game when you do look at classes who have high dmg build in to there effects but not the lowest hp but has def effect that makes it seems like they should be low hp classes such as mez.

You just simply have classes who can run more dmg then others is what it comes down to purely because of there class having more hp.

Easiest way to demonstrate is how a warrior won't be as effective as engi if both run celestial amulet - and they are designed that way. You can run any amulet, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit just like marauder on warrior is quite the waste.

Yeah you get a free buid in there, but it's intended for them to take longer to kill, it's even reflected in traits and skill flavour - which is the point I've been trying to make all along. This in turn leads to low hp professions to build for added sustain while high hp professions turn more glassy.

Yeah some can build for more damage, but stats are a minor component in this game when it comes to mitigation. You can build full tank and still go down eventually. In the end it comes down to time to kill, how you handle an outnumber and how much you can facetank - all decided by base hp.

Eng is a mid hp class so it too is part of the hp imbalance.

You can use any base hp variant you want. You can swap engi for necro in the prevous example, or compare Guardian to Mesmer (more healing oriented), the result is the same either way - that some professions benefit more from certain stats than others, whereof base health is a major deciding factor for the defensive ones. That's without even taking into account how condition damage affects different health values, scaling coefficients or viability as a whole.

But to be fair I get your argument because at a glance it seems unnecessary, however once you start taking traits and available skill types into the equation it starts to spin a out of control. T

hen those two would be the only deciding factor of a builds sustain. The bright side here is amulet choice would matter more since they are no longer needed to cover a deficit, but this too would lead to a locked meta where everyone use zerker f.ex - simply because else you can't kill the squishier professions anymore. A druid running permaprotection would now have direct 33% advantage over a thief at all times, support specs would contribute even less to overall pressure and all of a sudden condition builds require 2x the effort to bring down 7/9 professions, any healing skill would be reduced in efficacy by 50% on average and the balance would more than ever favor the profession who has access to innate boons and effects - something base health is the only prohibiting factor of as it currently stands.

You say some professions get a free build. Why doesn't everyone play them then? Because of roles that need to be filled. What decides your role? Base health mostly. Without it we would enter the tankiest node-sustain meta you can imagine, way worse than in the HoT days where people cap a node and stay there until the game times out. The winners will be the ones who get the first and only kill.

So is hp the balancing tool for def or not then? Is it hp or is it def skills because all classes have def skill in one way or another.

At the end of the day if you have more hp you can build higher dmg every class has there means of saying alive for a moment but your still going to take dmg from reaction effect like retal burning on blocks etc.. things that you cant build for but for say your hp.

An ele thf and gurd should do more dmg because they lack hp that say a war has so these classes most often build with some def in mind. Classes like necro war and ranger can build with raw dmg in mind because they get "free" hp. You can say the same for mez eng and rev but its not as bad from the hp point of view.

As long as only def effect of hp very from class to class the game will always be not balanced.

The more free hp a class has the more zerker meta you will see that why the thing back in the day every one was able to build ok hp and def because of how trait lines worked. If any thing the high hp classes are still stuck in the zerker meta the other classes have to build with hp or some other type of def combo in mind.

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Jski.6180 said:If anet must have class base hp balancing (some classes simply have more hp because they are one class or another) why not have power base work the same way?

This game is very much HP dependent on how well your class can stay alive as most classes have the ability to full heal after a burst hit when some one or npc finds there way though evasion blocks and invabitly that all classes have. Its if you get one shot or not that makes your class a glass build or not. The thing is if your class has high hp to start with you simply get "free" room to go more dmg vs the class with low hp who will need to be an "if hit goes down" build or must give up dmg to not be a one hit build.

Why not let low hp classes be rewarded for this risk?

What risk?Low hp classes have a lot of evades or blocks or general mobility.

The only class that would get hit and nerfed super hard by this would be necro that has no defenses other than his healthbar (and his "second health bar" that isn't a health bar because it degenerates while infight.

If you'd do this you would also have to keep different armor value from different armor classes in mind.

So guard would stay the same as it has heavy armor but low healthNecro would stay the same: light armor but high healthWarrior would be nerfed, high health, heavy armorEle would be buffed, low health, light armor.

Not a very well thought post.

@rng.1024 and @Jski.6180But back to blocks and so on. Would ele then be nerfed because it has a lot of evades? And necro be buffed because it doesn't have a single block or dodge?

Blocks/invuln and evades provide infinite dmg reduction while health doesn't

But please, before making such suggestions, please use your brain and consider, what effect such changes would have for all classes!

I mean war has blocks and evasion so its not a low hp class vs high hp class type of balancing point.

If you honestly believe a thief f.ex is supposed to trade blow for blow with a warrior, then I'm not sure what game you are playing. Yes hp is the major balance factor.

Take a look at meta warrior - do you really feel it builds for excessive damage? Or meta scourge for that matter?

No it wasn't the old traits that kept things under control, it was less AoE, less range, harder to achieve might stacking and fewer defensive options, as well as less spammy damage introduced with elite specs which just added upon weapons. Why would there be a zerker meta you think? More defense would still win out if we increase people's health, even moreso because instead of going up against someone with 25% less health but an amulet with 20% more toughness, you would now be up against someone with the same health as you but 20% more toughness - meaning unless you do 20% more damage (which is way more than from zerker to marauder) then you will by numbers alone already lose if you trade blows.