Flacki.3075

I agree with yournotion of the powercreep since HoT and also with the need of actually adressing WvW as a whole, and imho separating it from PvE and PvP alltogether to actually start having a reasonable foudnation for balancing it. Currently the hassle is that PvE always get's affected for the sake of WvW cnahges, which in my opinion is not a good thing to do, as both gamemodes to really emphasize different apsects to heavily (raw dps over sustain and defences).

You are confltaing things here. The problem with conditions and how people can adequately handle them is a systemic issue, that has nothing to do with conditions and how those, in every game on the market btw, function. Also, you precisly pointed out, how certain classes in combination with the gear are OP, and then try to equate the symptom with the problem. Revenant is and was strong, if not broken before, just like FB and Scourge are overwhelmingly above the other classes. But that does not come from the gear. As i stated before, the gear only exaggerates what already was an issue. And no, Ele with celestial gear was a short situation. Look where Ele is now, even "with" celestial gear. Because they adressed Ele and ruined it. Like they nerfed Warrior because it's to binary when able to one-shot people. The real problem, to be honest, was that Ele had access to stacking Burning easily and that this condition was overtuned. For PvE even, every benchmark will showcase, that a dedicated set of gear will be better and above any set up using celestial on the same class/build for various threshholds like either dps, healing, boon uptime etc.

Is it the defensive stats that are the problem in WvW? Or is the actual problem still the conditions and the mediocre options of handling them? Conditions reigned supreme for a long time and had to be adressed a couple times. They're still strong. As in ANY game where you have "x over time" effects, conditions are easier to utilize than direct physical hit damage for obvious reasons, especially in WvW. If we'd buff physical damage again, we'd end up, once more, in a spot where burst one-shot builds will be over represented and then not only making the need for heavily denfence emphasizing gear even stronger, but bringing back the complaints of this not being an engaging gameplay scenario because of it's binary outcome. It's not the gear per sé that is so problematic, but the conditions and how they can('t) reliably be countered (by everyone). And no, celestial was so underwhelming before the last buff, that nobody even remotely put into consideration this stat selection existed at all. Because other stats have been, and will be again, better overall.

This is exactly what i was saying in regards to which classes actually can utilize celestial stats and that all the other classes do NOT have anything to gain from it. Celestial is not a stat group which enables builds, it amplifies those classes which always have been about utility and had a spread out tool kit. But only because Revenant currently is OP anyways, celestial is not the problem, it exaggerates the problem with Revenant. Same with Guard. Just because celestial gear really shines on the boon puke with Guardians does not mean celestial is the problem, it's the class and how it is build. Same with Necro right? Scourge has been complained about of having to much support whilst also being able to provide decent dps. Here we have a class which does not really profit from celestial but everyone acknowledges that the class is inherently to strong due to the way it is currently designed. My point is still, that you're to much emphasizing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. First, it's not the celestial stats, but the design of the classes which is borderline, so nerfing the gear would be a bandaid solution again, whilst the op classes still will be very strong. Second, nerfing the gear because it is "problematic" in WvW will ...again... result in nerfs for PvE, which does not suffer those problems (you perceive). Third, celestial has been nerfed in the past and it was garbage after that, currently celestial is ok'ish, especially in PvE where benchmarks should show that everything dedicated outclasses it, but the margin is tolerable to sacrifice some performance for flexibilty on some classes (outside of raids and hight tier fractals).. So currently it is a valid option, which will be taken away and furthermore reducing build options. Lastly, even if those nerfs would be coming, what do you think will happen next? People will naturally gravitate towards the next best thing and start using these. For zergs, removing trailblazer or minstrel will not change anything, except the gearing obviously, it will still be blobbs puking boons, maybe they'll focus more on frontloading more dps then, as someone on the thread already mentioned. Amazing. Small scale fighting will still be scuffed, due to how skewed class balance is and how some classes super easily outperform others. Here you're stating those classes, which currently are the typical boon pukes, whilst Engi only shines due to the recent changes to Gyros and the stacking of Superspeed and Quickness. Rev and Guard have been op for way to long, even without cele, so nothing really will change much there, Ele still is an underdog even with the bandaid of celestial on it, and Thief, Mesmer and Soulbeast usually prefer other stats above celestial to actually have enough oomph, but i agree that all those classes "can" benefit from using celestial gear, but will still be supbar to more dedicated gear stats. I said i already before, the problem is not celestial, but that since PoF everyone has got an enormous access to boon spam. Which does get exaggerated in (larger) groups. Just my anecdotal observation: Running celestial on my Firebrand in WvW does not make me a threat to anyone i encounter and i actually am quite glassy and get popped alot by either condi spam or typical burst builds easily. There are so many classes being a hard counter to my build independent of their or mine gear. I can no outheal anything, i can't outrun anything and i am not able to bunker even remotely due to the small amount of vitality and thoughness from the gear. Running with more focused gear tho makes me quite more durable and able to play at least as a supporter to buff allies. In PvE my Firebrand, whilst being a welcome boon supporter, does not break any benchmarks for dps or healing, nor is my boon support long lasting just because i run celestial. Again i would be better off taking diviner's for PvE. Again, you're focusing on the completly wrong things (and imo for the wrong reasons too).

I'll have to disagree on the Celestial point. Celestial actually enables more diversity "overall". Especially in PvE i can utilize with celestial gear the full potential on certain classes, which by default are build to be more broader and utilitarian in design. So Elementalist, (boon)Guard, Engineer do benefit exceptionally from celestial gear due to how spread the skills are over pure hit damage, condition- and boon generation. Chrono and Soulbeast also can utilize celestial to a degree, but in my opinion are better off with different gear to maximize their damage. Celestial overall makes my characters using it always hang behind others who do NOT use celestial but rather dedicated dps set ups, like the zerker evegreen. Alot of classes actually are better off with different stats, primarily in wvw, rather then running celestial. Minstrel in PvE is also rather underwhelming if not specifically build around it. Hizen for example show in his various videos the capabilities of building around minstrel gear, BUT WITH THE PENALTY of loosing a lot of frontloaded damage and needing to invest a lot of time into encounters. In WvW i think primarily the problem is not particular gear stat combinations, but the overall powercreep we have had with PoF and all subsequent balance patches of the boon puke happening. Your request, Vallun, of better balancing small scale encounters by just removing and outright nerfing those stats to "try" to make those secenarios (for you?) more appealing is kinda weird, especially after you putting out so many videos over the last year especially recommending celestial gear. IMHO small scale and zerg fights CAN NOT be reasonably balanced against each other, or even should be affected by each other, by simply removing and heavily nerving stats and therefore should not be measured against each other by bringing up stat sets which are powerfull for just some classes and in just some scenarios but don't actually are relevant for everything else. Nerfing celestial will not only diminish variety and diversity in builds, it will especially hit normal PvE gameplay again, forcing everyone into the same boring maximum dps set up that is available. -------- edit: i have to point out, that even with celestial gear my Elementalist is still unbelivable weak and my Warrior does actually fair better with more dedicated stats such as zerker/assa ADN both classes feel extremely left behind compared to the other classes. Engineer with Scrapper only feels good enough for me currently becuase i love jack of all trade builds and utility and the ~recent changes to the Gyros makes it play really better than all those years before. Still, if i'd want to play something with more oomph adn being able to just mow through content, i'd just choose another class on zerker gear and be done with it.

What i just thought to myself. The first crashes started for me after the Beta launched and people started popping into our squads and maps with the new specs. Might some of the particle effects on the new abilities be a culprit for this, as the crashes do have the typical signature of a memory leak induced crash. Unitl the new specs showed up i had zero crashes, especially as all the mentioned conditions in the original post do not apply to my case (and many others as reddit and this post do show).

I don't have 30+ characterslots, did not have dx11 enabled BUT do play in windowed fullscreen. No Addons or Overlays active and used. Several other players too in my squads today had the same hard crashes to the desktop. After several crashes i tried playing with dx11 enabled as some player recommended it, but still got crashes as before. As the game crashes without the usual error handling, how might i be able to provide usable information for analysis?