Karagee.6830

Right, so you seem to be saying you don't care about other Mechanists apologists and their sob stories, as you call them, but you do care about everyone else's. Seems like a nice, fair and non-contradictory place to be in, indeed. Let's just agree that Mechanist and FB both need to be nerfed in line with every other spec and that AA dps builds need to have a significantly lower output than people pushing buttons and then, when we can compare apples with apples, we will talk about where support builds should be, where pure dps builds should be and how much lower, compared to them, AA builds should be. But let me just say this: a 20% damage gap between benchmarks for dps builds like untamed or catalyst and AA builds is nowhere near enough. 45% is more like it (so 40k top dps and 22k AA builds). As I said, that gap is much smaller in group play and you certainly don't want a 20% benchmark gap to turn into a 10% or smaller gap in actual gameplay.

solar

Define average skill. Most dps builds were in the region of 38k dps before unique buffs were removed. That means that average skill builds according to you should be around or above 31k dps. LI builds should be 30-40% below high intensity builds...on benchmarks. LI builds have typically a much lower gap between golem and actual performance since there is no rotation and there are literally no mistakes that can jeopardise the dps output. Pure support should also not be fully automated and require no trade-offs when selecting traits and what utility to bring to the table. So we have a problem. The correct way to balance this is to make specs viable at an entry level and being able to carry the party at elite level (for example because an elite player can drop some trait in order to bring extra utility and still perform at good level in other aspects when he shouldn't due to traits). Currently you have 2 specialisations able to carry as support no matter what the skill level of the player is. And yeah, we agree about build and trait choices having to be relevant, but that is exactly the problem we currently have with Mechanist and Firebrand that are designed NOT to have trade-offs and while I can sort of understand FB (because in its case it's the core elements of the class that lead to this), I cannot understand how Mechanist was allowed to be introduced in its current form (because it's not core Engi leading to this, but only Mechanist design).

try this

Oh can you? Because we have people in this thread trying to convince how bad Mechanist dps is and how it has been nerfed constantly while warrior is a top-3 dps spec. Btw Mechanist representation is...growing.

All understandable. What is your solution? Have a server like BB for Germans? Be careful what you wish for and just know that you will have to take the bad with the good...also it seems most german servers don't like each other for some reason. I think language barriers are overblown in WvW. When I put up a tag (typically I take pity on the people playing on my server that are getting farmed as we're outnumbered everywhere, but I run in a small party all the time with the same guys) some people who join, never say anything in chat, never reply to direct questions etc. and they are supposed to speak English. I have no idea why, they never say anything, but still follow and help, as long as it suits them. You can link most things in group chat and people will understand, even if they don't speak your language. I have joined groups of French players before, where I was the only non-french, and my usual night group joined Virdo's (German, above) during an Alliance beta testing. I don't think we talked much in the hour and a half of roaming we did together, we probably even kept separate groups, and it was still very enjoyable and were able to roam together without problem including switching maps etc.

It is a pretty good indicator. And if you go back and look at scoring and K+D you will understand that lopsided K+D never have a close score at the end of the week (even when the D side of the equation is driving the participation of a particular server). It is hard to extrapolate between different tiers because if my enemies stop playing the overall match K+D will deflate. So you also need to check different weeks and matchups to draw some intelligent conclusion, but in T1 and T5 you also have 2 teams that do not change from one week to the next which helps comparing. For example top K+D this week is the double bandwagon: GH+WSR with 89k while Gandara+FR is second at around 80k, but it's hard to tell whether that gap is real or whether it was the effect of GH having more sizeable opponents. Generally speaking you see more activity the closer you get to T1 especially after a few weeks, which is understandable. Checking people coming to a map does not give you an indication of participation anyway. I can go to green border, take a camp, sentry and move to blue border within one tick. How are you going to count me once? It's just not possible. Not to mention when I port to grab 25 supplies because it's faster than travelling on the map I'm on. It would be great if Anet could give us a visual indication of how full a map is with people from our team tbh. Even for people who are outnumbered it makes sense to stick together and that would help as not everyone is active and responsive pn team chat.

1 people? What server do you play on? There are hundreds of active players that do this. At the very least these players desert a server with no link for 2 months, but more often they affect the population of their 'main' server as convenient and in an semi-organised way when needed (i.e. before relinks) without having to stop playing. And yeah changing tactics, moving claims (it's possible), spying (don't even need to log on alts to do this tbh) is all trivial. I'm with Mabi here that population manipulation is a much bigger issue and we both play, me and him, on servers that often draw the short straw and spend 2 months unlinked, while really not seeing in our day to day wvw the population imbalances that Anet's system so evidently implies. It's a similar thing to transfers without the gem payment if you will.

This is a borderline ignorant post. Benchmarks need to be understood before we can have a meaningful conversation (and for bsw 39k benchmark a lot should be said about the large overkill damage, which is the only reason that benchmark is 39k and not 37k even in the golem set conditions). The relationship between benchmarks and performance in group content also needs to be understood before we can have a meaningful conversation (and bladesworn is also a prime discussion candidate in this respect). Just looking at benchmarks in a silly way and out of context would have also told you Ele as a class has been fine for years when it had almost 0 representation. And note that this is not a problem of player skill, it is a problem of class design. When you are ready to accept why high golem benchmarks can be misleading, do not translate into similar damage in raid situations more for some builds than others and, most importantly, don't translate in class representation, then and only then we will have that discussion. Perhaps 99.9% of people playing this game, me included, are idiots and warrior and ele should make up 50% of raid parties instead of Mechanist and Firebrand. 28k with 0 apm (which you seem to have decided to ignore altogether) is not ok. It. Is. BUSTED. It's an aberration that should have never been allowed to be. And it was 32k a little more than a month ago. And yes Mech and FB are broken classes that must be brought to the level of all other specialisations, because unlike EVERY other specialisation they both get way too much stuff having to give up NOTHING. If you dwarfed their damage or healing by 20%-25% they will still be superior due to the utility they provide with no drawback (whereas the rest of the field need to decide and pick specific traits which are typically mutually exclusive). Edit: I have been a bit too hyperbolic there. Let's say 10%-15%.

Don't confuse management with the actual devs coding the changes like solar. He was aware his changes were bad and would have generated enough salt in the playerbase to fill an ocean. He said it himself. Besides, other than culpability there is negligence and incompetence and there's no doubt grouch, cmc and even solar fall more into these categories than doing a bad job on purpose...

This is all very well said. And if they don't realise that things like timed aegis, timed stab or reflects, timed cc, using burst when appropriate etc are bread and butter then there is only one direction this game is going to go. Boons are the same btw. The current trade-off for 100% alac and quickness is just risible for specs like HAM and QFB. It requires no strategy or workaround, just get the spoon fed solution Anet is oppressively pushing on everybody.

False. What I'm asking is exactly the definition of making the game better for everyone...bar mech and fb stans. So yeah, the game will be worse...FOR YOU, who like the current lopsided imbalance, the worst ever seen in pve in the history of gw2. Sure, buff every other quickness and alac support in the game to bring it above the current level of Mech and FB and then buff all autoattack builds to do 25k afk dps possibly all ranged because why not. I'll still be waiting when gw3 is going for the first expansion.

Nah just nerf mech both dps and especially alac mech into the ground and far below other alac providers and dps builds that require to press buttons. Then nerf hfb and qfb far below other quickness providers. Mission accomplished: Anet for once would have produced a patch with some semblance of balance. None of the other specs are so mindbogglingly op or braindead, so this would be addition by subtraction on a massive scale.

I'm being realistic here. As other have said, it beggars belief they never changed this madness for so many years.

You know what creates a community (probably the only one left of a pretty good size)? The fact that you get screwed over and over and over by Anet with no link and that triggers a mentality of us v everybody. The only thing we ask is: if you give us no link for 8 months (8 weeks pffft), at least have the decency of not locking us thoughout that period. There are 2 quick fixes for this: remove 3 or 4 servers (depending on whether you want BB to be alone) or make 3 servers all like BB (i.e. always unlinked but also always open). Transfers should be managed very differently of course and this can be done irrespective of the overarching game mode structure. When I saw they are thinking about transfers in alliances I genuinely wanted to throw up. They never learn...

Don't worry: that's normal for dawdler, but it may yet get much worse from here.

Mech was literally 32k full afk (and 37-38k pressing buttons) after the 28/6 patch. There are videos and logs of this. So if you say they have been nerfed by 2k a couple of times... Bladesworn's bench is just silly because it takes 5 extra seconds to kill the golem than any other spec doing the same dps and then does 200k overdamage (this is not quite the same as the 4 million damage mark lining up with a burst, this is actually a 5% useless damage, in 95% practical situations). Besides bsw only did over 50k in betas and guess what: bsw was nerfed and mech significantly boosted from beta to Eod.

Yeah the plan is having classes that are staples in every MMO like warrior and mage/elementalist be unusuable while weird classes like the 'engineer' with a large green robot are everywhere. Great plan. Exceptional even. Steam will pick up casuals not hardcore raiders coming from other MMOs. Casuals pick classes based on theme and personal preference and typically invest in a single character. So what do you think will happen after several months when the people playing ele, warrior, ranger, thief etc. realise they may need to reroll, start from zero and play a class someone else tells them to, if they want access to more challenging content? Imbalance and gross imbalance like we are currently seeing (in fact this is the worst it's ever been as the concentration is similar to HoT release, but you now have 27 elite specs compared to 9 back then) is just really bad for new players. It's simply negligence and incompetence on the dev/balance team's part. You can't say we want people to be accepted in groups with the specs they like and then make most of those specs either bad or garbage. People won't be accepted just because you say and hope so. It's up to Anet to make Mech+FB drop from 4-5 spots in your average raid party through balance changes, words are cheap and useless in this regard. Boosting 25 other specs is also not feasible, at least not in the short term. So just nerf support Mech and FB in intelligent ways to bring them in line with everything else (i.e. force the trade-offs every other spec has).

That would also work, but in a system with 5 tiers you may end up with the most overstacked server in T2 on the last week of the period despite destroying the competition every week. In any case, any idea to suck more money out of bandwagoners who constantly move is a good idea.

I'm not sure that would nerf their income, if done well.

That's my experience of larger groups too. They will usually repair, look for siege and kill it (if the commander is half decent). I typically look for enemy siege myself before opening a tower/keep and either kill while others open walls or kill it after capping, else I go back for it after taking something nearby if I don't want to miss on the xp.

Max is way more than 290%. Without enrichment, guild potion, food, claim bonus, outnumbered bumper etc: the yellow booster/halloween booster is up to 150% (50% base and 0-100% from killstreak), celebration booster is 100% and special week bonuses are 100%. That's 350% from just 2 boosters during special weeks. In non bonus weeks I think you can also get above 300% but most people will just have just 2 boosters, food, enrichment and guild bonus, so 280% with a 10 killstreak (killstreak can be refreshed by killing anything even random neutral animals). Even so, a camp is 200 baseline for capping, guards are at least 150 (but sometimes much more) donkeys 0-100. A sentry is 120 and a veteran creature event is 200 baseline as well. So you understand that at 280% if you stay and repair the wall on red/greenlake and miss sentry->camp->harpy thats a 670-770 missed xp (you may make the harpy) which with normal boosters is really 1850-2150 (roughly on top of my head) for a 3 minute work. You can't beat wxp from capping (either as a roamer or as a ppt train) by killing players or repairing. That just isn't feasible. Maybe as a scourge in an organised blob looking for fights with other large groups, maybe, but I'm very skeptical as the opponents would need to be pretty bad. In bonus weeks capping SM castle will give you more than a rank from guards, lord and capping alone if you pump all xp bonuses.

Ah yeah the old jug of wxp random drop... On Gandara blobs following a tag are much more likely to repair than small groups of defending roamers. Commanders will ask and people will do it. Also if you have tags, odds are there will be scouts with participation holed up in keeps who can top up and do small repairs.

Frankly I don't care. Any single person who can't play the game will use autoattack Mech builds. Mech has 24.2% spec representation in raids and since you won't take more than 2 HAM per group, you can do the math yourself. Virtuoso has 11% class representation. Nobody is debating there are better dps options than Mech, I happily concede there are many. However, in the end nobody cares that more difficult classes do more dps and perform better than braindead superlow APM mech with plenty of utility. As long as the options are close enough, a large portion of players will take the easier way, especially if it also has more utility. And note that these are not generally scrubs that have never set foot in a raid or strike, these are people with kills in the content.

Well, Teapot works hand in hand with the devs and has a partnership with Anet. We knew who he was, went after him and absolutely nothing strange happened. You can understand the difference between that and the other situation I described, can't you? As I said, I can't spot an Anet employee, so that was all I could offer. So how do we encourage people to repair instead of rushing to the next available target? Because the latter is the logical choice xp-wise. In fact, I have no shame in saying that when I'm on my own I even move before an objective is fully capped, unless I need supplies or kill the guards and move on immediately since you get credit anyway. This is the most logical way to play if you want to maximise xp while pulling all the boosters. Repairing gives subpar xp, does not extend killstreak and it's simply a waste of time right now. Before they removed participation from repairing...it was the same in this respect.