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Any better implementation of attack speed or CDR should be as consistent as possible. I like the ideas that fulfilling certain conditions in fights (ex. Breaking a CC bar) reward you, but it has to be extremely consistent and anticipated. The entire problem of attack speed and CDR as boons is that they lack consistency. Your muscle memory, gameplay, and overall enjoyment are at the mercy of other players. No one likes being thrown off their tempo or suddenly feeling sluggish because of someone else’s actions. It removes agency from the player. These boons are a design disaster, and fixing them will require a lot of work to tune base attack speeds, cooldowns, enemy health, PvP consequences, rotations, etc. The scope of the problem shouldn’t rule out action though! We need patches that progressively tackle those concerns. Not patches that just surrender to the state of things.

Looking to the future, I hope and assume combat features will include new weapon additions to address holes in profession kits. For ranger that would be more condi options. I’d rather get a cool new option than repurpose a support weapon. This change could have future weapon options in mind.

One concern I have with this change is alac application may be fine, but the ease of entering CA will be slowed with our healing spirits and with alac being a priority we will see an increase in situations where CA is not available for emergency healing. This will decrease Druids value as a responsive and flexible healer.

Ain’t that the truth. Maybe working on new combat features and trying to fit them into the tangled web they work with will eventually cause them to throw up their hands and resolve to just purge the system of the offending elements and make everyone’s lives easier.

I recognize the scope of the work necessary. The problem is changes like this patch don’t further that goal. If the devs were iterating in a way that projected an eventual resolution of this problem, then that would be one thing. Balancing the game so every profession can contribute to permanent boons does the opposite however. It contributes to the problem. It operates off the assumption that every profession must be able to give quick/alac permanently because it is acceptable that any profession can. They’ve already surrendered to the idea. It would take a very long time to reach the point where the design of the game is in a workable state, but walking backwards is not iteration.

There is a massive difference in tolerance between something like Might, that affects your damage number, and Quick/Alac, that affects the timing of your rotation and your muscle memory. Those are not things that others should have control over. It is a mess to play around inconsistent attack speed and cooldowns.

CA won't be used reactively and the loss of healing your spirits means the capacity to generate astral energy will be much lower. Especially in double healer comps that the average group runs. On some fights without damage aura you may not have a lot of incoming damage, which means your might and alac falls off. The better your team is at performing and avoiding damage, the worse your capacity to enter CA and give alac will be. These singular traits that give alac are not good ideas and just reinforce how problematic alac/quick are to the game.

Eclipse adding condi to CA creates another problem which is Anet is once again making DPS builds that have lots of free party utility in them. Didn’t they learn their lesson with Firebrand tomes? For the same reason I don’t agree with anyone asking for staff damage buffs. Staff is a support weapon. Ranger does not lack good condi options already. We will have to see how a DPS Druid manages their CA, but this sounds like yet another issue of a DPS build having too much support baked in at no additional cost. What would make sense is if Eclipse changed the CA skills from support to damage ones. You trade the regen, condi cleanse, and heals for damage. You could even give it a new aesthetic like red or a dark purple to spice it up a little.

This is what I see every time I see the devs discuss the need to make boons less obtrusive and less rigid. We continuously dance around the elephant in the room as they make boons less and less of an active presence you have to think about. Maybe the devs should answer the question: why do we do so much to make this system as unobtrusive as possible instead of ask ourselves is the system really worth the effort? If we keep making boons more foolproof then are we really working towards anything meaningful? Would the game not be better off without them?

Boons are too powerful to ignore but are as interesting as food buffs, with the added negative of being tedious to maintain. At least food buffs are a fire and forget for 30 min to an hour. They are oppressive, boring, and have ruined the focus of the game balance. The combat of the game should be focused on the individual, on the unique aspects of nine professions and their specializations. The damage, the healing, and the utility should be what makes each build shine. Instead we live in this world where everything is hyper-fixated on can you give the group X or Y buff permanently. We are glorified jade protocols. It is insane that the devs would not only be comfortable with this but would double down.

A lot has already been said regarding the specific positive and negatives of this patch. All I will add is that in general the balance team should not be posting patch notes with this much vague wording and discrepancy from the livestream. Re-read through it again. How many changes are listed as "gives boons". Do you not know what boons it will give? A skill description should be descriptive, especially when we are talking about rotations, balancing, and uptime. The lack of descriptive language in the patch notes makes it impossible to give good feedback beyond surface level takes. We have almost an entire month until the patch goes live. We have already exhausted our capacity to provide you feedback because you give us so little to work off of.

To everyone advocating for more space for Druid solo DPS in open world, I think that is fine. The argument to be had is regarding instanced PvE content. This isn’t just a personal bias, it’s because Anet’s PvE balance is focused around instanced content where performance in the various metrics of dps, healing, etc are higher. When Anet says they want to enable DPS Druid, that is coming from a team focused on instanced content performance. The trickle-down benefits to Open World just sort of happen. I would be perfectly happy if they targeted Druid DPS buffs towards Open World performance, because that doesn’t sound like it requires such extreme changes. My concern is their current attitude will lead to changes that could warp the cohesive support kit Druid offers into something more bland and grey for the sake of performance. When I look at generic “all-encompassing” designs Anet does like the Harbinger or Vindicator traitlines, I feel that the spec becomes worse for it.

Yeah I definitely don’t want to discount core healing, just it was a big shift when Druid came along as a focused, dedicated healer. Not often. I am totally fine with Druid getting a little bit more love to improve its OW performance. The one issue with this would be if players approach Druid first as a DPS and then learn they are shifted towards a healer role for instanced content. When it comes to PvE balance, the issue at hand really is about instanced content. As many have mentioned, Anet’s balance focus is around 10-man content and the 40k benchmark that so many builds seem to hover around now. When Anet says they want to enable Druid dps, I am not worried about OW. I am worried about buffs around a 20k increase, and the potential changes the Devs may do to the kit in order to achieve that.

DPS Druid is an entertaining idea, particularly for the implications in content like Soulless Horror. Ranger is not lacking in DPS options however. Yes, the existing DPS options for Ranger are not Druid. It is not exactly fitting the fantasy of players who want to be a DPS and a Druid. Anet cannot and should not attempt to cater to every single person's requested fantasy. Player desire will always outpace what is feasible or practical for a developer to do. The two questions at hand are: Does Druid need another DPS option, and will making a functioning DPS Druid compromise the design of the spec? In regards to the first question: Ranger already has Soulbeast as a a very solid option for Power DPS and a respectable Condi DPS option. Untamed has been shelved by Anet until they fix it in June, but its design is clearly another DPS option. In terms of raw dps options, 2/3 of Ranger specs offer 4 DPS options (5 if you count Hybrid Soulbeast). That is pretty good. If we look at dps boon supports, Untamed offers Alacrity DPS. This may change with the June 27th update adjusting how Ranger applies Alacrity. Druid will certainly retain Alacrity to keep it competitive with other healers. What is unclear is if Untamed will retain it. If it doesn't, then adding DPS Druid will push out Untamed as a boon option for the profession. If Untamed keeps Alacrity, it has a simpler build competing for the same job. Either way it loses it's niche. This isn't a common thing for builds. Most Quick/Alac providers are that professions only access to the boon. Warrior will likely be changed too so it's not worth mentioning. Chrono and Mirage both provide Alac but Chrono offers Power DPS and Mirage offers better Condi DPS. I don't see a necessity for DPS Druid because Ranger does not lack DPS options, and adding it pushes Untamed out of it's intended design space. In regards to the second question: Druid has a kit laser-focused on healing. It was the first premier healer of the game. Everything in it's kit blends together to offer you with a strong healing experience. HoT specs in general were (mostly) much more focused on providing a focused, a specialized, gameplay experience. Anet mentioned that they want to give Druid and Tempest improved DPS options. Tempest is a complicated case because Ele inherently offers flexibility in it's design. Druid does not. Which begs the question, will attempting to shoehorn more DPS into Druid's kit compromise it's healing? We have seen this problem with Firebrand. Firebrand is a spec that is overloaded in value. The DPS version had free access to two support tomes. This was insane utility. They had to adjust Firebrand design to account for having access to so much simultaneously. If DPS Druid exists, what happens to Celestial Avatar? Does it now also deal damage? Do you just ignore it and you have a DPS build with insane support utility? Anet will have to change the foundation of Druid's design to make it work as a DPS. I am not confident that they will make a satisfactory solution. I like it when elite specializations are specialized. Attempting to make every spec do everything well goes against their very concept. Should we next advocate for Berserker and DragonHunter healers? June will bring a lot of changes to the game. Hopefully they are good changes. In trying to address Druid as a DPS option, Anet is tackling a problem that does not exist. I would appreciate it if their efforts were targeted at more relevant and pressing matters. Things not addressed in the blog post. Things like the outdated core kits of some professions like Ele and Warrior. Warrior's mess of traitlines. EoD specs with uninspired traitlines like Harbinger. Address the issues we have. Don't create more simply to address them.

I’m totally fine with not going with CD reduction as a profession gimmick. I just don’t approve of the “middle ground” they chose where it’s still busted design but does significantly worse damage for two months until they actually fix it. Nobody wins here.

I won’t even fault them for taking a stab at dps boon supports doing as much damage as full dps builds. It should have happened in June with a proper rework though. Firebrand is fair game since it’s design wise much more sound and just needs numbers tuning. Alacrity untamed is hardly a threat to the game right now even with high damage considering how few people play it.

Untamed was a problematic design due to the entire spec revolving around one GM trait: Fervent Force. This was not a secret, and everyone expected Anet to tackle a rework of the spec. What we didn’t expect was a half-hearted tuning adjustment to nerf the damage numbers of the spec. I understand that June 27th will see a larger patch with more robust changes to class balance. This doesn’t mean it makes sense to implement damage nerfs to “stave off” problematic builds, particularly not when it punches down on specs that already have abysmal play rates. Nobody can honestly tell me Untamed damage was itself the issue when far more popular builds are also presenting competitive damage. CD reduction is shaky ground to design a GM trait around. If the skills are tuned for it, then they underperform without the trait. It doesn’t create a choice. If CD reduction should remain, it should be baked into a minor trait baseline and only work with Untamed skills. This is the type of change I’d like to see in June. I don’t want to see Anet behaving as if the current design is such a huge problem that it can’t wait until June. Problematic build design should be addressed properly and in full. When you do a half-measure on an already underplayed spec, you don’t fix a serious problem to the game. All you do is make a minority of players work with a hamstrung, poorly-designed build for the next two months instead of a poorly-designed build with good damage. My suggestion is revert the Untamed changes so the handful of players using it can enjoy their spec until June, then give it a legitimate and thorough addressing.

Some of the changes are really nice, like fixing the alacrity application on heal tempest. There are two points I'd like to raise though: 1. This patch glosses over the state of supports, both defensive and offensive. Boons in general are a bit ridiculous, as are the supports that vomit them out. The problem children are alacrity and quickness. These boons are so crucial, but the application method across classes is inconsistent and leads to degenerate gameplay for some builds. Spamming skills without concern for their intended purpose, just to keep up alac or quick permanently, is never satisfying. These boons are too strong to ignore, but applying them is not fun. Stab and Aegis are an arms race as well. Builds are getting stuffed with them, yet few can still compete with Guardian. I don't see anything in this patch to fix spamming gyros, spirits, facets, banners, wells. This patch does not address the glaring elephant in the room for PvE balance: Supports. 2. I liked that the last patch made Firebrand changes the focal point. I want more patches that take a deep dive into overhauling specific professions. Core professions are old rotten foundations for the current builds. Some professions have insane core utility and value like Mesmer or Guardian. Warrior is not one of these. Warrior core trait lines are messy and don't make much sense anymore. Why are Defense and Tactics being stacked with damage modifiers? Why are banners still traited on Discipline? Warrior utilities are similarly outdated. Banners are a horrendous skill design. Warrior exists in 2012. It needs to be given a make over that is not only reasonable in the modern game, but one that makes sense and feels like the design choices are driven by a cohesive vision, not simply overloading the profession with damage modifiers.

Summarizing my thoughts on the Ele scepter changes better: Ele needs versatile weapons, or weapon swap. Ele doesn’t have weapon swap because it has the attunements. The attunements are supposed to offer flexibility. This means that weapons for Ele can’t be as focused as for other professions. Especially not when Ele has so few weapons. I don’t like the change to water trident or dragons tooth because it makes the weapon dead for heal tempest. I wouldn’t consider giving any Ele build fewer options to be a good thing. The profession already has few to start with. If we compare this to Engi, they have kits which decreases the issue of narrow weapon options. Perhaps improving conjures could fill the space attunements lose, but just narrowing the scope of Ele weapons isn’t a good change. Also please fix the method and ease of boon application for non FB/Mech supports please. I really don’t want to wait till January or whenever for these builds to be remotely enjoyable. Spamming my skills regardless of their function is the opposite of reactive and fun gameplay.

Calling Ele scepter a dps weapon is odd since Ele inherently offers flexible weapon choices with attunements. It would make more sense to buff the fire/air side of scepter and let water remain a supportive element.

I hope the additional changes not listed include more general changes to boon application. The utility spam many builds do to apply boons is not fun. Looking at these changes I don’t see anything that makes Herald or Tempest more enjoyable to play. I understand that you want to be iterative in how you change builds, but the QoL of the majority of the boon builds in the game should not wait on you fixing FB and mech first.

I wanted to go deeper on the "Minimize Bad Choices" section. It's really good to mention that there are synergies in the game and it should be encouraged to use those synergies. I think labeling weapons as power, condi, support, hybrid, etc would help with that. What I want to mention is that this section is not only about making existing things safer options. It's also about recognizing how the game is full of traps. The variety of the buildcraft is often praised, but how varied is it when a lot of it is bloat and bad choices? I think minimizing bad choices also means cutting down on useless stat combos that never see play in any context. It means assessing runes and sigils. It means assessing if runes should even be a six-stack system (can't think of a single context where you want different superior runes). The game is diverse because the game is bloated. Cut down on the bloat and you cut down on traps that lead players down bad paths. This is as important as improving things. We don't need FFXIV levels of the game has one gear stat your job gets, but lets not pretend the current variety is entirely helpful.

Voted for something new, but really I want new core weapons for existing professions. Give every elite spec something new to play with. It's also much more realistic than the balance and information nightmare that would be adding an additional 9 specs.

This is a strategy worth highlighting if the system is to remain as is. I agree it’s not the most viable strategy given that ascended drops aren’t easily sacrificed for the average player.

Making the hoop easier to jump through doesn’t remove the question of why it exists in the first place. As I said, improving the system to instantly salvage what you craft only highlights the absurdity of the action. Why must we craft something to then salvage it to then get a currency to buy what we want? Why can’t there be a more direct path of sinking materials?