graishak.5406

firstly, builds with those stats sometimes become ok in group play even if niche, eg i played a bit of alac ren with diviner and i think wanderer gear for a bit of survivability some while back. Then alac willbender, tho it may not need that much boon duration. Secondly, there is a reason Minstrel is the one really strong option with concentration. it pushes out all other options. One could choose to get a boon build with a good amount of concentration, sacrifice your damage options for boon traits/skills and a bit of HP, and maybe end up with a glass cannon build that has 60% of the dps of a pure damage build with good boon output. Or You could just get Minstrel, get all the support options, now you are a full healer + boongiver and even act as a dps sponge for your group. why would you choose the former instead of just making the boonbuild into an additional support when you have a choice. the dps isnt that impressive so just get a damage dealer that does not sacrifice much and get a healer that can pick up every support choice cause it does not need to make sacrifices like that. You would only ever not pick minstrel here if the spec does not really support a heal build. as i see it you cant get around changing minstrel stats to fix them, unless you were to make concentration or healing power next to worthless same for cele, it was balanced around 7 stats, the 2 new were free stuff it didnt need in wvw. unless you make conc+exp pointless, it has more power than is fair. if concentration was nerfed, i guess people would just swap to runes with boon duration, which are the same in pve so you would not nerf - 25% from runes, 10% from sigil, and most boons overcap anyway and are removed by strips so that extra bit of duration may not make a big difference. Worst case this could make people run double stab bot again, if there was a hard nerf here i would hope for a +stability duration rune at least cause i dont want pirateship either and that way you sacrifice stuff for stab uptime.

both relics affect allies afaik so i dont see a difference between support/selfish here, just that one shuts down all condis for seconds(unless there is heavy boonstrip, which you cant count on) and the other affects condis just in the moment heal is used

i dont like how common resistance has become now. new relic of resistance may give an uptime of 40% with little investment for such a stong boon, and a clearly better option than febe. having it up for your push is perfectly fine, but perma resistance should be a bigger investment. it isnt as prevalent as the likes of prot, so it should be possible for it to stay rare, else soft ccs become meaningless. also nerf supports, i dont enjoy the wvw meta

yes, boons would need a lot or balancing. i just dont think anet will ever put in that much efford(not blaming them, it would be a lot) so i proposed a bandaid solution

the reason why nerfing concentration/boons would do nothing for the design issue i laid out, is that if boons are nerfed in order to kill a minstrel in a reasonable amount of time, then non tank builds are equally effected. Minstrel gives about an increase in armor of about 60%. you would need +60% damage to counteract that. if you turn that damage at marauder builds, i guess they would just melt without much counterplay, and they would need to blanket nerf damage to compensate and we are back to unreasonably tanky healers. i would like to be wrong here, but it just feels like people give an overly simplistic solution -. i dont think like 15% less boon duration would solve the issue here.

i think the people critizising this because they see higher concentration are missing the point a bit. i didnt propose this to fix the boonmeta - i want fighting groups that have a lot of healers to be more engaging by introducing risk. my issue here is with the design of supports that combine the roles of tank, healer and boonsupports. Minstrel's statspread is just so optimal that healers get everything they could want and as such is unhealthy and pushes out any other stats that have heal. And any Fallout introduced by more boon duration can fixed by adjusting concentration, like pointed out, or adjusting durations/cooldowns. which i also want, but that is something already discussed to death so i dont want to talk about that.

I suggest modifying the Minstrel gear stats by changing it from a 4-stat combo to a 3-stat combo, with a focus on maintaining its support-oriented nature. The proposed stats would be: ++Healing Power +Toughness +Concentration Alternatively, vitality could be swapped with toughness. The intent is to address the current state where support/healer builds can be overly tanky. While it's reasonable for support roles to have some level of tankiness, the current setup feels disproportionately defensive, given the extensive utility they already provide (heals, cleanses, boons, etc.). The goal is not to eliminate support tankiness but rather to introduce a more balanced trade-off. As it stands, encounters often involve highly resilient support builds, leading to fights feeling less interactive. The proposed adjustment aims to maintain the support's defensive capabilities while ensuring that the extra tankiness comes at a reasonable cost. Ofc boons are a big reason why those builds are so tanky, but i dont think boonspam will be resolved by a few small changes so it wont happen for quite some time, and even if - the survivability discrepancy between dps and supports should not be this big.

i do like the the idea of the axes, i would like to have that aoe/cleave niche filled, but i am really afraid this looks like another weapon that will be hardcountered by reflects. it would be really sad if this ends up unplayable in wvw.

i have many similar pain points with specter. in wvw the shroud hardnerf was not compensated for at all and it is hard to maintain shroud so i would like some over time barrier gen to counter some of the unavoidable damage there, preferably an effect like necro blood bank while in shroud they should make ally target siphon give half of the SF, and give the steal traits some on-ally effect. it feels pointless since the res trait is gone. also, would need some traits, preferably in core that work well with specter to remove (soft cc)conditions, e.g. give the prot GM also a cleanse when you apply prot

looking forward to play with the new life leech torment trait. the new SoS gm trait looks like a really boring pve trait, just condi, not power and doesnt change gameplay at all. Shallow Grave doesnt give meaningful cleanse, which specter still lacks. lack of cleave, RWV does not scale well with numbers(maybe it can be changed so that one stack applies to a whole strike?) would like some actual effects on ally siphon now that the res is gone. ideally added to all the steal traits that wouldnt give anything for it. Stealthing the ally, stunbreaking, gaining shadow force, maybe downed teleport if res is too much, or even just a few stacks of venom. the ally targeting part seems bland now, and i never use it anymore.

i still have problems with specter. in wvw, your shroud will still melt to passive damage. would like something to offset low random damage, like some barrier self generation while in shroud, or just damage reduction at least. i dont mind getting kicked out by a spike, but arrow cart fire should not make shroud that hard to use. damage is just condi, which is unusable in wvw. would like to see condi damage traits converted to all damage traits, since a condi/support based spec may not merit a whole line of power traits. also, like the idea of rot wallow, but since condi wont work in wvw, i would like some decent life leech scaling with power on it. Quick ideas for traits like that: all damage increased vs movement impaired foes. gain shadow force and remove a stack of stab when you impair a foes movement(master tier). or a general shroud trait like Soul barbs from necro. i always thought the torment trait was too specific since it only applies to the scepter. its support being gated behind projectiles(scepter and shroud 1) hurts in wvw. hoped for scepter 2 being made a ground target, because either way, 2 and 3 will compete with one another, and if they fill the same role, you will always press one of them over the other, plus maybe it could be used for cleave damage. lack of unique support, i liked the ranged res in pve, but that seems to be removed. cant that be moved into the adept slot? that was a really fun trait to use. shroud skills largely dont feel impactful still, esp skill 5 which feels like a placeholder skill. i dont think wells will be used very much now without any alac on them. shared shroud support around the tether was a good choice, maintains the idea of the spec. nerfing boonrip in wvw is fine, but not nerfing boons/minstrel support at the same time does not seem right.

I am still sad that they completely obliterated specter shroud in wvw groups and then just left it like that. I actually like the single target support concept, but it doesnt offer any rare effects like stunbreak or reliable stab or some unique effects, so its not worth it at all. Its central idea of dealing damage when you support an ally, rotwell venom, is pointless in wvw - noone cares about single target torment. Mesmer getting glamour boons back is nice, however i hoped for more changes overall, this patch seemed really light.

i would say those are positive changes. however i dont think there will be much fighting over dolyaks without further changes. if a dolly is under threat, i think people will just send 1 bunker build with the dolly to heal and apply the -90% dmg buff. unless the bunker doesnt know what they are doing you need to outnumber them here, which isnt really fun gameplay. if you do have more numbers and block the route, you still cant deny them supps. both invuln dollies or supply drop at the destination dont have counterplay. if you were to nerf cele/minstrel stats, maybe bring some pvp nerfs over to wvw, or change invuln dollies, then maybe.

My beautiful frog doesn't do anything on /hiss. 300 gems wasted. They forgot to add the animation to the most important race.

the changes made dps fb feel better for sure. what i still dont like, there is little reason to swap off axe imo also, the trait cooldown debuffs should be removed from the bar, since your f skills turn red anyway those are redundant