Drakh.2941

Make Maces and Shield do support. Look at Guardian Mace, Mechanist Mace, Rev Staff, Guardian Shield, , Engineer Shield, Herald Shield. All give support buffs and many give heals on the Auto Attack. Use those skills for inspiration. Add that to Warrior as they don't have support weapons. Give some kind of support feature (buffs/heals/barrier) to all the skills that had their damage taken away due to CC. This could even go for Hammer as well. To have 1k-1.5k damage skills In PvE that do 11 in WvW has to go.If you aren't going to make CC do even 50% damage, give them some kind of support aspect other than just a stun or knockdown. It would be nice if Heal shouts either healed for more, or had quicker recharge rates as well

Balance changes are supposed to affect balance and this clearly doesn't. Using WvW as an example, you NEED to have a Firebrand and a support Scrapper to be successful. EVERYONE knows this. It's due to the overabundance of skills packed into each class. Balance should not necessarily nerf both of these, but make other classes competitive. The difference between support Scrapper and support Tempest is extremely competitive when it comes to heals and cleanses, and to a lesser extent superspeed, but stealth gyro moves Scrapper so far ahead that Tempest isn't wanted, at all. Make Dust Storm on WH Earth or or Heat Sync on WH Fire a smoke field! Balance patches should make a trade off where you want one of each, not bunches of one class, none of the other. Identify the issue creating the gulf between classes and rectify it. If you made one of the Warrior self stability skills equal to Stand Your Ground on Guardian, people would want more Warriors, but the one class specific skill warriors had that made them desirable, was Winds and that is reworked every patch to the point people don't play it anymore, because it doesn't do enough. The new support banner, gives Regeneration...so does literally every other class. Why couldn't you have given it a Soothing Mist effect that is unique, rather than a generic buff that is probably weaker than other classes version of the same thing. This makes the banner slot skill virtually useless. Guardian has been META in WvW for 10(!) years due to Stand Your Ground and in that time no changes have been made to give additional classes something similar (although I guess you could include Inspiring Reinforcement from Rev as the closest thing) You could easily make Dolyak Stance on Soulbeast and Dolyak Signet or Balanced Stance on Warrior 5 person, and BOOM, Stability balance.solved. The Rev Support changes look interesting, and perhaps they will work out, I have hope on that front, but low expectations.

CC is always a slippery slope. Binding Roots isn't fun for anyone, except Rangers. Knockdowns, Knockbacks, Static Fields all seems like they are OK, and would be OK with less Stability. As some have said, nobody likes losing control over their character. If it's brief, its alright, if its chain after chain after chain, its frustrating. With regards to buffs and boons, when you killed the Buffer in DAoC, your team lost the boons the Buffer provided. I played a Shaman, and was target #1 most fights due to this feature. I have always thought GW2 boons were a nice feature, but they are much too easily provided, and provided by everyone. It's much too late to go through with this kind of change, but I would be love to have boons provided exclusively by certain classes as a class mechanic or just by picking, say, a Heavy Armor profession, unlocks the ability to give Stability or Protection. Herald buffs are already working close to the DAoC Shaman. Kill the Herald, buffs go down (as the buffs expire) As there are 12 boons total, and 9 classes and 3 Archetypes to spread them out to, it shouldn't be that difficult to actually balance compared to the current status. Some of the less desirable classes may actually be wanted if they were the only ones to provide, fury, or might, for instance. Although, looking at how gamers think, and how min/maxing works, the classes with the least desirable buffs will still be left out. Alacrity Renegades are a good example. Great buff, but not enough to make it META. Would you still want a heal Scrapper if Purity of Purpose didn't provide all the boon conversion, just from a stealth/heal/cleanse perspective? Probably. Would you still want a Guardian if it didn't provide anything other than Stability? Yes, history proved it before Firebrand. Would the class matter if they were the only ones to give Might or Protection? Lots of good questions. Unlikely to happen, but a fun alt-history conversation.

They could just change it so default damage is pulsing around the Sand Shade only and changing to Harbinger Shroud changes damage output to pulsing around the Necro only. Lower shade skill cooldowns to PVE timers and it could solve people's issues with too much AoE. As for Rev's, they'd need to lower CoR damage to keep them in line with this necro change or the meta would just change to all Revs.

From a support in WvW perspective... I would love to see the 'pulling to you' aspect of Transfusion moved to something else, like Signet of Undeath, at least in WvW. The support of Scourge can be powerful, but the pulling aspect in WvW, especially in a zerg environment, is despised for good reason. Just being able to heal regularly without the worry of pulling your friends into AoE bombs unintentionally would be a very welcome change. If you want the pull, pop the signet and it works just like it does now, but you have better control over the when and how it is used. And/Or... As Siphon Life is a widely represented, but rarely specced for ability of Necro's in general, lets increase it some to make it a viable, tanky, playstyle.