cat.8975

It quite literally is, and has been, and will be.

Yes, you're right, the devs should stop trying to balance and just leave everything as it is, because "it doesn't matter".

How about the opposite argument. Why should an elite spec only have one good build instead of three?

If I had more faith in using the forums for class feedback, I would've made threads for condi dh and condi core by now. I'd like to see them both brought up a little bit as they each have unique playstyles that differ from the existing condi and power builds. It wouldn't even take much tweaking to bring them up to par, as there are plenty of levers they can pull now that they can do split balancing across gamemodes.

Because the above engineer builds are all examples of meta builds that have a place in group content, either via their damage output or the unique utility they can bring to a party (quickness, heals, cc, etc.). Condi WB is currently just a significantly worse version of power. It doesn't bring any interesting utility to the group, and it is even squishier than the power build on account of not being allowed to freely cast the f2 and f3 virtues. It's more of a liability to the group and has a weaker payoff, which is why people will be more skeptical of having one in their group. Side question: Have you played any of these above classes/builds in instanced content? Do you run daily fractals via the LFG? Raids? Ever run a bounty train?

You wont get kicked for running any of those builds in instanced group content, except for maybe core power.

And what happens when people learn how to shut it down? The damage potential is incredible, yes, but there's a very delicate balance where you can go from alive to dead in under a second.

Holosmith: Condi and power are both great builds. Scrapper: Condi quickness, power quickness, healer, healer quickness, bruiser, etc. There are a ton of ways to play Scrapper. Core: Power is a little weaker than it could be, but condi and healing are still great builds. I'd argue Engineer has an extremely healthy amount of builds for PvE content, and I'd like to see all classes have that level of variety.

We get it, you're a contrarian and you hate the concept of metagaming. Save us all the trouble and stop commenting if you're not going to be constructive.

This isn't true. With alacrity and the 15% cd reduction from the virtues line, you can maintain nearly 100% uptime on Justice. These more "active" passives are an interesting new approach to how the traits that boost them play out.

PvE had plenty of trait synergies, as there are at least three potentially good builds there (power, hybrid, and healer). Reducing the virtues cds in wvw/pvp down to the PvE ones would make the spec fare much better in those gamemodes. If they tweak Restorative Virtues (WB master 1 trait) to be more impactful, I could see this spec doing very well in PvP.

I'm not convinced that the SA+CC combo is going to be nearly as gamebreaking as you suggest. It has a very hard counter: blocks and invulns. If you block/invuln some of the hits on the SA strike, they wont have that infinite feedback loop and will be very susceptible to melee cleave. We don't need the traditional virtue passives back; the way WB does them as "actives" is perfectly fine. If anything, I'd just reduce the CDs on them in pvp/wvw and lean more into the hyper-mobility aspect of the spec. Edit: Boon strips will destroy this build, and WoD will shut it down instantly.

It could use some work for smaller scale fights, but Shattered Aegis made it strong in the larger ones.

In which gamemodes? It's pretty weak in PvP, but it's definitely good in WvW/PvE and worth playing over core.

Willbender is almost perfectly balanced as is hahaha Cooldowns are probably a bit too long for PvP, but they felt fine in WvW. Multiple ways to play it in PvE, too. Just needs a little polish and this'll be a top-tier spec.

it's definitely fun for pocket raptors lmao https://streamable.com/xxev86

this spec has bent my will to play the game after the beta is over, because i don't wanna go back to firebrand at this point 😭

At the risk of repeating myself, it's because more build variety is a good thing. Having the power builds at ~37k and ~42k (zeal+rad vs zeal+virtues), with a condi build at around ~39k would be fantastic, and you wouldn't be kicked from groups for running any of them. If instead we leave the condi at ~34k, you're left with a build that does significantly less damage than other specs, brings less utility, and is glassier. You're much more likely to be kicked for that. Team offensive buffs are a slippery slope, just look at how unhealthy banners, spirits, and traits such as spotter/ea/ap have been for PvE party compositions. ANet has had to repeatedly nerf those effects because of how much they favored an "omni-comp" where you take one of everything for the unique buffs, which is something they don't want to happen.

Rushing Justice (punch portion of the f1) is hitting 50% harder than it should based on tooltips. Instead of a 0.4 coefficient using current weapon (as tooltip would suggest), it seems to be using 0.6 instead. Additionally, the tooltip for Willbender Flames suggests that it's using the weapon strength of your equipped weapon, but the damage pulses are using the "base" value instead (690.5 @ level 80).

Tyrant's Momentum (gm major 2) is currently double-dipping, though it's sort of fine for PvE balance. By default, Lethal Tempo (gm minor) is an additive damage mod of 3% per stack, up to a total of 15% (additive with other additive mods such as frost spirit, sigil of force, etc.). When you slot Tyrant's Momentum, this 15% becomes 25%, AND your damage is multiplied by an additional 1.1. The net result is that these two traits are boosting the Virtue build's damage by ~28%, which is only a little bit higher than the "expected" 25% if it were a multiplicative trait in the first place. If the trait is changed to be multiplicative instead of additive, it would drop the Virtues build from ~42k to ~41k, and would fix this unintended behavior. (P.S. pls make it apply to condis too pls pls pls i beg. hybrid wb is ridiculously satisfying to play, and would give guardian a "selfish" condi build to go along with the more supportive firebrand one) Edit: Narrowed it down. It's giving a bonus 1.1x mult against chilled targets.

I'm glad we both agree here.

Meta != highest dps. The effectiveness of a build is measured by the damage output, party support, CC, and a few other things. I can guarantee, no groups would be kicking a FB if it could do ~37-38k in favor of a more selfish WB at ~39-40k. Your forum signature claims you "crush meta-think", but I don't think you even understand what metas are, why they exist, and how they matter when it comes to balance.

Firebrand has so much more baked in team support and utility than WB, making it very easy to distinguish the two. Imagine a world where cdps Firebrand does ~37-38k and cdps WB does ~39-40k. They'd both be great picks, and the Firebrand build would arguably be stronger in the average pug. Also, look at it the other way around. Why should all 4 specs get a viable/meta power build and only one spec get a condi one?

Which traits specifically? I haven't run into any issues w/ traits not working on my WB, aside from the missing light aura on Justice is Blind.

Assortment of random thoughts from a PvE perspective, as someone who has played just about every flavor of dps guardian: Criticisms Heel Crack (util) seems to be useless in all gamemodes. 2s stun on a 15s cd with low damage is competing with so many better utilities. Heaven's Palm (elite) feels underwhelming, though I can't say I haven't enjoyed having the extra 400 CC. Giving it some more damage+burning would be sick Rushing Justice (f1) has an awkward pause between the dash and the WBF portions, and the overall cast time seems to vary quite a bit based on distance from the target. I've gotten used to it already, but it's definitely janky. On a side note, I wish it had a little bit of extra physical damage and/or burning on the active punch (not the pulsing aoe), just to give some extra benefit to places where you can get resets from kills (doesn't seem strong enough to cast asap when you get resets right now). Lethal Tempo (gm minor damage mod) only applies to "strike" damage. If it were all damage, hybrid would be competitive with existing dps specs. Restorative Virtues (master major 1) seems pretty useless atm, other than the extra bit of mobility spam it gives you. The self-heal on WBF is generally better. The fact that you only benefit from this trait when you spam virtues in quick succession is antithetical to how the rest of the spec plays out. Boon Pact (adept major 1) could maybe give more concentration. That -50% outgoing is a huge loss. Conceited Curate (adept major 3) is in a similar boat. Instead of +240 healing power, I think some +% self-healing mod would be better. Off-hand sword abilities either need shorter cds or faster casts/aftercasts. Something to at least distinguish it from the DH/core playstyles a little more. The fact that focus is stronger in power builds should say enough here. Works well Power builds seem to perform slightly better than dragonhunter, which is fair considering the more "selfish" virtues and glassier nature of the spec. -240 toughness for ~1k more dps over DH is more than fair IMO. People are sleeping on just how good the F2 and F3 really are for PvE. They may not be as life-saving as DH or FB virtues can be, but holy hell you can pump out some serious self-heals or aegis/stab spam, on top of the hyper-mobility it gives you and the evade on the f2 The alacrity trait feels solid for solo play in a power build. Probably good with cele, haven't had the opportunity to try it yet. Whirling Light, Roiling Light, and Flash Combo (utils) are great and all have good use-cases. The strike damage on Whirling could be upped a touch just so it's better than FC in power builds (damage vs mobility tradeoff), but otherwise these utils are terrific. The hybrid build playstyle is incredibly fun and active. Sw/T + GS? 2015 called, they want their dungeon meta back. It's satisfying when a class is allowed and encouraged to use whirl finishers in their own fields (possible thanks to the recent change). Good cleave and hyper-mobility allows you to stick to mobile PvE mobs/bosses in a purely melee build. It's great fun. The potential for a "healer dps" build to exist via the f2 share in the Virtues line is there, and I can't wait to see people refine and run it as an off-healer in strikes/raids/open world content. Overall, I've been having a blast playing this in fractals.