LadyKitty.6120
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Posts posted by LadyKitty.6120
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We don't quite need more. Necro has minions, ranger has pet, mesmer has illusions, ele has elementals, thief has thief summon, engi kinda has turrets. Only warr and rene lack minion-like thing.
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@Antycypator.9874 said:Upcoming balance patch includes removing fall damage reduction from traits. I'm curious now — how do we pass through Twisted Castle? One mesmer always jumps down to create a portal. As we know, it's impossible to survive it without damage reduction.
It is possible to to survive (as far as Kitty knows), just gotta be close to full health before dropping.
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Not sure if you're talking about it competitive or PVE-wise, but it at least has a decent potential as power dps for raids atm (only 800 dps below dagger/dagger at Kitty's skill level).
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@Shadowmoon.7986 said:Well it actually appeared to change at reset. Completed the new boss within 10 minute after resetMy advise bring a rez bot heal scourge.
Plaguedoctor's healscourge ftw. Gotta give that might and barrier while ressing and spamming epi.
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Shortbow if you want mobility, pistols if you want ranged single-target dps. Deadeye is far superior when it comes to ranged dps but it loses in melee-cleave while staff DD has excellent cleave but p/p is quite weak. Having to dodge at 4ish second intervals to maintain Bounding Dodger-bonus while Unloading makes it a very fun Matrix-like playstyle, though.
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"high survivability high damage world-PVE build"? Kitty knows one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PaEBoqxrlZwwYXsImJW+XnvPA-zRQYR0zmgLkoShAjgIKATmFWNjA-eIt does slightly weaker damage than pure berserker's build, but it has 50% more HP and it retains the high crit rate to get heals with from critting.For cleaving large amounts of mobs, mobility and CC/evading while hitting, this build uses sword+pistol. You can use Infiltrator's Strike to engage and disengage to combat. For cleaving stuff, spamming auto-attack is the best option though you can use Pistol Whip to do decent cleave damage while evading attacks about 50% of time while at it (due to Pistol Whip's unmentioned functionality of doing attack similar to mesmer's Blurred Frenzy after initial hit). Invigorating Precision keeps you healed as long as you're hitting stuff. This type of build is what Kitty usually uses for doing the story due to how immortal it is usually.For bosses, champs and otherwise tanky single targets, this build uses pistol+pistol as you can just kite around the target while getting pretty much perma-boons (except quickness and alacrity). In these cases, you engage the target with F1 Mark and start spamming Unload 'til you're at full 7 malice. Then you use the F2 stolen skill to enter stealth and press 1 to stealth attack to reset malice stacks. Then you can use Shadow Flare to get another stolen skill and spam Unload 'til you're again at full malice stacks. Then you can just keep on Unloading 'til you can Mark again. If you don't have stolen skill by the time you hit full malice, you can use Shadow Meld to enter stealth and stealth attack to reset malice. It also gives another stolen skill so you can delay Mark a bit 'til you've got that stolen skill used.And here's an example of how to play it and how tanky this type of build is(though the build Kitty used on the video isn't as optimized as in gw2skills as Kitty didn't buy new armors and weapons, except new pistol, just for demonstration and thus the gw2skills-build does more dps and has better self-sustain):
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How Kitty's been doing it: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PakAoVlVwOYfMF2JO2WrvPA-zRJYmRF/gEPE6EBhKAfzCmmVA-eHow to play?-Spam utility skills off-CD-Spam Mark off-CD-Spam Repeater (Pistol 3) until you're at full Malice and then F2 -> Stealth attack to reset malice.-If you need to move around fast, swap to shortbow and use Infiltrator's Arrow.-If you get condis/lose health, use heal skill to transfer condis/heal yourself.Kitty originally created a
and it benched ridiculously high (30515 in her testing and) but it's ridiculously impractical due to getting ported backwards every few seconds. As such, Kitty's ended upwhich does about 10% less dps but it makes the gameplay insanely simple and after testing it in raids, it's proved very effective. It should also work really well in open-world, especially if there's other players around to spread venoms to. Due to Maleficent Seven, you can sustain a decent amount of boons on yourself with ease, even more so if there's lots of small mobs to kill.And how it performs in raids?
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Though there's prolly lots of organized squads which've got the gold reward, here's a video of an LFG run Kitty got the mission done in 2:30 (0:30 left on gold). This squad had lots of good dpsers and "focus one to 15% then swap focus the other to death, try to lure them together for cleave"-tactic seems to work very well.
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@GWMO.4785 said:
@Randulf.7614 said:As i said before, these are the first steps people take in the instance. in time people will improve once they get familiar / comfortable with the encounter(s)@Krzysztof.5973 said:I'm just sad but not surprised that there is no CM.Well... it suppose to be entry level raiding. So dont expect difficult content.@zealex.9410 said:It hasnt been soloed from what ive seen so far so thats a plus and supposedly the boneskinner is harder.To my knowledge there are 3 SM bosses. Which will rotate every week. Boneskinner being one of them. We'll see i guess. Definitely looking forward to it thoKodan Bros is one, legendary Boneskinner is second and High Shaman is third strike mission and they said it'll rotate weekly, yush.
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@Voltekka.2375 said:
@Jayden Reese.9542 said:@Mazreal Blackknight.1564 said:wait you get a lot more than 10, you have the option to get weapons OR 25 of the ice shards on top of the 10yeah in the 1 time bjora trak. He's talking bout the generic Icebrood oneBjora track is non repeatable. How else am I gonna get eternal ice shards when playing wvw?Buy them with karma.
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The Kodan Duo is quite an interesting fight, yush. Kitty did it with some LFG squad as dps-esque support chronomancer and we killed them on first try though 7:56 CC bar almost wiped the squad ('cause like anywhere except at Mordy, nobody CC'd). We didn't have any healers in squad. Guess it works as halfway point towards raids as the stuff the bosses do are actually a lot more bothersome than what half of raid bosses have, but the damage from mechanics (except for CCs) isn't quite as punishing.This time there's actually a somewhat challenging DPS check if you want full loot (this LFG squad failed both gold and silver bonus). From what Kitty quickly mathed, the bosses seem to have about 9mil HP each according to the video she recorded.Timer for gold rewards is 3 minutes and you'd need about 60k squad cleave/30k avg. squad dps per boss to reach that.Timer for silver is 5 minutes and you'd need about 36k squad cleave/18k avg. squad dps per boss to reach that.Claw likes to jump and both bosses port around (including lots of time in the surrounding lava) so you can't exactly cleave them both full-time and dps uptime is probably a bit lower than Matt (which is already infamous for low melee dps uptime).
So, if you actually want the gold rewards you might need at least slightly experienced squad of raiders/fractalers. Condi might be beneficial unless you're doing it with high-end raid squad with good burst dps (in which case the bosses would die in about 60-100 seconds, Kitty makes an educated guess).E: And as such, let the flood of "this strike mission too hard" begin.E2: Kitty now did it again and it actually seems like a mixmash of some previous raid bosses with bears having lb-DH and hammerwarr skill set. Bunch of damage pressure but no 1-shot mechs, smaller invidual hits from multitude of mechs and no arena aura. So from DPSer's perspective, this might actually be more difficult than W4b1-3, Gorseval and Sab (and certainly more annoying if you eat mechs and you're sturdy enough to survive lots of small hits). Kitty also
with overwhelming heals.E3: Kitty now did it 4th time and apparently the bosses indeed have high toughness (like Kitty assumed) as some mirage was doing twice higher dps than some decent power dpsers. -
@Nepster.4275 said:
@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:@Nepster.4275 said:I dont see the reason why people are angry about this, I mean, the always whining part of community was crying to do something with FB because its only god tier in PvP/WvW, now FB is that strong that no other class can compete, also the same kind of people were crying that OMG weaver is too hard and I dont have time to learn etc... So ANet buffed the second most tankiest DPS class to its limits so now DPSing is even more braindead.So i guess congrats to everyone who tought chaos chrono is OPI dont think those are the same people.People arent "crying" because firebrand is strong. People are "crying" because you dont need a dedicated support for perma quickness. This is not a Firebrand Problem. This is a problem with Feel my Wrath and to some extent timewarp.So you think the only problem is FMW? Not the thing that firebrand is basically doing more DPS and supporting(not with only quickness) than most of the "dedicated" DPS classes like holo or thief as said above? And also, I said people WERE crying when fb wasnt like now.But i think you are right about that its not a firebrand problem, its a guardian problem, since that one class cover all(minus alac) the endgame roles as either DH or FB. Sadly I can not recall any class being able to do the same as guardian can now in the past 2 years. And am not crying about this, its a fact that guardian is broken to its core, but atleast i dont need more than one class for raids and fractals.Fun fact: firebrand was actually even stronger support before, but they've nerfed it for WvW reasons. People just were too obsessed with chrono to notice it and here we are, chrono nerfed a LOT and firebrand still being ridiculously good support.
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Well, heals-wise, Harbinger Shroud has 1684 + 2.0healing power as barrier output to allies. Desert Empowerment has 1050 + 0.67healing power. Initial barrier is same with Desert Shroud and Harbinger Shroud. From what Kitty tested, you can't trigger Desert Empowerment by other means than using F1 Manifest Sand Shade (though the damage part of Manifest Sand Shade hits whenever you use any F-skill).Harbinger Shroud has 798 + 3.0power as direct damage, 6 stacks of torment for 10 seconds and 2 boons converted.Desert Shroud has 840 + 3.2its special weapon strength as direct damage (according to wiki, it doesn't scale from your actual stats. Not sure if that's also case with Harbinger Shroud 'cause no mention on it) and 7 stacks of torment for 10 seconds (1 stack per pulse).
Kitty committed a test to see what'd be their real numbers. In the quick test, Desert Shroud did a total of 2293,5 damage in average while Harbinger Shroud did average 1957 damage. So, in this test Desert Shroud did 17,1% more direct damage and due to difference being that high, Kitty would assume that Harbinger Shroud uses your actual weapon strength in damage calculation while Desert Shroud's virtual weapon strength is slightly stronger. The test was done with ascended weapons so with stuff like exotic weapons, the difference is most likely bigger.
Combined with Sadistic Searing's extra burns if you use punishment skills in your build, Herald of Sorrow is somewhat noticeable dps loss and you should only take it if you're doing pure healing, you need more boon corrupts or if you you deem some extra barrier on allies helpful at a raid boss. (Kitty personally likes giving peoples barrier before greens at VG and during Gorseval's rampage etc.) In endgame PVE, if that barrier makes a difference between some dps getting downed or not getting downed or power-heavy squad having full scholar uptime at a boss with high dps pressure, the increase in squad dps can be worth the minor personal dps loss.
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@Methuselah.4376 said:
@LucianDK.8615 said:I am wondering to what the intent is with it. It seems to have much less damage than Desert Shroud, and any healers would surely take Desert Empowerment for reliable barrier application.I only used this trait as a healer. Before it was more beneficial to run this in a 10 man comp with little condi pressure than it was to run Desert Empowerment. Now, whenever I run heal scourge I tend to stay melee range with no shades and heal party members close to me, so again, Desert Empowerment wins out. ESPECIALLY now that they fixed the trait interaction with Abrasive Grit.If you don't use shades, how are you triggering Desert Empowerment? 'Cause the trait triggers from using F1 Manifest Sand Shade, doesn't it? In sheer amount of barrier applied to allies, Harbinger Shroud is stronger though you can trigger Desert Empowerment more often for slightly higher might and cleanse output.One thing that makes Harbinger Shroud really powerful is that you can use it pre-emptively to give allies delayed barrier so if they need to spread out for a mechanic that takes longer than 5 seconds to trigger (Matt's and KC's timed bombs in raids, for ex.), Harbinger Shroud's barrier will pop on them couple seconds before the mechanic hits and nullifies the damage while normal barriers would wear off too early. At VG, well-timed Harbinger Shroud takes effect a second before green AoE hits and thus you can use other barriers to prevent damage from other sources and then have HS give max. barrier on big hit. Also good if someone gets ported right before the AoE so HS will protect them from getting downed at the other side of the arena.
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@"Arien Geijtenbeek.7061" said:This will improve the viability of the Chronomancer as a boon support class in endgame PvE and will give a green light to other healers besides Firebrand. I hope with this suggestion, it will really create a balanced gameplay by allowing other support professions to strive in the endgame and not just the Firebrigade duo.As much as Kitty hates chronos still being somewhat go-to for many LFG raid squads, this time she needs to object to the nerfs you're suggesting.I personally think the Wells (formerly Gyro) rework to be a wonderful new mechanic for Scrappers.
- I would like to suggest the same mechanic to be implemented on Chronomancer wells. (and Necromancer wells too while you're at it, just to be fair). Rather than placing it on the ground, it would be a wonderful mechanic if the Wells actually follows the Chronomancer (similar mechanic on Scrappers). That way, Chronos can distribute boons in a more user-friendly manner, particularly Alacrity, the same way Renegades do with 'Orders From Above'. This rework might considered to be a nerf to 'Gravity Well', but no harm done as most DPS and Boonshare Chronos are often in melee range anyway.A horrible idea as it'd kill chrono's tank ability at many raid bosses. Currently you can place the wells just so that they hit you and the squad on large hitbox bosses but if you changed them to chrono-centered like scrapper wells are, tank chrono would lose ability to boon properly at half of the bosses where you'd need a tank and since supports are the best option for stuff like baiting agony rings, chrono wouldn't be able to provide boons at bosses like Cairn. And chrono wouldn't be able to provide boons from range which is one of its big selling points atm. Gravity Well would also be totally ruined. Chronos and necros are better off with ranged wells while scrapper can have the melee well. Just gotta learn to position those wells properly on casters (which is one thing that makes a huge difference between good and bad chrono).
- Please fix 'All's Well That Ends Well' from the Chronomancer traitline. Instead of making the wells heal allies when it ends, please enlarge the radius of the wells. It is absolutely redundant for the wells to heal allies when we would already have a healer in the party. The same way 'Righteous Rebel' from the Renegade traitline enlarges the 'Orders From Above' utility from 240 to 360. Please make 'All's Well That Ends Well' trait to do the same; enlarges the Chrono wells from 240 to 360.And that would totally kill the already obscure build known as "heal chronomancer" since 1/3 of its heal output and all ranged heals are on wells. (2/3 coming from summoning clones with Illusionary Inspiration)
- Instead of the Chrono wells distributing boons when it ends, please rework the wells to distribute the boons as it pulses. That way, party members wouldn't have to waste time standing on our wells waiting for it to end.Chrono wells distributing boons when it ends allows people to walk into the wells to get boons and it's either their own mistake/chrono's bad well placement if they don't stand on the well when it pops. If you turned them into pulsing, people would usually miss the first or last pulses. If you've ever used Shadow Refuge for stealth on heal-thief, you know how bad this idea is. And it's not wasted time if the chrono positions the well where the squad will most likely be standing at when the well ends.That's all my suggestions. I am hoping that with these rework suggestions, other support roles will become more viable for players to pick and rely on and not just the Firebrigade duo. Other healers like Druid, Tempest, Scourge, etc will surely benefit from this rework as it will instantly make them more favored by most pick-up groups as long as it is paired with a Chronomancer.Sorry to say, but your suggestions would do the exact opposite.
...Kitty never thought she'd see the day when she'd be defending chronomancer like this.
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Kitty finally got a couple scourge-only raid videos edited yesterday and as such, guess it'd be a good idea to share some necrotic videos here. These were pug squads that Kitty spotted on LFG.
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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@"LadyKitty.6120" said:Thing is: this isn't a rock-paper-scissors game. The directly competing things in WvW are CC vs anti-CC and defensive support vs damage+offensive support. The main match is defense vs offense and CC either does or doesn't affect that match depending on whether or not CC outnumbers anti-CC. Unless one side has a serious CC advantage (which is very rare due to excessive amounts of stability in play atm), it comes down to pure damage done% vs damage taken%.At it's most basic consituents, WvW is a rock paper scissors game. You can't describe a game on this level of complexity by not describing it by it's most basic constituents. CC vs antiCC v Sup vs damage vs "whatever you want to name rock paper and scissors" is like what i earlier described, as just an extrapolation of the basic constituents.You go onto extrapolate the issues of gw2's current problem...which is that we have an unbalanced rock paper scissors game, because each class can do roughly the same things as other classes, with only slight deviations that make one better than the other or do slightly more than another (a homogeneous grouping)...so you end up with rock being slightly less powerful than paper and scissors, and what you are describing to fix this is to just make adjustments to the classes.To be heard, every class CAN'T do the same things, far from that, and that's why we have the scourge and guardian stacking meta in WvW and guardian/mesmer dps stacking meta in PVE. Like Kitty already mentioned, guardian's supreme WvW support efficiency and scourge's boon corruption/ranged condibombing abilities are way stronger than anything other classes might have to effectively counter them and due to this game's limited mechanics, there's not many ways to fix it unless the devs found ways to write totally new mechanics (which requires a HUGE amount of effort considering the old game engine and lots of spaghetti inside it. You wouldn't believe how weird build-related bug Kitty found a month ago and reported it so they fixed it). Not sure if you've noticed, but pretty much EVERY major change they've made to add new ways for traits and skills to work have actually been utilizing old mechanics in new ways. The ammo system, barrier and scourge shades (though shades probably use some of the same stuff as ranger spirits) are some of the few totally new mechanics they've implemented.And as such, making adjustments to the classes is the fastest and most efficient way to balance the game and that's how Anet seems to mainly roll atm. Kitty's given concrete examples on how she'd solve balance issues to allow more diverse efficient squad compositions (though you seem to deem that homogenizing which it is in some amount). Can you suggest some actual, specific changes instead of vague "diverse unique mechanics"?And just to make it clear, Kitty's not aiming for every class having everything but a few classes having something in demand instead of just 1-2 having so much of the decisive stuff that they push every other option out of the window. And those few classes need to do it efficiently enough with suitable role condensation to viably compete with the Best-in-slot. Kitty's not asking for every class to have access to quickness, alacrity, stability, aegis and condi corruption in the same amounts as mesmer, guardian and scourge currently have, just that they'd be toned down a bit, adding opportunity cost and giving more access to some of them by other classes to allow more classes to truly compete with those 3.@"LadyKitty.6120" said:"If we wanted to make it a rock-paper-scissors, we'd need to first remove direct extra counters some may have and generally separate them so that none of the 3 would have qualities of the other 2 in any considerable quantaties."yes that is correct. but you are over-complicating the subject a bit. What you are really trying to say here is that each class should be unique...you don't even need to talk about counters. For example, rock can beat paper and scissors can beat rock...it's all arbitrary what we decide to change to these classes, so long as each class is unique, they will all compete with each other.They won't realistically compete with each other if a couple classes have something that gives them overwhelming advantage. That's where "crushing the competition" comes from and that's the main problem with WvW and PVE endgame balance atm.Anyway continuing on, everything in your comment is just an extrapolation of more basic constituents and you're over-complicating the subject.In a previous post i asked you detail how you would achieve perfect balance. You then presented a huge list of slight buff/nerfs.Now before i even go to counter any particular example, do you really believe that you balanced the game perfectly with those changes? I'm sure you've already read from other users in this discussion that perfect balance is impossible to achieve...not just in a theoretical sense but a paradoxical one. Do you really believe that your changes provide perfect balance?Like Kitty mentioned in that very post, perfect balance is impossible to achieve, but decent compromise is very realistic thing to aim for and the buffs/nerfs Kitty mentioned certainly would open the field for other options, too. Kitty didn't write about what she'd suggest to other classes due to just guardian having resulted in a wall of text and taking 4 hours to write (while Kitty actually left lots of smaller things out).The truth is that we will never have perfect balance. tweaking numbers and cool downs may make your guardian balanced...but it makes my MMR share warrior useless. Increasing the effectiveness of one thing, decreases the effectiveness of another somewhere else in the game...by reducing competition and by proxy build diversity.Can you elaborate on how those changes to guardian would make your MMR share warrior useless? If it's anything like, Kitty's suggestions make your build MORE effective in comparison, not less, because the CCs actually have a higher chance of landing on enemies (as enemy would have less stab due to guard's nerfs), your warrior would provide greater portion of condi cleanses and you'd have relatively more stab than others. Kitty's suggestions most of all decrease the effectiveness of guardian in areas where it's currently abusively effective while slightly boosting the areas where it's lacking comparing to competition (in different gamemode than where it's abusive) and that boost has a major opportunity cost (having to spec heal spec on dps-esque support or not critting enough to trigger it optimally unless sacrificing heals or that trait's effectiveness on healbrand). Kitty's suggestions also make some unused options more competitive, thereby increasing the diversity of viable traits and skills and said changes to unused options don't even directly affect other classes in any meaningful way. (If they do, point some out, please.)The only way to achieve perfect balance via your method is to make guardian do exactly what every other class does and it no longer remains as a rock paper scissors game...it's just rock and paper and scissors...a game completely homogenized and feature no diversity or competition...a game that frankly is decided purely by skill of the individual alone sitting at the computer.Not saying that game wouldn't be fun. But it's not gw2 anymore at that point. If you want to play a game with no build diversity but perfect balance...play World of Warcraft. That's a game where there is no build diversity...but its still fun to play.Isn't the point of any interesting game indeed skill vs skill? A game where playing one of the few viable options due to them being OP compared to anything else making you win almost regardless of skills and other options paling in comparison so badly that picking them is an insta-loss makes it very boring and Kitty wouldn't play such a game. At least in PVE that's not the case yet, (and it's improved over last 12 months but guardian and mesmer having access to sharing quickness without having to invest in it, thus having almost 0 opportunity cost, while every other option have high opportunity costs for being able to provide boons is a problem and Kitty already presented a solution on how to deal with that on guardian) but in competitive gamemodes that's essentially what we have going and quite many seem to want that to change. Though what Kitty suggests might be homogenizing, it's kinda needed to decrease the disparity we have at hand.Considering that what players require from supports (and those requirements won't change unless you overhaul the whole boon system), the options to make more supports considered an option is by either boosting other options homogenizing them or by nerfing all options so that you need a combination of them to reach proper boon uptimes (prepare from big uproar from supports). Or make boons and unique buffs only available from certain classes, but history has proven that's not a good option (hinthint: ranger spirits+spotter+old GotL, warrior banners+old EA, chrono quickness+alacrity in PVE and guard stab+blocks and scourge boonstrips and condibombs in competitive modes). Which you'd consider the least evil option? Kitty picks boosting alternatives and nerfing the abusing classes. And no, don't say "adjust how the boons work". They're quite certainly hesitant about doing that as that would totally change the balance very unpredictably (and quite likely gamebreaking).btw just a little extra thing. This is a rock paper scissor game that involves 5 options instead of 3. Pretty intersting to see how the "abilities" are distributed among each option. -
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@LadyKitty.6120 said:@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:@"Obtena.7952" said:Some run away discussion here. To be honest, there isn't much value in proposing these fictitious scenarios to argue about ... we have the real thing right here ... and many other MMO's too.ya, right now just trying to explain that competition = balance...hopefully we can segway this back into gw2 but we can't move forward until god and others that agree with his position understand this. So i have to use his hypothetical polymock game to try and prove that point.From what Kitty's been reading, your suggestions seems to be essentially "competition leads to balance by differentiating skills and builds to create new possibilities to overthrow the old meta or something like that if Kitty hasn't totally misunderstood...NoooooooThere is no "Old meta" There are compositions. Many different ones that can all be considered "The meta" because they compete with each other, and each one replaces the other as fast as they can because it's competitive...so there is no old or new...time is becomes a non-factor the more competition arises.This might be the case if the system was fluid without fixed values. But here, the only real variables are the support, CC and damage provided by classes/builds together as various comps, the player skill, numbers, tactics and how well the squad is organized vs same things of the enemy. That's a bit simplified, obviously, but those factors explain 95% about who will win the battle in WvW. On invidual level, what a build provides depends on stats, traits, weapons and skills and it's further regulated by how the squad's commander splits the squad into subsquads. If you turned each of the earlier mentioned things into numerical values, the highest possible value possibly compiled from them for providing the highest chance of defeating the expectable enemy defines the meta for that group. Whichever side has the better real number (the numbers obviously fluctuate during the combat depending on human performance like movement, timings, actions etc.) wins the battle.But that doesn't end up in balance in this game, just in the few strong builds getting replaced by the few stronger builds. Thing to remember: skilled players ALWAYS aim for the Most Efficient Tactic Available or something as close to that as possible which greatly narrows down the viable compositions if different similar options have noticeably different performances. Even if complex theory dictates otherwise, the players pretty much always want certain few things from the compositions and those things only change if the currently wanted thing gets nerfed to oblivion or new wanted thing outcompetes the current wanted thing.Okay i continue to repeat to myself over and over, and i'm getting exhausted here. This statement you are saying is a MISCONCEPTION about balance, and that it is separate entity from diversity. I said this from the very first page, that this thought you have of what balance is needs to leave your prespective. Balance isn't about just "nerfs" and "buffs." Balance can be achieved in different ways, one of those ways is introducing COMPETITION.Like i believe God mentioned somewhere in the comments above, you should think of it like a big rock paper scissors game. rock is not more OP than scissors so long as paper exists to compete with rock. Extrapolate this to the scale of many variables where things aren't OP so long as there are other forces that exist to compete with it. That's why conditions and condition cleansing or corruption and stability exist in consort with each other. Nerf or buff one, and the other will ABSOLUTELY destroy everything. leading to a SINGLE metagame.Thing is: this isn't a rock-paper-scissors game. The directly competing things in WvW are CC vs anti-CC and defensive support vs damage+offensive support. The main match is defense vs offense and CC either does or doesn't affect that match depending on whether or not CC outnumbers anti-CC. Unless one side has a serious CC advantage (which is very rare due to excessive amounts of stability in play atm), it comes down to pure damage done% vs damage taken%.Boons are currently very decisive factor in that and thus current WvW meta stacks firebrands to apply boons (no other class even remotely competes in how quickly firebrand can spam boons nor the blasphemous amount of blocks, stability and cleanses it provides) and scourges to remove them (other classes don't have even 1/5 of corruption-specialized scourge's boon corruption ability, only 3 other classes even have native boon removal/steal at all). Oh, then there's the damage portion, of course, which is pretty much done by scourges and some power offensive power builds with ranged nuke abilities in big zergs when playing the ranged pirateship game. Anything else is essentially spices to add flavour.If we wanted to make it a rock-paper-scissors, we'd need to first remove direct extra counters some may have and generally separate them so that none of the 3 would have qualities of the other 2 in any considerable quantaties. As of now, every build has at least some qualities of all 3 in varying amounts and the builds are defined by which one is the most present among them in the build.Say, if rock was CC, paper was support and scissors were dps, currently rock loses to both paper and scissors due to scissors being able to bring stability and stun-breaks. That leaves support and dps to fight each other. Though this is a RPS, bunker-built support can actually outheal the damage from dps and slowly chip its health away unless dps has enough self-sustain to heal those chips. If the dps can't burst down the support or negate it's self-sustain, the result would be tie. Also, due to how this game is built, it'd be most likely be difficult or even impossible to add a new mechanic that would change to game without being part of any of those 3 aspects of CC-Supp-DPS trinity.And as such, strong diverse competition actually KILLS the diversity instead of adding to it.This is completely wrong. Like the rock paper sciccors example again, just introduce more and more options that seek to compete with each other and you can have as many compositions as you want, all equally viable. Paper, Rock, Scissors, Hammer, nail...whatever... i'm sure you get the point...rock is no more the meta than is scissors, which is no more the meta game than nails....which is no more the meta game than hammers. -
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@"Obtena.7952" said:Some run away discussion here. To be honest, there isn't much value in proposing these fictitious scenarios to argue about ... we have the real thing right here ... and many other MMO's too.ya, right now just trying to explain that competition = balance...hopefully we can segway this back into gw2 but we can't move forward until god and others that agree with his position understand this. So i have to use his hypothetical polymock game to try and prove that point.From what Kitty's been reading, your suggestions seems to be essentially "competition leads to balance by differentiating skills and builds to create new possibilities to overthrow the old meta" or something like that if Kitty hasn't totally misunderstood. But that doesn't end up in balance in this game, just in the few strong builds getting replaced by the few stronger builds. Thing to remember: skilled players ALWAYS aim for the Most Efficient Tactic Available or something as close to that as possible which greatly narrows down the viable compositions if different similar options have noticeably different performances. Even if complex theory dictates otherwise, the players pretty much always want certain few things from the compositions and those things only change if the currently wanted thing gets nerfed to oblivion or new wanted thing outcompetes the current wanted thing. And as such, strong diverse competition actually KILLS the diversity instead of adding to it. Status quo with multiple classes fighting somewhat equally for the same roles in the comps and different class/build combinations reaching similar results (with ofc some minor weaknesses and strengths over each other depending on which class/build is doing which roles in each combination) allows more diverse variety of compositions class/build-wise as in the end of the day, there's only a few results for a comp that players are interested in and they don't care very much about how they reach it as long as they do (and therefore many comps yielding those results in diversity). And from what Kitty knows, theories are relevant mostly if they explain the reality.
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@"ugrakarma.9416" said:the root of problem is the GW2 unwriten law of "every professions can be everything", this end in null identity: "if every profession can play any role, then every profession is nothing". Also this lead to overstacking, for some months the problem was condition, then is becoming CC, or boon-overstacking, or damage, or bunkers... this is never ending problem because every class had a bit of every role, so its easy overstack any game mechanic.
All professions can do most of the stuffs, though. As someone who's taken that to insane extent, Kitty says that unique gameplay is the identity. And pretty much every professions and elite specialization has their own distinct gameplay (usually even main-hand weapons have wildly different playstyles, for ex. thief staff vs dagger vs pistols vs rifle). What leads to overstacking is some profession doing some competitively important thing way better than anyone else without needing to rely on other classes for getting close to full squad potential. Currently necros, guards and mesmers are pretty much the worst abusers in this regards.
Just to prove that every profession can do most of the stuffs. (+ if the can do it, - if they can't do it) This kinda includes both PVE, WvW and PvP important things.
! Guardian! + does 30k+ power dps! + does 30k+ condi dps! + heals enough to get a decent squad thru a raid boss! + tanks Deimos (might need to evade some pizzas)! + handkites! + provides full might for 5! + provides full fury for 5! + provides full quickness for 5! - provides full alacrity for 5! + provides protection for 5! + provides regen for 5! + can cleanse conditions from allies! - can remove/corrupt boons! - can give barrier to allies! - can revive a group of downed allies 50% in 10 seconds by using a skill! + provides stab for 5 more than once per 30 seconds! + can give aegis for allies! + can reflect projectiles! + can block projectiles! + can pull stuff! - can portal squadies! Mesmer! + does 30k+ power dps! + does 30k+ condi dps! + heals enough to get a decent squad thru a raid boss! + tanks Deimos (doesn't need to move)! + handkites! - provides full might for 5! - provides full fury for 5! + provides full quickness for 5! + provides full alacrity for 5! - provides protection for 5! - provides regen for 5! + can cleanse conditions from allies! + can remove/corrupt boons! - can give barrier to allies! - can revive a group of downed allies 50% in 10 seconds by using a skill (only if you kill the enemy before the Illusion of Life ends)! + provides stab for 5 more than once per 30 seconds! + can give aegis for allies! + can reflect projectiles! + can block projectiles! + can pull stuff! + can portal squadies! Revenant! + does 30k+ power dps! + does 30k+ condi dps! + heals enough to get a decent squad thru a raid boss! + tanks Deimos (doesn't need to move)! + handkites! + provides full might for 5! + provides full fury for 5! - provides full quickness for 5! + provides full alacrity for 5! + provides protection for 5! + provides regen for 5! + can cleanse conditions from allies! + can remove/corrupt boons! - can give barrier to allies! - can revive a group of downed allies 50% in 10 seconds by using a skill! + provides stab for 5 more than once per 30 seconds! - can give aegis for allies! - can reflect projectiles! + can block projectiles! + can pull stuff! - can portal squadies! Warrior! + does 30k+ power dps! + does 30k+ condi dps! + heals enough to get a decent squad thru a raid boss (barely if you specialize on it but can't bring much else useful things while at it)! + tanks Deimos (doesn't need to move)! + handkites (Kitty's heard about spellbreakers)! + provides full might for 5! + provides full fury for 5! - provides full quickness for 5! - provides full alacrity for 5! - provides protection for 5! - provides regen for 5! + can cleanse conditions from allies! + can remove/corrupt boons! + can give barrier to allies! - can revive a group of downed allies 50% in 10 seconds by using a skill! - provides stab for 5 more than once per 30 seconds! - can give aegis for allies! + can reflect projectiles (small radius)! + can block projectiles! - can pull stuff! - can portal squadies! Ranger! + does 30k+ power dps! + does 30k+ condi dps! + heals enough to get a decent squad thru a raid boss! + tanks Deimos! + handkites! + provides full might for 5! + provides full fury for 5! - provides full quickness for 5! - provides full alacrity for 5! + provides protection for 5! + provides regen for 5! + can cleanse conditions from allies! - can remove/corrupt boons! - can give barrier to allies! - can revive a group of downed allies 50% in 10 seconds by using a skill! + provides stab for 5 more than once per 30 seconds! - can give aegis for allies! + can reflect projectiles (small radius)! + can block projectiles! + can pull stuff! - can portal squadies! Thief! + does 30k+ power dps! + does 30k+ condi dps! + heals enough to get a decent squad thru a raid boss (barely if you specialize on it, can't heal self well while at it due to how healing trait works)! + tanks Deimos (doesn't need to move)! + handkites (can be OP while at it)! + provides full might for 5! + provides full fury for 5! - provides full quickness for 5 (with Detonate Plasma)! - provides full alacrity for 5! - provides protection for 5 (with Detonate Plasma)! - provides regen for 5 (with Detonate Plasma)! + can cleanse conditions from allies! + can remove/corrupt boons! - can give barrier to allies! - can revive a group of downed allies 50% in 10 seconds by using a skill! - provides stab for 5 more than once per 30 seconds! - can give aegis for allies! + can reflect projectiles (small radius)! + can block projectiles! + can pull stuff! + can portal squadies! Engineer! + does 30k+ power dps! + does 30k+ condi dps! + heals enough to get a decent squad thru a raid boss! + tanks Deimos (doesn't need to move)! + handkites! + provides full might for 5! + provides full fury for 5! - provides full quickness for 5! - provides full alacrity for 5! + provides protection for 5! + provides regen for 5! + can cleanse conditions from allies! - can remove/corrupt boons! - can give barrier to allies! + can revive a group of downed allies 50% in 10 seconds by using a skill! + provides stab for 5 more than once per 30 seconds! - can give aegis for allies! + can reflect projectiles (small radius)! + can block projectiles! + can pull stuff! - can portal squadies! Elementalist! + does 30k+ power dps! + does 30k+ condi dps! + heals enough to get a decent squad thru a raid boss! + tanks Deimos (doesn't need to move)! + handkites! + provides full might for 5! + provides full fury for 5! - provides full quickness for 5! - provides full alacrity for 5! + provides protection for 5! + provides regen for 5! + can cleanse conditions from allies! - can remove/corrupt boons! - can give barrier to allies! + can revive a group of downed allies 50% in 10 seconds by using a skill! + provides stab for 5 more than once per 30 seconds! - can give aegis for allies! + can reflect projectiles (small radius)! + can block projectiles! - can pull stuff! - can portal squadies! Necromancer! + does 30k+ power dps! - does 30k+ condi dps! + heals enough to get a decent squad thru a raid boss! + tanks Deimos! + handkites! + provides full might for 5! - provides full fury for 5! - provides full quickness for 5! - provides full alacrity for 5! + provides protection for 5! + provides regen for 5! + can cleanse conditions from allies! +++ can remove/corrupt boons! ++ can give barrier to allies! ++ can revive a group of downed allies 50% in 10 seconds by using a skill! +- provides stab for 5 more than once per 30 seconds (if people somehow walk thru the Trail of Anguish)! - can give aegis for allies! - can reflect projectiles! + can block projectiles! + can pull stuff! - can portal squadies
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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@LadyKitty.6120 said:@"Psycoprophet.8107" said:Is balance is decent across all builds and classes more builds would be viable allowing for more build deversity no? Also having reworking traitline's to have more useful traits would open up diversity within the builds themselves cuz as of now almost ha f seem to have 0 synergy with anything and arnt worth taking.^This.And when it comes to roles, meta defines strict roles in squads in each gamemode. Trying anything else results in subpar comp if the roles are dominated by a few exact builds due to strong imbalance. If a gamemode had good balance among the builds, people could play around with various comps, roles and builds without severe roflstomp'd level disadvantage, just slight disadvantages for not playing the meta. In Kitty's opinion it's not the huge diversity of results that makes a huge build diversity but many builds with diverse playstyles (many of which work more or less efficiently) being valid alternatives for the same role creating a the real build diversity. Once again, Kitty's not much of a WvWer ('cause too slow reaction times to be efficient as anything but zerg support) but in PVE she's been able to fiddle around with many kinds of builds (like tank/mightbot/condi tempest or power/heal/boon reaper) effectively due to decent (not perfect) balance as she's aimed for decent, lower-than-meta efficiency. Though even then, there's still many builds like hammer on every profession that uses it and rifle warrior that do so low dps, heal-engi giving too low might for a primary healer and heal-deadeye, warrior and chrono providing tad bit too low heals that even Kitty can't bring them to any but the easiest bosses and say she's pulling her weight (and ironically hammer seems to be a widely-used weapon in competitive gamemodes, looking at people complaining about Coalescence of Ruin-nukes).Of course, in WvW and PvP due to their more dynamic nature, the imbalance causes way bigger issues due to performance differences between comps increasing the gap between them exponentially (while the gap is linear in PVE due to enemy always being equal strength regardless of squad comp unless it scales up according to number of players) and thus reducing the diversity in a way worse manner..Kitty, let me directly challenge you with a paradox.How would you achieve “perfect” balance.By perfect, I mean perfect where nobody ever complains about anything. How would you actually take steps to do such a task.Once you answer that question I’ll present you with a situation that will show that your balance won’t be perfect. But in the mean time humor the question.So, the problem is (and like Kitty's frequently mentioned): there's no perfect balance, just better and worse compromises of balance (and those compromises being a compromise of balances between gamemodes). Thus Kitty could only suggest changes that would either nerf or boost stuff without causing serious issues in other gamemodes.Here's some things Kitty would start with...GuardianSince guardian has excessive access to stability and boons which causes it to become overtly strong support compared to any other class, Kitty would start by reducing the stab an cleanse output and adding more opportunity costs to the boon output.-Reduce the stability output of "Stand Your Ground!" from 5 stacks for 5 seconds to 3 stacks for 3 seconds. (would be pretty much equal to Hallowed Ground after that)-Reduce the stability output of Chapter 1: Unflinching Charge from 1 stack for 4 seconds to 1 stack for 3 seconds.-Reduce the stability output of Portent of Freedom from 1 stack for 5 seconds to 1 stack for 3 seconds.-Reduce the stability output of Unhindered Delivery from 5 stacks for 8 seconds to 3 stacks for 5 seconds.-Reduce Quickfire's internal cooldown to 4 seconds and increase the burning duration of Ashes of the Just from 3 seconds to 4 seconds. (To make it a viable alternative for Loremaster when used by condi quickbrand. Currently it's quite unused due to nerfs before.)-Remove Slow from Stoic Demeanor and make it grant a "10% damage increased" effect for 5 seconds after disabling or immobilizing an enemy. (Makes it a trait worth taking for power quickbrands while it's mostly unused by now and power firebrands don't have any good alternatives in that column at the moment.)-Add 5 stacks of vulnerability for 8 seconds to Echo of Truth.-Increase the vulnerability applied by Voice of Truth from 5 stack for 8 seconds to 10 stacks for 8 seconds. (This mantra isn't currently used widely by any build as far as Kitty knows and making it apply decent vulnerability can make it a viable option for situations where vulnerability would be useful but there's none to apply any.)-Reduce conditions removed by Chapter 2: Radiant Recovery from 3 to 2.-Reduce conditions removed by Absolute Resolution from 3 to 2.-Reduce the quickness from Potent Haste from 2,5 seconds to 2 seconds.-Reduce the quickness from Liberator's Vow and Stalwart Speed from 2 seconds to 1,5 seconds. (These 2 nerfs mean you can't provide 100% quickness to 5 allies at 100% BD with Mantra of Solace and Potence alone as you'll need alacrity OR using something else than Restoring Reprieve+Potent Haste to trigger Stalwart Speed an extra time once a min or elite shout to fill the 2s gap. With elite shout you'll only need 60% quickness duration from gears/traits, compared to about 15% currently required.)-Reduce the quickness from elite shout from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. (so you can't just stack 5 DHs and have them use it off-CD for full quickness)-Increase the cooldown of Retaliatory Subconscious from 30 seconds to 40 seconds. (Similar traits Gale Song and Reactive Lenses also have 40s cooldown and this trait is slightly stronger than them. Having 2 direct stun-break traits in one spec is also something special to Virtues.)-Reduce the duration of burning of Chapter 2: Igniting Burst from 6 seconds to 4 seconds. Increase the damage multiplier from 0.55 to 1.2. (Would make Tome of Justice worth using as power firebrand as minor dps boost while nerfing the burn a bit to compensate for increased burn on Ashes of the Just.)-Increase the radius of Chapter 3: Heated Rebuke from 240 to 300 in PVE only. (Not a huge increase but a huge QoL.)-Reduce the stability output of Indomitable Courage from 3 stacks for 4 seconds to 2 stacks for 3 seconds.-Increase the damage multiplier for Hammer Swing and Hammer Bash from 0.8 to 1.0. (Hammer is super-slow weapon with twice as long attack sequence as for ex. thief's sword auto-attack chain and both have 0.8 damage multiplier on first 2 hits.)-Increase the damage multiplier for Zealot's Embrace from 0.8 to 1.1.-Increase the damage multiplier for Banish from 1.0 to 1.6 in WvW and PVP, to 2.2 in PVE. (It's slow, it's obvious, if you get hit to face by it you deserve that damage. And this'd make it worth using in PVE, too.)-Change the number of targets for Empowering Might from 5 to 10. (Choosing this trait allows guardian to provide max. 14 stacks of might for 10-person squad assuming 100% boon duration and triggering the trait exactly off-CD, realistically 10-12 stacks if using a fast-hitting weapon. As opportunity cost this trait competes with Pure of Heart's good heals and Honorable Staff's concentration and staff skill CD reductions. Since it requires critting on an enemy constantly, it can't be abused for excessive might-stacking in WvW. Herald already has similar more reliable trait with complimenting 10-target facet trait and deadeye, tempest and druid have superior mightstacking traits/skills.)-Add 15-second cooldown on Renewed Justice. (Tome of Justice spam is somewhat broken strong when you can trigger that trait instantly, just saying.)-...Wrath of Justice needs something done. It synergises well with Perfect Inscriptions but the other 2 traits synergise better with the other 2 traits....oh dear, this would've mostly brought guardian in line with other professions, but already a wall of text and 4 hours spent. Is this enough of an example? Kitty doesn't have energy to write similar thing of every other class (which have way more details to fix.)
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@Psycoprophet.8107 said:Is balance is decent across all builds and classes more builds would be viable allowing for more build deversity no? Also having reworking traitline's to have more useful traits would open up diversity within the builds themselves cuz as of now almost ha f seem to have 0 synergy with anything and arnt worth taking.
^This.
And when it comes to roles, meta defines strict roles in squads in each gamemode. Trying anything else results in subpar comp if the roles are dominated by a few exact builds due to strong imbalance. If a gamemode had good balance among the builds, people could play around with various comps, roles and builds without severe roflstomp'd level disadvantage, just slight disadvantages for not playing the meta. In Kitty's opinion it's not the huge diversity of results that makes a huge build diversity but many builds with diverse playstyles (many of which work more or less efficiently) being valid alternatives for the same role creating a the real build diversity. Once again, Kitty's not much of a WvWer ('cause too slow reaction times to be efficient as anything but zerg support) but in PVE she's been able to fiddle around with many kinds of builds (like tank/mightbot/condi tempest or power/heal/boon reaper) effectively due to decent (not perfect) balance as she's aimed for decent, lower-than-meta efficiency. Though even then, there's still many builds like hammer on every profession that uses it and rifle warrior that do so low dps, heal-engi giving too low might for a primary healer and heal-deadeye, warrior and chrono providing tad bit too low heals that even Kitty can't bring them to any but the easiest bosses and say she's pulling her weight (and ironically hammer seems to be a widely-used weapon in competitive gamemodes, looking at people complaining about Coalescence of Ruin-nukes).Of course, in WvW and PvP due to their more dynamic nature, the imbalance causes way bigger issues due to performance differences between comps increasing the gap between them exponentially (while the gap is linear in PVE due to enemy always being equal strength regardless of squad comp unless it scales up according to number of players) and thus reducing the diversity in a way worse manner..
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@Obtena.7952 said:
@Swagger.1459 said:@Obtena.7952 said:Yes, we had less diversity when the game was launched as compared to now; over time we got more meaningful differences for class builds. It's not really illusionary ... the differences in elite specs are significant in most cases to core class because they do play differently. Even in core, there are options that result in meaningful diversity. It's no illusion.It's not the easiest argument to follow for many, but I think the OP is right on many points; I would rather play a game designed to favour diversity over balance. I guess that's primarily because as a player, choice is more valuable and meaningful to me to me than comparing numbers I get in a damage log.When you get to the end game phase of pvp, wvw and raids, then the choices of viability are very limited. We all know that.NO, no ... your confusion is showing again. There are still lots builds because the variations still exist; THAT is diversity. Diversity says NOTHING about their relative performance. That's what balance is about. Diversity and Balance are NOT related. Diversity is variations, balance is equivalence between and in groups.There's an insane diversity of builds that make sense but their prevalence in real gameplay, especially in high-end PVE and WvW, is abysmally low and thus the real diversity of builds being used becomes very narrow if there's huge differences in performance between competing builds. And thus, there might be great build diversity in theory, but in practise there's hardly any diversity if the balance in performance is bad. By balancing the relative performances between builds, more builds become considered a viable option for doing the things in demand and that leads to greater practical diversity.
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@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:
@Lexi.1398 said:The ports which take an age and a half of a very visible animation in the world and on your screen before they go off? You can just...walk a bit to the side and go out of them - no need for any special abilities, or dodging in fact.We are talking about no greens, right? You will build up stacks. You will reach 99 stacks at roughly 50 seconds into the fight. That means a really good group will have to deal with 99 stacks (basically unable to move except for the SAK) for about 15 seconds. You see how a class that has evades and blinks (and superspeed a few months ago) is good on this, right?To be heard, as long as you can see the teleport circles and you have swiftness, you can easily walk out of them even at 99 stacks. 99 stacks only becomes a problem if the squad can't get enough swiftness due to supports providing low/no swiftness. (happens with many druids in LFG squads and it's painful when it does)The numbers were about scourge, reaper has a second health bar, scourge has barrier which since shade changes, only really saves you if you placed your shades right. And if we're talking about reaper that's a whole different thing. I have personally only experienced condi scourge, my experience with reaper is only in open world so i'm not really in a position to say why it ever was suggested. I have heard though, that nowadays it's harder to use than other classes.Yes, the numbers were about scourge. I said necromancer is one of the classes usually recommended for beginners. That means, that beginners are probably going to either unlock Scourge or Reaper as their first elite spec, right? Thats could be one explenation on why these classes are so much lower.Casuals who have never played GW2 before often choose necromancer since it's easy, durable and minions can tank everything for them and that obviously leads to them starting raiding as reapers and scourges, often with a random mix of exotic gears or soldier's exotics until they're teached about proper raiding gears.
My Idea for a Trickery Rework
in Thief
Posted
Note: Kitty's a PVE endgame player and her responses are from PVE perspective.+3 initiative would be a really bad idea for thief as it'd essentially give ridiculous boost to deadeye with Maleficent Seven due to providing allowing more skillspam without drawbacks. This change would require nerfing rifle and dagger damage. It would also remove one of the main reasons to take trickery to begin with.Pressure Striking would cause condi pistol deadeye's damage to go thru the roof (it'll bench about 30k dps as pistol-only after the balance patch and the change you're suggesting would allow doing 37-38k dps with the simpliest and risk-free rotation available)Thug would be very underwhelming for general minor trait for the spec.Deep Pockets would stack with Improvisation from DA and that'd allow some ridiculous boonstacking with stolen skills. Balancebreaking again.Removing the lead stacks would make this build even more pointless for a power dps.For leveling purposes and for providing some support, Thrill of the Crime has been a good trait as it has allowed this to help with boon uptimes for healer-less subgroup and it's also been very good while leveling and the Burst of Agility change wouldn't quite cover for the loss and thus a leveling thief would rather go with CS and DA first-Kitty's very tired at the time of writing this so she didn't go very deep yet about reason why those wouldn't be very good changes in her opinion.