Don't you think that Aegis has become overpowered?

[Ludo.9610]

Guardian main here, so this is a pet peeve. Back when Aegis was rare and hard to come by, it never struck me as being overpowered -- due to its low abundance, it was much less impactful. Nowadays, Firebrands can machine-gun Aegis their entire party and trivialize entire sequences of the fight. At the same time, it's almost a core mechanic of Firebrand, so replacing it with Regeneration would gut the specialization. Before, it felt situational and important to keep an eye on. Now, it feels like a blanket excuse to face-tank fights. 

 

So why not change how Aegis works? Let it be impactful, but not invulnerability-level impactful. Let it support the party, but not solo-carry the party. 

What do you guys think? 

 

If you agreed so far, I'm sure you'll have your own ideas when it comes to how it should change. Here's mine: 

Let Aegis block direct attacks ("attacks coming straight at you"), but not AoE circles ("hot floor"). Why not make AoE circles unblockable in general? It makes no sense for a Warrior to walk into a spike trap and use his shield to block the spikes aimed at his feet, right? The same reasoning could be used for Aegis. If we make AoE circles (the kind that are on the floor and tick damage, not the kind that mark where the Meteor Storm is falling) unblockable, it will speed up PvP encounters (both in sPvP and WvW) and make PvE more interesting. 

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

10 minutes ago, Seal.5964 said:

It makes no sense for a Warrior to walk into a spike trap and use his shield to block the spikes aimed at his feet, right?

Traps are already unblockable - at least all of ranger ones.

 

11 minutes ago, Seal.5964 said:

Why not make AoE circles unblockable in general?

to assert dominance of AoEs vs single target even more? You would need to heavilly nerf damage of AoEs to compensate if you want to have it any semblance of balance.

 

As for the premise - the only place I could see aegis being "OP" is high end PvE. for any instance of PvP/WvW meta already relies on rapid  multi-hit abilities, which sort of counters the premise of Aegis wearing of with single hit and not stacking (no matter how many aegis you cast, unless you are bing hit while you cast it's only 1 hit it will block in the end) and ontop of that you have a number of classes having number of ways to even more directly counter aegis by unblockables. so I would say that in competetive modes aegis is fine. In case of high end PvE, it may be OP-ish, but if AN didn't want certain boss mechanics to be blockable, they would have made them unblockable anyway

[Fueki.4753]

The problem isn't Aegis, it's Firebrand.

Firebrand can do too much in one build and deserves to get trimmed down.

 

Firebrand should have access too only one Tome at any given time.

This could be a choice in the Major Adept traits, similar to how Daredevil has a choice of dodge mechanics in its Major Grandmaster traits.

In exchange, Archivist of Whispers becomes baseline.

Loremaster gets removed. Neither Core Guardian nor Dragonhunter have access to their passives when the virtues are on cooldown, so Firebrand should not have the option.

 

With these changes, only dedicated builds would have access to Tome of Courage, which reduces the access to Aegis for Firebrands who choose the other tomes. This would effectively cut out a big chunk of the Aegis problem you perceive, while properly toning down Firebrand.

 

That leaves Mantra of Solace, but other than completely replacing its Aegis or reducing its duration, nothing can be done for it.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Fueki.4753]

25 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

After all the nerfs we got over the last years, any more would mean the death of FB. What you are suggesting makes Core Support Guard the de facto superior support in WvW and then FB would require an entire redesign which won't happen.

I will never support the disappearance of e-specs from the meta. Too many are in the gutter already!

Just think about why Firebrand had to be nerfed in the first place.

With all three tomes at all times, Firebrand can do way too much.

If they only had access to one tome at a time, the individual tomes could be better than they are now.

That way, Firebrand would truly have to specialize in one thing, just like Arenanet envisioned for Harbinger, Willbender and Virtuoso.

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[draxynnic.3719]

33 minutes ago, Acyk.9671 said:

I agree but that implies to revert so many things, Anet will mess things up. FB is only overperforming in PvE, it's dead in PvP and only a stab/aegis bot in WvW. New e-specs design are either uninspired or terrible, i wouldn't take them as examples. 

 

And even in PvE, the benefit of having the extra tomes is limited. DPS-oriented Firebrands won't want to pull Resolve except as a last-ditch Hail Mary, and healbrands get a small boost in DPS out of pulling Justice but it's not great and may not be worth ceasing healing for a bit. Tome of Courage has too long a recharge to build for and while it can provide some clutch stability and protective effects, let's keep in mind that as long as it's in use, your DPS/HPS is limited to whatever you can get from traits and utilities. There's a degree to which one could argue that they're there mostly so that the Firebrand does still have three virtues rather than raising the question of what happens to the other two virtue passives if you only have one virtue with an active effect.

 

(Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that Loremaster exists so that Tome of Justice can synergise with Permeating Wrath. Tome of Justice is pretty clearly the replacement for the old staff 1.)

[Infusion.7149]

Aegis isn't overpowered, Mantra of Solace is.

With the removal of mantra charging there is no penalty for using it off cooldown and with boon duration it makes the next 2-3s of large attacks negated.

If people are running mace or "advance" they are giving up damage and/or utility slots.

 

edit: you'll note that Mantra of Solace is heavily nerfed in PVP to the point it is almost a liability.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[RabbitUp.8294]

6 hours ago, Seal.5964 said:

Let Aegis block direct attacks ("attacks coming straight at you"), but not AoE circles ("hot floor"). 

That's a buff honestly. Lingering aoes usually do minimal damage. Especially in pve, you risk losing your aegis to some floor aoe dot when you want to block a big boss attack. 

 

The problem with aegis is not with the boon itself, but with the pve fight design that focuses on 10k single packet hits. What's the point of playing a healer when your teammates won't be alive to be healed, when you can share aegis instead, or barrier.

 

That's why both scourge and firebrand are outliers. If fights were more about constant damage pressure, FB actually has limited sustain healing, and scourge can't heal any damage that gets through the barrier.

[Gwaihir.1745]

Aegis is weak; this guy isnt experienced enough with the game to actually know what he wants nerfed. 

[Ezrael.6859]

It's not overpowered it's just too available in some cases and rendered useless in others.

Since 2012 GW2 has suffered immensely from power creep.

Look at what Symbol of Vengeance does now, compared to Flashing Blade when we originally launched.

Aegis used to be rare, boons and conditions used to be rarer. Evades, reflects and invulnerability used to be rarer and involved more key tactical decisions. Unblockable used to be rare.

Self-healing used to be mainly just from your healing skill, now Necros, Revenants and Mirages can do insane self-healing from doing damage with Tormenting Runes, plus Necro can stack it on top of Parasitic Contagion.

Some classes can build so they almost have permanent 25 Might, Fury, Protection, Regen, Swiftness when solo; Boonbeast, Cele Weaver and Tormenting Runes Mirage represent some of the most power creeped specs and mechanics available.

The burst available from One Wold Pack Sick 'Em LB Soulbeast and stealthed Grenades Scrapper is crazy.

Deadeye is just dumb, 1500 range stealth, shadow stepping class with a skill to remove revealed, so a counter to the counter of their stealth... What's next? Do we get a special Aegis that stops unblockable?

Edited September 1, 2021 by Ezrael.6859

[Xaylin.1860]

14 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Firebrand should have access too only one Tome at any given time.

This could be a choice in the Major Adept traits, similar to how Daredevil has a choice of dodge mechanics in its Major Grandmaster traits.

Agree and although I suggested it for GMs in the past. I do enjoy my FB a lot and Guardian is probably the heavy class I play the most. But acess to 3 Tomes just is a balance nightmare and it is way too diverse. If ANet limited access they could unnerf many Tome skills and let people focus on one specific playstyle.

 

Regarding Aegis, I don't think it is overpowered overall.

[SeTect.5918]

Aegis is not overpowered, alac is not overpowered, quickness is not overpowered,  protection, might and nothing else is overpowered. 

The boons cant just be: this one is overpowered. 

Aegis can be overpowered if one class has too much access to 1 or more boon. In this case the class is overpowered, not the boon itself.

So the amount of the boon makes it op or not.

If a class can give literally every boon except alac, nearly perma to 5 teammates, its ofc op. 

 

My opinion to firebrand and boons:

Aegis is not overpowered, but the amount of aegis firebrand can give to 5 teammates is in Situations where bosses hit slow but hard. I mean there are still a hundred other boons firebrand can give so ofc it has to be tuned down imo. If its aegis that has to be tuned down, idk. But something of firebrand has to be.

[Fueki.4753]

37 minutes ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

Agree and although I suggested it for GMs in the past. I do enjoy my FB a lot and Guardian is probably the heavy class I play the most. But acess to 3 Tomes just is a balance nightmare and it is way too diverse. If ANet limited access they could unnerf many Tome skills and let people focus on one specific playstyle.

 

Regarding Aegis, I don't think it is overpowered overall.

I don't think having that choice in the Grandmaster traits is a good idea though.

Some people don't unlock all of the elite specialization at once and wouldn't have access to their chosen tome until they reached the Grandmaster traits.

For Daredevils it's ok, since they have regular dodges until they reach the Grandmaster traits, but Firebrand wouldn't have anything in place of the tomes.

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

The idea of making FB only have access to "one" tome has been already discussed on a handfull of times, and the idea of "pick GM trait that alters one virtue into a tome" is not viable - no other Espec withholds core profession mechanic change into GM trait, that mechanic change always occur in the proficiency "trait"

The closest viable solution for such a rework that was agreed to last time I have seen that topic raised, would be not touching virtues themselves at all, but instead give an F4 as tome, have it by default have a little bit of everything current tomes do, and then use GM trait to pick specialisation of that tome. But that's boring, and removes the last bit of semblance of complexity FB has - that is management of tomes - it may not be so important for most of PvE, but in WvW being in the right tome in the right time is very important skill for a firebrand.

[Neva Eilhart.5347]

I get where the OP comes from with this, but I think it has more to do with the powercreep status of the game than just Aegis.

 

If you compare nowadays gameplay to the very first beta gameplay from 2012, boons are now all over the place, conditions too, and they've basically merged all the traits and skills to do plenty of different effects rather than just one. Traits which typically would only grant you one boon now heal you and deal damage and give conditions to enemies at the same time. So if you take out one mechanic, the other ones remaining unchanged would quickly become an issue.

Bottom line : if you change how Aegis works, you'd also need to look after other mechanics / boons / conditions and traits, which got dramatically upscaled and tuned up over the years. 

 

I'm all for going back to a bit slower / more meaningful gameplay like the one we had in 2012 (which was all about dodging and using the right skill at the right moment instead of the button mashing we have now, especially on specs such as firebrand) but I highly doubt Anet would do it, and I highly doubt it would be popular either (nerfs are not welcomed in general, even if it's for the greater good, and zerg mechanics have been a gw2 trademark for way too long).

Edited September 1, 2021 by Neva Eilhart.5347

[Xaylin.1860]

9 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Some people don't unlock all of the elite specialization at once and wouldn't have access to their chosen tome until they reached the Grandmaster traits.

Valid point although I'm not sure how relevant that specific scenario is overall. As long as the Adept and Master trait worked without the GM, it would be fine.

8 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

The idea of making FB only have access to "one" tome has been already discussed on a handfull of times, and the idea of "pick GM trait that alters one virtue into a tome" is not viable - no other Espec withholds core profession mechanic change into GM trait, that mechanic change always occur in the proficiency "trait"

The closest viable solution for such a rework that was agreed to last time I have seen that topic raised, would be not touching virtues themselves at all, but instead give an F4 as tome, have it by default have a little bit of everything current tomes do, and then use GM trait to pick specialisation of that tome. But that's boring, and removes the last bit of semblance of complexity FB has - that is management of tomes - it may not be so important for most of PvE, but in WvW being in the right tome in the right time is very important skill for a firebrand.

I personally disagree. First, there is a comparable precedence with DrD. We also have traits that change the functionality of F skills like yet-to-be-renamed Harbinger Shroud. Second, how is adding an F4 any different than the current situation (considering it would probably have to include all powerful spells because players would otherwise riot)? It would also be yet another e-spec with only added benefit but no trade off compared to core.

 

I do agree that FB would lose complexity if such a change was implemented. However, I'd argue that this complexity is non existent in most scenario because it only comes into play on high level gameplay. Which doesn't mean meta. FB is meta because it can do too much at once. Not because it's complex. Many players just smash skills on cooldown. Because they can. Even if you disagree with my view, in the end, to me game and class balance is more important than the complexity of one sole e-spec. And I think it is obvious at this point that FB can only be balanced by even more nerfs which will constantly decrease the relevance of respective nerfed skills or by altering the mechanic itself. I'd rather have fewer skills that feel impactful than many that don't matter.

[draxynnic.3719]

...any player who just smashes skills on cooldown with FB would actually be stronger if you restricted them to one tome. Using a tome at the wrong time is worse than never using it at all.

 

Which, along with the question of what happens to the other two virtues is the big problem with the 'force firebrands to choose a tome' proposal. It'd be a no- brainer because which you'd take would be fully determed by your build. Practically nobody's ever going to choose Courage unless the recharge is substantially shortened (in which case, be careful what you wish for). Maybe in WvW, but nowhere else. Healbrands will just keep using Resolve - all that changes is that their DPS might drop a little from not having Tome of Justice and they don't have the emergency button that Tome of Courage provides. DPS Firebrands are obviously going to keep Justice, and all they lose is a couple of emergency buttons that they'd prefer never to have to use anyway. 

[Zenith.7301]

All that needs to happen is for the Firebrand heal to only give aegis to the guardian. Increase the healing to allies if you need to, but remove the aegis.

 

Even then Healbrand is a problem because he literally stacks all boons except alacrity, has baseline reflects, and the single Guardian monopoly on stability.

 

Healbrand also has far more accessible consistent condi heal compared to Druid/Heal renegade.

 

Boons are strangling the viability of classes because boons are way too strong relative to other class utilities, so classes strong on boon provision overshadow classes designed with less or no boon provision.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Zenith.7301

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

14 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

I personally disagree. First, there is a comparable precedence with DrD.

Well yes but actually no - the primary alteration to "core" mechanic of daredevil (even before changing steal to sweep that is just shorter range steal cause muh tradeoffs)  is third dodge, and it is gained at proficiency/minor adept level. straight out of the box. Altering how dodges works is a bonus ontop of that - daredevil served here a template for the idea of F4 tome.

14 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

We also have traits that change the functionality of F skills like yet-to-be-renamed Harbinger Shroud

And still bearer of that trait, scourge, has core necro functinality shift straight out of the box in proficiency/adept minor level....

14 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

Second, how is adding an F4 any different than the current situation (considering it would probably have to include all powerful spells because players would otherwise riot)? It would also be yet another e-spec with only added benefit but no trade off compared to core.

They wouldn't riot, because everyone used to current setup would already have all the grandmasters to "specialie" the tome to their liking. As for "no trade off compared to core" - that is the issue with shallowness of guardian's core profession mechanic - there is barely any room for trade-offs, and this currently applies to both firebrand and dragonhunter - as it is "tradeoff" of both is loosing instacast on virtue passives. Latest Willbender beta shows how easy it is to completely break guardian if you want to mess with virtue passives which is only reasonable aspect left to play with tuning.

Well of course one could always go berserker way of boring tradeoffs, and slap a stat penalty for having F4 tome. If you really had to. But that's stradling into even more boring ground.

Now just take a moment and look at your own suggestion - what you proposed there is making firebrand into core guardian with mantras up until GM traits are purchased, and with grandmaster traits, you turn it into core guardian with mantras that has 1 virtue altered to be a toolkit instead of instant cast ability. Which is even more boring than F4 idea.

Sure you can always "balance" espec by turning it into core class with new skill type and weapon, but that's not what especs are supposed to be.

[Ludo.9610]

What a wonderful discussion has unfolded here since I last checked this thread! 

 

On 9/1/2021 at 2:29 AM, Gwaihir.1745 said:

Aegis is weak; this guy isnt experienced enough with the game to actually know what he wants nerfed. 

Kudos to you for making me laugh 😄 

 

I think the general take-away from this thread is that Firebrand has too much access to Aegis; it being so abundant nowadays is the core of the issue with it. Some of you have pointed out that it's not as overpowered in sPvP and WvW and I agree with you all! I still wouldn't disregard its impact in WvW with or without Communal Defenses -- whichever way you look at it, a blob should not be impervious to a twice bigger cloud's efforts. sPvP is too small-scale and teams there are too scattered for blanket Aegis to matter, I agree. 

 

I think that PvE would definitely benefit from Firebrand being nerfed. The question is, how to do that without grounding it further in the other gamemodes? 

 

Regarding Aegis: That's why I suggested what I did in when I started this thread: Change how Aegis works; no blocking AoEs, only direct hits. As a result, you have: 

• Nerf in PvE -- Players can no longer face-tank AoEs. Certain bosses have very punishing AoEs that can no longer be just ignored with Aegis
• Buff in sPvP -- Aegis is more impactful, as it won't be instantly stripped by someone's stray AoE. 
• Nerf in WvW -- AoEs are much more likely to hit a blob. AoEs are already the most straightforward way a player can assault a blob, but they only work if 20 people spike them at the same time! 

 

Regarding Boon Nerfs: As for nerfing Firebrand's boon support, its greatest significance is in PvE with prestacking. Someone above already mentioned that dipping into a tome during an actual fight is a tradeoff and providing everyone with Stability from F3 can either help or hinder your performance. To me, the issue is with being able to prestack every single boon, as during the fight you never really run into that best-case scenario. No time, no boons, no "boon per buck!" I think that prestacking is the root of all evil in this case. A HFB acting as support can--and should be able to--provide said support during a fight, but only with active effort. I'm for nerfing prestacking even more, Firebrands will be nerfed the most like that. Maybe halve the maximum boon durations again! 

 

So nerf Firebrand by nerfing pre-stacking? Or nerf blocking in general? I think those are two different issues, but both arise because of Firebrand's value in PvE and WvW!

[Lord Trejgon.2809]

2 hours ago, Seal.5964 said:

Regarding Aegis: That's why I suggested what I did in when I started this thread: Change how Aegis works; no blocking AoEs, only direct hits. As a result, you have: 

• Nerf in PvE -- Players can no longer face-tank AoEs. Certain bosses have very punishing AoEs that can no longer be just ignored with Aegis
• Buff in sPvP -- Aegis is more impactful, as it won't be instantly stripped by someone's stray AoE. 
• Nerf in WvW -- AoEs are much more likely to hit a blob. AoEs are already the most straightforward way a player can assault a blob, but they only work if 20 people spike them at the same time! 

And as I have mentioned in my previous response, the direct result of such a change would be further reinforcement of AoE meta in wvw/pvp. Zerg meta is already alll about non-projectile AoE's even without further reinforcement, and you are asking to further reinforcement of that by stripping any active defence past dodging from countering it.

2 hours ago, Seal.5964 said:

I still wouldn't disregard its impact in WvW with or without Communal Defenses -- whichever way you look at it, a blob should not be impervious to a twice bigger cloud's efforts.

Here you are coming from false premises. no blob is "impervious" to any group that is "twice bigger", that being said whole point of forming a blob is to deny enemy ability to make a "twice bigger" group (due to map caps).

Secondly, cloud is formation, blob is a size of group - in particular blob can also be clouding if needed 😉 and there is a certain triangle of types of formations going on with blobs, of melee trains, clouds and pirateships (all else equal, melee train trumps pirateship, cloud counters melee train and pirateship counters cloud) that slight offtopic detour behind us - unorganized blob can easilly be picked away, firebrands or not, by a well organized cloud, and if a zerg won a fight against "twice as big cloud" it would be a testament to their coordination advantage over their enemies, not just aegis spam+communal defences.

Also, no amount of aegis can prevent 50 players from hitting you. Not with mechanics we have atm in the game.

 

2 hours ago, Seal.5964 said:

Regarding Boon Nerfs: As for nerfing Firebrand's boon support, its greatest significance is in PvE with prestacking.

ez solution already implemented in strikes and some of raid bosses - have a boss strip all the boons from players at the beginning of the fight. Here, prestacking no more, no need for any wonky duration nerfs.

[Infusion.7149]

11 hours ago, Zenith.7301 said:

All that needs to happen is for the Firebrand heal to only give aegis to the guardian. Increase the healing to allies if you need to, but remove the aegis.

 

Even then Healbrand is a problem because he literally stacks all boons except alacrity, has baseline reflects, and the single Guardian monopoly on stability.

 

Healbrand also has far more accessible consistent condi heal compared to Druid/Heal renegade.

 

Boons are strangling the viability of classes because boons are way too strong relative to other class utilities, so classes strong on boon provision overshadow classes designed with less or no boon provision.

Before firebrand was buffed multiple times I played chrono mostly.

Distortion from signets has 1s duration (unaffected by boon duration) and was party-wide. It is 2s duration with aegis instead of distortion now (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inspiring_Distortion) which is exactly the same base duration as Mantra of Solace. The difference is instant cast and running Inspiration on chrono tanks your damage to the tune of ~6K DPS last I checked (22K Inspiration power chrono vs ~28K StM dom dueling chrono).

Unless you consider inspiration chrono to be broken (which I don't believe it is since Bountiful Disillusionment only applies boons to the mesmer as of 2018), I don't think that giving aegis only to the guardian would be an ideal solution (at least not when traited). The main thing is signet of the ether has 30s cooldown (a while ago it was 35) while Signet of Inspiration was 30s cooldown and reduced to 20s.  Instead I think Mantra of Solace should function as a party-wide Shelter (that has 30s cooldown) , similar to how "Receive the Light" is a party heal on 30s cooldown (Bear Stance on soulbeast is 25s cooldown ; "Wash the Pain Away" is 20s cooldown on tempest ; Sand Flare is 25s cool down before they changed it to require trait to share the barrier, Well of Eternity on chrono is 30s cooldown). Mantra of Solace does not heal anyone else, it's only when you trait Honor's Pure of Heart that you get an additional heal.

If there is to be a clear delineation between DPS firebrand , healbrand, and condi quickness firebrand then the easiest way would be to:

• increase the quickness output of Mantra of Potence to 4s so you get 8s out of 12 cooldown with two charges meaning 40% boon duration basically covers quickness while reducing might gain per charge from 5 stacks to 2-3 stacks,
• double base cooldown on the mantra of solace to 25s and make the heal actually heal for a decent amount such as 4K ,
• and then possibly have Liberator's Vow apply aegis to others because it becomes far weaker if mantra of solace is 25s cooldown (an alternative is to not touch Mantra of Potence and  double the quickness duration on Liberator's Vow). Mantra of Solace with a decent heal would still be preferable to Shelter because it's instant and doesn't tank your damage for 2s.

CFB doesn't use mantra of potence or liberator's vow and that's the major difference. 8 page CFB does 40K benchmark but 5 page CFB does ~34-37K meaning forcing a trait of Liberator's Vow for party aegis would be a nerf to its party sustain if you stack CFB.

Now some people would complain the mantra cooldowns don't line up or something, but they already do not if you use Mantra of Liberation instead of "Feel My Wrath". That could be easily rectified by doubling cooldown on both Mantra of Solace and Mantra of Potence while increasing base quickness duration by double as well.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Zenith.7301]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Before firebrand was buffed multiple times I played chrono mostly.

Distortion from signets has 1s duration (unaffected by boon duration) and was party-wide. It is 2s duration with aegis instead of distortion now (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Inspiring_Distortion) which is exactly the same base duration as Mantra of Solace. The difference is instant cast and running Inspiration on chrono tanks your damage to the tune of ~6K DPS last I checked (22K Inspiration power chrono vs ~28K StM dom dueling chrono).

Unless you consider inspiration chrono to be broken (which I don't believe it is since Bountiful Disillusionment only applies boons to the mesmer as of 2018), I don't think that giving aegis only to the guardian would be an ideal solution (at least not when traited). The main thing is signet of the ether has 30s cooldown (a while ago it was 35) while Signet of Inspiration was 30s cooldown and reduced to 20s.  Instead I think Mantra of Solace should function as a party-wide Shelter (that has 30s cooldown) , similar to how "Receive the Light" is a party heal on 30s cooldown (Bear Stance on soulbeast is 25s cooldown ; "Wash the Pain Away" is 20s cooldown on tempest ; Sand Flare is 25s cool down before they changed it to require trait to share the barrier, Well of Eternity on chrono is 30s cooldown). Mantra of Solace does not heal anyone else, it's only when you trait Honor's Pure of Heart that you get an additional heal.

If there is to be a clear delineation between DPS firebrand , healbrand, and condi quickness firebrand then the easiest way would be to:

• increase the quickness output of Mantra of Potence to 4s so you get 8s out of 12 cooldown with two charges meaning 40% boon duration basically covers quickness while reducing might gain per charge from 5 stacks to 2-3 stacks,
• double base cooldown on the mantra of solace to 25s and make the heal actually heal for a decent amount such as 4K ,
• and then possibly have Liberator's Vow apply aegis to others because it becomes far weaker if mantra of solace is 25s cooldown (an alternative is to not touch Mantra of Potence and  double the quickness duration on Liberator's Vow). Mantra of Solace with a decent heal would still be preferable to Shelter because it's instant and doesn't tank your damage for 2s.

CFB doesn't use mantra of potence or liberator's vow and that's the major difference. 8 page CFB does 40K benchmark but 5 page CFB does ~34-37K meaning forcing a trait of Liberator's Vow for party aegis would be a nerf to its party sustain if you stack CFB.

Now some people would complain the mantra cooldowns don't line up or something, but they already do not if you use Mantra of Liberation instead of "Feel My Wrath". That could be easily rectified by doubling cooldown on both Mantra of Solace and Mantra of Potence while increasing base quickness duration by double as well.

 

 

Those changes don't take into account Anet's propensity for marginal, meager balance skill changes. Your skills would require adjustments in various formats to compensate, while the fix to removing aegis would decrease the utter dominance of firebrand in fractals in particular. Chrono with inspiration can neither heal or provide reliably the sheer amount of boons HB can.

And even then besides aegis removal they'd have to shave off HB's ability to fart out stability or extend stability and resolution to the other support specs, because resolution is huge during afflicted frailty weeks in fractals. Even then, 100cm would be dominated by the sheer strength of sanctuary even if they nerfed scourge (which they should, by halving epidemic's range of spread or only making it spread your own conditions).

 

Simple changes always are favored knowing Anet's glacial output of balance patches and how pitifully small in scope they usually are.

 

But something has to be done. The state of fractals is untenable with how it's just scourges and HB stacking now, absolutely no variety. Even in the heyday of ele dominance, because ele was such a high skill cap class to pull off properly, they'd accept many other power classes.

 

Now with the ridiculous exposed changes, scourge and firebrand eclipse any other spec so badly, it's not even close. Condi daredevil is up there with them, but barely anyone plays thief so it's not as apparent.

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, Zenith.7301 said:

 

 

Those changes don't take into account Anet's propensity for marginal, meager balance skill changes. Your skills would require adjustments in various formats to compensate, while the fix to removing aegis would decrease the utter dominance of firebrand in fractals in particular. Chrono with inspiration can neither heal or provide reliably the sheer amount of boons HB can.

And even then besides aegis removal they'd have to shave off HB's ability to fart out stability or extend stability and resolution to the other support specs, because resolution is huge during afflicted frailty weeks in fractals. Even then, 100cm would be dominated by the sheer strength of sanctuary even if they nerfed scourge (which they should, by halving epidemic's range of spread or only making it spread your own conditions).

 

Simple changes always are favored knowing Anet's glacial output of balance patches and how pitifully small in scope they usually are.

 

But something has to be done. The state of fractals is untenable with how it's just scourges and HB stacking now, absolutely no variety. Even in the heyday of ele dominance, because ele was such a high skill cap class to pull off properly, they'd accept many other power classes.

 

Now with the ridiculous exposed changes, scourge and firebrand eclipse any other spec so badly, it's not even close. Condi daredevil is up there with them, but barely anyone plays thief so it's not as apparent.

Mantra of solace hasn't been run in PVP for a while and mantra of solace is used typically on support firebrands in WVW. If it doesn't share aegis there's no reason to run Mantra of Solace in WVW (even if it required a trait): you would bring "Receive the Light" , Signet of Resolve, or Shelter.

Mantra of Potence already has 1s quickness duration in WVW/PVP.

In fractals more often than not I need to supply stab on alac ren because most PUG firebrands run Feel my Wrath and don't run "Stand Your Ground" either. Firebrands' stability isn't a major issue as far as fractals go ; in WVW "Stand Your Ground"'s proposed 45s cooldown increase was denounced by the majority of the community.

edit: Anyhow , at least we agree aegis is not the problem and Mantra of Solace's shared aegis is the true issue.
A guardian running "Advance" , offhand shield , or mainhand mace has to make major sacrifices. Communal Defenses isn't common at all because of the 15s internal cooldown and not affecting the player.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Infusion.7149