Should Alacrity and Quickness be Nerfed?

[Xanadrine.4352]

Well looks like thief specter is getting quickness, as well as resistance /happy 

[IndigoSundown.5419]

13 hours ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Sure, I get it, but once all the game's PvE content is "on farm", people get fed up and quit.

 

Through player optimisation, a side-effect of raiding as mentioned above, a lot of formerly difficult content is now trivial. It's in the dev's interest to nerf abilities until content is difficult again. 

 It's a lot easier to never give too much to players than it is to take something away.  That's why the "standard" MMO's use gear treadmills.  Older content (on farm) becomes easy, and only the new content is challenging.

 

So I'll ask, how many people have bled away from GW2 harder PvE because it was too easy?  Would they come back to play that same content if it were harder?  Alternatively, how many have stopped playing because there's been nothing new in harder PvE for, well, a long time?

[LKEY.9567]

You want to nerf/remove Quickness/Alacrity because your class is not desirable as a healer.

I am so sorry on behalf of all the community that we displeased you.

I truly love that people speak about balance or PvE endgame while having absolutely no clue how it works and have never been in the endgame.

[Astralporing.1957]

14 hours ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

 So I'll ask, how many people have bled away from GW2 harder PvE because it was too easy?  Would they come back to play that same content if it were harder?  Alternatively, how many have stopped playing because there's been nothing new in harder PvE for, well, a long time?

Not to mention it always goes hand in hand with the other side of the coin: the questions of "how many people bled away from GW2 harder PvE because it was too hard already?", and "how many players would stop playing the content if it became harder than it already is?".

[Touchme.1097]

The best way to deal with the Quickness/Alacrity Meta is to allow all professions to generate these boons for at least a whole party of 5 members and the boon generation has to change from melee stacking to AoE.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Touchme.1097

[Jski.6180]

There space for them to give say tempest with heat sink to give copy of quickness yet anet felt there was no need for this for the class but scraper gives is out to 5 targets with its super speed. The level of what class have and what class have not seem less a point of balancing and more of anet person feeling for liking a class or not liking a class. So quickness/alacrity are too important in all game types for any class to play any content beyond just being a leech to a group.

[Infusion.7149]

Tempest heals 10 people and boons people... it can easily replace druid but people stubbornly want their spotter buff (which you can get from power soulbeast) despite it being a mostly condi meta outside of KC , VG, & CA. Coincidentally on KC and CA "rebound" can be useful.

Not even  scrapper or StM chrono will replace firebrand in fractals due to how agony works (-70% healing). Scepter thief (which is presumably condi) probably won't either but the barriers are going to be more attractive than scrapper heals since barriers ignore agony.

Edited October 21, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Jski.6180]

8 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Tempest heals 10 people and boons people... it can easily replace druid but people stubbornly want their spotter buff (which you can get from power soulbeast) despite it being a mostly condi meta outside of KC , VG, & CA. Coincidentally on KC and CA "rebound" can be useful.

Not even  scrapper or StM chrono will replace firebrand in fractals due to how agony works (-70% healing). Scepter thief (which is presumably condi) probably won't either but the barriers are going to be more attractive than scrapper heals since barriers ignore agony.

Right but the balance of boons have changed quickness and alacrity are stander boons now so letting a class like tempest who boons 10 ppl the ability to shier quickness but not generate it is very much with in the balancing of the current game.

[Infusion.7149]

12 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Right but the balance of boons have changed quickness and alacrity are stander boons now so letting a class like tempest who boons 10 ppl the ability to shier quickness but not generate it is very much with in the balancing of the current game.

How do you "share quickness but not generate it"?
That doesn't make any sense because people don't bring SOI chronos for SOI or heralds for facet of nature.

[Jski.6180]

1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

How do you "share quickness but not generate it"?
That doesn't make any sense because people don't bring SOI chronos for SOI or heralds for facet of nature.

Heat Sync only give you might (though it realty should not) it dose not give fury but simply coplys fury and might to 10 other ppl. As a skill it should coply all aggressive boons on the tempest to other ppl so it becomes an ability to aplflye boons that are only being given to 5 targets but to 10. Right now the earth WH 4 Sand Squall skills is +3 sec to all boons for 10 targets so it Kind of dose it already if the boons on every one already but due to the perma stacking of these boons its mostly worthless.

The ideal is to give tempest the ability to give other Quickness with out giving tempest quickness and realy over all that what support of an boon and even healing should be in this game a class that gives others effects but not give the effect to it self in the first place. That where all of this Quickness / alacrity spam messes up the boons are buffing the boon generation to start with making a very strong feed back loop for the class who is giving out the boons much stronger then it should be to start with.

Also alacrity as a boon type that is hitting skills and effects that have no cdr at all (tempest overloads wind up getting a -25% cdr is kind of big when the only other way to get that is though a GM trait maybe a bit too much overall.)

[Infusion.7149]

18 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

Heat Sync only give you might (though it realty should not) it dose not give fury but simply coplys fury and might to 10 other ppl. As a skill it should coply all aggressive boons on the tempest to other ppl so it becomes an ability to aplflye boons that are only being given to 5 targets but to 10. Right now the earth WH 4 Sand Squall skills is +3 sec to all boons for 10 targets so it Kind of dose it already if the boons on every one already but due to the perma stacking of these boons its mostly worthless.

The ideal is to give tempest the ability to give other Quickness with out giving tempest quickness and realy over all that what support of an boon and even healing should be in this game a class that gives others effects but not give the effect to it self in the first place. That where all of this Quickness / alacrity spam messes up the boons are buffing the boon generation to start with making a very strong feed back loop for the class who is giving out the boons much stronger then it should be to start with.

Also alacrity as a boon type that is hitting skills and effects that have no cdr at all (tempest overloads wind up getting a -25% cdr is kind of big when the only other way to get that is though a GM trait maybe a bit too much overall.)

It doesn't change what I wrote.

If you don't need the healing of heal tempest why would you run one over a herald with facet of nature?

[Jski.6180]

Just now, Infusion.7149 said:

It doesn't change what I wrote.

If you don't need the healing of heal tempest why would you run one over a herald with facet of nature?

This is about balancing of support and these boons over all. I am saying how to add these boons to more classes with out braking the game and the problem with how classes use them already.

Why run any thing but FB and scorges? PVE balancing is a joke of a game type as long as there is a core group of ppl with the "right" classes you can have a number of ppl as lech classes. As long as you have boons like these given out in the way they are now you simply have classes left out in the cold of the meta. This is true for pvp but to a lesser amount.

Support healing and support boons need to be more about giving to others and less about the class giving to it self and happen to have it aoe. Scraper is missing a roll for sure but its not good to give it quickness to it self and as an support same for FB same for any other support quickness class. Alacrity is in the same places but even worst because cdr to alacrity generation skill makes the boon even better due to the lower cd of the boons effect.

Your might fury protection reg etc.. do not do make there boons stronger by having the same boon.

The current system of support is messed up badly and some times a massive blow to the boons that are mostly propping it up maybe needed OR you fix the support system. As long as having a boon makes that boon stronger or more pema the loop becomes OP and impossible to balance with out giving it to every thing in the game. At that point its no longer a boon but just a simple benchmark that you can only hit by excluding classes and players from content.

[Infusion.7149]

1 minute ago, Jski.6180 said:

This is about balancing of support and these boons over all. I am saying how to add these boons to more classes with out braking the game and the problem with how classes use them already.

Why run any thing but FB and scorges? PVE balancing is a joke of a game type as long as there is a core group of ppl with the "right" classes you can have a number of ppl as lech classes. As long as you have boons like these given out in the way they are now you simply have classes left out in the cold of the meta. This is true for pvp but to a lesser amount.

Support healing and support boons need to be more about giving to others and less about the class giving to it self and happen to have it aoe. Scraper is missing a roll for sure but its not good to give it quickness to it self and as an support same for FB same for any other support quickness class. Alacrity is in the same places but even worst because cdr to alacrity generation skill makes the boon even better due to the lower cd of the boons effect.

Your might fury protection reg etc.. do not do make there boons stronger by having the same boon.

The current system of support is messed up badly and some times a massive blow to the boons that are mostly propping it up maybe needed OR you fix the support system. As long as having a boon makes that boon stronger or more pema the loop becomes OP and impossible to balance with out giving it to every thing in the game. At that point its no longer a boon but just a simple benchmark that you can only hit by excluding classes and players from content.

Scrapper isn't missing a role in raids : it's just not meta. It's perfectly serviceable in raids and openworld while outhealing and outcleansing firebrand by a large margin in WVW and likely also PVE. The reason you don't run scrapper in fractals as a healer is because of agony and might/fury output. Agony is -70% healing and on top of that , aegis on firebrand blocks attacks outright. Couple this with the exposed debuff change to strongly prefer condition damage and it means scrapper is at a major disadvantage. Quickness is not the issue there whatsoever , cleave is not either, ramp time is non-existent on power scrapper.

Examples of where scrapper excels: conjured amalgamate , keep construct (+35% power bonus), vale guardian (+35% power bonus),  matthias (incoming condi), soulless horror (superspeed is helpful but typically it's a heal scrapper here), etc. To a lesser extent slothasor (phases) , samarog (phases), and adina (phases) as well. In all cases you would need the squad to supply some might and especially fury from elsewhere.

The primary problem right now with tempest has nothing to do with the boons (it lacks quickness/alac but brings might+fury+protection+regen on heal tempest for 10 people) or even the healing unless you talk about fractals specifically. Even the snowcrows ele benchmarker Roul stated the largest issue pervasive to DPS tempest is the hitbox reliance. On weavers you can get around this somewhat with running condi weaver which is massively more complex or power weavers (which have basically the same DPS as tempest on larger hitboxes) via arcane blast.
From DPS tempest video: "Super unncessary nerf, but also not a very significant one. The build still has the same strengths (insane utility) and the same weaknesses (not exactly good dps on non-big hitboxes). Didn't grind this super much, I guess for an hour or so, so something closer to 37k might be possible."

[Xanadrine.4352]

okay after watching the elite live stream..nononono no nerfing. mech looks like its getting aclarity!  

Edited October 22, 2021 by Zuldari.3940

[Lottie.5370]

I wanted to just type 'No' but it was too short.

[Nightcore.5621]

On 10/21/2021 at 4:25 PM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Not to mention it always goes hand in hand with the other side of the coin: the questions of "how many people bled away from GW2 harder PvE because it was too hard already?", and "how many players would stop playing the content if it became harder than it already is?".

Guild wars 2 bein hard... Haha haha No just stop there

[Astralporing.1957]

35 minutes ago, Nightcore.5621 said:

Guild wars 2 bein hard... Haha haha No just stop there

Well, yeah. A lot of people did stop there. And that's one of the reasons why raids failed.

[Styopa.2538]

I'm not a theorycrafter, but from my friends that are, alac and quickness are 'the things' right now.

I don't think any boon should be so meta it's preferred to pretty nearly everything else.

Just seems like maybe its benefits should be scaled back a little so it's not SUCH an (apparently) must-have.

[Sobx.1758]

On 10/20/2021 at 11:56 AM, Svarty.8019 said:

WoW and since then I've noticed a marked improvement in the way PvE content is completed.

lol, no. That's just not a thing.

[Tails.9372]

4 hours ago, Styopa.2538 said:

I don't think any boon should be so meta it's preferred to pretty nearly everything else.

Just seems like maybe its benefits should be scaled back a little so it's not SUCH an (apparently) must-have.

It's not about the benefits so much as it is about the distribution, other things like might are just as "meta" but they're widely available so no group is looking for people just to apply them (but you would get into the same situation if only one class were able to). It's more of a supply and demand issue than anything else.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Tails.9372

[Mell.4873]

Honestly at this stage it would be hard to reverse the requirement rather they should just give more classes access to the new boons.

I like the meta checks of heals, Quickness and alacrity. To a smaller extent cc is another requirement and might. Which ele is is rather good at, especially aoe stuns. 

[Astralporing.1957]

11 hours ago, Styopa.2538 said:

I'm not a theorycrafter, but from my friends that are, alac and quickness are 'the things' right now.

I don't think any boon should be so meta it's preferred to pretty nearly everything else.

Just seems like maybe its benefits should be scaled back a little so it's not SUCH an (apparently) must-have.

Problem is, that both Quickness and Alacrity are not very "scalable" buffs. Might, for example, is something that scales nicely. Basically, any amount of it is good, but its presence is not critical. Sure, with less Might stacks (or with each stack nerfed down to give less) you end up doing lower dps, but it does not really impact the way you play. If nerfed enough, at some point it might become something you don;t actively build for, but you wpuld still find any Might stacks from random sources to be beneficial. In case of Quickness and Alacrity however, any change to them (be it incomplete upkeep, or the boons themselves getting nerfed to give less) impacts the rotations. As such, you will always want to have them at a predictable state (so, basically either 100% upkeep, or without them at all), in order not to introduce unnecessary chaos and mess up players' rota during encounter.

The abovementioned reason means, that, even after nerfs, you will always want to have 100% upkeep of them as long as they offer enough advantage - until you reach a certain point where they suddenly become a disadvantage, in which case you'd want to get rid of even their incidental generation. That's not a good state for a boon to be.

It would have been easier if it was a single boon that scales completely linearly (speeds up everything in a rotation - animations, activation times, aftercasts, skill cooldowns, trait cooldowns, weapon switch cooldowns), but even then you might run into problems (because you sometimes try to line up rotation skills with certain skill effects being up - and you'd probably not want for those to get accelerated as well).

Ergo, at this point, the only ways to address the issue are either to remove those two boons completely, or allow for more sources of them.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Astralporing.1957