A 10% damage trait won't make up 9k DPS deficit for Vindicator.

[TheeBlackDeath.5692]

3 hours ago, Zenith.7301 said:

Probably the easiest way to add CC to GS is to make the block separate from the 2nd skill toggle and make the second skill toggle not require a block to use, ending the block early and applying a 2 sec stun.

 

If not chill to Requiem, a chill on GS2 is fine as well.

 

Hell, I'd like a boonstrip on GS2.

Personally I think GS2 is fine with just vulnerability since that makes more sense over also adding chill onto it, but my main desire for wanting a chill on GS5 is for the chill to proc into Torment from the corruption trait which will boost the damage of the skill despite the skill's damage decreasing from the multiple mist bursts since the skill doesn't effect condi damage and nor should it, so essentially you'll have the GS5 skill do even better with AOE if you go with that trait as well to fully optimize some of your damage in a reasonable and logical manner.

[Kain Francois.4328]

On 11/25/2021 at 8:45 AM, Obtena.7952 said:

Except I'm pretty sure Anet is aware that almost no one achieves 38-39K DPS in PVE in the first place. In otherwords ... 38-39K DPS that you are saying is the standard ... is not. 

The fact people are asking for 38-39k dps AND sustain AND support, on top of everything else, is proof that Power Creep is bad for the game, and the damage it does.

The only way to fix this is to hire a bunch of Mesmers to hypnotize Tyria and deprogram them from years of conditioning by power creep. We need the Hypno Hylek stat.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Kain Francois.4328

[Obtena.7952]

21 minutes ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

The fact people are asking for 38-39k dps AND sustain AND support, on top of everything else, is proof that Power Creep is bad for the game, and the damage it does.

Yeah that's probably true. I would agree with that. Some people have some VERY unreasonable expectations. I would actually prefer that Vindicator was not on the higher side of DPS ... or if it is, it's limited to the red alliance side. High DPS classes tend to miss some goodies. 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Jah Warrior.9682]

46 minutes ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

The fact people are asking for 38-39k dps AND sustain AND support, on top of everything else, is proof that Power Creep is bad for the game, and the damage it does.

I'm just glad we are getting a focus on power damage here for the next beta. Condi dps may not be existent for this spec, but with these changes, I'm optimistic we can get 34-36k on average. If we get that I think alot of rev players will be happy. Rev has tons of support and condi dps options already. Asking for crazy good dps, heals and sustain for one spec is unreasonable and not good balancing.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Jah Warrior.9682
Grammar

[Kain Francois.4328]

30 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Yeah that's probably true. I would agree with that. Some people have some VERY unreasonable expectations. I would actually prefer that Vindicator was not on the higher side of DPS ... or if it is, it's limited to the red alliance side. High DPS classes tend to miss some goodies. 

Vindicator is going to be crazy after this update. Now that we can actually use Viktor on demand, it means always being able to provide support during clutch situations. Meanwhile, Archemorus is fully unleashed, with amazing Endurance regeneration capabilities, on top of self-buffing

But I want to talk about Viktor for a second. Being able to use it on demand means:

• - Selfless Spirit, which heals the team for 3570... on Berserker gear. (It's basically Wash the Pain Away.)
• - Battle Dance on demand gives allies RESISTANCE at cost much more accessible than Pain Absorption. (6s in full Diviner Gear.)
• - Tree Song will be able to cleanse FIVE CONDITIONS from 5 of your allies, heal them even more (even in Berserker gear), on only a 10s cd. Did I mention you always have access to this, and it's still effective even in Berserker's gear? Also, it's an evade, making it even more useful for clutch situations.
• - Awakening is a SPAMMABLE STUN BREAK on allies, on a low cd, which grants Protection AND STABILITY
• -Urn of Saint Viktor for mobility, an insane amount of personal damage reduction, and clutch heals on allies.

Oh, I completely forgot that they're also slashing the cooldown on most of these abilities to just 3 seconds (WTF?!), and even buffing them like the Urn.

All of that is on top of the self-sustain of Battle Scars, and Assassin's Presence.

On top of that, Legendary Alliance always gives us access to these skills. We would already be using Archemorus for damage and endurance regeneration. But having on-demand access to Viktor gives Vindicator a certain amount of utility that is outright broken, especially in Diviner's gear.

I'm worried the only way to balance Vindicator may be to actually remove Viktor.

This is a Firebrand situation all over again. Except worse, because the abilities are on a 3s cooldown.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Kain Francois.4328

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

1 hour ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

The fact people are asking for 38-39k dps AND sustain AND support, on top of everything else, is proof that Power Creep is bad for the game, and the damage it does.

The vast majority of people were (and still are) asking for a selfish high dps spec (the only niche outside of quickness share that Revenant really lacks at this point).  It was Anet that decided apparently Revenant needed a 3rd hybrid support e-spec for some reason, a niche that is already filled by core, Herald, and Renegade.

25 minutes ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

Oh, I completely forgot that they're also slashing the cooldown on most of these abilities to just 3 seconds (WTF?!), and even buffing them like the Urn.

Yet all of them are also increasing in energy cost (except Urn, let's be real -10 was way too much), so they still won't be spammable unless you devote all of your energy to them.  Going into Viktor also locks you out of all of your Archemorous damage skills for 10s, so using Viktor at all will be a damage loss and if you need to use it extensively it'll be even more of a damage loss.  This is a fair tradeoff

25 minutes ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

This is a Firebrand situation all over again. Except worse, because the abilities are on a 3s cooldown.

Except not at all, because the abilities still cost energy which locks you out of both damage and healing skills (FB only deals with CDs/page count and still has access to its utilities/weapon skills in addition) and more importantly Viktor offers none of the major offensive boons nor does it offer Aegis.  FB offers Quickness/Might/Fury/Stab/Aegis/Prot and more. 

Edited November 26, 2021 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Kain Francois.4328]

2 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

The vast majority of people were (and still are) asking for a selfish high dps spec (the only niche outside of quickness share that Revenant really lacks at this point).  It was Anet that decided apparently Revenant needed a 3rd hybrid support e-spec for some reason a niche that is already filled by core, Herald, and Renegade.

I'm inclined to agree that the community overwhelmingly didn't want a support/hybrid spec.

However, if I may offer devil's advocate: Revenant is designed to be a jack of all trades support class. That's the whole point of the legend swapping system. The base class was only designed with one power dps legend, while Jalis doing any sort of big damage with the spinny hammers and brick road seemed to be more of an oversight.

Each elite spec added so far plays into the Revenant's hybrid role by being hybrid in nature, with Glint being boon support, and Kalla having life steal.

At this point, I would argue the design of Revenant being "Hybrid support" is actually intentional, and baked so deeply into the design pillars of the class that it will always be this way.

Where Vindicator is different is that we can actively choose when to support and when to dps, allowing people to specialize more than any other elite spec before this.

 

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

12 minutes ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

I'm inclined to agree that the community overwhelmingly didn't want a support/hybrid spec.

However, if I may offer devil's advocate: Revenant is designed to be a jack of all trades support class. That's the whole point of the legend swapping system. The base class was only designed with one power dps legend, while Jalis doing any sort of big damage with the spinny hammers and brick road seemed to be more of an oversight.

Each elite spec added so far plays into the Revenant's hybrid role by being hybrid in nature, with Glint being boon support, and Kalla having life steal.

At this point, I would argue the design of Revenant being "Hybrid support" is actually intentional, and baked so deeply into the design pillars of the class that it will always be this way.

Where Vindicator is different is that we can actively choose when to support and when to dps, allowing people to specialize more than any other elite spec before this.

 

Right, it has always been designed as a hybrid, yes, which is why all of the legends (except Ventari) have both damage and utility skills generally.  That doesn't stop it (and shouldn't stop it) from being able to be played in a high dps option, however.  Renegade is a perfect example of this;  it can provide additional team assistance but has to start cutting into its personal damage to do so

The trade off (which is even more severe in Legendary Alliance than in Herald or Renegade due to locking you out of your damage options entirely) for using your support options for Rev has always been that you spend energy and drop your damage in order to do so.  The specialization that Vindicator allows is actually interesting and unique for the class, but I don't think it's going to be gamebreaking.  Assuming Vindicator ever achieves a high dps benchmark of 37-40k it obviously won't be able to achieve those numbers without devoting itself entirely to Archemorous/Shiro.  Ele is another good example of a class with a dozen options that completely ignores its healing/supportive abilities in order to attain maximum dps and has to drop its damage if it wants to use them.  I think these kinds of trade offs are fine, honestly

Edited November 26, 2021 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Kain Francois.4328]

32 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

 Ele is another good example of a class with a dozen options that completely ignores its healing/supportive abilities in order to attain maximum dps and has to drop its damage if it wants to use them.  I think these kinds of trade offs are fine, honestly

But Viktor increases Endurance, meaning more leaps.

I can easily imagine a scenario we swap to Viktor before swapping legends in order to maximize Endurance generation.

Keeping in mind legend swaps exist, there is a very reasonable window to pop his support skills.

Edited November 27, 2021 by Kain Francois.4328

[oscuro.9720]

On 11/24/2021 at 3:42 PM, BobbyT.7192 said:

Worth noting that bladesworn's Dragon Slash force is getting a damage reduction, seems like almost 60%. In exchange for faster flow rate and lower flow cost. So previous damage numbers might not be that high anymore. 

It will have a roughly 20% faster cast rate (10.5s vs 13s for full cooldown+charge rate) with a 60% reduction in damage, which will come out to roughly a 25% DPS decrease if my math is right (it probably isn’t), putting blade somewhere around 36-37k. Again, maths may be incorrect.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

17 minutes ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

But Viktor increases Endurance, meaning more leaps.

I can easily imagine a scenario we swap to Viktor before swapping legends in order to maximize Endurance generation.

Keeping in mind legend swaps exist, there is a very reasonable window to pop his support skills.

Leaps may or may not be a DPS increase in and of themselves though.  We'll have to see on that.  It might be the type of thing where you only want to leap for the buff and then not leap again until the buff is going to wear off.  The new Leviathan's Strength is going to give 10% if your endurance isn't full, but if the dodge itself isn't powerful enough you might actually want to avoid maxing your endurance too fast.  We'll have to see the numbers once they're released

Yes swapping to viktor shortly before swapping legends is likely the best way to dip into his skills if you need, but you'll still need energy to be able to cast his skills; it's not as if you can just dump your full rotation in Archemorous and weapon skills and then just swap into Viktor and cast all of his things for free before swapping.  Every second delayed for Legend Swap is also a dps loss as well.  Viktor is likely going to be more of an "oh kitten" button if you happen to be in Alliance stance and have the energy to spare with full understanding that you're tanking your dps more and more per skill used and per second spent in his form. 

Edited November 27, 2021 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[otto.5684]

2 hours ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

The fact people are asking for 38-39k dps AND sustain AND support, on top of everything else, is proof that Power Creep is bad for the game, and the damage it does.

The only way to fix this is to hire a bunch of Mesmers to hypnotize Tyria and deprogram them from years of conditioning by power creep. We need the Hypno Hylek stat.

Actually, this spec should have no support. Anet jamming dysfunctional support skills is not only pointless, is also extremely redundant, as both herald and renegade offer a ton of support option (even if herald is lack luster). This spec should be purely power dps.

[Obtena.7952]

2 hours ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

Vindicator is going to be crazy after this update. Now that we can actually use Viktor on demand, it means always being able to provide support during clutch situations. Meanwhile, Archemorus is fully unleashed, with amazing Endurance regeneration capabilities, on top of self-buffing

But I want to talk about Viktor for a second. Being able to use it on demand means:

• - Selfless Spirit, which heals the team for 3570... on Berserker gear. (It's basically Wash the Pain Away.)
• - Battle Dance on demand gives allies RESISTANCE at cost much more accessible than Pain Absorption. (6s in full Diviner Gear.)
• - Tree Song will be able to cleanse FIVE CONDITIONS from 5 of your allies, heal them even more (even in Berserker gear), on only a 10s cd. Did I mention you always have access to this, and it's still effective even in Berserker's gear? Also, it's an evade, making it even more useful for clutch situations.
• - Awakening is a SPAMMABLE STUN BREAK on allies, on a low cd, which grants Protection AND STABILITY
• -Urn of Saint Viktor for mobility, an insane amount of personal damage reduction, and clutch heals on allies.

Oh, I completely forgot that they're also slashing the cooldown on most of these abilities to just 3 seconds (WTF?!), and even buffing them like the Urn.

All of that is on top of the self-sustain of Battle Scars, and Assassin's Presence.

On top of that, Legendary Alliance always gives us access to these skills. We would already be using Archemorus for damage and endurance regeneration. But having on-demand access to Viktor gives Vindicator a certain amount of utility that is outright broken, especially in Diviner's gear.

I'm worried the only way to balance Vindicator may be to actually remove Viktor.

This is a Firebrand situation all over again. Except worse, because the abilities are on a 3s cooldown.

Honestly, I doubt highly that Anet will even bother to balance Vindicator that much by taking things away ... much less do it by removing Viktor. Why? because even though it's a good number of strong effects on low cooldown, you still can't use them simultaneously and as it always SHOULD have been on Revenant, the energy system limits how spammable things are, not the CD's. 

I suspect at least for the first while, the balancing will just be some numbers here and there and at MOST maybe a skill change. Based on how LITTLE CMC said in the video with Teapot, it's in a decent place. 

Edited November 27, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Kain Francois.4328]

1 hour ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Yes swapping to viktor shortly before swapping legends is likely the best way to dip into his skills if you need, but you'll still need energy to be able to cast his skills; it's not as if you can just dump your full rotation in Archemorous and weapon skills and then just swap into Viktor and cast all of his things for free before swapping.  Every second delayed for Legend Swap is also a dps loss as well.  Viktor is likely going to be more of an "oh kitten" button if you happen to be in Alliance stance and have the energy to spare with full understanding that you're tanking your dps more and more per skill used and per second spent in his form. 

Even with energy restrictions, the point is that any Vindicator specced for DPS still has access to these tools, and can use them.

It's a Firebrand situation, where Firebrand always has access to Tome of Courage, with all its stability and projectile reflects behind it, and the healing tome, with its condi cleanses and emergency heals, irregardless of their build.

Elementalist is balanced because Water is useless without Healing Power. Whereas Firebrand, and now Vindicator, can use their support effectively no matter the build.

It's the opportunity to use these tools what makes it so potentially overpowered.

 

We will see how it handles in the live game. But it sounds extremely scary.

[Jah Warrior.9682]

1 hour ago, Kain Francois.4328 said:

Even with energy restrictions, the point is that any Vindicator specced for DPS still has access to these tools, and can use them.

It's a Firebrand situation, where Firebrand always has access to Tome of Courage, with all its stability and projectile reflects behind it, and the healing tome, with its condi cleanses and emergency heals, irregardless of their build.

Elementalist is balanced because Water is useless without Healing Power. Whereas Firebrand, and now Vindicator, can use their support effectively no matter the build.

It's the opportunity to use these tools what makes it so potentially overpowered.

 

We will see how it handles in the live game. But it sounds extremely scary.

Access to tools =/= op ability to use them. The fact that the energy levels are higher is an automatic balancing decision that will not make it 'op.' What is more worrisome (imo at least) is the fact that Vindicator has literally just gotten some changes to make it viable and take it out of mediocrity, and people are saying its' 'scary.' It's going to be in a much better place. 

Edited November 27, 2021 by Jah Warrior.9682
S

[Buran.3796]

9 hours ago, Jah Warrior.9682 said:

 It's going to be in a much better place. 

  Yeah, as long as you don't want to play it at PvP/WvW. Or soloing things at Open World at which condi Renegade will still curbstomp Vindicatot (and which is what most of players do in the game: not PvP, not WvW, not instanced "abandoned content" PvE  but solo OW PvE). 

[Nephalem.8921]

On 11/25/2021 at 2:45 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

Except I'm pretty sure Anet is aware that almost no one achieves 38-39K DPS in PVE in the first place. In otherwords ... 38-39K DPS that you are saying is the standard ... is not. 

But they will always achieve 100% bench on vindicator right? Its not like people will reach just 90%+ on vindi aswell which changes nothing.

[Jah Warrior.9682]

1 hour ago, Buran.3796 said:

  Yeah, as long as you don't want to play it at PvP/WvW. Or soloing things at Open World at which condi Renegade will still curbstomp Vindicatot (and which is what most of players do in the game: not PvP, not WvW, not instanced "abandoned content" PvE  but solo OW PvE). 

I never said it was going to be perfect. We have another beta before final changes are made before launch. Personally, I was going to play open world as well as raids regardless of what the launch result was. I have been waiting for greatsword for years. Do I want vind to hit 39 or 40k? Yes. Do I want it to be better at open world, or wvw/pvp - sure, but I dont really play the latter. All I am saying is it's in a better place that what it was. The person I was replying to was trying to say it could be 'op' before we even see the changes live. Like it needed to be nerfed after it was put in a good place. I want what you want. 

[Warscythes.9307]

2 hours ago, Buran.3796 said:

  Yeah, as long as you don't want to play it at PvP/WvW. Or soloing things at Open World at which condi Renegade will still curbstomp Vindicatot (and which is what most of players do in the game: not PvP, not WvW, not instanced "abandoned content" PvE  but solo OW PvE). 

This is an absolute awful take because nobody tries to balance based on open world. Otherwise you would have any class that can use runes of torment be nerfed to the ground. Honestly though that set of runes is completely stupid, but that's another topic.

You do realize all the dps numbers that is being thrown around is based on PvE instanced situation with a full set of boons? Where do you get those in open world solo? That would be another entirely different tier list. Furthermore who actually cares about open world tierlist when literally any reasonable build can faceroll any sort of open world content with ease? Stop trying to take OW world into account, if you want to use raid tier list then only think about instance tier list as context. Not open world where it does not apply at all and frankly where the balance does not matter.

Edited November 27, 2021 by Warscythes.9307

[Aeolus.3615]

13 hours ago, otto.5684 said:

Actually, this spec should have no support. Anet jamming dysfunctional support skills is not only pointless, is also extremely redundant, as both herald and renegade offer a ton of support option (even if herald is lack luster). This spec should be purely power dps.

Easy way to fix that is to make a swap legend inside a legend on the elite skill(as example)  or something in the class initial 1st trait players choose Victor or Arch rather than have the 1st trait auto selected like other classes have.

IMO both possible roles conflict a bit much with each other wonder if Anet cared with the new stats to introduce to the gaame is what will make this class required stats not fail.. still HoT/PoF classes with the new stats to suposelly make Vindicator excell both utilities would have far better performance :S

Edited November 27, 2021 by Aeolus.3615

[Buran.3796]

1 hour ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

This is an absolute awful take because nobody tries to balance based on open world. Otherwise you would have any class that can use runes of torment be nerfed to the ground. Honestly though that set of runes is completely stupid, but that's another topic.

   So OW, which is what most players do most of the time is not valid for balance, and also  neither PvP/WvW  (which are competitive),  and what matters  is instanced content, which is played mostly by guilds and in numbers so low that ANet no longer produces new raids....   Ok, I got it.   

   No wonder ANet currently spents more efforts in the gem store than anything else.  

[Warscythes.9307]

5 hours ago, Buran.3796 said:

   So OW, which is what most players do most of the time is not valid for balance, and also  neither PvP/WvW  (which are competitive),  and what matters  is instanced content, which is played mostly by guilds and in numbers so low that ANet no longer produces new raids....   Ok, I got it.   

   No wonder ANet currently spents more efforts in the gem store than anything else.  

If that's what you got out of my post then I don't know what to tell you.

OW is not worth balancing because the content is braindead easy, you beat 99% of the content by facerolling your keyboard. You don't need to balance it because when every class can do OW pve then that's all you need, the bar is just incredibly low. Who cares if the other class does 10% more damage in OW especially with how incredibly different the context can be regarding boons/condis? That 10% though is a big difference in fractal/raids where it actually matters, which is why it is the focus. 

Also I am sure you realize this, but they balance WvW and PvP separately from PvE. Balancing based on instance PvE does not mean that's the only metric in which WvW and PvP doesn't taken into account, where did you get that from my post?

Edited November 27, 2021 by Warscythes.9307

[Zenith.7301]

Just imagine playing Qadim 1 after lamp phase and only having a single dodge to deal with his smash that can down a necromancer through reaper shroud or a warrior if it hits you, except you're a medium HP class.

 

Or Wing 5 for that matter with Horror where any circle does ~60-70% of your HP, or Deimos, or even worse, any fractal CM's with a single dodge, especially 100CM.

 

And they've not introduced sufficient endurance regeneration or gains to mitigate this, and on top placed a +15% damage modifier requiring you to dodge to keep the buff up.

 

Then imagine that Renegade has a 15% damage modifier, 15% lifesteal, increased 33% crit chance with full endurance, fury gives vigor.

 

So vindicator has only 10% more damage modifier, but no crit chance increase, and less self sufficiency in might and fury self application (a single F2 with 5 stacks of Kalla is 15 might stacks, far better than anything Archemorus offers for might or fury stacking).

 

What's worse, Archemorus skills are basically a repeat of the failed reaper shouts, where the skill is totally anemic on a single target and relies on multiple targets to gain value, and said skills provide redundant boons only to the revenant, boons which will be capped and can't even serve as a utility for the party since they're not aoe.

 

They've changed nothing about what makes Archemorus such an awful legend in PvE.

 

You have a 10% extra damage modifier and increased power at % threshold, but don't give your group utility, have far worse CC, no group protection.

 

He;;, let's not even compare power Kalla.

 

Grab condi renegade. Access to boonstrip, aoe pull+chill, aoe pulsing daze, aoe knockdown on shortbow+slow access, aoe pull with axe 5.

 

And more damage than what a vindicator with virtually zero meaningful PvE utility will be providing.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Zenith.7301

[Kain Francois.4328]

16 minutes ago, Zenith.7301 said:

Just imagine playing Qadim 1 after lamp phase and only having a single dodge to deal with his smash that can down a necromancer through reaper shroud or a warrior if it hits you, except you're a medium HP class.

 

Or Wing 5 for that matter with Horror where any circle does ~60-70% of your HP, or Deimos, or even worse, any fractal CM's with a single dodge, especially 100CM.

 

And they've not introduced sufficient endurance regeneration or gains to mitigate this, and on top placed a +15% damage modifier requiring you to dodge to keep the buff up.

 

Then imagine that Renegade has a 15% damage modifier, 15% lifesteal, increased 33% crit chance with full endurance, fury gives vigor.

 

So renegade has only 10% less damage modifier, but no crit chance increase, less self sufficiency in might and fury self application (a single F2 with 5 stacks of Kalla is 15 might stacks, far better than anything Archemorus offers for might or fury stacking).

 

What's worse, Archemorus skills are basically a repeat of the failed reaper shouts, where the skill is totally anemic on a single target and relies on multiple targets to gain value, and said skills provide redundant boons only to the revenant, boons which will be capped and can't even serve as a utility for the party since they're not aoe.

 

They've changed nothing about what makes Archemorus such an awful legend in PvE.

My initial impressions are that Vindicator will have dodge options, but will have to work around it with clever skill use.

Sword 3 on Qadim's smash can work. So can the Shiro evade.

Evade on Viktor can be useful too.  In fact, Viktor is probably ideal for Endurance Regeneration in raid scenarios by spamming Tree Song for instant 10-20 Endurance back every 3 seconds. Not like you can use Archemorus while in dodge animation, so Viktor might, ironically as it may seem, play a big offensive role. (It's worth testing on Tuesday.)

Edited November 28, 2021 by Kain Francois.4328

[Skyroar.2974]

11 hours ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

OW is not worth balancing because the content is braindead easy, you beat 99% of the content by facerolling your keyboard. You don't need to balance it because when every class can do OW pve then that's all you need, the bar is just incredibly low.

OW is a lot more than killing trash. Soloing bounties, champions or hero points can be quite convenient when you're unable to find any or many players to help you around, and the difference between the best solo builds and your "average" builds is abysmal in that regard. Outside of that, OW is also about farming efficiency: to be able to AoE kill as many waves of enemies as easily and quickly as possible, or to go support and give your army of braindead players at meta-event bosses as many boons as possible so that events end twice or thrice as fast (believe me, a single player with 10-man support skills can make a LOT of difference), therefore your gold per hour increases significantly.

That is what most of the userbase that is left is interested at in a game where nearly every single piece of instanced high-end or competitive content is either dead or barely surviving after years of neglect. If elite specs fail to impress, then that will affect the next expansion's financial success.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Skyroar.2974