High risk, low reward

[Puck.3697]

6 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

93% of an alacren's gear is Diviner, for boon duration. 

Only condi RRs can ignore boon duration, by virtue of there being two of them, and covering full alacrity uptime together across 10 people.

RR build is exactly what I'm talking about nerfing it. 

Reducing alacrity to 5 man from 10 man would mean each group would run 2x renegade in its current balance. 

So the duration needs to be nerfed to prevent renegades being able to cover alacrity between 2 of them without boon gear. 

I'd go as far as to say rework F2. And put the alacrity on F2 in their traits to enforce a further DPS loss. 

Simply by making f2 a damage tool nerf the kit so it equalizes around then have the trait strip the damage off of f2 in trade for alacrity. 

This would be a 3x hit to DPS and neuter RR 

Playing a support build should be a major DPS loss fullstop. Builds existing that function as both is unhealthy to the game and put actual dps builds out of a job. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Reducing alacrity to 5 man from 10 man would mean each group would run 2x renegade in its current balance.

Maybe the issue isn't the number of player affected but the potency of concentration as a stat. If you want to make it difficult to get 100% boon uptime without the tradeoff of dropping one's dps, the logic solution would probably be to have very very short boon duration without concentration and up to 10 time the boon duration at high concentration value. (The same could be true for conditions as well)

I'm not saying that's the solution but I try to think out of the box here and it seem like something that could have an interesting impact on the game.

[Puck.3697]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Maybe the issue isn't the number of player affected but the potency of concentration as a stat. If you want to make it difficult to get 100% boon uptime without the tradeoff of dropping one's dps, the logic solution would probably be to have very very short boon duration without concentration and up to 10 time the boon duration at high concentration value. (The same could be true for conditions as well)

I'm not saying that's the solution but I try to think out of the box here and it seem like something that could have an interesting impact on the game.

Imho given the fact all the new speccs are capped at 5 man alacrity... It's only fair if this spreads to all speccs. 

Not just alacrity either

Everything needs dropping to 5 man. Tempest, druid, alacmirage. 

[Infusion.7149]

1 hour ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Imho given the fact all the new speccs are capped at 5 man alacrity... It's only fair if this spreads to all speccs. 

Not just alacrity either

Everything needs dropping to 5 man. Tempest, druid, alacmirage. 

Nobody is playing a 5 man tempest or druid when they can run mirror HB+alac ren in their current iterations. It doesn't make sense to force all roles into 5 man boons as you then need two of them. If you want more parity between tempest and druid in power comps all you'd have to do is rework frost spirit to apply chill and not give 5% damage bonus except on active skill and witness the ranger tears in the process.

The only things that should be always 5 man are quickness providers. Quickness provides 33-46% or so DPS gain for autoattacking alone depending on how much of an autochain is the cast time versus aftercast. Guardian is one of the most popular classes besides necro so having dual guardians or dual quickness providers is not a gameplay hindrance.

Alacrity can remain 10 man if the damage loss for 10 man boons is more severe than it is currently , for example if RR renegade had a larger penalty exceeding banner warrior (3K or ~8%) , LoTP stanceshare power soulbeast (6K or ~16%), or plaguedoc scourge (10K or ~27%). If for example alacrity providers didn't provide massive amounts of might then it would open up DPS might sources as a role similar to older times when PS warriors were run for might. Either way RR renegade is overperforming since torment changes, the full DPS version is 40K+ when most condi builds short of condi firebrand , condi weaver (zero support and boon reliant), and axe mirage (which has no support) are 36-37K. Before torment changes it was 33K condi RR and that's more in line with banner warrior for example. I don't think we would have this discussion if condi RR dropped DPS below 33K, a 10 man power alac ren used to be 24K or so instead of 29-30K.

The reason why FB+alac ren+scourge works is because of might gain from scourges covering any might deficit and far less damage loss. Making might into a 5 man boon exclusively means herald, tempest, and druid become obsolete when the reasoning for making tempest and herald 10 man boons was precisely because they were underused in PVE.

At the end of the day it's going to be

• 2x DPS quick, 1x 10 man alac or 2xRR, 1 banner, 1 might source with 10 man heals (tempest/druid) = 5x DPS if 10 man alac --- if your alac doesn't heal it's risky on high incoming damage situations
• 2x DPS quick (quickness Catalyst/CQB/quickness harbinger/quickness scrapper/StM chrono), 2x 5 man alac with some sort of healing, 1 banner, 1 might source possibly with heals (herald for example) = 4x DPS
• 1x heal quick (guard/scrapper), 1 DPS quick, 2x 5 man alac with might and barrier (see mechanist), 1 banner = 5x DPS
• 2x condi quick (firebrand/harbinger), 2x alac mech / renegade / specter supports =  6x cDPS if banner warrior is not used

The main role compression is firebrand as you get some quickness+might and maybe heal on it as well.
The other role compression is alacrity+healing which is less common (may take off with alac mechanist) and might+healing which is only in raids currently.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Delete.  Double post  

Edited January 20, 2022 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

18 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

What I'm asking for is weaver to not have existing mechanics in raid fights which players just state u will need reviving afterwards. 

It's "immense sustain" is tied to direct DPS losses and CDs and not to any level of passive sustain. 

Lots of top players who play very well like Mela have stated this. In a raid enviroment Weavers sustain is 100x more punished for by mistakes then other options. 

Every other proffession gets exactly this.

I run around on my viper scourge renegade or power reaper and I can solo the whe world no problem with a few buttons. 

Why is weaver exempt from the rule? 

Top level Weavers such as Mela who has played elementalist far more then any other proffession even states he doesn't play it cause he knows it just does alot more then other proffessions. 

Not necessarily.  Most professions have to sacrifice DPS to get their self-sustain options.

• Thief: They need to lose No Quarter for Invigorating Precision.  That's a 16.6% reduction in crit damage.  Guilty admission here: when I'm doing pylons on Deadeye, I don't wear berserker.  I found that, while wearing berserker, it only takes one mistake to die.  It doesn't have t be my mistake, either.  The most frequent cause of death is when another pylon messes up, which proceeds to knock me out of place and shields Qadim, prevent me from healing by doing damage.
• Necromancer: They lose Lingering Curses for Parasitic Contagion.  That is a massive loss for all scepter skills (losing a 50% bonus), loses 200 condition damage, and Feast of Corruption is no longer an AoE skill.  
• Warrior: They basically need to run spellbreaker.  That... should say enough.  Interesting thing about warrior is that, outside of Blood Reckonings pseudo-invulnerability, the warrior can be pretty frail.  
• Revenant:  This one is tricky.  You'd think that, because of Dance of Death that they'd have high regeneration.  However, that is build specific, since it is tied to vulnerability output.  Condi revs only have vulnerability output from two places: Icerazor's Ire, and the trait Exposed Defenses.  It's... not a lot.  Also it breaks the definition of "passive" sustain when it requires active skill activations to use it.  The power revs have plenty of vulnerability from sword auto attacks, except that Power Revs are considered a meme due to their low damage output.  
• Engineer:  The scrapper does have good self-sustain.  Only the pure damage version has decent DPS (around 35k), whereas the quickness version has 28k DPS.  

Guardians have a bonus personal regeneration, but otherwise they're in the same boat as eles.  Mesmers... don't have any at all.  I don't know much about modern rangers, but since nobody recruits Soul Beasts for pylon kiting, I'm assuming it isn't that high.  To put this in perspective, power weaver does 37k DPS if you follow the snowcrows build.  However, Arcane Blast only contributes about 700 DPS.  You could drop Arcane Blast for Stone Resonance, get yourself an extra 11k barrier on demand, and do 36k DPS.  For reference, pure damage scrapper and power renegade both do around 35k DPS.  Another option, which is preferable on condi/hybrid builds, is to just run Master's Fortitude.  In full grievers it gives you around 3500 extra health, and this is in trade for 10% crit chance, which isn't as valuable on those builds.  Now, I don't have numbers for everybody, but it looks like the only stand-out would be rifle deadeye.  Not daredevil, btw, which also does 35k DPS on their power builds before taking invigorating Precision.  The "root yourself in place to shoot a single target" deadeye. 

I've run full glass griever weaver in raids before, as well as full glass thief and full glass guardian.  The number of mechanics where " players just state u will need reviving afterwards" for ele alone is grossly exaggerated.  By that, I mean that there is none.  Most mechanics are either percentile, or don't do enough damage to murder an ele any faster than they murder other professions.  Every attack that has a chance to one-shot an ele has a chance to one-shot almost everybody (I.E. Oppressive Gaze from Matthias has one-shot me in rev and mesmer before).  I run weaver in the overworld, too, and it goes the same way.  Everything without a break bar dies before Standstorm ends.  The power build can murder things almost instantly, while the hybrid build uses primordial stance + lava skin, and then sits invulnerable in Stone Skin while everything melts to the conditions.  The only place I have trouble with Weaver in is in places where I have trouble with every profession.

 

If you want sustain buffs for Weaver, you can't just refer to whomever Mela is.  You have to look at the numbers, and going by those numbers the argument that other professions do more damage while having greater sustain largely falls flat.  All other professions, except for maybe the deadeye, make sacrifices to get their sustain and suffer inferior performance to the Weaver because of it.  Well... the condition dagger weaver might still benchmark 40k+ with Master's Fortitude equipped,, I haven't checked.  The Weaver will still have Signet of Restoration and Elemental Refreshment, and equipping Master's Fortitude or Stone Resonance is not the end of the world.  The biggest difficulty you'll encounter is getting over the mental block established by the social pressure to be exceedingly perfect in DPS.

This isn't to say that Weaver shouldn't get buffs.  I wouldn't mind having greater group utility, higher damage (especially in water), or reshuffling some of the traits around.  I'm hesitant to suggest anything, though, because the only idea I have is to rip off Mechanist and make Elemental Refreshment apply barrier in an AoE.  

[Bakeneko.5826]

13 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Reducing alacrity to 5 man from 10 man would mean each group would run 2x renegade in its current balance

At current meta, with renegades doing absurd DPS, it's not even that bad.

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Nobody is playing a 5 man tempest or druid

I think he meant healing, you still need to run druid or tempest to heal in raids.

 

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The only things that should be always 5 man

No. No boon source should be 10, normalize everything down to 5, it stops squad based power creep, by replacing 2 dps with supports and extra dps with healer. So you have 2 boon sources, one healer and 2 dps in party (x2 for raid squad)

[Kuma.1503]

On 1/14/2022 at 6:04 AM, Flori.2194 said:

Firebrand, Revenant and Scourge.

Mechanist too once EoD drops

[The Boz.2038]

15 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Playing a support build should be a major DPS loss fullstop. Builds existing that function as both is unhealthy to the game and put actual dps builds out of a job. 

I am of the direct exact opposite opinion: offensive supports is where it's at. Pure oonga bonga DPS should be disincentivized.

[Puck.3697]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

necessarily.  Most professions have to sacrifice DPS to get their self-sustain options

I didnt mean their self sustain abilities. 

I ment for example it costs scourge 0 DPS to provide barrier. Barrier is sustain realistically as a example. 

If weaver was equal in passive sustain to other proffessions it being a downstate wouldn't be a meme realistically, the meme exists because most elementalists do exactly that. 

Flop dead majority of the time. 

If it was as easy to survive on ele as other proffessions people wouldn't be dying a heap more then they do with the other proffessions. Which kinda proves a disparity exists. 

With utility, I doubt they will ever give weaver utility tbh. Prolly nerf us if they did lol 😂

Edited January 20, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Infusion.7149]

12 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

At current meta, with renegades doing absurd DPS, it's not even that bad.

I think he meant healing, you still need to run druid or tempest to heal in raids.

 

No. No boon source should be 10, normalize everything down to 5, it stops squad based power creep, by replacing 2 dps with supports and extra dps with healer. So you have 2 boon sources, one healer and 2 dps in party (x2 for raid squad)

Except you don't if there's no ten man boons. People already run mirror HB comps on Twin Largos and if you use HB or scrapper tanks on SH you don't need to run a heal druid except for pushing.

If you think that everything should be 5 man it makes 10 man content just 2x 5 man content. That's precisely what gutted boon thief (which provided every boon except alacrity). Consider that December 2020 patch is the one that changed tempest shouts from 5 man to 10 man and it still isn't as common as druid and that doesn't even include herald facets which were also changed from 5 to 10 target in that patch.

If you want to stop squad powercreep you would nerf overperforming role compression, specifically firebrand (which provides more or less every boon except alac) and to a lesser extent renegade (which provides alac, might, and protection if power alac along with Assassins Presence). Even scourge is somewhat role compression as the barrier amount is on par with an offheal while also providing some might stacks. If you run 3-4 scourges in a subgroup you don't need a healer for that subgroup.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Bakeneko.5826]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If you want to stop squad powercreep

No, if you want to stop SQUAD power creep you WANT 2x 5, as more roles will be taken by support and not pure dps, ultimately reducing squad dps on bosses more, than any individual class nerf. It is cute that TWO whole encounters run mirror comps, but that' not the point. Nerf alacrity share to 5 people on every class and keep it at 5, do same with all healing, boons and buffs - make players choose, which buffs they want with the boon and what class they want for raids. Needs tank and alac, well kitten, better choose if you want chrono provide alac or you want additional slot for renegade and etc. I am not saying my solution is best, or one stuff to solve every game problem, but making choices of gaining something while loosing something else of equal value would be favourable

[Infusion.7149]

3 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

No, if you want to stop SQUAD power creep you WANT 2x 5, as more roles will be taken by support and not pure dps, ultimately reducing squad dps on bosses more, than any individual class nerf. It is cute that TWO whole encounters run mirror comps, but that' not the point. Nerf alacrity share to 5 people on every class and keep it at 5, do same with all healing, boons and buffs - make players choose, which buffs they want with the boon and what class they want for raids. Needs tank and alac, well kitten, better choose if you want chrono provide alac or you want additional slot for renegade and etc. I am not saying my solution is best, or one stuff to solve every game problem, but making choices of gaining something while loosing something else of equal value would be favourable

Do you think power alac ren is OP or something? It used to be 24K DPS or so, now it's about 28K if you don't need to dodge and lose 33% crit chance. What's the difference between 2x RR and 2x 5 man alac? The only difference is a massive DPS disparity between condi RR and other alac sources when you can't abuse confusion.

Chrono isn't going to be putting out alac because the investment to do so is massive, which is why on TL/SH people run alac mirage since confusion is overperforming there (especially on TL where torment isn't as potent due to boss movement). Min Boon duration StM is already less damage than FB unless it's a +35% power bonus boss such as KC/VG and even then realistically even speeclear groups run 50% BD on StM chrono.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

21 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

I didnt mean their self sustain abilities. 

I ment for example it costs scourge 0 DPS to provide barrier. Barrier is sustain realistically as a example. 

If weaver was equal in passive sustain to other proffessions it being a downstate wouldn't be a meme realistically, the meme exists because most elementalists do exactly that. 

Flop dead majority of the time. 

If it was as easy to survive on ele as other proffessions people wouldn't be dying a heap more then they do with the other proffessions. Which kinda proves a disparity exists. 

With utility, I doubt they will ever give weaver utility tbh. Prolly nerf us if they did lol 😂

I've never been one to take memes and jokes as gospel.  I've been in pug raids and fractals with other elementalists, too, and they aren't dying significantly more than other professions.  For a long time, Weaver was in high demand because it had the highest potential DPS out of any profession, and back then the players managed just fine.  Jury's out on whether they were running some defensive utilities or not.  The "everyone says it so it must be true" position is a very bad one to have.  It is better to check things out, rather than blindly running with the crowd.

If we're talking about passive group sustain, there's only one example: Scourge.  Everyone else has to actively sustain a group.  Though technically the scourge does sacrifice Sadistic Searing, possibly Fell Beacon, and a utility slot for Signet of Undeath.  Scourge, while traited for DPS, also have very little real heals in their arsenal.  This is why heal scourge is used in supplement with another healer, rather than working by itself.  The weaver isn't without options, though.  People forget that half of the healing from Aquatic Stance is in an AoE around the enemy.  You can use that if you're particularly concerned with team healing.  

Other professions, unless they specifically trait for it, do not have good passive sustain.  I've been over that to great detail.  They need to sacrifice their damage and utilities in order to gain passive healing.  Under quickness, a Weaver with Signet of Restoration will be healing themselves for around 400 HP/s, on top of the barrier from Elemental Refreshment.  This is not a low amount of self-sustain.  Aside from very specific scenarios, massive passive self-sustain isn't needed.  If a healer is on the team, then all you need to do is survive the mechanics and they should automatically top you off.  You'll rarely need more than Master's Fortitude or Stone Resonance/Arcane Shield/Twist of Fate to survive an encounter.

 

One interesting thing to note is that sword in water has somewhat decent AoE healing abilities.  The combination of Breaking Wave, Riptide, and Aqua Siphon would grant a team 392 HP/s under quickness if weaver camps water.  It would give more with alacrity.  For reference, Desert Empowerment gives 151 Barrier/s after the first 3 shades are dropped.  The devs are afraid to buff water attunement damage for fear that they'd create a monster, because having skills that do both high damage and high healing at the same time can be a balancing nightmare.  But, if Anet normalized the damage on water (increase auto attack damage by 1.8 times, give Aqua Siphon a 2.0 base scale, Riptide a 1.25 scale), this would make Weaver much more flexible to heal in without having to rip off Scourge and future Mechanist in order to do so.

[Jski.6180]

At the very least there should be a real move to letting weaver / core ele to give it self quickness and tempest to give it self alacrity to cut down on there "cast time" and "cd" risk of playing there rolls.

[Puck.3697]

On 1/20/2022 at 6:45 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

Except you don't if there's no ten man boons. People already run mirror HB comps on Twin Largos and if you use HB or scrapper tanks on SH you don't need to run a heal druid except for pushing.

If you think that everything should be 5 man it makes 10 man content just 2x 5 man content. That's precisely what gutted boon thief (which provided every boon except alacrity). Consider that December 2020 patch is the one that changed tempest shouts from 5 man to 10 man and it still isn't as common as druid and that doesn't even include herald facets which were also changed from 5 to 10 target in that patch.

If you want to stop squad powercreep you would nerf overperforming role compression, specifically firebrand (which provides more or less every boon except alac) and to a lesser extent renegade (which provides alac, might, and protection if power alac along with Assassins Presence). Even scourge is somewhat role compression as the barrier amount is on par with an offheal while also providing some might stacks. If you run 3-4 scourges in a subgroup you don't need a healer for that subgroup.

If you reduce boons to 5 man and then severely nerf boon builds DPS. It will nerf power creep. 

Because the forced roles. Will do alot less DPS. 

Reduce boon durations and buff boon armour enforce the armour. 

Tear down supports dps. 

It will force teams to take primary DPS dealers.

Halting a squads team DPS is a power creep nerf in itself realistically. 

If your alac rens could only do 25k DPS maximum. And your Quickness Firebrands could only do 25k in the best builds and hands for them. It'd be a severe nerf to the 37k DPS they currently do. 

The question would be how to manage it rly 

Make alacrity a trait. And then apply -25% damage modifiers on them. Do the same for firebrand do the same for scourges barrier. 

Just make the trait itself nerf the DMG thus not touching their DPS variants 

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Infusion.7149]

18 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

If you reduce boons to 5 man and then severely nerf boon builds DPS. It will nerf power creep. 

Because the forced roles. Will do alot less DPS. 

Reduce boon durations and buff boon armour enforce the armour. 

Tear down supports dps. 

It will force teams to take primary DPS dealers.

Halting a squads team DPS is a power creep nerf in itself realistically. 

If your alac rens could only do 25k DPS maximum. And your Quickness Firebrands could only do 25k in the best builds and hands for them. It'd be a severe nerf to the 37k DPS they currently do. 

The question would be how to manage it rly 

Make alacrity a trait. And then apply -25% damage modifiers on them. Do the same for firebrand do the same for scourges barrier. 

Just make the trait itself nerf the DMG thus not touching their DPS variants 

 

The problem with that is condi ren is still a 40K+ DPS class right now.

If you want to nerf alacrity condi RR with traits then you can just put a outgoing condition damage reduction on the RR trait. It would make it odd though. Without RR traited you can't maintain alacrity with 2 renegades right now.

Power alac rens used to do 24K DPs and was upped to around 28K with 33% crit chance lost whenever you dodge, that is entirely the point. Only after torment changes and a change to exposed did condi ren really pick up because the ocndi variant out damaged just about every condi build and condi RR performs on par with most condi builds that don't top charts.

[Puck.3697]

17 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The problem with that is condi ren is still a 40K+ DPS class right now.

If you want to nerf alacrity condi RR with traits then you can just put a outgoing condition damage reduction on the RR trait. It would make it odd though. Without RR traited you can't maintain alacrity with 2 renegades right now.

Power alac rens used to do 24K DPs and was upped to around 28K with 33% crit chance lost whenever you dodge, that is entirely the point. Only after torment changes and a change to exposed did condi ren really pick up because the ocndi variant out damaged just about every condi build and condi RR performs on par with most condi builds that don't top charts.

Well yes, I'd love to see pure DPS speccs get reduced. But before they start setting where each bar should go they need to put in the divides.

Your need 

Offensive support DPS average

Defensive support DPS average

Healing support DPS average

Tank support DPS average. 

Pure DPS average

Get the devides in then work on minimalising the margins / nerfing overall DPS. 

While things do 40k currently. We don't know how much of a reduction in accessibility / ease would come from lowering the team DPS. 

I mean supports currently are doing well over 30k DPS... If they were suddenly all doing 15k-20k. That's a major nerf to the raids overall DPS when you stack that up. Then double the quantity of them as you would be based around 5

Boon build x2

Healer X2 

Tank X2

Alacrity X2 

Quickness X2 

That's 10, if none of those builds do over 25k DPS that's a huge nerf as your at a point where Ur going to have to actually swallow the fact 5 players aren't getting all boons. 

So basically 

2x chrono to do both tank and quickness. 

1x alac support ren in each group. 

1x healer in each group. 

1x boon provider in each group. 

That leaves 2 players in the entire raid capable of doing over 30k DPS. 

You would need to test raiding at that caliber before deciding how far to drop pure DPS. But you could likely push it down to 35k DPS without much problem. 

This is just a example ofcourse there are other combos that can provide these boons espically after EoD launch 

Edited January 22, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Infusion.7149]

1 hour ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Well yes, I'd love to see pure DPS speccs get reduced. But before they start setting where each bar should go they need to put in the divides.

Your need 

Offensive support DPS average

Defensive support DPS average

Healing support DPS average

Tank support DPS average. 

Pure DPS average

Get the devides in then work on minimalising the margins / nerfing overall DPS. 

While things do 40k currently. We don't know how much of a reduction in accessibility / ease would come from lowering the team DPS. 

I mean supports currently are doing well over 30k DPS... If they were suddenly all doing 15k-20k. That's a major nerf to the raids overall DPS when you stack that up. Then double the quantity of them as you would be based around 5

Boon build x2

Healer X2 

Tank X2

Alacrity X2 

Quickness X2 

That's 10, if none of those builds do over 25k DPS that's a huge nerf as your at a point where Ur going to have to actually swallow the fact 5 players aren't getting all boons. 

So basically 

2x chrono to do both tank and quickness. 

1x alac support ren in each group. 

1x healer in each group. 

1x boon provider in each group. 

That leaves 2 players in the entire raid capable of doing over 30k DPS. 

You would need to test raiding at that caliber before deciding how far to drop pure DPS. But you could likely push it down to 35k DPS without much problem. 

 

Before firebrand+alac ren we had <16K DPS commander gear leadership rune chrono with druid (<3K DPS).

Cele and seraph quickbrand variants do 20-24K DPS currently and alac ren does 28-30K DPS right now. If cQB did 25K and alac ren did 24K as before buffs it would still be usable , you lose 20K squad DPS at best.

Quickness firebrand would be serviceable (and even meta) at 25K , consider current StM chrono  / quick scrapper at ~27-28K with min boon duration which don't provide fury and harbinger in last beta 27K.

IMO:
* Quickness firebrand gets mantra of solace cooldown doubled in all modes (see shelter) and double duration quickness on Liberator's Vow. Since 40% boon duration is present on current Seraph/Cele/Firebrand rune and you only need 25% boon duration this would still be usable.
---> If not running Weighty Terms, mantra aegis is not shared (maybe if that isn't enough).
---> Amplified Wrath reduced from 15% burning damage bonus to 10% in PVE.
---> Ashes of the Just reduced to 1s base burn per stack of the buff so the disparity between solo and group is smaller (consider Chapter 4: Scorched Aftermath is 2s burn x 5 pulses). Tome of Justice no longer resets on trash mobs with Renewed Justice, only veteran or higher resets the tome : killing trash mobs only resets the virtue passive.
---> Mantra of Potence: provides 2 stacks of might per charge instead of 5. A duration decrease would make it stronger for a burst window.
---> Radiant Fire internal cooldown increased to 12s.
---> Design goal should be aegis requires an investment in weapon (i.e. mace and/or shield) , utilities (Advance!) or traitlines.
* Revenant / Renegade devastation traitline's bonus is restored to power damage only on Destructive Impulses. (loses 7% condi damage) An alternative is just to hit torment sources by ~10% to restore it to before torment changes. Since Sevenshot was reduced to 6s base duration maybe it needs further reduction.
---> if a CC reduction on Darkrazor's Daring is warranted on condi ren, then have Ashen Demeanor output the full CC and Blood Fury only provide 150 or 300CC on Darkrazor. i.e. Ashen Demeanor trait: Dark Razor's Daring now hits and dazes 6 times ; with Blood Fury only dazes 3 times or 300CC.
* Scourge specific Demonic Lore followup reduction (it was cut from 33 to 25% in May 2021) to 15%.
---> Base barrier on Desert Empowerment reduced to match PVP , heal scaling increased so 1500 heal power has same barrier. Base barrier on Sand Cascade and Desert Shroud reduced to match PVP.
---> Serpent Siphon base barrier increased by 1K , poison stacks doubled. Sand Swell increased to 1000 range, barrier tooltip fixed. This offers a barrier option for DPS scourges at the cost of some DPS.
* Alacrity Mirage-specific: Chaos Vortex might stacking decreased to 3 stacks instead of 8. Currently on TL if you run HB tank you run a few of these or scourges so this is a relatively low issue.
--> Chaos Storm increased initial daze to 2s to increase the CC value of the skill by 100% to 200CC.
* Core mesmer / Chrono ---> decreased cooldown on Signet of Humility to 90s

Also realistically you aren't using chrono quickness anymore unless you are running inspiration for aegis share, more likely a cqb/scrapper/harbinger.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Puck.3697]

29 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Before firebrand+alac ren we had <16K DPS commander gear leadership rune chrono with druid (<3K DPS).

Cele and seraph quickbrand variants do 20-24K DPS currently and alac ren does 28-30K DPS right now. If cQB did 25K and alac ren did 24K as before buffs it would still be usable , you lose 20K squad DPS at best.

Quickness firebrand would be serviceable (and even meta) at 25K , consider current StM chrono  / quick scrapper at ~27-28K with min boon duration which don't provide fury and harbinger in last beta 27K.

IMO:
* Quickness firebrand gets mantra of solace cooldown doubled in all modes (see shelter) and double duration quickness on Liberator's Vow. Since 40% boon duration is present on current Seraph/Cele/Firebrand rune and you only need 25% boon duration this would still be usable.
---> If not running Weighty Terms, mantra aegis is not shared (maybe if that isn't enough).
---> Amplified Wrath reduced from 15% burning damage bonus to 10% in PVE.
---> Ashes of the Just reduced to 1s base burn per stack of the buff so the disparity between solo and group is smaller (consider Chapter 4: Scorched Aftermath is 2s burn x 5 pulses). Tome of Justice no longer resets on trash mobs with Renewed Justice, only veteran or higher resets the tome : killing trash mobs only resets the virtue passive.
---> Mantra of Potence: provides 2 stacks of might per charge instead of 5. A duration decrease would make it stronger for a burst window.
---> Radiant Fire internal cooldown increased to 12s.
---> Design goal should be aegis requires an investment in weapon (i.e. mace and/or shield) , utilities (Advance!) or traitlines.
* Revenant / Renegade devastation traitline's bonus is restored to power damage only on Destructive Impulses. (loses 7% condi damage) An alternative is just to hit torment sources by ~10% to restore it to before torment changes. Since Sevenshot was reduced to 6s base duration maybe it needs further reduction.
---> if a CC reduction on Darkrazor's Daring is warranted on condi ren, then have Ashen Demeanor output the full CC and Blood Fury only provide 150 or 300CC on Darkrazor. i.e. Ashen Demeanor trait: Dark Razor's Daring now hits and dazes 6 times ; with Blood Fury only dazes 3 times or 300CC.
* Scourge specific Demonic Lore followup reduction (it was cut from 33 to 25% in May 2021) to 15%.
---> Base barrier on Desert Empowerment reduced to match PVP , heal scaling increased so 1500 heal power has same barrier. Base barrier on Sand Cascade and Desert Shroud reduced to match PVP.
---> Serpent Siphon base barrier increased by 1K , poison stacks doubled. Sand Swell increased to 1000 range, barrier tooltip fixed. This offers a barrier option for DPS scourges at the cost of some DPS.
* Alacrity Mirage-specific: Chaos Vortex might stacking decreased to 3 stacks instead of 8. Currently on TL if you run HB tank you run a few of these or scourges so this is a relatively low issue.
--> Chaos Storm increased initial daze to 2s to increase the CC value of the skill by 100% to 200CC.
* Core mesmer / Chrono ---> decreased cooldown on Signet of Humility to 90s

Also realistically you aren't using chrono quickness anymore unless you are running inspiration for aegis share, more likely a cqb/scrapper/harbinger.

Imho I'd go hard and just outright remove quickness from Firebrand, firebrand in 5 man content is extremely strong. It'd be more balanced just to remove it all together as the fact it's stacking stab, aegis and quickness in one build annihilates anyone else filling the role. 

HFB + Condi firebrand are both strong enough single handedly to earn it's spot in a group / raid realistically. 

The next part would be looking at tempest how to make it more desirable 

If we were to go unrealistic.

- I'd say I want alacrity to go back to being a chrono self buff only.

Maybe also if they wanted to drop DPS without moving anything, maybe directly nerf the actual boons 

I.E 

Nerf Might and fury this would drop the amount of DPS boons give so wouldn't require direct proffession nerfs. Boons becoming 100% uptime etc etc is atleast part of the contribution to to the power creep. So maybe they should look at that if rly looking at reversing power creep. 

Edited January 22, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Jski.6180]

What a mass of over info to be far more confusing then need to be. What it comes down to is anet only willing to balance with numbers and not with adding in effects quickness and alacrity are a set number its an on and off switch and it dose not fit with pure number balancing. If you dont have it you simply are weaker as a class there is no number balancing that can fix that.

[Puck.3697]

21 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

What a mass of over info to be far more confusing then need to be. What it comes down to is anet only willing to balance with numbers and not with adding in effects quickness and alacrity are a set number its an on and off switch and it dose not fit with pure number balancing. If you dont have it you simply are weaker as a class there is no number balancing that can fix that.

FFXIV manages to balance classes out that bring unique utility and more. 

The concept is a Weavers PDPS should add uptoo a quickness Firebrands RDPS

So for example. 

If quickness provides 4000 DPS, then it's personal DPS needs nerfing by 4000 DPS. 

Also I would argue against it being a balance problem, it's not about balance in a pug meta. It's about safe comps. 

2x scourge 2x firebrand 1x renegade is not the meta fractal comp. However it's the easiest comp with the highest success rate in the average players hand. 

The problem isn't elementalists balance. The problem is the community perception of the proffession being "it's complex. People die alot playing it" so don't invite. 

Power creep has lifted this game far too high for meta to be the only contributing factor and Weavers very capable in all content. 

Same as black mage in FFXIV. Lots of pugs refuse to bring one, not because they aren't strong. Because players don't tend to trust players on the class due to the fact most players are useless to a raid in that role. 

Weaver can bring what it likes. But the fact it's a harder more complex option will forever hold a level of distrust towards players in the role. 

Elementalist isn't bad, it's not meta, but it's strong enough realistically. It's just a evergrowing perception built off the back of the negativity surrounding the proffession. 

Edited January 22, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Jski.6180]

35 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

FFXIV manages to balance classes out that bring unique utility and more. 

The concept is a Weavers PDPS should add uptoo a quickness Firebrands RDPS

So for example. 

If quickness provides 4000 DPS, then it's personal DPS needs nerfing by 4000 DPS. 

Also I would argue against it being a balance problem, it's not about balance in a pug meta. It's about safe comps. 

2x scourge 2x firebrand 1x renegade is not the meta fractal comp. However it's the easiest comp with the highest success rate in the average players hand. 

The problem isn't elementalists balance. The problem is the community perception of the proffession being "it's complex. People die alot playing it" so don't invite. 

Power creep has lifted this game far too high for meta to be the only contributing factor and Weavers very capable in all content. 

Same as black mage in FFXIV. Lots of pugs refuse to bring one, not because they aren't strong. Because players don't tend to trust players on the class due to the fact most players are useless to a raid in that role. 

Weaver can bring what it likes. But the fact it's a harder more complex option will forever hold a level of distrust towards players in the role. 

Elementalist isn't bad, it's not meta, but it's strong enough realistically. It's just a evergrowing perception built off the back of the negativity surrounding the proffession. 

In real terms dose that makes a differences in a fight though? I am not talking about speed runs but the min that you need to get though a fight. Could you say go for a lesser dps that gives out a real utility (maybe not quickness or alacrity) but something that weaver an top in ONLY dps class.

Ele is the highest risk class yet its not a meta class and often for it to be even viable they must play melee ranged something the class in no way was made for (yet anet keeps spamming uititlys that makes it a melee class). There is no reward for playing ele and for all of the risk it has makes it all the worst for balancing.

Bit of back ground on my mmorpg history i played ff11 for a good bit it was my first mmorpg. I played sam, cor, and pup. In ff11 you could swap ppl out for one hit vs big fights. So a sam could charge up there skills for that big hit effectively. There was even a combo of skills from weapons that would let you get added dmg and boost a magic attk from the blm class. Over time the combo lost its effective ness and you only needed the blm class to do the burst dmg. The balancing of sam was lost because its skills always hit a bit less then other classes. So i was foced into playing another class at least in ff11 you could swap classes for a hero unlike gw2.

A class like ele whom use to have utility of fields and combos that have been pushed to other classes and make weaker by support skills and simply stronger boons then the very utility of the fields makes for ele skills to be balanced with fields in mind as they are now means ele is worst as a classes. That and these old system of balancing will always keep the ele class from getting these required skills effects. This is not a fix that numbers will work on only effects. Until you can blast for quickness and alacrity or combo for torment and slow ele is lacking as a class over all. Made all the worst that you can not swap your class per hero you must make a new hero in a game where person story are a thing and the lore of the very ideal of the game is making a hero yours not just getting another throw away doll to fill your group needs in that moment.

The balancing in this game is so messed up that the very game of gw2 dose not fit any longer and the most out dated classes are the ones who suffer the most. At best you see other ppl who do not chair about there hero they made so they can just throw away as needed can always get theirs for balancing but not every one want to play the game like that. GW2 is just a game of soulless dolls to be thrown away as needed when the balancing of anet dose not fit there needs and anets means of balancing the game is in no way helping things if any thing it is anet choosing how you play and build. It better to ask anet how do you want me to play over anet asking the player how they want to play.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Jski.6180

[Infusion.7149]

3 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Imho I'd go hard and just outright remove quickness from Firebrand, firebrand in 5 man content is extremely strong. It'd be more balanced just to remove it all together as the fact it's stacking stab, aegis and quickness in one build annihilates anyone else filling the role. 

HFB + Condi firebrand are both strong enough single handedly to earn it's spot in a group / raid realistically. 

The next part would be looking at tempest how to make it more desirable 

If we were to go unrealistic.

- I'd say I want alacrity to go back to being a chrono self buff only.

Maybe also if they wanted to drop DPS without moving anything, maybe directly nerf the actual boons 

I.E 

Nerf Might and fury this would drop the amount of DPS boons give so wouldn't require direct proffession nerfs. Boons becoming 100% uptime etc etc is atleast part of the contribution to to the power creep. So maybe they should look at that if rly looking at reversing power creep. 

It would probably look like:
DPS

• 41-42K = condi weaver on sword (i.e. max difficulty)
• 39K = glass weaver on sword (fire traitline) aka pre EOR nerf, deadeye rifle , condi daredevil dagger with allies
• 38-39K = condi weaver on scepter currently , condi mech 3 kits (hard) , pure DPS viper harbinger , hammer catalyst big hitbox just so people buy EOD
• 38K = pure DPS bladesworn / pure DPS virtuoso / condi deadeye / pure DPS vindicator / power sword weaver with Master's Fortitude, axe mirage , full cDPS willbender
• 37K = pure DPS average / power sword weaver arcane traitline which has self-supplied might, cDPS berserker , deadeye dagger
• 36K = pure DPS holo/soulbeast, condi ren pure DPS , pure DPS scepter tempest large hitbox  , pchrono IA , pDPS berserker,  full pDPS willbender
• 35K = pure DPS reaper, power weaver on part marauder gear (fire traitline), daredevil full zerk staff baseline , hammer catalyst small hitbox
• 34K = DH radiance (party fury), pure DPS tempest small hitbox (can still might share) , probably untamed goes here too if the CC is improved over soulbeast as it brings boon rip and better cleave
• 33K = condi single shortbow soulbeast with stanceshare, banner berserker, condi FB 8 pages with allies (and no mantra of solace or mantra of potence) , pure DPS scrapper (function gyro = utility), power heralds not running Draconic Echo
• 32-33K = condi DPS scourge , condi daredevil solo
• 30-32K = cDPS Firebrand solo
   

The average DPS in 2017-2018 was ~33K and we had 39-42K big hitbox back then. Powercreep is about 12% overall for average DPS classes. IMO Arenanet went too hard on promoting condi since scholar rune bonus is 5%  , any power build short of berserker drops up to 5% if you aren't constantly full health.
To put it in perspective in 2018 a fresh air weaver did 36K DPS already and that was above soulbeast/holo at ~33K , at the time full CDPS Firebrand was merely 27K or so without allies. If you want to anchor DPS to a point, daredevil with staff has been more or less unchanged over the years and that has been consistently around 35K.

"AFK DPS" / autoattack / bare minimum lazy benchmark DPS

• herald with shiro/jalis upkeep = ~30K right now
• 3 clone axe mirage with a specific build = ~28K
• Daredevil staff ~22K
• sword weaver 18K+ air attunement full buffs no EOR bonus
• photon forge (only vulnerability on target) / herald auto ~18K
• soulbeast Greatsword 18K+ flanking
• reaper Greatsword 16K
• sword holo/bomb kit on holo/pchrono/warrior axe/DH = 14-15K

Support

• 29-30K = condi RR ren , any new 5 man alacrity DPS if only alac+DPS, staff mirage when you can't abuse confusion
• 28-30K = quickness harbinger with only quickness output 100% uptime
• 26-27K = StM chrono / quick scrapper with minimum boon duration as it is now , quickness catalyst small hitbox, any alacrity that puts out barrier and might, hybrid heal tempest <600 heal power
• 25K = CQB (only quick/aegis/stab), realistic boon duration StM chrono  , power alac ren (some might, 10 man alac, some prot for subgroup, large amounts of CC)
• 18-20K = cele or Seraph CQB (quick/aegis/stab/might), StM inspi chrono 50% boon duration (quick, bit of aegis, minor bit of stab if utility used, possibility of some alac), plaguedoctor scourge carry
• <5K = heal tempest, heal druid, heal scourge, healbrand , full support mechanist

Support powercreep is massive on the other hand. Alac ren was 24K before the devastation rework, cQB used to be 28K with allies, StM inspi chrono before the introduction of diviner gear peaked around 20K or so.

That is unless you want to cut all DPS by 10% for DPS classes which would mean you can't have a 28K quickness. Needs to be at least 33% more DPS for an average full DPS vs quickness. What can happen is weaver provides its own might more effectively via Pyromancer's Puissance.

Tempest is in a decent spot right now if the RNG wasn't so bad. 36K solo / 38K with allies for power , 37K cDPS. Unlike weaver it provides its own might so the need for 10 might to have power overwhelming trait active isn't as limiting , really Power Overwhelming should only remove 10 might if you use overload. If you camp fire on condi tempest scepter you can get 30K+ DPS, the issue is you need a big hitbox. Currently if you play a staff daredevil with Invigorating Precision for example it loses 250 ferocity = ~16% damage versus a 35K DPS staff daredevil which is around 30K ; same goes for a rifle deadeye that drops to ~33K.

Edited January 22, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Bakeneko.5826]

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Without RR traited you can't maintain alacrity with 2 renegades right now.

That would be the idea, yes. Non boon duration gear would not be viable to keep perma alac up.

 

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If cQB did 25K and alac ren did 24K as before buffs it would still be usable , you lose 20K squad DPS at best.

would be perfect tbh

 

3 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Imho I'd go hard and just outright remove quickness from Firebrand

No, it would kill class outright.

 

51 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

(i.e. max difficulty)

No, this is bad idea. DPS should NEVER depends on how hard rotation is. Very bad idea. Like VERY bad. Other than that, seems somewhat reasonable. Though, I'd bump condi scourge to 35-is K and hit sustain on viper/zerker (non support gear).