Current state of fractal balance

[Obtena.7952]

17 minutes ago, Sniper.5961 said:

If you look in the T4 lfg every day, its very obvious that scourge and fb are overrepresented. And if only 3 classes dominate the pug meta for 5 man content you have a clear balance problem that should get addressed. In my opinion you could fix most of the problem by reverting the exposed debuff change and make it 50 50 again. Condi is stong enough to still be pug meta and power will be played more at least in 99/98 CM. Then fix vengeance bug and exchange fury for resolution in npng or remove the instab completely. 

This is my point ... we are talking about the hardest content in the game ... how does someone conclude there is a problem because there are a very limited number of ways to successfully complete that hardest content?

I'm just put this out there ... I think it's unreasonable that people expect Anet to engineer relatively large number of meta solutions for the hardest content in the game. There just isn't any value in it because it's a fool's errand to engineer multiple meta solutions. 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Sniper.5961]

31 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

This is my point ... we are talking about the hardest content in the game ... how does someone conclude there is a problem because there are a very limited number of ways to successfully complete that hardest content?

I'm just put this out there ... I think it's unreasonable that people expect Anet to engineer relatively large number of meta solutions for the hardest content in the game. There just isn't any value in it because it's a fool's errand to engineer multiple meta solutions. 

 

I wasnt complaining about the limited number of ways to clear CMs, i was complaining about the fact that one way to clear them with 3 classes in 5 slots is by far outperforming all of the other ways for the vast mayority of the current population. Its also wrong to say that its a fools errand to engineer multiple meta solutions because i just wrote the solution and how to do it: Revert the exposed debuff change fix vengeance and maybe change npng thats it, and it is easy to do that. no hard work for a net needed. If they do that scourge fb ren meta will be still alive but now you have a lot more options to chose from because all the underepresented power classes get a buff. In slow groups condi will still be better, and safer and in 100 it is still going to be meta for all groups. Reverting exposed debuff would bring back a lot of class diversity in pug fractals what we are in dire need of. Dont you agree that reverting exposed would be healthy for the current state of fractals?

Edited January 14, 2022 by Sniper.5961

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

This is my point ... we are talking about the hardest content in the game ... how does someone conclude there is a problem because there are a very limited number of ways to successfully complete that hardest content?

I'm just put this out there ... I think it's unreasonable that people expect Anet to engineer relatively large number of meta solutions for the hardest content in the game. There just isn't any value in it because it's a fool's errand to engineer multiple meta solutions. 

I know you're just being deliberately obtuse because that's how you do, but I also know you understand that nobody takes issue with the existence of a meta or the fact that some classes will always be better than others for this or that.  The issue is the degree to which certain classes are dominating.  So do us a favor and stop trolling already.

Edited January 14, 2022 by AliamRationem.5172

[anbujackson.9564]

Well some of those comments are surely laughably bad. 

Imagine ignoring valid data that literally everyone can witness all day. Also imagine people actually excuse overperforming specs because the single target golem dps wasnt as high before (scourge) and not as high now as others while pointing around the classes and completely ignoring how failsafe scourge dps is. If you think that scourge is "fine" then you are just bad at playing them honestly. I actually have to try hard not to do top dps damage because your main damage is focused on a handful of skills with unbeatable range advantage. Instead of 2k dps less by golem numbers, i do at least 2k more than others in realistic scenarios (except cbf if hes somewhat good and on breakbars).

Back in the day people complained about chrono and druid (rightfully) so they got nerf after nerf, while fb and ren got buff after buff. The end result? Your team comp fb+ren is even more broken than chrono+druid now (1 button alacrity, instant cast quickness application are some of the biggest offenders. Great. So you got rid of something just to add an even more broken something. Scourge breaking encounters can NOT be excused by the damage it used to do. Overbuffing specs and obsoleting the content is not what Anet should do, period.

Edited January 14, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[Bakeneko.5826]

5 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Moving the goalpost I see, you asked for a "dedicated DPS build that low" and I provided. It not being an e-spec weapon set is irrelevant as many other builds which are based on "non-e-spec weapons" do "make the cut".

He isn't moving goalpost, you are missing point on purpose. Bad build is not indicative of dmg. It's like saying - my theorycraft build using suboptimal weapons, traits and skill is lower dmg, but i think it's meta. Which is not true.

 

5 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

 

 

and this solves the over-representation of scourge in raids, or explains it, how?

 

Yes, changing how for example exposed works would shift metas. That's what happened last time it got changed too.

 

So, if barrier and utilities are to blame, what exactly speaks against having harbinger as primary condi spec for necromancer once it releases? Givung players a choice between, if reduced in dps, scourge with barrier and harbinger as full dps. Wouldn't solve all the other utility unbalances, it would solve barrier and scourge utilities though, no?

Read it again. And Harbinger, as it was in the state of last beta, WOULD BE prime condi dps build... It has damage and it has epi, noone cares about barrier. Barrier is non-factor for CM runs to begin with. Noone is taking scourge for barrier in fractals, it is taken for EPI ON 100CM, did you seriously not understood it before? Whole Scourge meta craze started when some youtuber TeaKettle or something, introduced at the time unpopular strat with scourge casting epi to deal with shades. Noone takes so much damage in fractals for blight stacks to matter, and they didn't... HFB covers for that. Hell, healing signet and Fractal God will cover for that more than adequately if needed, or some other support class that will be taken for support.

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

That's the point of the thread. If the scourges/firebrands/renegades weren't stacked they wouldn't be over-represented.
You miss the point entirely just to rant.

No, i think you miss the point entirely, not sure if on purpose. If you nerf hfb, renegade, scourge, there will be another classes that will take meta and will be overrepresented. There is no outcome, where all classes are used - there will be easier classes, that will end up used and overrepresented, that's how META WORKS. People find what works, distil it down to easiest to use cases and run that. There was/is/will be no point in fractal meta, where every class can be used interchangeably as alacrity, might, fury and quickness MUST be covered. Be it 1, 2 or 3 classes to do that, there will always be meta with favoured classes, that will dominate LFG as desirable. What you arguing is not rep of those 3 specific classes, but existence of meta at any point of time.

Quote

The issue is the degree to which certain classes are dominating. 

  I'm confused as what your endpoint is here. Before we had meta dominated by HFB/QFB, Alac, Bannerslave and 2 dps (DH, SLB or ele), before that 4 necros + druid, before that Chrono, Druid, War, Ele, Ele. There will always be classes that are dominating, War will be mandatory for all power comps, some source of might, fury, alac and quickness as well. Only thing that really changed atm is, your favourite class is not in meta (as is mine - Ele for ever). It doesn't mean classes in meta are OP (well, hfb and alac are), it means you cannot accept, that meta shifts and sometimes you have to let go either your favourite class, or game mode and go play another game mode.

Quote

Back in the day people complained about chrono and druid (rightfully) so they got nerf after nerf, while fb and ren got buff after buff. The end result? Your team comp fb+ren is even more broken than chrono+druid now (1 button alacrity, instant cast quickness application are some of the biggest offenders. Great. So you got rid of something just to add an even more broken something. Scourge breaking encounters can NOT be excused by the damage it used to do. Overbuffing specs and obsoleting the content is not what Anet should do, period.

Scourge breaking encounters... Does 100Cm have more than one?

Edited January 14, 2022 by Bakeneko.5826

[anbujackson.9564]

6 minutes ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

 

No, i think you miss the point entirely, not sure if on purpose. If you nerf hfb, renegade, scourge, there will be another classes that will take meta and will be overrepresented. There is no outcome, where all classes are used - there will be easier classes, that will end up used and overrepresented, that's how META WORKS. People find what works, distil it down to easiest to use cases and run that. There was/is/will be no point in fractal meta, where every class can be used interchangeably as alacrity, might, fury and quickness MUST be covered. Be it 1, 2 or 3 classes to do that, there will always be meta with favoured classes, that will dominate LFG as desirable. What you arguing is not rep of those 3 specific classes, but existence of meta at any point of time.

 

The point is that the new meta shouldnt be more broken than the old one. How is that even so hard to understand? 

Changing meta is a good thing because people can spend time to figure out new builds/the new best builds. If the new meta yields less overall power then its even better for the balance situation.

Edited January 14, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[Tails.9372]

1 minute ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

He isn't moving goalpost, you are missing point on purpose.

Nope, you're just missing the context. He brought up the notion of "There is no dedicated DPS build that low" which is what I was replying to.

2 minutes ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Bad build is not indicative of dmg. It's like saying - my theorycraft build using suboptimal weapons, traits and skill is lower dmg, but i think it's meta. Which is not true.

Except there is a difference between a build being bad because it lacks synergy and a build being bad in spite of having synergy. The former is usually the fault of the player and can just be dismissed for that reason while the later is not and thus the same criticism doesn't apply.

[Wolfb.7025]

36 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Well some of those comments are surely laughably bad. 

Imagine ignoring valid data that literally everyone can witness all day. Also imagine people actually excuse overperforming specs because the single target golem dps wasnt as high before (scourge) and not as high now as others while pointing around the classes and completely ignoring how failsafe scourge dps is. If you think that scourge is "fine" then you are just bad at playing them honestly. I actually have to try hard not to do top dps damage because your main damage is focused on a handful of skills with unbeatable range advantage. Instead of 2k dps less by golem numbers, i do at least 2k more than others in realistic scenarios (except cbf if hes somewhat good and on breakbars).

Back in the day people complained about chrono and druid (rightfully) so they got nerf after nerf, while fb and ren got buff after buff. The end result? Your team comp fb+ren is even more broken than chrono+druid now (1 button alacrity, instant cast quickness application are some of the biggest offenders. Great. So you got rid of something just to add an even more broken something. Scourge breaking encounters can NOT be excused by the damage it used to do. Overbuffing specs and obsoleting the content is not what Anet should do, period.

lol yeah, agree. Even saw some people arguing that that data is coming only from meta focused groups, when in reality that amount is not even more than 5% of the total logs., Anyone with the dps meter can submit logs to get that data. And if I pug, the data the other 4 players gather with their classes will also count for that data.

Hence, fb, scourge and renegade occupy 80% of the total playtime on fractals, such variety anet wanted to achieve with the breakbar nerf on May 2021.

I even stopped reading Bakeneko arguments and comments about his static and his weaver lol

 

I don't really mind the firegade meta though. What really bugs me is the big power nerf on CMs, Power is way harder to play effectively and has more to worry about to keep their dps competent while scourges/cfb has it like if it was a walk in the park.

Scourge now is basically the thing cFB was before that May patch: an easy dps alternative to play which didn't perform as good as other "top dps meta classes" but it was safer and easier, gives a lot to think about the state of the current meta...

Edited January 14, 2022 by Wolfb.7025

[Infusion.7149]

21 minutes ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

He isn't moving goalpost, you are missing point on purpose. Bad build is not indicative of dmg. It's like saying - my theorycraft build using suboptimal weapons, traits and skill is lower dmg, but i think it's meta. Which is not true.

 

Read it again. And Harbinger, as it was in the state of last beta, WOULD BE prime condi dps build... It has damage and it has epi, noone cares about barrier. Barrier is non-factor for CM runs to begin with. Noone is taking scourge for barrier in fractals, it is taken for EPI ON 100CM, did you seriously not understood it before? Whole Scourge meta craze started when some youtuber TeaKettle or something, introduced at the time unpopular strat with scourge casting epi to deal with shades. Noone takes so much damage in fractals for blight stacks to matter, and they didn't... HFB covers for that. Hell, healing signet and Fractal God will cover for that more than adequately if needed, or some other support class that will be taken for support.

No, i think you miss the point entirely, not sure if on purpose. If you nerf hfb, renegade, scourge, there will be another classes that will take meta and will be overrepresented. There is no outcome, where all classes are used - there will be easier classes, that will end up used and overrepresented, that's how META WORKS. People find what works, distil it down to easiest to use cases and run that. There was/is/will be no point in fractal meta, where every class can be used interchangeably as alacrity, might, fury and quickness MUST be covered. Be it 1, 2 or 3 classes to do that, there will always be meta with favoured classes, that will dominate LFG as desirable. What you arguing is not rep of those 3 specific classes, but existence of meta at any point of time.

  I'm confused as what your endpoint is here. Before we had meta dominated by HFB/QFB, Alac, Bannerslave and 2 dps (DH, SLB or ele), before that 4 necros + druid, before that Chrono, Druid, War, Ele, Ele. There will always be classes that are dominating, War will be mandatory for all power comps, some source of might, fury, alac and quickness as well. Only thing that really changed atm is, your favourite class is not in meta (as is mine - Ele for ever). It doesn't mean classes in meta are OP (well, hfb and alac are), it means you cannot accept, that meta shifts and sometimes you have to let go either your favourite class, or game mode and go play another game mode.

Scourge breaking encounters... Does 100Cm have more than one?

So many points that are not true here.

First of all if you're going to mention TEAPOT who is the biggest GW2 streamer by far (not just on Youtube but on twitch)  at least get the name right. Secondly, if you read the necro forum people already say that harbinger straight up won't be used if it does less DPS than scourge so that argument goes out the window as well.  The fact that you mention HFB which isn't used by high end groups is telling. Even mediocre groups can run cele or seraph hybrid firebrand. I know someone who doesn't even play CMs regularly and they run cele since a few months back because so many people play scourge that the barrier covers the deficit.

Epidemic is used for sorrows, no idea where you got the idea they are called shades. Healing signet is a warrior skill that is not even relevant to this.

If you nerf (as in not make unplayable but another option among many)  HFB , renegade then they will still be used. That's a fact. If you think otherwise you're in denial because a heal scrapper does ZERO DPS in med kit. Literally zero. I had someone try to run that with alac mirage for might and fury and it was an unmitigated disaster in 98CM at the split. Chrono doesn't heal in any appreciable way and neither will catalyst or harbinger. It's pretty clear arenanet wants to revert the extreme role compression and Firebrand is a prime target for that.
On the alacrity front, yes alac mechanist and alac specter will possibly work, but it is unlikely they will provide the same amounts of CC. Both are slated to be better at "healing" in terms of barrier, which is another reason that scourge is over performing since it pushes out those roles completely.

Epidemic is also used on 99CM for anomalies by the way. Before that people would have alac ren to do it.

It was chrono + druid + 3 DPS before. It was FB+ alac ren + BS + 2 DPS before. Now it is mostly down to just FB + ren + scourges. How is that better?

P.S. I play all 9 classes so the favorite class bit doesn't even apply.
 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Vidit.7108]

3 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Your last solution results in incredible power creep. You can even see wipes and fails go significantly down on that site after scourge and fbs started to gain popularity. Both of them turn the game into a snoozefest. Almost impossible to fail and t4 feels like a t1 with them.

Weaver never had a support build and a damage build that were both top tier at the same time.

A group can have condi-firebrand and healbrand and they are doing mostly different things. For that matter one Scourge could be doing all the group's barrier if it wanted and the other one be pure dps.

Giving other classes better utility skills doesn't result in power creep. If they make the cooldown on a mesmer skill shorter, say on Feedback, that helps mesmer and doesn't increase group damage anymore than having reflects in the game already does. It doesn't matter to me at all if group wipes have dropped, it doesn't mean anything. If players get better at the game wipes do go down too. You can't attribute it entirely to the existence of firebrand and scourge. If you think the fractals are too easy then just don't use the mist potions or get a static that runs with no healer. Or quit.

[Bakeneko.5826]

5 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

The point is that the new meta shouldnt be more broken than the old one. How is that even so hard to understand? 

Changing meta is a good thing because people can spend time to figure out new builds/the new best builds. If the new meta yields less overall power then its even better for the balance situation.

There is no less power, there are new elites, that have to sell expacs, to be desired. You are talking about some kind of utopia that cannot exist. And even if it yields less power it still won't matter because you missed the point of meta entirely - there will be overrepresented classes due to ease of use for maximum efficiency. Cfb has more DPS than scourge, yet scourge sees a lot of play due to epi. Remove epi, meta will return to 4 guardians + alac. Remove guardian, it will shift to something else, where one or two classes takes it place as dominant ones. You are trying to fix existence of meta, by closing your eyes and pretending it doesn't exist while yelling "Scourge OP, HFB OP, Alac OP". But you miss very important moment, where hfb provides most support by sacrificing least DPS (one char providing what druid and chrono did) and alac covering for chrono and druid (alac dps might be to high, but that's beside the point) by providing... well... alac and CC.

 

7 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

Nope, you're just missing the context. He brought up the notion of "There is no dedicated DPS build that low" which is what I was replying to.

No, you are just arguing for sake of argument. At no point you made decent try at making good point. Go to snowcrows, open up DPS builds and look at how much DPS they do. That is you power dps curve.

8 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

Except there is a difference between a build being bad because it lacks synergy and a build being bad in spite of having synergy. The former is usually the fault of the player and can just be dismissed for that reason while the later is not and thus the same criticism doesn't apply.

You are trying to argue unicorns are pink by bringing picture of a donkey.

4 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

First of all if you're going to mention TEAPOT who is the biggest GW2 streamer by far (not just on Youtube but on twitch)  at least get the name right. Secondly

Don't really care.

5 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Secondly, if you read the necro forum people already say that harbinger straight up won't be used if it does less DPS than scourge so that argument goes out the window as well. 

Forgot there was all class beta, was looking at one 4 months back.

8 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The fact that you mention HFB which isn't used by high end groups is telling. Even mediocre groups can run cele or seraph hybrid firebrand. I know someone who doesn't even play CMs regularly and they run cele since a few months back because so many people play scourge that the barrier covers the deficit.

HFB is easier to understand as umbrela term for support FB, but just for you, I'll say it fully: cQFB is included here, too. Barrier is laughable to say the least. And you don't really need it, as you don't really need anything more than cQFB to run fractals no problem.

13 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If you nerf (as in not make unplayable but another option among many)  HFB , renegade then they will still be used. That's a fact. If you think otherwise you're in denial because a heal scrapper does ZERO DPS in med kit. Literally zero. I had someone try to run that with alac mirage for might and fury and it was an unmitigated disaster in 98CM at the split.

What will nerf accomplish if nothing is going to change? Why nerf in such a way, that nothing changes? Read slowly what you typed and answer those questions. And no, masochism is not an answer. If there is nothing to take it's place, there is no need to nerf anything. Either you nerf something and buff something as counter action to shift meta, or nerf for the sake of nerf, without trying to shift meta is wasted resources, that can be used somewhere else, like drinking coffee, as that would be more productive activity.

15 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Chrono doesn't heal in any appreciable way and neither will catalyst or harbinger. It's pretty clear arenanet wants to revert the extreme role compression and Firebrand is a prime target for that.

It's like we had class in chrono fractal meta that would heal, because chrono never healed... kitten, i think it was elite spec of bower, named nymph or something....

17 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Both are slated to be better at "healing" in terms of barrier, which is another reason that scourge is over performing since it pushes out those roles completely.

And you missed entire point of scourge being in fractals... 100CM and lazyness to switch after it. Fix Ai shades, scourge domination does poof and we are back to playing a lot of guardian. Problem isn't scourge, it's one fractal mechanic. If epi strat didn't work, scourge would have seen no play.

19 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Epidemic is also used on 99CM for anomalies by the way. Before that people would have alac ren to do it.

Yes, I am familiar with fractal meta past and current. And power alac had no problem dealing with them, Epi is used because necro is already there and it's convenient.

22 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It was chrono + druid + 3 DPS before. It was FB+ alac ren + BS + 2 DPS before. Now it is mostly down to just FB + ren + scourges. How is that better?

It isn't better, it wasn't better before either. You are just conveniently hid the fact, that before "DPS" was tempest and DH and later weaver and SLB. Elementalist was meta since release of HoT fractal rework till quite recently (comparatively), really, so it was more like Chrono, druid, ele, ele, maybe DH -> FB, alac, BS, ele, SLB -> fb, alac, dh, slb, slb -> what we have now. And will never be better, some other classes will take those slots as mandatory, or just better, next "fractal balance is bad, because my fav class is not here" post will be posted, like many other before under different names, different subforums, but it will still happen. Only difference now, we have blue, red and green in arc.

[Obtena.7952]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The issue is the degree to which certain classes are dominating.  

... which is an irrelevant issue because teams that want meta could care less the degree that meta builds do better than others. The builds that dominate to the meta position do so whether they are doing it by a slim margin OR if they are running away from the pack and the teams that want these builds aren't impacted by the degree these builds dominate. 

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[AliamRationem.5172]

30 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

... which is an irrelevant issue because teams that want meta could care less the degree that meta builds do better than others. The builds that dominate to the meta position do so whether they are doing it by a slim margin OR if they are running away from the pack and the teams that want these builds aren't impacted by the degree these builds dominate. 

 

Incorrect on every non-point.

[Obtena.7952]

Non-points ... that's a new one.  🤔If I'm incorrect on every non-point, does that make me correct on every point? Not sure, but it does sound nice. 

What I do know ... teams that want meta builds don't care how 'meta' those meta builds are ... they just know they want those meta builds. I also know that if a change doesn't remove a build from its meta status, its still meta. 

The truth here is that this complaint isn't new ... people been complaining something is and isn't meta since the being of this game. What is also not new ... the way Anet will handle this complaint. 

But here is a twist ... I also acknowledge the difference between overperforming and meta builds. The problem is when people justify nerfing overperforming builds because they are meta ... THAT'S a no go.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Infusion.7149]

1 hour ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

There is no less power, there are new elites, that have to sell expacs, to be desired. You are talking about some kind of utopia that cannot exist. And even if it yields less power it still won't matter because you missed the point of meta entirely - there will be overrepresented classes due to ease of use for maximum efficiency. Cfb has more DPS than scourge, yet scourge sees a lot of play due to epi. Remove epi, meta will return to 4 guardians + alac. Remove guardian, it will shift to something else, where one or two classes takes it place as dominant ones. You are trying to fix existence of meta, by closing your eyes and pretending it doesn't exist while yelling "Scourge OP, HFB OP, Alac OP". But you miss very important moment, where hfb provides most support by sacrificing least DPS (one char providing what druid and chrono did) and alac covering for chrono and druid (alac dps might be to high, but that's beside the point) by providing... well... alac and CC.

 

No, you are just arguing for sake of argument. At no point you made decent try at making good point. Go to snowcrows, open up DPS builds and look at how much DPS they do. That is you power dps curve.

You are trying to argue unicorns are pink by bringing picture of a donkey.

Don't really care.

Forgot there was all class beta, was looking at one 4 months back.

HFB is easier to understand as umbrela term for support FB, but just for you, I'll say it fully: cQFB is included here, too. Barrier is laughable to say the least. And you don't really need it, as you don't really need anything more than cQFB to run fractals no problem.

What will nerf accomplish if nothing is going to change? Why nerf in such a way, that nothing changes? Read slowly what you typed and answer those questions. And no, masochism is not an answer. If there is nothing to take it's place, there is no need to nerf anything. Either you nerf something and buff something as counter action to shift meta, or nerf for the sake of nerf, without trying to shift meta is wasted resources, that can be used somewhere else, like drinking coffee, as that would be more productive activity.

It's like we had class in chrono fractal meta that would heal, because chrono never healed... kitten, i think it was elite spec of bower, named nymph or something....

And you missed entire point of scourge being in fractals... 100CM and lazyness to switch after it. Fix Ai shades, scourge domination does poof and we are back to playing a lot of guardian. Problem isn't scourge, it's one fractal mechanic. If epi strat didn't work, scourge would have seen no play.

Yes, I am familiar with fractal meta past and current. And power alac had no problem dealing with them, Epi is used because necro is already there and it's convenient.

It isn't better, it wasn't better before either. You are just conveniently hid the fact, that before "DPS" was tempest and DH and later weaver and SLB. Elementalist was meta since release of HoT fractal rework till quite recently (comparatively), really, so it was more like Chrono, druid, ele, ele, maybe DH -> FB, alac, BS, ele, SLB -> fb, alac, dh, slb, slb -> what we have now. And will never be better, some other classes will take those slots as mandatory, or just better, next "fractal balance is bad, because my fav class is not here" post will be posted, like many other before under different names, different subforums, but it will still happen. Only difference now, we have blue, red and green in arc.

Why nerf something? Because it is overperforming significantly by every metric whether it is DPS uptime, DPS , support when in full DPS spec and gear. It's that simple , there is no need to overcomplicate it. That was the reason why chrono was nerfed even though it didn't heal and at the time (pre 2019) we didn't have diviner so commander's + leadership runes was far lower damage. In addition, that's more or less the only way that new quickness/alacrity sources from the EOD expansion will ever be attractive to people.

Moreover, it is SORROWS (again) and if the CC bar wasn't so huge for an add (which is why the consumable change with no reduction on breakbar was not a great idea) then we would have more class diversity. There are limited options to deal with 1500 breakbars with 5 people when an entire raid boss breakbar for 10 people is 1-2k. It's almost equivalent to Sabir without special action. You'll note that PUGing 100CM tanked after the removal of consumables and that is why 98+99CM groups exist.

Note I wrote that firebrand needs to be nerfed more than scourge simply for the fact that even if nerfed it would still be the dominant quickness provider. The dominant strategy before epidemic was sanctuary and Darkrazor on renegade after all.

If you are talking about pre-POF it doesn't really matter for current balance as quickness and alacrity were basically non-existent as well as party healing which is why people blasted fire and water fields. Since HOT it has been chrono+druid first. I don't recall people explicitly asking for TEMPEST+DH DPS. Quite frankly if you think having a tempest+DH meta instead of scourge meta is worse I don't know what to say as tempest is objectively harder to play well (and suffers greatly vs small hitbox) and so is DH in general usage outside CMs. People do specifically ask for the classes mentioned in this topic just like it was FB+alac+BS+DPS before that which is far healthier for the game than firebrand or scourge stacking.

Realistically however this disparity won't be addressed until after EOD drops because they will want to promote EOD specs. The only way that can be done is if older POF specs such as firebrand , scourge, and renegade are toned down and the newest variants of EOD specs are kept above POF specs' overall performance in at least some fashion whether it is DPS/CC/support/etc. The likelihood of renegade being pushed out by 5 man alacrity mechanist or specter is low right now but if CC values are improved on the EOD specs it could very well occur as barriers are more fitting for fractals due to agony's -70% healing. If for example launches did 250 and 350 defiance damage instead of 232 and 332 respectively that would be improvement as well as making the defiance bar values more towards a 50 CC increment. Similarly while a harbinger quickness might be able to replace a full condi DPS firebrand with quickness and might (unlike scrapper or chrono) , it isn't putting out aegis on <12s interval or stability in its last iteration.

[Obtena.7952]

4 hours ago, Sniper.5961 said:

 

I wasnt complaining about the limited number of ways to clear CMs, i was complaining about the fact that one way to clear them with 3 classes in 5 slots is by far outperforming all of the other ways for the vast mayority of the current population.

Right ... so you are complaining about the fact there is a meta because it's a no-brainer people ARE going to tend towards the best way to clear the hardest content in the game.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[AliamRationem.5172]

Let me help you guys out.

You have to understand Obtena's perspective on this one for anything they say to make sense.  Obtena believes that if all classes are viable (defined as "not broken due to bugs, etc. and therefore playable"), then balance is a non-issue.  The meta being a player-created construct is an issue to be resolved by the players and nothing the developers should concern themselves with.

If that sounds like complete nonsense, you're not alone.  But it's how Obtena views this issue, so you're just wasting your time talking about balance with this person.

[Asum.4960]

12 hours ago, Psykewne.3025 said:

Some changes that might help

 

- change Aegis and Stab to be self only boons - now a single FB no longer allows the whole group to ignore every major attack

 

- reduce the stationary damage on torment in pve to (0.075 * Condition Damage) + 26.8 -  the torment change is too potent in pve when its easy to have a boss stand still and allows celestial alac renegade and scourge to over perform on damage for the amount of utility and support they bring

 

- remove the damage increase from https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Amplified_Wrath - FB burning is very potent and this helps reign it in while still allowing you the option of bringing https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Wrath and even traiting with https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Perfect_Inscriptions for team burst during exposed at the expense of dropping a defensive utility skill

 

- epidemic is an iconic but overly powerful and unique skill that needs a complete redesign - if you consider any place where epidemic is really useful there is no other comparable alternative as nothing else can apply so many conditions in such quantity to 5 targets on such a low cooldown. - good discussion above on possible changes

 

 

Then we are back to 4FB+Ren, Sanctuaries on Sorrows and aRen taking care of Anomalies, just like we did for months to years before the rise of Scourge - or if the Amplified Wrath nerf is too bad, 4Rev+ qFB groups (or really even just 5 cele Revs if you want to have a really easy time as pug meta). 

 

I really think you hugely overrate Epidemic. It's a great convenience tool, but to say there are no alternatives? At MO one player can just step away for 3 seconds and burst the Scouts, same for SO, or just tanks moving the boss from worm to worm. Ai, again, was handled just fine before Scourge became popular for Fractals, same with Anomalies on Ark. 

Even wet dream Epi bosses like Molten Boss (to bounce Epis) or Kodan Brothers, other professions can out DPS/cleave a full DPS Scourge with Epi.

 

11 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

I could agree with this, remove quickness from HFB, to shift group comp to either mesmer or scrapper (two possible classes) to provide quickness.

Isn't it just a really terrible Heal Tempest then?

[Asum.4960]

Double Post

Edited January 15, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Bakeneko.5826]

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Why nerf something? Because it is overperforming significantly by every metric whether it is DPS uptime, DPS , support when in full DPS spec and gear. It's that simple , there is no need to overcomplicate it. That was the reason why chrono was nerfed even though it didn't heal and at the time (pre 2019) we didn't have diviner so commander's + leadership runes was far lower damage. In addition, that's more or less the only way that new quickness/alacrity sources from the EOD expansion will ever be attractive to people.

Let me remind you, that at most broken point alacrity gave 66% and not 33% reduction to CD, due to this alacrity was mandatory literally for everything. Also, mesmer doesn't heal even now, raid heal build is abomination, that noone should run. And you failed to answer my question - why nerf, if nothing takes its place? Nothing changes anyway. Your argument is a bit stupid.

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Moreover, it is SORROWS (again)

Doesn't matter, don't care

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

if the CC bar wasn't so huge for an add (which is why the consumable change with no reduction on breakbar was not a great idea) then we would have more class diversity.

No, there wouldn't. You'd see thief in a mix and slb in rest spots (which is meta anyway). You won't see condi ele, because it still need relatively stationary target, condi engi, becase nobody plays engi anyway, condi war is a joke as a whole, mesmer doesnt have enough solo dps for other encounters, where boss is not moving and spamming skills, so on and so on.

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You'll note that PUGing 100CM tanked after the removal of consumables and that is why 98+99CM groups exist.

Yes, pugs are generaly average at the game, so no surprise there.

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Note I wrote that firebrand needs to be nerfed more than scourge simply for the fact that even if nerfed it would still be the dominant quickness provider.

Your nerf has no point. You don't create diversity, you just get hate kitten, because class you hate gets gutted for no reason. If you want nerfs, something has to rise in power to compete.

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Since HOT it has been chrono+druid first. I don't recall people explicitly asking for TEMPEST+DH DPS.

Maybe your memory is just bad.

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

is objectively harder to play well

That does not make it better, it is such a bad argument - meta is better, because it is harder. No. It is not. Never was. Never will be. I know you want to feel "better", because rotations are hard, but that argument is just plain stupid. If all your hate for current meta is based on that, you have no case here, as your base assumption is not only erroneous, but non applicable to any meta. 

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If you are talking about pre-POF it doesn't really matter for current balance as quickness and alacrity were basically non-existent as well

Let me introduce you to chronomancer

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

party healing which is why people blasted fire and water fields

Let me introduce you to druid. Both were mandatory to fractal meta BECAUSE of quickness, alac AND healing (well, druid for might generation, healing was just bonus)

5 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The meta being a player-created construct is an issue to be resolved by the players and nothing the developers should concern themselves with.

 

Not completely true, but for current topic you are completely correct.

5 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

(or really even just 5 cele Revs if you want to have a really easy time as pug meta)

Which would be newest pug meta if that were the case

5 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Isn't it just a really terrible Heal Tempest then?

I mean it has all other boons.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Let me remind you, that at most broken point alacrity gave 66% and not 33% reduction to CD, due to this alacrity was mandatory literally for everything. Also, mesmer doesn't heal even now, raid heal build is abomination, that noone should run. And you failed to answer my question - why nerf, if nothing takes its place? Nothing changes anyway. Your argument is a bit stupid.

 

So you are agreeing then, chrono was toned down because it was so far outperforming, even without healing (more on this in a second), that it had to get nerfed. Multiple times in fact.

 

As to not healing: chrono was giving distortion and later aegis. Far superior to healing, especially distortion.

 

No one is saying nothing is taking its place. The argument is that availability of certain stat combos has an effect on balance. In case nothing were to take its place, if we visualize "place" as a ladder of viability, the next lower step on that ladder, hopefully filled with more classes, would become the top spot.

 

Also, alacrity is 25% now, only 50% on chrono himself (aka skills recharge within 80% of time, 66% for chrono if skilled). I know it can be a bit confusing, given recharge rate increase is simply added on top per second, resulting in 1.25s or 1.5s cooldown shaved off per second. It's rather well described on the wiki.

Quote

Doesn't matter, don't care

You seem to not care about many things which are actually rather relevant to why certain aspects are unbalanced.

1.5k breakbar on 2 targets divided between 5 players is kind of a big deal to not care.

Quote

No, there wouldn't. You'd see thief in a mix and slb in rest spots (which is meta anyway). You won't see condi ele, because it still need relatively stationary target, condi engi, becase nobody plays engi anyway, condi war is a joke as a whole, mesmer doesnt have enough solo dps for other encounters, where boss is not moving and spamming skills, so on and so on.

Which would already increase diversity, even if it was only thief and slb. Going from 1 sole class on 3 spots to 2 is kind of a big deal.

 

Quote

Yes, pugs are generaly average at the game, so no surprise there.

and yet they make up the vast majority of the playerbase.

 

As mentioned earlier: if you have to resort to ultra high end static gameplay to argue ANYTHING, you're already lost. Especially when 1 class bullies out all alternatives on every level below that this hard.

Quote

Your nerf has no point. You don't create diversity, you just get hate kitten, because class you hate gets gutted for no reason. If you want nerfs, something has to rise in power to compete.

I love how this comes up constantly. Almost as though some people seem to not understand the concept of: MUTLICLASS. Yes, some players play all 9 classes.

 

Firebrand and scourge are dominant in 2 of the 3 games modes. Primarily WvW and PvE. To players which actually enjoy switching up classes occasionally it is very boring.

 

To players which are not of the select few viable classes, it's very restricting.

Quote

Maybe your memory is just bad.

Or yours is? Did you even PUG CMs at that time? Your pre UFE change KP seem a tad low for someone to have interacted with CMs that far back? I mean I barely started on CM running towards the mid/end of druid+chrono, after my 1.5 year break, and even I have you beat by close to 120 old KP (what was that, like 2 moths worth of dailies) while running primarily in pug groups. Maybe this is a NA versus EU thing again, me being EU? Or you converted/sold a lot of KP, which quite a few players did. In which case I would be mistaken.

 

Just wondering what your confidence is to assume others are wrong where you are right? I mean not even the wingman graph corroborates what you are claiming. Just in case it might be somewhat accurate. Have you ever questioned your own memory while telling others they might be misremembering?

 

Even so, even IF we assume you are correct. Druid+chrono+bs+dh+tempest still beats the current diversity.

Quote

That does not make it better, it is such a bad argument - meta is better, because it is harder. No. It is not. Never was. Never will be. I know you want to feel "better", because rotations are hard, but that argument is just plain stupid. If all your hate for current meta is based on that, you have no case here, as your base assumption is not only erroneous, but non applicable to any meta. 

It's called Effort-Based Reward.

 

While I personally don't want back piano style ele gamplay, it could be a tad higher than pressing 6-7 buttons as scourge. Is it even 6-7? Let's count: 1-5 (no weapon swap required), F2, F5, BiP and every dozens of seconds maybe Plaguelands, golem, epidemic or minion. 8 with a few spare presses here and there, I underestimated the effort required.

Quote

Let me introduce you to chronomancer

Let me introduce you to druid. Both were mandatory to fractal meta BECAUSE of quickness, alac AND healing (well, druid for might generation, healing was just bonus)

Yes, so how was that good?

 

Quote

 

Not completely true, but for current topic you are completely correct.

Depends on if you see the developers in charge of class balance or not. Given that is what dictates any payers decision made after.

 

Given they are, you are kind of incorrect.

Quote

Which would be newest pug meta if that were the case

I love lacking quickness in my pug metas.

Quote

I mean it has all other boons.

Which matters little to a group which wants that exact 1 boon.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Drascious.5714]

It would be interesting to see what everything would look like if you removed boons from the game

[Tails.9372]

27 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

and yet they make up the vast majority of the playerbase

I doubt that players who PuG "98+99CM" make up the vast majority of the playerbase.

[Giannis.8651]

hi mr nepha cool post! I think that because this is a very casual mmo game it would be ok if there wasn't alot of class diversity as anet can't be expected to put alot of resources into balancing and there will always be something that's way too efficient to play for non-organized groups. For example before the may-apocalypse patch 4x fb + 1x ren cleared faster than any power comp in a NON-ORGANIZED setting unless u added a group of the best 20 fractal players in the game or whatever + it was good instabs. So I don't think the problem is that scg+fb+ren comp exists but rather that it is used from entry-level fractal players to pretty much all non organized groups. As 99% of players play in a non-organized setting that's probably pretty bad!

Also I just want to offer some information that might be interesting to some people who stumble across my post: You might have watched some random grinded dark ai kill thats 1:15 or whatever with cdd+2xcslb but the reality is that for daily kills 2x scg is king on 100 no matter how good the players are, my static does 1:20~dark ai on resets with 2x scg+ 1x cslb we would hv to grind rng to outperform that with 2x cslb comp(like gging before the 33% sorrows if bad rng so we can get 100% exposed modifier for last phase and dps check 33 sorrows which u will get only 50% of time cuz rng...) this is something that obviously people don't like to do for random daily kills! Moreover scourge can actually outdps everything except thief on both light and dark ai! (depending on phase lengths basically as the dps values of difference classes vary from group to group). You are pretty much competitive with cfb and you always outdps cren, cslb and alot other dps specs even on light ai!( u pretty much just lose to thief). I think it would be a rly good idea to nerf scg specifically for 100cm because a class that is that easy to play with such low effort to reward ratio should not also be used on high end groups for dailies on one of the 3 cm fractals at least imo thats ridiculous. I think it would also be fine if 80% of lfg groups or something played the scg+fb+ren comps they play now instead of 99% but unfortunately it's hard to outperform the overall clear times of condi groups with power comps(due to excessive stacking on mistlock and things going wrong during the kills due to instabs or random things happening). It's also basically near-impossible to lfg for power comps because the decent power gamers don't even open the lfg anymore as they find it depressing. I used to do a 2nd fotm run daily with my friend marchen and asked for power gamers but scourges and cfb players kept joining as power groups are such a foreign concept now on lfg people don't even understand what we are asking for lol, so we pretty much gave up and now when we pug we just expect the cfb gamers to join, I even had to make 300 ar slb cuz there was no bs ever in any group ever and i wanted to play pslb in pugs cuz it's my favourite class haha it's very tragic all around if you don't have a static in this game imo. 

[Sniper.5961]

10 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Right ... so you are complaining about the fact there is a meta because it's a no-brainer people ARE going to tend towards the best way to clear the hardest content in the game.

Read my post again that was clearly not what i was implying in the slightest, its baffeling how you get that take from my post like you make an effort to misunderstand it. And yes they are  going to tend towards the best way to clear the hardest content in the game, i was never disputing that, on the contrary my post was based on it. You also didnt answer my question: "Dont you agree that reverting exposed would be healthy for the current state of fractals? "