Current state of fractal balance

[Sniper.5961]

1 hour ago, Coldi.9745 said:

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. 

hi, i ran with you and marchen yesterday if im online feel free to whisper me, i would be happy to play with you again. I also think that by reverting the exposed change more people would play power and the pug diversity would be bigger. It would probably lead to what you said would be ok (80% scg fb ren or other condi comps rest power).

[Giannis.8651]

9 minutes ago, Sniper.5961 said:

hi, i ran with you and marchen yesterday if im online feel free to whisper me, i would be happy to play with you again. I also think that by reverting the exposed change more people would play power and the pug diversity would be bigger. It would probably lead to what you said would be ok (80% scg fb ren or other condi comps rest power).

Hi! I pretty much agree with everything you said but I strongly doubt anet would revert exposed changes unfortunately, I just hope they change minor things like vengeance,npng etc so for example if a new/returning player wants to play catalyst or something in EoD then power groups are more accessible/viable for him to play on as he learns and improves on the content. Honestly if they just rework some instabs I know alot of ppl who would start pugging on power again.

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

On 1/14/2022 at 1:33 PM, Bakeneko.5826 said:

This is straight up lie.

Another lie. Condi for speedrunning is faster on Ai and on Ensolyss

 

Weaver is still very much alive in raids and strikes

It always was, literally nothing changed as far as classes themselves go - weaver is still weaver, cfb is still OP. Only thing that changed was exposed and torment, with exposed being main culprit for power comps no longer seeing play in pug groups (org speedrun still uses power) and necro getting enough damage for fractals not to become FBx4 + alac mode (which, to be honest it would still be if not for epi).

 

Yes, just like with GW2efficiency data, it is not full data or representation of real world. You have subset of people who cared enough to generate API and subset who added it to gw2 Wingman. And data dispersion is so wide, some points have over 100k data points and latest only 15k, or 10% of total players who gave some data a year before. Either GW2 bled a lot of players, or tool is not much used. And i am leaning to tool not being too popular.

 

Soooo.... You admit that popularity of classes are entirely up to players and performance has less of an impact than ease of play?

 

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Situational skill is useful in situation it was crated for? 🤔It's almost why it is as good as it is on certain fractals. kitten.

 

That would entirely kill FB on every game mode instantly. From top to unplayable in one patch.

if you target is to Troll great work but everything was he said was right to the last line . There a certain some stuff where you need certain conditions but cFB and Scourge do top DPS in fractals because they have on special mechanic that help them = Ash of Justice and reset of Tom of Justice for cFB and epidemic for Scourge.

 

 

Well we all saw it coming.

[Obtena.7952]

12 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

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.

That's pretty close ... 

1. Yes, all classes are viable but that has nothing to do with not being broken to bugs. It just means you can make meaningful, thought out builds with them and succeed in content with people that do the same. IMO, Anet actually does achieve their play how you want target because of this.

2. No, balance isn't a non-issue ... you want people to have meaningful choice. We simply have that already (see point 1). You even have the choice to play with others that take it away from you. 😉

3. Meta is not exactly a player construct. It's more like something players 'discover' as optimal solutions to content. But it's not engineered by Anet to be something specific either. 

Even if you think that's nonsense, that's how the game works. I think the problem most people have is that they can't break out of this mindset that the game isn't balanced if we don't have loads of builds that have equivalent performance in an optimal setting. It's simply not needed to play the game, so it doesn't make sense for it to be a target. 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Nephalem.8921]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

That's pretty close ... 

1. Yes, all classes are viable but that has nothing to do with not being broken to bugs. It just means you can make meaningful, thought out builds with them and succeed in content with people that do the same. IMO, Anet actually does achieve their play how you want target because of this.

2. No, balance isn't a non-issue ... you want people to have meaningful choice. We simply have that already (see point 1). You even have the choice to play with others that take it away from you. 😉

3. Meta is not exactly a player construct. It's more like something players 'discover' as optimal solutions to content. But it's not engineered by Anet to be something specific either. 

Even if you think that's nonsense, that's how the game works. I think the problem most people have is that they can't break out of this mindset that the game isn't balanced if we don't have loads of builds that have equivalent performance in an optimal setting. It's simply not needed to play the game, so it doesn't make sense for it to be a target. 

Do you actually log into the game sometimes or just post on forum? How can you justify the lfg basically just being fbs and scourges with maybe 1 different class every 2nd lfg?

Really not sure if you are just trolling in forums all day or really believe the things you write.

Condi meta is incredible limiting. most condi builds have bad cleave except for scourge, fb and ren and maybe holo but i havent een a condi holo in years. 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Nephalem.8921

[Bakeneko.5826]

6 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

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.

Let's put it that way. For scourge to be on par in term o broken with chrono back then, it should do 80k DPS and have 20k barrier on one button press. I was not joking, when I said whole meta rotated around that buff (yes, it was buff at that time and not boon).

6 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

hopefully filled with more classes

Then you have no idea what meta is.

 

6 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

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

Like the name of NPC? Very important to balance!

 

6 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Your pre UFE change KP

And yet it is more than yours atm, also I didn't keep more than stack and a bit by selling them for gold, so... you know... your conclusion is bad 😕

6 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

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.

I don't assume, i know you have no idea how game works by what you are trying to push here. Wingman is just bad as statistics tool, I am really not into explaining here why it is bad and why P of that data is not acceptable.

It beats diversity by being another classes and people still were not happy, cause those classes were dominating and not others.

6 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

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.

Play cfb. It has couple more buttons.

6 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

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

I think you don't really understand what boons are wanted on fractals. Quick hint: 4 are a must, one is quickness, try to figure our rest 3.

 

4 hours ago, Coldi.9745 said:

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

You fail to understand why scourge can outdps other classes if CC is bad (ahem.. .range attacks). Also, amount of effort is really irrelevant.

 

4 hours ago, Coldi.9745 said:

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

Maybe it is because power dps is organized groups comp atm?

 

4 hours ago, Coldi.9745 said:

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. 

And here we have your reason to hate meta: slb is not part of it.

1 hour ago, Lord of the Fire.6870 said:

and epidemic for Scourge.

Epi is only useful because of how encounters work, it's not so hard to understand. And I am not defending cFB, or any FB for that matter, as it can do everything and needs to be hit somewhere - dps or support.

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

3. Meta is not exactly a player construct.

You high on something? It is player construct.Player chooses classes that perform best and then narrow it down to lowest effort for best results. You can go, make party of shout heal war, support chrono, condi ele, condi druid and clear CM100 no problem as well.

[Obtena.7952]

37 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

How can you justify the lfg basically just being fbs and scourges with maybe 1 different class every 2nd lfg?

 

Because it's not a problem? I mean ... that's how the game has worked for 9+ years and people still figure out how to play how they want ... so what are you doing wrong?

Condi meta is incredibly limiting? Ok .. then don't play it. You DO have the ability to play this game how you want ... people have been doing it since the beginning. Join the club. 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

18 minutes ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

 

You high on something? It is player construct.Player chooses classes that perform best and then narrow it down to lowest effort for best results. You can go, make party of shout heal war, support chrono, condi ele, condi druid and clear CM100 no problem as well.

Well, hold on here. What is meta is not the same as what performs best. Meta is not a matter of player choice. It's determined by comparing class skills to the encounter design, both of which are created by the devs.

What performs best includes player capability as a factor because you can put a bad player in a meta build and still get a terrible result.

So no ... I'm not high ... I just understand things.  

Edited January 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Asum.4960]

6 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

I love lacking quickness in my pug metas.

Not much different (other than being much better) than the 4 Scourge+Druid thing some people did for a while, except Cele Rens wouldn't need a support at all since they self heal >4k HP/s, have an AoE group heal +50% cdamage reduction they could cycle and provide AoE Prot, Might, Alac, Vigor, perma self Fury and Vuln, pulls and boon removal - while still easily doing >25k DPS, without quickness  (which due to lack of support competes group DPS wise, while being sheer immortal). 

Really just 1 of those would be enough though (focusing on Prot, Might and Alac + optional Utility like Stab, Projectile negation etc. where needed with other legends), with the rest being able to play full Viper's DPS Rens, and/or adding 1 cFB or other quickness source to it. 

 

So if, as the poster I responded to suggested, Scourge and FB are nerfed, I wouldn't be  at all surprised if 4-5 Renegades per group was the new pug meta. Renegades already technically the strongest and easiest thing to run, it just hasn't been as popularized as FB and Scourge especially.

[Giannis.8651]

7 minutes ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Let's put it that way. For scourge to be on par in term o broken with chrono back then, it should do 80k DPS and have 20k barrier on one button press. I was not joking, when I said whole meta rotated around that buff (yes, it was buff at that time and not boon).

Then you have no idea what meta is.

 

Like the name of NPC? Very important to balance!

 

And yet it is more than yours atm, also I didn't keep more than stack and a bit by selling them for gold, so... you know... your conclusion is bad 😕

I don't assume, i know you have no idea how game works by what you are trying to push here. Wingman is just bad as statistics tool, I am really not into explaining here why it is bad and why P of that data is not acceptable.

It beats diversity by being another classes and people still were not happy, cause those classes were dominating and not others.

Play cfb. It has couple more buttons.

I think you don't really understand what boons are wanted on fractals. Quick hint: 4 are a must, one is quickness, try to figure our rest 3.

 

You fail to understand why scourge can outdps other classes if CC is bad (ahem.. .range attacks). Also, amount of effort is really irrelevant.

 

Maybe it is because power dps is organized groups comp atm?

 

And here we have your reason to hate meta: slb is not part of it.

Epi is only useful because of how encounters work, it's not so hard to understand. And I am not defending cFB, or any FB for that matter, as it can do everything and needs to be hit somewhere - dps or support.

You high on something? It is player construct.Player chooses classes that perform best and then narrow it down to lowest effort for best results. You can go, make party of shout heal war, support chrono, condi ele, condi druid and clear CM100 no problem as well.

Hello! I'm sry if im using quote incorrectly cuz im a bit of a forum noob, that being said everything you have typed is kinda insane but I'm gonna assume you are being serious and you aren't some sort of weird troll.

First of all this is a random reset log with 2x scg https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/log/20220109-015927_drkai_kill in this kill which is 100% reproducable easily no other classes struggle with their dps uptime like fb or cslb, only ren needs to be melee at a part of the fight where he benefits from it so we just have him stay melee during split mechanic, everything you said is completely untrue scourge is very strong in terms of personal dps for ai simply because the skill rotation of that class fits the individual mechanics of the fight(as in when the boss is broken what condis you apply at what interval and how you benefit from them etc) also I'm not sure what you were implying about bad cc, in the log i linked for example we break the bars as we intended too idk what you mean honestly lol. The amount of effort being irrelevant is just your opinion i cba to argue against that. Moreover alot of players(like me) enjoy playing power builds in both organized and non organized settings you are sort of just dismissing that completely, before exposed was changed alot of players who enjoy power builds would pug alot because they simply had fun playing the game! this is a real thing! slb is also my 6th most played class or so I just happen to enjoy it alot right now, slb is actually really really good in condi pugs it's just boring thats all. This might seem absolutely nuts to someone like you but I can go on ensolyss and outdps most scourge groups doing 27k + target as pslb, slb is absolutely not bad in current state of the meta its just boring!

[anbujackson.9564]

On 1/14/2022 at 11:59 PM, 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.

 

What are you even smoking?

New elites shouldnt mean that the overall power level SHOULD INCREASE. Fb+ren (+scourge) is a power level INCREASE compared to chrono+druid. You can make new specs appealing by reducing overall power, so they are better than the old ones but dont powercreep the game further.

I didnt miss the point of what meta is. I said that a changing meta (aka classes getting nerfed, others getting reworked, weaker ones getting buffed) is good for the game. I never said that there will be a moment when a spec is not overrepresented. A new meta, going with new popular and strong specs, shouldnt perform better than the old one. Maybe you can see over your own ego with a number display:

Old meta specs: 20k damage 

New meta specs: 25k with support functions 

Next specs: 30k with even stronger support functions (scourge, fb, renegade)

Thats not how balance should work in any game and this performance and philosophy shouldnt be excused in any way.

You trying to prove to us that scourge only exists because of epidemic is highly amusing to say the least by the way. You might want to check the single target dps on wingman. It might not be (always) the highest but its very close to the best ones except that the best ones are not always the same spec (except renegade, which is bs in its own right).

I dont even know why people here complain about players who want nothing more than to nerf overperforming and gamebreaking specs? Fully aware that the meta will shift and thats EXACTLY why. They dont want to see the same kitten for over a year and ongoing. 

Also: How can anyone here look forward to new PvE content in the current state? It will just be facerolled, especially by fb, ren and scourge. The game was never this easy before.

Edited January 16, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[Giannis.8651]

14 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Also: How can anyone here look forward to new PvE content in the current state? It will just be facerolled, especially by fb, ren and scourge. The game was never this easy before.

Not only was this game never this easy before but its been getting progressively easier in my experience, in core game most people werent able to even clear fractals! i made 12 + legendaries duo-ing old fotm 50 and selling it for 25g a spot. 5man groups struggled to even clear in 2hours in 2013-2014. I think that core game was absurb because it was so hard for more casual people to access the content but at some point they need to stop with how much they are trivializing everything imo.

[Bakeneko.5826]

18 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Old meta specs: 20k damage 

New meta specs: 25k with support functions 

Next specs: 30k with even stronger support functions (scourge, fb, renegade)

It's like something needs to attract players to buy new expacs and not way they are bad. I am confused, as why you are even comparing past expacs that dont need to be sold anymore, with new ones, that needs to fuel game...

[ardhikaizecson.3697]

On 1/14/2022 at 6:20 PM, Cyninja.2954 said:

100% agreed.

Grabbing popcorn to see how many players will come in and tell everyone how balanced guardian, necromancer and revenant are. In revenants defense: it's the safest alacrity source available atm. Imo the least busted of the 3 classes.

The exposed buff change certainly didn't do diversity any favors.

The remaining issue here is: firebrand and scourge bring near top tier performance while requiring very basic rotations. On top of which both classes have S tier utility skills complimenting each other.

Why bother with becoming proficient with any other class if these 2 just do it better, easier and faster.

Before this comes up: I multi class and play all classes, which includes guardian and necromancer. A lot of guardian and necromancer mind you. Doesn't mean I have to agree with this state of balance.

Scourge was fine at 3-4k dps less benchmark, maybe even shave off 5k (though I do believe this will come with Harbinger). Take a serious look at epidemic (in fact give it the mimic treatment, a full rework and change). Firebrand, rework the F1 reset, add shorter shared global cooldowns to tomes to at least mitigate the insane utility.

Class/Elite wise: give more reasonable variety in acquiring boons. Aegis and stability remain to this day a guardian only domain and both of those boons are to important (I main cqfb/cfb/hfb in raids as off support) to have them so stacked on only 1 class.

 Your suggestion is not just about nerfing firebrand or scourge, its going to straight up killing them because of how clunky they will become, nerfing damage is fine but not a change that can make dps not fun to use.

[anbujackson.9564]

1 hour ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

It's like something needs to attract players to buy new expacs and not way they are bad. I am confused, as why you are even comparing past expacs that dont need to be sold anymore, with new ones, that needs to fuel game...

You apparently didnt get what I meant at all, completely ignoring power creep. Let me try this one more time:

Meta Specs (Core): 20k

New Meta Specs (HoT): 25k with more support options

Latest Meta Specs (PoF): 30k with even stronger support options

Thats how the releases went on in reality.

If you want to advertise your new especs without breaking game balance it should have been like this:

Meta Specs (Core): 20k

New Meta Specs (HoT): 22k, old ones nerfed to 18k (a slight increase in power since they are especs after all)

Latest Meta Specs (PoF): 22k, HoT Specs nerfed to 20k (same dps power when HoT released)

Considering that PoF specs are completely ridicoulus in their utility, they should have been released with the same dps and the selling points are the new build options they bring, like new quickness source on fb, new alac on renegade, new mechanic in barrier and so on.

[Raizel.8175]

I don't think that Scourge is the problem. I do understand that people think that Scourge is currently overperforming, but: Scourge DPS is rather dependent on the situation Scourge is performing in. I play a variety of builds/classes and taking Necromancer in general as an example, there are fractals in which Reaper is - far - stronger than Scourge and there are fractals in which Scourge is - far - stronger than Reaper - just by how these fractals are designed (e.g. number of breakable defiance bars for Exposed, boss movement, Instabilities etc.). In that regard, I do believe that most people here narrow down fractal balance to CMs - which only really a "few" people do out of the total fractal playerbase thus those "few" people have a skewed view on balance - which means that first and foremost, you should review fractal design instead of class balance.

I don't think that Scourge should be balanced by nerfing Epidemic. Epidemic has only become popular after people found out about Epidemic bouncing - especially at Desmina and (the now) 99 CM. Scourge - and Necromancer in extension - only really bacame popular because of that - before, you had to fear instant kicks in PUGs if you've played any Necro build. Epidemic somewhat became a defining part of class identity even though Epidemic is highly situational: Epidemic has already been heavily nerfed in the first place and it does need further conditions to work as desired. Just one Scourge isn't sufficient for Epidemic working how the community wants it to work. People also always seem to misunderstand total and target damage. If you've ever seen raid logs: There is a reason why these logs are ranked by target damage and not total damage dealt.

If you want to balance Scourge DPS, you may want to look into Dhuumfire. The trait description is somewhat misleading as it only speaks of "Shroud Skill 1". You may want to have Dhuumfire only trigger on F1 instead of every Shade skill. Dhuumfire only triggering on F1 would lead to more "intelligent" gameplay since condition conversion (F2), barrier (F3) and CC (F4) would be freed for their actually intended purpose. Due to the strong synergy between Dhuumfire and Demonic Lore though, you probably need to buff other aspects of Scourge though. 

I don't even think that Renegade is necessarily the problem even though Renegade is arguably overperforming and has the easiest appliance of Alacrity. The real offender is Firebrand due to ArenaNets "original design sin" of role compression. We already had that problem on Chronomancer and Druid. Now, we have it on Firebrand. Firebrand needs to be segmented somehow to make other setups viable again. Ideally, like in trinity-based MMORPGs, a party consisting of five should consist of one tank, one healer, one optional buffer and two to three DPS-classes. We don't have tank mechanics in fractals so the setup should ideally be one healer, one buffer and three DPS. Currently, we arguably have one class that compresses the healer and buffer roles (Alacrity isn't as important as people think it may be; Quickness on the other hand is mandatory) and arguably even the tank role into one. With an ideal application of the class-trinity in GW2, tanks should be responsible for boons like Aegies and Stability, healers for - duh - healing and buffers for boons like Might, Quickness and Alacrity.

To achieve more diversity, you may want to "make Chronomancer great again" to bring back setups like Chronomancer, [Healer: can be Druid, Tempest, etc.] and 3 DPS. To weaken the synergy of Agony on one hand and Aegies/Barrier on the other, you may even want to look into Agony. The game itself could do without Agony which would solve the problem of reduced healing - other than that, the only real main purpose Agony has - at least it's perceived that way - is to be a gating mechanism due to AR. AR is by no means a "skill indicator". I'd rather have the party UI display the personal fractal level instead of AR. At least without Agony/reduced healing, both Aegis and Barrier wouldn't be as potent as they currently are, thus making other healers like Tempest viable. At least, that may lead to having an alternative to the current META setup.

I do believe that the changes to Exposed were necessary. pDPS dominated fractal content for the majority of its life span. I do believe that it's desirable that cDPS is also viable in fractals and - like I've already stated - DPS is situational. There are fractals that may favor pDPS and there are fractals that may favor cDPS - especially so if you don't narrow down fractals to CMs. The outliers that lead to arguably high DPS are rather certain conditions: Confusion was broken on certain bosses in the past, now both Torment and Burning may be overperforming. At the very least, other cDPS builds aren't as strong as Scourge, Firebrand and Renegade. Nerfing Exposed would only make these builds even worse.

Last but not least: Elementalist. I genuinly believe that Weaver is a spec that fundamentally doesn't belong in GW2. In the last few years, the design philosophy behind instanced PvE shifted to a more action-, speed- and movement-oriented gameplay instead of more or less stationary bosses. In that regard, overly complex and difficult to apply skill rotations don't really fit all that well into the game. That's even more true for Weaver which also has a bit of animation locking and a pitifully low health pool to boot besides said complex rotation. I don't want to demean Weaver - in fact, I quite enjoy playing (especially cDPS) Weaver -, but I do believe that it doesn't really fit into the game and thus needs a full overhaul/redesign.

[anbujackson.9564]

3 hours ago, Raizel.8175 said:

I don't think that Scourge is the problem. I do understand that people think that Scourge is currently overperforming, but: Scourge DPS is rather dependent on the situation Scourge is performing in. I play a variety of builds/classes and taking Necromancer in general as an example, there are fractals in which Reaper is - far - stronger than Scourge and there are fractals in which Scourge is - far - stronger than Reaper - just by how these fractals are designed (e.g. number of breakable defiance bars for Exposed, boss movement, Instabilities etc.). In that regard, I do believe that most people here narrow down fractal balance to CMs - which only really a "few" people do out of the total fractal playerbase thus those "few" people have a skewed view on balance - which means that first and foremost, you should review fractal design instead of class balance.

 

Na, just revert the torment changes. Thats 90 % enough to fix the performance, of renegade also.

 

3 hours ago, Raizel.8175 said:

 

Last but not least: Elementalist. I genuinly believe that Weaver is a spec that fundamentally doesn't belong in GW2. In the last few years, the design philosophy behind instanced PvE shifted to a more action-, speed- and movement-oriented gameplay instead of more or less stationary bosses. In that regard, overly complex and difficult to apply skill rotations don't really fit all that well into the game. That's even more true for Weaver which also has a bit of animation locking and a pitifully low health pool to boot besides said complex rotation. I don't want to demean Weaver - in fact, I quite enjoy playing (especially cDPS) Weaver -, but I do believe that it doesn't really fit into the game and thus needs a full overhaul/redesign.

Funny you say that when there is bladesworn coming in the next expansion, the stay and charge spec.

Edited January 17, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[Nephalem.8921]

13 hours ago, Raizel.8175 said:

I do believe that the changes to Exposed were necessary. pDPS dominated fractal content for the majority of its life span. I do believe that it's desirable that cDPS is also viable in fractals and - like I've already stated - DPS is situational. There are fractals that may favor pDPS and there are fractals that may favor cDPS - especially so if you don't narrow down fractals to CMs. The outliers that lead to arguably high DPS are rather certain conditions: Confusion was broken on certain bosses in the past, now both Torment and Burning may be overperforming. At the very least, other cDPS builds aren't as strong as Scourge, Firebrand and Renegade. Nerfing Exposed would only make these builds even worse.

Viable maybe but never better than power dps wise. Its vastly easier to play and requires far less setup. Most of the regular t4 fractal favor condi dps. Especially since most of them throw protection around. Condi builds can also use tormenting runes or trailblazer for minor dps losses. Power can do nothing like that. Power has scholar bonus. Condi is just way safer.

Thats why current fractal scene is such a scourge, cfb, ren fiesta. When weaver was op it was only really played by statics and very good players since it was very squishy and punishing. Currently the cfb is top dps and completely braindead and safe so both groups go for it. Same for scourge.

Quote

Last but not least: Elementalist. I genuinly believe that Weaver is a spec that fundamentally doesn't belong in GW2. In the last few years, the design philosophy behind instanced PvE shifted to a more action-, speed- and movement-oriented gameplay instead of more or less stationary bosses. In that regard, overly complex and difficult to apply skill rotations don't really fit all that well into the game. That's even more true for Weaver which also has a bit of animation locking and a pitifully low health pool to boot besides said complex rotation. I don't want to demean Weaver - in fact, I quite enjoy playing (especially cDPS) Weaver -, but I do believe that it doesn't really fit into the game and thus needs a full overhaul/redesign.

You are completely wrong on that one. Staff weaver rotation was far more restrictive than condi sword and was played a lot. The rotation isnt even very complex just annoying to do since you require alacrity to do the weave self part well and cant even give it to yourself. Seriously weave self needs a redesign or rework. Its so punishing. 0.5sec too slow and you lose 20% dmg....

The reason why nobody plays condi weaver currently is that its just underperforming hard. It has less dps than cfb... A spec that also throws around boons like aegis and has a braindead rotation. Renegade is sitting on 43k and has crazy sustain while doing that damage. Weaver has no self boons at all. Mediocre damage. Its not bad but not special either. You could give it 20k hp and still wouldnt be played a lot.

Stop with the downstate meme. I know its funny but thats not the reason why weaver is so mediocre in current meta. survivability is not weavers main issue.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Nephalem.8921

[Raizel.8175]

8 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Na, just revert the torment changes. Thats 90 % enough to fix the performance, of renegade also.

Questionable. At least, it wouldn't balance the real outlier here which is Firebrand.

Firebrand cDPS isn't just really, really high, but also ridiculously bursty, which it shouldn't be as a cDPS build.

7 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

You are completely wrong on that one. Staff weaver rotation was far more restrictive than condi sword and was played a lot. The rotation isnt even very complex just annoying to do since you require alacrity to do the weave self part well and cant even give it to yourself. Seriously weave self needs a redesign or rework. Its so punishing. 0.5sec too slow and you lose 20% dmg....

How does this argumentation invalidate my point? Obviously, a build you have to play that way shouldn't have a place in the current game design since it's far too stationary and lacks adaptability.

[Nephalem.8921]

49 minutes ago, Raizel.8175 said:

Questionable. At least, it wouldn't balance the real outlier here which is Firebrand.

Firebrand cDPS isn't just really, really high, but also ridiculously bursty, which it shouldn't be as a cDPS build.

How does this argumentation invalidate my point? Obviously, a build you have to play that way shouldn't have a place in the current game design since it's far too stationary and lacks adaptability.

The game design 3 years ago is the same we have today. weaver is not static and can adapt quite a lot. weave self is clunky though. both weave self burst phases have 30 skills each and 21 attunement swaps not even counting double attunes. a tad too complicated and convoluted. and you lose 20% dmg if you do those parts too slow which require alacrity to do perfect.

Power weaver is fairly simple but weave self makes weaver extremely complicated and high apm for just scourge dps. obviously playrates of such a design will be low.

[Bakeneko.5826]

8 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

You are completely wrong on that one. Staff weaver rotation was far more restrictive than condi sword and was played a lot. The rotation isnt even very complex just annoying to do since you require alacrity to do the weave self part well and cant even give it to yourself. Seriously weave self needs a redesign or rework. Its so punishing. 0.5sec too slow and you lose 20% dmg....

Staff weaver had over 40k dps at one point, Nobody cared about restrictive rota, as it was doing absurd ammounts of damage.

 

8 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

When weaver was op it was only really played by statics and very good players since it was very squishy and punishing

When weaver was OP, everyone played, good or bad. That is where downstate meme came from. It  is objectively worst meta I have ever seen as ele main - everyone playing ele not finding dodge button and not realising that face tanking everything is not a good idea even with healing.

8 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Currently the cfb is top dps and completely braindead and safe so both groups go for it. Same for scourge.

Have you ever seen difference between condi cfb, weaver, daredevil and scourge on single target damage? Scourge has least ammount of damage. Damage isn't problem on scourge, it's not even that good compared to other 3. Scourge can exploit design of fractals for advantage (namely Epi and spectral grasp) which is why it is run. Noone gives two cats about barrier, or healing, when fractal encounter rewards epi usage. Like I said multiple times, fix encounters (namely 100CM) to only be doable with CC and you will effectively shift pug meta away from scourge (to cfb, but your scourge hate kitten will be satisfied).

 

8 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

....

The reason why nobody plays condi weaver currently is that its just underperforming hard. It has less dps than cfb...

Are you sure that is the reason nobody plays it? Condi daredevil has ±40k-ish DPS, that is more than CFB, condi weaver has more dps than scourge, yet sees about the same ammount of play. You sure it is not because daredevil and waver groups needs more set up and players who actually know what they are doing? Dagger weaver is actually good on 100CM, as it has next to no animation locks.

 

8 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Renegade is sitting on 43k and has crazy sustain while doing that damage.

40k, on a build that needs second renegade to have good alac uptime.

 

8 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Weaver has no self boons at all. Mediocre damage.

Does 1k more than scourge... So is scourge dmg OP, or is condi weaver mediocre? Choose one.

 

[Nephalem.8921]

1 hour ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Staff weaver had over 40k dps at one point, Nobody cared about restrictive rota, as it was doing absurd ammounts of damage.

It was at 47k big hitbox. sub 40 small.

Quote

When weaver was OP, everyone played, good or bad. That is where downstate meme came from. It  is objectively worst meta I have ever seen as ele main - everyone playing ele not finding dodge button and not realising that face tanking everything is not a good idea even with healing.

Nope it never went past 30% popularity in fractals. in fact it wasnt really played a lot by pugs. they prefered dh and other builds over it.

Quote

Have you ever seen difference between condi cfb, weaver, daredevil and scourge on single target damage? Scourge has least ammount of damage. Damage isn't problem on scourge, it's not even that good compared to other 3. Scourge can exploit design of fractals for advantage (namely Epi and spectral grasp) which is why it is run. Noone gives two cats about barrier, or healing, when fractal encounter rewards epi usage. Like I said multiple times, fix encounters (namely 100CM) to only be doable with CC and you will effectively shift pug meta away from scourge (to cfb, but your scourge hate kitten will be satisfied).

That scourge bench can be grinded to reach 38k+ again actually. Of course dmg is a problem on scourge. Scourge would still be top dps in 100. People linked you logs of scourge doing absurd dmg and you still deny it. Cfb and ren deserve hard nerfs aswell. Especially cren.

Quote

Are you sure that is the reason nobody plays it? Condi daredevil has ±40k-ish DPS, that is more than CFB, condi weaver has more dps than scourge, yet sees about the same ammount of play. You sure it is not because daredevil and waver groups needs more set up and players who actually know what they are doing? Dagger weaver is actually good on 100CM, as it has next to no animation locks.

Condi DD has forced movement and is garbage to play with 1 button spam. cDaredevil doesnt need any setup. Sword cweaver and scourge are very close dps wise. Dagger weaver no animation locks? what are you smoking.

Quote

40k, on a build that needs second renegade to have good alac uptime.

43k. Seriously you are so missinformed you could be a dev. The sc ren bench is missing 3k dps from razorclaw. You know you could also just take it for dps right? happens plenty in raids and will happen in fractals if cfb gets nerfed and ren remains untouched.

Quote

Does 1k more than scourge... So is scourge dmg OP, or is condi weaver mediocre? Choose one.

About the same. some did a 38.5k on scourge afaik. Scourge dps is op for what it brings. imagine minstrel chrono doing 15k dps. Its dps would be incredible op. Not because 15k are a lot but because 15k on such a build would be ridiculous.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Nephalem.8921

[Bakeneko.5826]

44 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

in fact it wasnt really played a lot by pugs.

yes, LFGs looking for eles specifically didn't exist either 😄 good joke

54 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

People linked you logs of scourge doing absurd dmg and you still deny it

Noone linked me anything, you need to wake up.

 

55 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Scourge would still be top dps in 100.

Ranger dmg dealer is favour in ranged heavy encounter? No way!

55 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

That scourge bench can be grinded to reach 38k+ again actually.

All I see on youtube 37.4k on golem, unless you have some superb rota, that is not on snowcrows, HS, metabattle, please do share. And don't bother with someone in fractal with fractal god + pots + epi, that's not indicative of capability in PvE as a whole.

58 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Dagger weaver no animation locks? what are you smoking.

One of the benefits of this build is that it is very effective against bosses which move a lot as you barely have any skills that root you in a place. Don't take my word for it, take dudes who makes rotas 🙂

1 hour ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Condi DD has forced movement and is garbage

Whole death blossom, which bounces around target, such movement, much wow.

 

1 hour ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

43k. Seriously you are so missinformed you could be a dev. The sc ren bench is missing 3k dps from razorclaw

https://snowcrows.com/builds/revenant/renegade/condition-renegade It's missing DPS from skill IN THE ROTATION? Are you high yourself? Or do we calc war benchmark while assuming banner buffs on whole squad? Or do we only do it, when it is convenient for your point? Maybe we should calc some dps for hfb as well, because it allows players skip some dodges due to healing? 

 

1 hour ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

did a 38.5k on scourge afaik. Scourge dps is op for what it brings.

Yes, let's blame class for encounter design that punishes other classes 😄

 

1 hour ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

imagine minstrel chrono doing 15k dps. Its dps would be incredible op. Not because 15k are a lot but because 15k on such a build would be ridiculous.

People actually run that garbage?

[Nephalem.8921]

2 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Whole death blossom, which bounces around target, such movement, much wow.

It is when it bounces you in mechanics. A lot of players hate movement skills being part of rotations.

Quote

 

https://snowcrows.com/builds/revenant/renegade/condition-renegade It's missing DPS from skill IN THE ROTATION? Are you high yourself? Or do we calc war benchmark while assuming banner buffs on whole squad? Or do we only do it, when it is convenient for your point? Maybe we should calc some dps for hfb as well, because it allows players skip some dodges due to healing? 

You are such a clown honestly. Its missing 3k you will be doing more. You wrote cDD does 40k. without allies it does just 33k. Cfb does 35k solo. Razorclaw bleed uses the renegade stats and therefore counts as rens dmg but is not included in the sc bench. You really could be an anet dev. just looking at benchmarks without understanding the builds. Slb stance share is the only skill like this that doesnt use the slb stats cause reasons.

Also just ignore everything coldi wrote. its not like he explained in detail why you are wrong with logs or anything. Sarcasm btw.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Nephalem.8921

[The Boz.2038]

Anyone who thinks Scourge is on the level of guardian in OPness is severely delusional.