Please don't remove boon heavy meta

[Mell.4873]

I have seen alot of people calling for it but I really like it since it provides a true holy trinity.

DPS provide might and minor buffs like swiftness and fury: ele, warrior, ranger

Healers normally provide quickness and sometimes regen, aegis, protection and stability: guard, mesmer, engi

Boon support provide alacrity, protection, stability, aegis, resolution: mesmer and revenant

 

With the advent of EoD, we will have another alacrity support with engineer and another healer with theif. 

[Daddy.8125]

Heavy boon meta isn't creating trinity. It's unbalancing PvE content while power creeping proffessions insanely. 

Raids have trinity via having a tank system and healers existing effectively. A DPS providing a boo. (I.E Condi Firebrand) doesn't create a trinity if anything just bolsters the quantity of damage your spamming. 

 A trinity boon wise would be to go back and make this game alike FFXIVs role creation. 

You would have proffessions that are generally focused on mainly support capabilities and their elites generally change its way of supporting. That do low DPS but hold alot of the raid DPS in. 

Due to how elites work tho this won't exist, so you end up with these builds that do all the damage, provide all the boons, and are spammed in content excluding others. 

Heavy boon meta, is responsible for PvE unbalancing, power creep making PvE difficulty a absolute joke, and alienating certain proffessions. 

What goods a trinity system if the game at its hardest equalises with WoWs LFR function lol. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[The Boz.2038]

The "boon heavy meta" is disgusting. What makes it disgusting is the extremely limited providers of the boon heavy meta, and these providers have all the boons. You have to go through so many hoops just to secure your own fury and just a half of might as an open world warrior, and all that is entirely obviated for the entire team by just one "support" for the *entire* team. Ever tried to make a quickness ranger? Yeah. Feels bad, man.

Edited January 31, 2022 by The Boz.2038

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

A boon heavy meta can only exist in a healthy manner as long as there is an equally impactful boon rip/steal meta in all game modes.

Make the raid/strike/fotm bosses rip/corrupt boons, as in all boons on all targets in range on certain attacks. Dodge it and you'll be fine (kekeke "Just Dodge It")

Increase the amount of boon rip on Spellbreaker and Mesmer (increase all boons removed on each skill/trait by 1). Add a means of persistent boon denial like the effect from Winds of Disenchantment to those two, as in put into a GM trait that ripping a boon denials reapplication of boons for 1s. Duration does not stack, just refreshes.

Add to Leeching Venoms so that venoms also steal a boon per strike. Thieves might get a spot in squads that way.

[Obtena.7952]

6 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

A boon heavy meta can only exist in a healthy manner as long as there is an equally impactful boon rip/steal meta in all game modes.

Make the raid/strike/fotm bosses rip/corrupt boons, as in all boons on all targets in range on certain attacks. Dodge it and you'll be fine (kekeke "Just Dodge It")

Increase the amount of boon rip on Spellbreaker and Mesmer (increase all boons removed on each skill/trait by 1). Add a means of persistent boon denial like the effect from Winds of Disenchantment to those two, as in put into a GM trait that ripping a boon denials reapplication of boons for 1s. Duration does not stack, just refreshes.

Add to Leeching Venoms so that venoms also steal a boon per strike. Thieves might get a spot in squads that way.

That's something I can agree with . More of this would actually be a really good idea ... failed mechanics in instanced content wipe boons ... or even provide massive debuffs. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[The Boz.2038]

51 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Make the raid/strike/fotm bosses rip/corrupt boons, as in all boons on all targets in range on certain attacks. Dodge it and you'll be fine (kekeke "Just Dodge It")

Some encounters actually do this. Some bosses will rip boons. Some will corrupt them. Slublings first come to mind.
But sure, there could be more. It could be a more "dynamic" dimension of the game, certainly.

I fully support the expansion of boon steal/strip/corrupt to other classes. Have been harping on that one for a while.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

36 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Some encounters actually do this. Some bosses will rip boons. Some will corrupt them. Slublings first come to mind.
But sure, there could be more. It could be a more "dynamic" dimension of the game, certainly.

I fully support the expansion of boon steal/strip/corrupt to other classes. Have been harping on that one for a while.

Kind of why I stated all boons there. It really should be more frequent in endgame instanced content.

[Daddy.8125]

2 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

A boon heavy meta can only exist in a healthy manner as long as there is an equally impactful boon rip/steal meta in all game modes.

Make the raid/strike/fotm bosses rip/corrupt boons, as in all boons on all targets in range on certain attacks. Dodge it and you'll be fine (kekeke "Just Dodge It")

Increase the amount of boon rip on Spellbreaker and Mesmer (increase all boons removed on each skill/trait by 1). Add a means of persistent boon denial like the effect from Winds of Disenchantment to those two, as in put into a GM trait that ripping a boon denials reapplication of boons for 1s. Duration does not stack, just refreshes.

Add to Leeching Venoms so that venoms also steal a boon per strike. Thieves might get a spot in squads that way.

Another idea I'd like to see in PvE is the exposed bar change.

Change the system to being centred around a massive attack which you must CC down to stun the opponent to prevent the attack. 

These attacks could be different depending on which boss your fighting to keep thematic with the fight. But could defintly be Boon rip or corruption mechanics as a physical punishment for not achieving 

Also if they'd make boons raid wide instead of small radius wide I'm be a big fan of that, if the gameplay wasn't so stack requiring it could open up its raids to having larger mechanics which require ranged options to run out and do these mechanics outside the fight. 

Be a really good way to make ranged builds have a purpose without requiring number balancing to achieve. 

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[The Boz.2038]

7 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Another idea I'd like to see in PvE is the exposed bar change.

They could totally make multiple diffrent break bars.

Blue? Break for stun and damage.

Red? Break to prevent big attack.

Yellow? Break to prevent healing.

There, three just to start with. Scatter them around the various enemies. 

[Daddy.8125]

50 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

They could totally make multiple diffrent break bars.

Blue? Break for stun and damage.

Red? Break to prevent big attack.

Yellow? Break to prevent healing.

There, three just to start with. Scatter them around the various enemies

Would be cool and also would revitalise things like warrior hammer as it'd require a team to bring enough CC . 

I think we could lose the increased damage windows tho and likely be positive as currently raid bosses dying so fast mechanics don't matter is a core problem. 

If 100% boon access is remaining, end game PvE content needs lifting abit to handle the DPS quantities today's proffessions and elites do. This would be a change which likely wouldnt affect gameplay as much as something like reducing boons 

I think PvE in this game could be great providing they do it right. If they can design them in a way that doesn't cause a one shot but makes the comeback harder that'd also be cool, not a big fan of one shots.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Jski.6180]

5 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I have seen alot of people calling for it but I really like it since it provides a true holy trinity.

DPS provide might and minor buffs like swiftness and fury: ele, warrior, ranger

Healers normally provide quickness and sometimes regen, aegis, protection and stability: guard, mesmer, engi

Boon support provide alacrity, protection, stability, aegis, resolution: mesmer and revenant

 

With the advent of EoD, we will have another alacrity support with engineer and another healer with theif. 

A rune provides fury and swiftness how is that even close to being "non toxic" for these classes as even the support version of them do not give out the stronger boons.

Its ok to have a boon meta but lets not forget that right now not every class can realty play in that meta in both applying strong boons and striping strong boons. Even the boons them self are oddly balanced swiftness 33% movement speed vs super speed 100% swiftness is often simply replaced by a trait of +25 MS or even a banner but super speed counter soft cc but for root and is not even a true boon so it cant be striped.

I just do not think anet can be trusted with balancing the boon meta well enofe and it maybe time to make the game a lot less complicated to be more accessible for anet devs team.

[DeceiverX.8361]

7 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I have seen alot of people calling for it but I really like it since it provides a true holy trinity.

The lack of trinity is the reason why an overwhelming majority of people joined GW2 in the first place in 2012.

Trinity play is a boiled-down and oversimplified version of the required skill for players across the board to succeed, creates toxic environments where one player failing can bring down groups and waste a lot of time, and drastically reduces an overwhelming majority of the tactics and strategy available in the PvP modes.

The patch frequency and balance isn't even close to being tight enough to make this gameplay compelling, either, and specifically boons do not have healthy counters since overabundance of corrupts/strips negates build diversity even out of their desired context.

Boons were always intended to be short-term power gains.  Look no further than For Great Justice being considered a good utility years ago, and a total of 10% boon duration being worth sacrificing your runes in the case of ZvZ for a lot of people.

Honestly, I'd rather no boons at all than what we have right now.

[Mell.4873]

7 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Heavy boon meta isn't creating trinity. It's unbalancing PvE content while power creeping proffessions insanely. 

Raids have trinity via having a tank system and healers existing effectively. A DPS providing a boo. (I.E Condi Firebrand) doesn't create a trinity if anything just bolsters the quantity of damage your spamming. 

 A trinity boon wise would be to go back and make this game alike FFXIVs role creation. 

You would have proffessions that are generally focused on mainly support capabilities and their elites generally change its way of supporting. That do low DPS but hold alot of the raid DPS in. 

Due to how elites work tho this won't exist, so you end up with these builds that do all the damage, provide all the boons, and are spammed in content excluding others. 

Heavy boon meta, is responsible for PvE unbalancing, power creep making PvE difficulty a absolute joke, and alienating certain proffessions. 

What goods a trinity system if the game at its hardest equalises with WoWs LFR function lol. 

Tanks don't work outside raids and even within raids you only have one true option, mesmer

Tanking In this game boils down to how many invulnerable abilities you have

 

I much prefer the boon heavy meta in fractals. 

[Mell.4873]

6 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

A boon heavy meta can only exist in a healthy manner as long as there is an equally impactful boon rip/steal meta in all game modes.

Make the raid/strike/fotm bosses rip/corrupt boons, as in all boons on all targets in range on certain attacks. Dodge it and you'll be fine (kekeke "Just Dodge It")

Increase the amount of boon rip on Spellbreaker and Mesmer (increase all boons removed on each skill/trait by 1). Add a means of persistent boon denial like the effect from Winds of Disenchantment to those two, as in put into a GM trait that ripping a boon denials reapplication of boons for 1s. Duration does not stack, just refreshes.

Add to Leeching Venoms so that venoms also steal a boon per strike. Thieves might get a spot in squads that way.

I would agree with pvp and the new elite specialisations hopefull will help with boon ripping. 

In terms of pve content I think its fine if bosses don't have boon rip, just make the fight hard enough so that a support class might die. 

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Another idea I'd like to see in PvE is the exposed bar change.

Change the system to being centred around a massive attack which you must CC down to stun the opponent to prevent the attack. 

These attacks could be different depending on which boss your fighting to keep thematic with the fight. But could defintly be Boon rip or corruption mechanics as a physical punishment for not achieving 

Also if they'd make boons raid wide instead of small radius wide I'm be a big fan of that, if the gameplay wasn't so stack requiring it could open up its raids to having larger mechanics which require ranged options to run out and do these mechanics outside the fight. 

Be a really good way to make ranged builds have a purpose without requiring number balancing to achieve. 

 

Yes yes, I was going to suggest this in my original post but I didn't want to overwhelm the reader.

 

Allonf with your idea would be to reduce the defence bar recharge time. 

All of this would create the fourth archetype, a sort of stunning brawler with warrior, revenent, thief being the most used. 

 

I think the mutation system from bounties should just be applied game wide since that has what you described, with some mutations forcing you into ranged or melee. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

52 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

I would agree with pvp and the new elite specialisations hopefull will help with boon ripping. 

In terms of pve content I think its fine if bosses don't have boon rip, just make the fight hard enough so that a support class might die. 

Well they can build more boon rip into the current traitlines/weapon skills, and certainly more so in WvW than in PvP.

Having a boss mass boon corrupt a whole team would make it harder.

[BobbyT.7192]

I think aoe boon uptime should be looked at. Anything that give quickness, alacrity, 25 might, or etc to 5 of more people shouldn't be able to maintain it with 85-100% uptime.

Aoe boons should have small up time windows and be reserved for big burn phases. If a dps character want more quickness than that, then they should supply it them self.

Though problem with this idea is not every class can provide quickness or alacrity to themselves even. Another problem would be people might just keep stacking classes that can do aoe boons anyways until near 100% uptime is achieved.

[LucianDK.8615]

Boons are way overloaded. As things is now, balance is pretty much hinging on all boons being permanently up.

 

Boon spam needs to be killed. And proffessions/especs should only be able to produce 1-2 boons tops for the party. And if you want to increase their uptime to 100% you need to run diviner gear no contest.

Edited January 28, 2022 by LucianDK.8615

[Infusion.7149]

The only boons that are truly broken right now are quickness due to how it improves every single player's damage and in PVE aegis (versus slow heavy hitting attacks that can be blocked) as well honestly. In WVW/PVP aegis can be shredded by any multi-hit attack or a person using autoattacks so it is rewarded by timing in PVP and in WVW it isn't substantial. Low stacked stability and AoE stunbreak are relatively on par unless you have a long cast time that doesn't have an evade (such as meteor shower or whirling axe).

The problem is when classes are reliant on boons but have the same performance potential. You can't have that happen because it puts anything that isn't heavily reliant on boons far ahead in reality due to independence and flexibility.

Ele and warrior aren't typically run for fury and warrior hasn't been run for might in a while. Ranger (in druid form) is used for might but the party fury uptime isn't 100% unlike on firebrand on DH.

Scrapper quickness doesn't put out stability unless you use bulwark gyro which is only run on heal quickness scrapper. The issue with heal quickness scrapper when you don't use it in 10 man content is you don't have a fury source without using turrets and your might output is poor. It also doesn't put out aegis whatsoever.

Your interpretation of mesmer is quite off as well, StM chrono only applies stability if they change their build around, most chronos run inspiration and/or well of precognition if they want aegis. The alacrity mirage has no such boon output : it only puts out alacrity, fury, and might : there is no resolution to be had.

If you want to know what "all boons" looks like run a boon thief in raids with alacrity renegade.

---

That happens on Soulless Horror and on Slothasor. People just cleanse it with condition to boon or reapply boons because quickness and might are on short cooldowns. Ranger spirit boons even pulse passively.

If you mean versus PvE enemies , a  while ago I proposed boon corrupts on a defiance bar apply CC equal to fear but it was never taken up by Arenanet.
 

4 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Well they can build more boon rip into the current traitlines/weapon skills, and certainly more so in WvW than in PvP.

Having a boss mass boon corrupt a whole team would make it harder.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Zacchary.6183]

15 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

since it provides a true holy trinity.

This game was meant not to have a trinity and I personally welcome anything that changes up the meta, specifically to keep elitists on their toes.

[Daddy.8125]

On 1/29/2022 at 2:49 AM, Zacchary.6183 said:

This game was meant not to have a trinity and I personally welcome anything that changes up the meta, specifically to keep elitists on their toes.

Agreed. 

However their existence in many ways drops the skill floor. As providing a boon today is far easier then maximising the DPS of your character in a encounter. 

So people will cling to it sadly, boons being as spam as they are today basically makes their builds high value at low skill play. Which is ideal for average players compared to if the game struck a closer to independent play where u effectively hold the control and it's simply being as good as possible at it. 

So I don't think gw2 would remove it as accessibility would be made harder. 

[oscuro.9720]

I agree that balance shouldn’t be specifically targeted towards removing the boon-heavy meta per se, but I don’t agree with your reasoning. 

I think having high boon-uptime alone is not a problem. The problem starts arising in 2 variations of it.

First, problematic boons. These would be namely quickness, alacrity, and aegis. Each of these were originally implemented to be high-impact low-uptime. However, when maintained constantly, it’s just consistently high-impact and creates disproportionate advantages for the classes that can maintain these. These boons, imo, should have more restricted access, rewarding proper timing of use rather than chain spamming. 

The second problem is that certain classes give all the boons and certain classes give none. Ideally, you would want different classes be proficient at maintaining uptime of different boons, giving each class its niche. However, presently, only some classes benefit from being able to produce most of the boons, and some have to find ways to be productive with minimal access to high-impact boons. 
Balancing those two would be a nice way to balance the impact of boons in the game to distribute more evenly across classes and make more complex squad organizations (my viewpoint is from wvw, but I assume the same would hold true for pve, which is a game mode I admittedly know nothing about). 

Additionally, adding more ways to counter a boon heavy meta is pretty important. There’s a variety of ways this can be achieved; Boon rip priorities, expanding boon-counters like Disenchantment, etc. Minimal expansion of this coupled with a diversification of boons across all classes instead of concentrated in a few classes would really change the balance of the game imo. 

I could be completely wrong though, who knows 😛

Edited January 30, 2022 by oscuro.9720

[LucianDK.8615]

Imho, if boons is up 100% of the time, why do they really exist at all?

[Daddy.8125]

5 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Imho, if boons is up 100% of the time, why do they really exist at all?

This pretty much 

100% boon uptime = your characters are balanced around their existence, for example. Condi weaver won't work properly without 100% alacrity uptime. 

I think boons could be done in a healthier fashion focusing on burst defence or burst damage realistically. 

Or even just proffessions each have unique buffs.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Bakeneko.5826]

On 1/28/2022 at 1:21 PM, Mell.4873 said:

I have seen alot of people calling for it but I really like it since it provides a true holy trinity.

DPS provide might and minor buffs like swiftness and fury: ele, warrior, ranger

Healers normally provide quickness and sometimes regen, aegis, protection and stability: guard, mesmer, engi

Boon support provide alacrity, protection, stability, aegis, resolution: mesmer and revenant

 

With the advent of EoD, we will have another alacrity support with engineer and another healer with theif. 

Problem is not boons themselves, its who provide it. In meta party/squad, ~70-80% of all boons are provided by 1 class (HFB), rest, usually, by alacren or alacrage. Boon needs some spreading around, or at least classes that can match HFB giving options to play something else then 2 set classe in support slots (I am speaking strictly PvE)

Edited January 30, 2022 by Bakeneko.5826