How can we decide if or when something needs to be buffed or nerfed?

[Ashgar.3024]

3 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

 then say that.. and dont throw in random arguments that are straight up not true or completly random 😄 

And we circle back to the fact there's a reason i'm stuck fighting Necro/Guards all day.

 

But you guys will dodge it all day so /shrug.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[Sahne.6950]

the reason is that after the damage nerf necros are just 1 tankymess, paired with a support guardian they are unkillable.

which brings us back to the real problem that i pointed out... we dont get balancing on a regular and are left with a not well thought thru state of the game for multiple years.

[Math.5123]

47 minutes ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

So why is every game filled with at least 2 necros and 1-2 guards every single time, regardless if i'm on my plat main account or alts at random ratings?

 

If the game worked the way you seemingly think it does the meta would shift the higher you go.

It's no secret that core necro is overperforming. But I will try a little harder to explain what I mean to you. 

Take Dragonhunter. This class is absolutely nuts in lower levels, it can 100-0 you in a combo. It has stealth and good cleave. It has all the tools to carry low level games. 

In high tier games, playing dh is borderline griefing. You have 11k health and you'll fall over the moment a rev, holo or thief looks at you funny. 

 

Does this mean we should nerf dh? Probably. It will make no difference for the high tiers while saving the low tiered players from getting one shot from stealth. 

 

Another example is thief. In high tier games, if one team has a thief and the other doesn't; the game is pretty much over depending on map. The amount of pressure a good thief puts on a map like coliseum is insane. Complete buff control, insane decap potential and the mobilty with z axis ports makes them carry games by themselves. 

In lower tiers, thieves aren't an issue. They don't know what to dodge and how to spend their resources, so they die. While a decent thief will literally never die in high rated games. 

 

Does this mean thief is overperforming, even if it's just for the top 10 teams in the game? Of course. It should be nerfed even if it further reduces its availability below plat.

[Sahne.6950]

11 minutes ago, Math.5123 said:

It's no secret that core necro is overperforming. But I will try a little harder to explain what I mean to you. 

Take Dragonhunter. This class is absolutely nuts in lower levels, it can 100-0 you in a combo. It has stealth and good cleave. It has all the tools to carry low level games. 

In high tier games, playing dh is borderline griefing. You have 11k health and you'll fall over the moment a rev, holo or thief looks at you funny. 

 

Does this mean we should nerf dh? Probably. It will make no difference for the high tiers while saving the low tiered players from getting one shot from stealth. 

 

Another example is thief. In high tier games, if one team has a thief and the other doesn't; the game is pretty much over depending on map. The amount of pressure a good thief puts on a map like coliseum is insane. Complete buff control, insane decap potential and the mobilty with z axis ports makes them carry games by themselves. 

In lower tiers, thieves aren't an issue. They don't know what to dodge and how to spend their resources, so they die. While a decent thief will literally never die in high rated games. 

 

Does this mean thief is overperforming, even if it's just for the top 10 teams in the game? Of course. It should be nerfed even if it further reduces its availability below plat.

you can just stop. that guy is trolling or just straight up mad.  He will deny that i can guarantee it 😄

[Ashgar.3024]

1 hour ago, Math.5123 said:

It's no secret that core necro is overperforming. But I will try a little harder to explain what I mean to you. 

Take Dragonhunter. This class is absolutely nuts in lower levels, it can 100-0 you in a combo. It has stealth and good cleave. It has all the tools to carry low level games. 

In high tier games, playing dh is borderline griefing. You have 11k health and you'll fall over the moment a rev, holo or thief looks at you funny. 

 

Does this mean we should nerf dh? Probably. It will make no difference for the high tiers while saving the low tiered players from getting one shot from stealth. 

 

Another example is thief. In high tier games, if one team has a thief and the other doesn't; the game is pretty much over depending on map. The amount of pressure a good thief puts on a map like coliseum is insane. Complete buff control, insane decap potential and the mobilty with z axis ports makes them carry games by themselves. 

In lower tiers, thieves aren't an issue. They don't know what to dodge and how to spend their resources, so they die. While a decent thief will literally never die in high rated games. 

 

Does this mean thief is overperforming, even if it's just for the top 10 teams in the game? Of course. It should be nerfed even if it further reduces its availability below plat.

 

Both your statements are correct.

 

But my point remains, what's the higher value change, nerfing DH so the game feels better for the average player or nerfing and making Thief unfun for the vast majority of the playerbase just to shift the meta for like 50 people (who will all just flock to the next best thing anyway)?

 

(I'm only taking DH as an example cause you did, to me the only thing really wrong with it is Trappers Runes, Guardian's kit is overloaded enough as is, throwing Stealth into it seems a bit much).

 

Besides Thief survivability at high ratings isn't the issue. High rated Thieves don't waste time dueling at all. They control the map and +1, which is why they don't die. They don't do well at lower ratings because often the game are so random you can't play off your teamates as much.

 

Personally don't care if they nerf Shadow Arts, only thing really left to nerf on Thief without hitting its identity, but i don't think its what's going to have the biggest impact on the experience of the playerbase in general.

50 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

you can just stop. that guy is trolling or just straight up mad.  He will deny that i can guarantee it 😄

And you don't bring anything to the discussion outside generic insults so meh, have to wonder who's mad here.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

5 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Look how little words i have used and still brought across the message... while you are writing 95 page essays....

Most people here are to lazy to read textwalls especially if you flood your Textwall with unnesacarry overcomplicated phrases.   Plain - simple - text.   I am 100% sure most people have not read your texts to the end. I  know you just wanted to precisely explain but sometimes that does more harm than good. I am not trying to be rough on you... i just wanted to hold a mirror and show what you are doing. You are smart everyon can see that. But you should always consider: to what audience am i speaking? do they want to dive into that topic as deep as i have? or do they just want the answers that i found out? If someone wants more explanation: GOGOG Deploy all the Braincells that you have. but in general less is more here^^

When you get a bit older, you’ll eventually realize to do the opposite of trying to change yourself to appease other people. That’s just a thing that comes with age and maturity.
 

ive already simplified this thing which is way more dense than what we are talking about here. Like I said I spent 2 years to wrap my head around how it works, and to be honest you still don’t really get it otherwise you wouldn’t have made the response you did. 

 

This mechanism here shows that nerfs and buffs are meaningless. Do you understand what that means? It means that buffs and nerfs do not work…this is why I don’t even participate in any of these threads about things like “+10% damage to X class or -5% damage to Y class” it means nothing…if you want to talk about time wasted, discussing these trivialities with nerfs and buffs is real time being wasted.

Edited February 4, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Math.5123]

2 hours ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

 

Both your statements are correct.

 

But my point remains, what's the higher value change, nerfing DH so the game feels better for the average player or nerfing and making Thief unfun for the vast majority of the playerbase just to shift the meta for like 50 people (who will all just flock to the next best thing anyway)?

 

(I'm only taking DH as an example cause you did, to me the only thing really wrong with it is Trappers Runes, Guardian's kit is overloaded enough as is, throwing Stealth into it seems a bit much).

 

Besides Thief survivability at high ratings isn't the issue. High rated Thieves don't waste time dueling at all. They control the map and +1, which is why they don't die. They don't do well at lower ratings because often the game are so random you can't play off your teamates as much.

 

Personally don't care if they nerf Shadow Arts, only thing really left to nerf on Thief without hitting its identity, but i don't think its what's going to have the biggest impact on the experience of the playerbase in general.

And you don't bring anything to the discussion outside generic insults so meh, have to wonder who's mad here.

The DH and thief examples are basically opposites. One overperforms at high level, the other at low level. The reason it's underperforming in the lower tiers is: 

One, what you mentioned. But also because people have no idea how to rotate around a teamfight meaning a necro guard can steamroll and snowball the game without the opportunity of a comeback. 

 

Thief actually has quite a few 1v1s in high level. It also farms other roamers.

[Sahne.6950]

1 hour ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

nerfs and buffs are meaningless. Do you understand what that means? It means that buffs and nerfs do not work.

Sad opinion. In your complex theory that might be true. 

But in my world they do matter.... 

My goal is a fun and entertaining game. 

You are searching for perfection that never existed in any game ever. 

I cant speak for everyone but i would welcome some changes. You are preaching that every change is meaningless. It might be true we wont make a step closer to perfection. But we will finally see some other things then the 5 standard builds. 

I am happy EoD is around the corner and we will finally get a Balance patch maybe.

[Kuma.1503]

2 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

When you get a bit older, you’ll eventually realize to do the opposite of trying to change yourself to appease other people. That’s just a thing that comes with age and maturity.
 

ive already simplified this thing which is way more dense than what we are talking about here. Like I said I spent 2 years to wrap my head around how it works, and to be honest you still don’t really get it otherwise you wouldn’t have made the response you did. 

 

This mechanism here shows that nerfs and buffs are meaningless. Do you understand what that means? It means that buffs and nerfs do not work…this is why I don’t even participate in any of these threads about things like “+10% damage to X class or -5% damage to Y class” it means nothing…if you want to talk about time wasted, discussing these trivialities with nerfs and buffs is real time being wasted.

I think you may have contradicted yourself at one point, though not intentionally. You're obviously trying to simplify a very dense topic as much possible to make it easier to digest, but in the process you're brought up two lines of logic that don't entirely add up. 

In an earlier post you suggested creating rules that govern the way that skills are designed. For arguments sake, lets say that this rule dictates that this skill's coefficient (X) is dictated by a set of variables. 

As the devs look to apply this rule to skill Y, they notice that the coefficient of a skill does not abide by the rule you set, so you tweak it as needed. (This would be a numerical buff/nerf). 

From what I understand of your argument,  most people would stop there and try to balance the game purely based on numerical rules: (Cast time value is X based on these variables. Range value is Y based on these variables, ect.).

You bring an entirely new demension of balance to the table that isn't as commonly discussed. 

 

Synergy - Creating systems in which the Total of the system is greater than the sum of its parts.

 

A great, (and hilarious) example of this is Perma Alac mechanist. You have the trait compounding chemicals. Gain a small heal when you recieve a boon. Sanctuary rune, get a small barrier based on a portion of your healing. And a trait which gives you alacrity when you gain barrier with no internal coolodown.

The result of this is that every boon you recieve, including every stack of might from HGH heals you.

That healing converts to barrier

That barrier converts to alacrty

That alacrity converts to more barrier

That barrier converts to even more alacrity

Luckily this doesn't infinitely loop, and the operation stops there, but what he have is clearly a set of traits operating together to create something far stronger than the sum of these traits individually. 

 

You've suggested that dead traits/skills (Those which synergize with nothing) are prime targets for reworks. One skill that immeidately comes to mind is well of tears. Specter is a condition/support spec that heals, cleanses, and grants barrier, alacrity, and on-hit damage to allies. 

Well of tears just does strike damage in an AoE. It only exists to fill space as the obligatory 5th well. At best you would toss this down on cooldown to proc alacrity, but this is hardly what I'd call synergy. An example of a change that could be made:

Place down a well that pulses conditions on foes on each pulse

Pulse 1: cripple

Pulse 2: chill

Pulse 3: immobilize (1  second)

Pulse 4: Stun (1 second)

Pulse 5: Detonates all stacks of torment on foes. Removing all stacks from them and dealing damage equal to how much the torment would have done had it ticked for its full duration. 

Now you have something that interacts with and synergizes with the specter's kit. The well will gradually slow allies caught inside of it, then briefly hold them still as you load up the target with torment from your rot wallow venom, then you detonate the stacks to deal massive damage. Even better if you have a condi rev on your team to condi bomb the target and CC them back into the well with Call to Anguish. 

This could give specter some unique applications in raids by allowing torment to tick for its full damage instantly against bosses that move a lot, which would increase the value of specializations that deal a portion of their damage as torment. 

We've converted a skill from useless filler into something capable of interacting with the specter's kit, other classes, and even raid mechanics. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I went on a bit of a tangent there, but the long and short of it is that buffs/nerfs are not meaningless. They're just a small piece of the puzzle. 

Trying to balance with just buffs/nerfs is like trying to make a sandwich with just bread. It's not going to work no matter how much bread you add/subtract, you just end up with more or less bread. 

[Tescao.3042]

50 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Now you have something that interacts with and synergizes with the specter's kit. The well will gradually slow allies caught inside of it, then briefly hold them still as you load up the target with torment from your rot wallow venom, then you detonate the stacks to deal massive damage. Even better if you have a condi rev on your team to condi bomb the target and CC them back into the well with Call to Anguish. 

You noticed, good observation. It's called deep balancing. I already wrote about Specter, that they are connected with Mallyx, other world and animations. This kind of balancing was used in WoW between classes and specializations.

[oscuro.9720]

10 hours ago, DomHemingway.8436 said:

You have realized the moment of the present, the moment of truth. Your words also contain the meaning of how we are manipulated on a global scale and people want to be manipulated and do not realize their original nature (even the smartest, richest, etc.).

In the old days, the "way of the warrior" was passed down from generation to generation. Following this path, the internal struggle (the most important) was initially carried out, and then the interpretation of the external. After that, only by the age of 40 or after did the warrior mature for the family. Those who took control of the story "ruled out" such minor details. Therefore, we see the shadow of those who manipulate even in games. As you yourself said in other posts, it is a reflection (deep observation)

Thank you for the good interpretation of my words.

P. S. Socrates is a warrior, Pythagoras is a warrior, etc. This list could go on and on. (True, now the way of the warrior has been made into a kind of show).

 

So what you are saying is warrior is best class? Because that’s all im seeing here.

[Tescao.3042]

49 minutes ago, oscuro.9720 said:

So what you are saying is warrior is best class? Because that’s all im seeing here.

If you are talking about the game, then the warriors here are guardian, warrior, rev, thief, ranger. Which reflect different peoples, styles, philosophy of combat with the addition of magic.

Edit: and scrapper, holo we will add his technology to magic too.

I spoke about the real way of warrior, in which people created a code of honor for themselves, which was difficult to manipulate from the outside.

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by DomHemingway.8436

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

13 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I think you may have contradicted yourself at one point, though not intentionally. You're obviously trying to simplify a very dense topic as much possible to make it easier to digest, but in the process you're brought up two lines of logic that don't entirely add up. 

In an earlier post you suggested creating rules that govern the way that skills are designed. For arguments sake, lets say that this rule dictates that this skill's coefficient (X) is dictated by a set of variables. 

As the devs look to apply this rule to skill Y, they notice that the coefficient of a skill does not abide by the rule you set, so you tweak it as needed. (This would be a numerical buff/nerf). 

From what I understand of your argument,  most people would stop there and try to balance the game purely based on numerical rules: (Cast time value is X based on these variables. Range value is Y based on these variables, ect.).

You bring an entirely new demension of balance to the table that isn't as commonly discussed. 

 

Synergy - Creating systems in which the Total of the system is greater than the sum of its parts.

 

A great, (and hilarious) example of this is Perma Alac mechanist. You have the trait compounding chemicals. Gain a small heal when you recieve a boon. Sanctuary rune, get a small barrier based on a portion of your healing. And a trait which gives you alacrity when you gain barrier with no internal coolodown.

The result of this is that every boon you recieve, including every stack of might from HGH heals you.

That healing converts to barrier

That barrier converts to alacrty

That alacrity converts to more barrier

That barrier converts to even more alacrity

Luckily this doesn't infinitely loop, and the operation stops there, but what he have is clearly a set of traits operating together to create something far stronger than the sum of these traits individually. 

 

You've suggested that dead traits/skills (Those which synergize with nothing) are prime targets for reworks. One skill that immeidately comes to mind is well of tears. Specter is a condition/support spec that heals, cleanses, and grants barrier, alacrity, and on-hit damage to allies. 

Well of tears just does strike damage in an AoE. It only exists to fill space as the obligatory 5th well. At best you would toss this down on cooldown to proc alacrity, but this is hardly what I'd call synergy. An example of a change that could be made:

Place down a well that pulses conditions on foes on each pulse

Pulse 1: cripple

Pulse 2: chill

Pulse 3: immobilize (1  second)

Pulse 4: Stun (1 second)

Pulse 5: Detonates all stacks of torment on foes. Removing all stacks from them and dealing damage equal to how much the torment would have done had it ticked for its full duration. 

Now you have something that interacts with and synergizes with the specter's kit. The well will gradually slow allies caught inside of it, then briefly hold them still as you load up the target with torment from your rot wallow venom, then you detonate the stacks to deal massive damage. Even better if you have a condi rev on your team to condi bomb the target and CC them back into the well with Call to Anguish. 

This could give specter some unique applications in raids by allowing torment to tick for its full damage instantly against bosses that move a lot, which would increase the value of specializations that deal a portion of their damage as torment. 

We've converted a skill from useless filler into something capable of interacting with the specter's kit, other classes, and even raid mechanics. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I went on a bit of a tangent there, but the long and short of it is that buffs/nerfs are not meaningless. They're just a small piece of the puzzle. 

Trying to balance with just buffs/nerfs is like trying to make a sandwich with just bread. It's not going to work no matter how much bread you add/subtract, you just end up with more or less bread. 

 

Hey Kuma,

My bad, I'll specify what I mean by meaningless (with nerfs and buffs). When I talk about meaninglessness I'm talking about whether the structural behavior of the meta hierarchy in the game changes. Numerical buffs and nerfs merely shifts what changes in this structure, but the structure still remains the same structure. Manipulating your analogy a bit...it's like trying to make a pizza with Lettuce, Tomato's, Ham and Bread...and the operations we are doing (buffs and nerfs) is adding or taking away slices of bread in the hopes that it will become a pizza.

 

Today its guardian OP, tomorrow is Necro OP, Day after that it's Mesmer OP... everyday something is OP. Buffs and nerfs (specifically numerical ones) simply change what thing today is OP based on what Anet decides is gonna be OP that day...that is meaningless.

 

When it comes to why the above is the case and why numerical changes are meaningless, has to do with how the structure of the meta in the game is relative notion. I've went into this before...but basically the game takes on a kind of hierarchy of this form:

A>B>C>D 

 

where we say that skill A is objectively the best and D is objectively the worst. You can imagine it also as a if we let a super computer play Guild Wars 2, if that computer evaluated the skills components in such a way where it could describe that evaluation as a single number:

500 > 400 > 300 > 200

 

You can then say...what kind of operations can you do here. You find that you could do an infinite number of possible operations...but they all will lead to an inequality that takes the form of A > B > C > D.

500 >499 >498 >497... 

6104 > 3215 > 64 > 1...

 

You can see that if we want the numbers to be closer together (like say 500,500,500,500)... they converge to just being the same number. What that means is that as these letters are converging to just being the same letter, and so to is the diversity. By attempting to make A>B>C>D take the form of A=B=C=D we are trading Diversity for perfect balance.

 

So...if we want to keep diversity, what operation can we do that isn't making things equal? Well the only other choice is to make them more unequal...making changes that really have no sense or reasoning behind it...you enforce that A is gonna be OP today...tomorrow it will be B, Day after that it will be C...and so on.

 

This is basically the unavoidable conclusion of the problem here, that we can't have the cake and eat it too. This is the reason why changing numbers doesn't lead anywhere...and this is on top of a few other good reasons about how to even measure the effectiveness of possible changes in the first place. Like we mentioned previously about requiring a super computer, one can not even evaluate without a super computer of some kind the objective qualities of things because they are too complex so it's like taking the above example, turning the lights off and then saying to go and hit the dart board. Even if one could make educated balance decisions, we don't know how to measure if those balance decisions are in fact balancing or im-balancing the game. It's a huge joke and nature is laughing at our weak-minded attempts to do what it does effortlessly.

 

These paradox that pop up here is a consequence of a special kind of symmetry called isomorphism (watch the linked video)...basically we are dealing with an object, where operations done to the object always preserves the object (a conservation law), almost all operations are reversible and therefor trivial. The only way to actually make non-trivial changes to an isomorphic object like this is to do non-trivial operations. One such operation is say...instead of having ABC and D, we now have ABCDE. Instead of 4 options, it's now 5 ( Or conversely removing things)... Another non-trivial operation is altering the connection of nodes, not illustrated in my examples but is in the video, which is the interaction between these things.  This is where the idea of more variety and greater complexity kind of follows naturally as a solution to the problem.

 

The concept of numbers being meaningless is a lot deeper than I'm expressing here and I would highly recommend you to not take my word for it, but instead watch this video by a Computer Scientist that I've taken a liking to recently. This lecture is called "How Universal is the Concept of Numbers" I think you as being one of the few people that get the ideas here intuitively, I really do recommend you look into it.

Edited February 5, 2022 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[FarmBotXD.1430]

13 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

WHATTTT... they are the definition of: we balance for the pro scene... xD what are you talking about :DDD Thats why you have champs completely stomping lower elos, but in higher play they are balanced. now every bronze pleb is shouting: NERF EVELYNN kitten, when in reality its a l2p issue, with those newbies not knowing to ward eves junglecamps...  but we are getting offtopic and you are trolling anyways.

Probably a hot take but a build probably should feel overtuned if its played masterfully. That's the whole point of getting better at something.

 and that is just about what we have in gw2....  bro what are you talking about here xD

they balance everything around people that are good with these specific builds, not some monkeys spamming everything off cooldown... dont you see that?

Meanwhile there's 0 difference betwen a bronze and plat Core necro

 Stop it xD i cant breath....  :DDD

If by balancing for "pro scene"
you mean making lucian/leesin/fiora and couple other champions overpowered right before every season for kitten and giggles then sure but I dont know I would call it balance.
Or one of theirs " quinn is fine but we buff her anyways "
Or archangel feels bad despite being good, we buff it, meanwhile kassadin with archangel -> 54,5% winrate smiling in the corner.
Or light fighters are too tanky we nerf bruiser items, meanwhile light figters got buffed 😄
Riot doesnt balance to make the game balance, they make things overpowered as kitten to keep things " interesting " and sell skins.

[oscuro.9720]

6 hours ago, DomHemingway.8436 said:

If you are talking about the game, then the warriors here are guardian, warrior, rev, thief, ranger. Which reflect different peoples, styles, philosophy of combat with the addition of magic.

Edit: and scrapper, holo we will add his technology to magic too.

I spoke about the real way of warrior, in which people created a code of honor for themselves, which was difficult to manipulate from the outside.

 

No…I’m talking about warrior being best class. There is but one warrior, THE warrior. Rev is a fool who thinks history is important for killing, guardian is a weakling constrained by his own morals, thief is a coward that doesn’t want to be seen, ranger is a furry who thinks charrs are cool. Warrior is the one, true warrior. Cast aside ye heathen ways, become warrior. Warrior shall deliver you.

[Tescao.3042]

3 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

No…I’m talking about warrior being best class. There is but one warrior, THE warrior. Rev is a fool who thinks history is important for killing, guardian is a weakling constrained by his own morals, thief is a coward that doesn’t want to be seen, ranger is a furry who thinks charrs are cool. Warrior is the one, true warrior. Cast aside ye heathen ways, become warrior. Warrior shall deliver you.

Thanks buddy for the soulful description of the warrior, but for now I will continue to stick to my path of the warrior, where desires do not control me.

[Axl.8924]

13 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

Hey Kuma,

My bad, I'll specify what I mean by meaningless (with nerfs and buffs). When I talk about meaninglessness I'm talking about whether the structural behavior of the meta hierarchy in the game changes. Numerical buffs and nerfs merely shifts what changes in this structure, but the structure still remains the same structure. Manipulating your analogy a bit...it's like trying to make a pizza with Lettuce, Tomato's, Ham and Bread...and the operations we are doing (buffs and nerfs) is adding or taking away slices of bread in the hopes that it will become a pizza.

 

Today its guardian OP, tomorrow is Necro OP, Day after that it's Mesmer OP... everyday something is OP. Buffs and nerfs (specifically numerical ones) simply change what thing today is OP based on what Anet decides is gonna be OP that day...that is meaningless.

 

When it comes to why the above is the case and why numerical changes are meaningless, has to do with how the structure of the meta in the game is relative notion. I've went into this before...but basically the game takes on a kind of hierarchy of this form:

A>B>C>D 

 

where we say that skill A is objectively the best and D is objectively the worst. You can imagine it also as a if we let a super computer play Guild Wars 2, if that computer evaluated the skills components in such a way where it could describe that evaluation as a single number:

500 > 400 > 300 > 200

 

You can then say...what kind of operations can you do here. You find that you could do an infinite number of possible operations...but they all will lead to an inequality that takes the form of A > B > C > D.

500 >499 >498 >497... 

6104 > 3215 > 64 > 1...

 

You can see that if we want the numbers to be closer together (like say 500,500,500,500)... they converge to just being the same number. What that means is that as these letters are converging to just being the same letter, and so to is the diversity. By attempting to make A>B>C>D take the form of A=B=C=D we are trading Diversity for perfect balance.

 

So...if we want to keep diversity, what operation can we do that isn't making things equal? Well the only other choice is to make them more unequal...making changes that really have no sense or reasoning behind it...you enforce that A is gonna be OP today...tomorrow it will be B, Day after that it will be C...and so on.

 

This is basically the unavoidable conclusion of the problem here, that we can't have the cake and eat it too. This is the reason why changing numbers doesn't lead anywhere...and this is on top of a few other good reasons about how to even measure the effectiveness of possible changes in the first place. Like we mentioned previously about requiring a super computer, one can not even evaluate without a super computer of some kind the objective qualities of things because they are too complex so it's like taking the above example, turning the lights off and then saying to go and hit the dart board. Even if one could make educated balance decisions, we don't know how to measure if those balance decisions are in fact balancing or im-balancing the game. It's a huge joke and nature is laughing at our weak-minded attempts to do what it does effortlessly.

 

These paradox that pop up here is a consequence of a special kind of symmetry called isomorphism (watch the linked video)...basically we are dealing with an object, where operations done to the object always preserves the object (a conservation law), almost all operations are reversible and therefor trivial. The only way to actually make non-trivial changes to an isomorphic object like this is to do non-trivial operations. One such operation is say...instead of having ABC and D, we now have ABCDE. Instead of 4 options, it's now 5 ( Or conversely removing things)... Another non-trivial operation is altering the connection of nodes, not illustrated in my examples but is in the video, which is the interaction between these things.  This is where the idea of more variety and greater complexity kind of follows naturally as a solution to the problem.

 

The concept of numbers being meaningless is a lot deeper than I'm expressing here and I would highly recommend you to not take my word for it, but instead watch this video by a Computer Scientist that I've taken a liking to recently. This lecture is called "How Universal is the Concept of Numbers" I think you as being one of the few people that get the ideas here intuitively, I really do recommend you look into it.

Nature is perfect because 1 thing always keeps the other under wraps for instance: You got deer eating plants to keep the oxygen levels under wraps and wolves to eat the deer and so on so fourth, so in my opinion The perfect balance would prob be something similar to how nature handles because what you described just shows that A: If you nerf Class X class Y will become dominant when their class which is  their counter doesn't stop them. It would prob be better to have at least certain kinds of builds to counter certain kinds of roles and i'm guessing that since chill counters duelist weaver, if nec gets nerfed into the ground that weaver will become dominant and next issue and so on so fourth?

What you described as the enigma of nerfing/Buffing is the reason why: It doesn't follow the same form of controll and reigning in and creates a stagnant meta.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Axl.8924

[oscuro.9720]

13 hours ago, DomHemingway.8436 said:

Thanks buddy for the soulful description of the warrior, but for now I will continue to stick to my path of the warrior, where desires do not control me.

I’m just messing around man, look through my post history and you will see all the reasons why warrior is best class 😉 

Best of luck with following the way of the warrior 🙂 

Edited February 5, 2022 by oscuro.9720

[Tescao.3042]

13 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

I’m just messing around man, look through my post history and you will see all the reasons why warrior is best class 😉 

Best of luck with following the way of the warrior 🙂 

Yes, your messages about the war is deep. I'm glad you like the warrior, the warrior identity is really well done. 
ty buddy.

P. S. Guys if you are interested in the observation of balance, read what mycorrhiza is (mushroom network that unites all the nature of the earth, it can also be called a kind of consciousness or neural network). 
I think some types of mushrooms are able to show people a piece of mycorrhiza knowledge, how the consciousness of nature behaves, but for this you need to observe the incoming information without evaluation.
This is what society might be like if it did not separate itself from nature. Perhaps there would be a deep connection with mycorrhiza at least.

Edited February 6, 2022 by DomHemingway.8436