My solution for the Boon Meta and how to make it more balance.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

It's no secret that the Boon meta has gotten pretty out of hand, going as far to force other classes out for not providing boon the players need. So I've been at it for a while, thinking of a solution, and I'd like to share. Well to explain what I have in mind, lets use Might as an example. Might is a EXTREMELY easy to get boon that pretty much triveralize most of your skills in a squad if you have a might bot who can provide 25 might easily.
 

So here's my purpose change to might. Since at 25 might gives you 750 power and condi, lets change the stack to a max of 5, and boost the potency of the boon to 150 power and condi. So that's 750 divided by 5. Of course I know what you're thinking, and hear me out, cause this is where I think this change will benefit the game as a whole.
 

Instead of letting a single class buff a group of players up to 25 might. (or in this case, 5 might.) Cap Might to one stack PER SOURCE. That's right. You can no longer be a one man might machine with this change, You need other sources of might to reach that same level of power you had if you had 25 might. Which means, you need other classes to pitch in make might as strong as it is now.
 

This is my propose change. Make all the boons in the game stack in potency, and cap it to one stack per Source, and this way, you will find MUCH more value in other classes like A Herald for a example. Of course the boons themselves and some of the skills and traits need to be adjusted to meet this type of change, but I think this is for the greater good.
 

So boons like protection for example would only give you 10% damage reduction per stack, and can stack up to three. Adjust the duration obviously, but the idea is still the same. Cap the stack to one boon per source.
 

Fury? Same thing. Each stack gives 5% Crit chance, 4 stack per source.
 

I truly think that with a change like this, You'll see other classes shine like it didn't before.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Bilbo Vaggins.3027]

here's my upvote

 

[Chicken Fro.6953]

Actually an interesting proposal, and I really thought you'd lose me after reading the first few sentences. Interesting idea.

[Mungo Zen.9364]

Currently, Might and Stability are the only Boons that stack in Intensity, the rest are stacking Duration.  Your suggestion appears to suggest stacking both Intensity and Duration for all Boons.  Consider the case of Quickness for a moment.

Currently, Quickness is applied in Raids and Fractals by professions that can stack 100% duration.  If Quickness was changed to say 2 stacks at 25% per stack (instead of the current 1 stack at 50%), you would then need 2 profs buffing Quickness at 100% uptime.  On paper, does this open up the Meta to bringing different class comps, or reinforce the value of QFB?

In order to get around stacking professions that bring the best Boon uptime, you would need to diversify the professions that can provide said boons.  This is already the position we are in.  There are a handful of professions that can provide Quickness and Alacrity at 100% duration, and even less that are considered Meta.

Until these boons are spread across more professions players will continue to gravitate towards the best sources, like QFB or AlacrRen.  This could squeeze out other professions currently in the Meta that are purely DPS if you needed 2 sources of Quickness instead of 1.

I would suggest that, if we ultimately need to diversify which professions can provide 100% uptime for specific Boons, that the manner these Boons are delivered be refined.  Part of the reason QFB and AlacRen are so valued is the total package that comes with the 100% Boon uptime.  Either those builds need to lose some of the DPS/Utility or other Profs need buffs to match these.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Mungo Zen.9364

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

56 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Currently, Might and Stability are the only Boons that stack in Intensity, the rest are stacking Duration.  Your suggestion appears to suggest stacking both Intensity and Duration for all Boons.  Consider the case of Quickness for a moment.

Currently, Quickness is applied in Raids and Fractals by professions that can stack 100% duration.  If Quickness was changed to say 2 stacks at 25% per stack (instead of the current 1 stack at 50%), you would then need 2 profs buffing Quickness at 100% uptime.  On paper, does this open up the Meta to bringing different class comps, or reinforce the value of QFB?

In order to get around stacking professions that bring the best Boon uptime, you would need to diversify the professions that can provide said boons.  This is already the position we are in.  There are a handful of professions that can provide Quickness and Alacrity at 100% duration, and even less that are considered Meta.

Until these boons are spread across more professions players will continue to gravitate towards the best sources, like QFB or AlacrRen.  This could squeeze out other professions currently in the Meta that are purely DPS if you needed 2 sources of Quickness instead of 1.

I would suggest that, if we ultimately need to diversify which professions can provide 100% uptime for specific Boons, that the manner these Boons are delivered be refined.  Part of the reason QFB and AlacRen are so valued is the total package that comes with the 100% Boon uptime.  Either those builds need to lose some of the DPS/Utility or other Profs need buffs to match these.

That is something I totally agree with personally. In this case, I believe my purpose changed would help devs be more flexible with diversifying more boons across the Profession. Originality I figured that a system like this would ultimately force player to decide what class they need, since they obviously can't get ALL the boons like they could with this system in place. They would have to sacrifice something, or find classes that can offer other boons beside quickness for example, but I think being more diverse is a much better way of going about it.

Edited February 10, 2022 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[DeanBB.4268]

What does this do to non-group content? Open world, WvW roamers, loners, etc?

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

13 minutes ago, DeanBB.4268 said:

What does this do to non-group content? Open world, WvW roamers, loners, etc?

Solo wise, that's why I said might should be boosted up to 150. This way you'll still get a reasonable buff as a trade off of not being to stack it by yourself. Group wise? I'm hoping this will diverse other Profession and elite specs to fit Boon roles they simply couldn't before. It's very much a suggestion that I hope can be improve, and eventually, it'll be something Anet will take into consideration.

[The Boz.2038]

This would destroy small-scale fights: WvW roaming, side-noding, solo PvE, nothing would have impact. "Oh, here comes the big hit, gotta use my Protection!" * 10% damage reduction * "Whew, that totes saved me!"

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Not a fan of that.

 

Instead of nerfing / changing boons I would rather have more bosses and/or mechanic that removes all your boons or apply a debuff that reduces the duration of your upcoming boons by 25-50%. Or some form of boon corruption. 

[Nephalem.8921]

Would delete ele even harder out of pve and just create a different meta where you only take classes that can bring boons. Its almost like that currently anyways since hybrid supports are op but you can at least bring selfish dps currently even if its offmeta. Weaver already has a sub 1% playrate and you really want to push it in the 0% range.

[Sigmoid.7082]

I wouldn't say this is a solution. It just creates different problems.

[Nephalem.8921]

56 minutes ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

Not a fan of that.

 

Instead of nerfing / changing boons I would rather have more bosses and/or mechanic that removes all your boons or apply a debuff that reduces the duration of your upcoming boons by 25-50%. Or some form of boon corruption. 

You would just not take boon supports then if its frequent or build around it slightly with for example 2 quickness sources per group, great change. dhuum does this currently and all it does is requiring chrono/scourge/ren for boon removel. would change nothing except to be annoying af to deal with.

Boon conversion or steal is always nice. resulted in guardians being kicked in fractals because retal killed the group. you would never want protection on you if the boss steals it fruquently. Dhuum does it every 80seconds and it doesnt really change anything.

The only way for it to be kind of decent is at the start of a puzzle mechanic for example so it cant be cheesed with long lasting prot, resolution or swiftness.

Frequently in a fight? so bad even anet devs should understand how bad it is.

[hash.8462]

This will only make WvW much worse for every player that is not in a blob...

Professions are also balanced on the boons that can give to themselves, that would means a complete rebalancing of all weapons, skills and traits.

Anyway, if you want it "more balanced" just leave self boons as they are and add a limitation (duration or staks) only to boons coming from external sources.

Edited February 11, 2022 by hash.8462

[Antycypator.9874]

Stacking protection, quickness or fury like this makes them useless for solo play. If you could have only 5% crit chance increase in solo situation, only 1 stack of might and 10% damage reduction, then what's the point of focusing on self-boon support? If you want high fury uptime, then you have to probably set your build for it, but it's at least rewarding (more crit chance and DPS).

[Asum.4960]

Wouldn't that just be either more exclusionary or require complete homogenization? 

 

Since then one player can't provide 25 Might for all Party members anymore, every player is required to bring their one stack of Might with 100% uptime - so either every spec does 1 Might permanently (at which point, why does it even exist/isn't just baseline), or the ones that can't will never be taken (unless they provide such obscene DPS that they outperform 150 Power+Condition Damage * 5/10 players, and with that the ego of other players doing less), especially for 5 player content, while seriously powercreeping 10 Target Cap providers for 10+ player content). 

 

Meanwhile that would greatly impact solo play and make good build craft for boon coverage, now providing fairly minuscule bonuses solo, largely redundant over just picking up bland modifiers.

Edited February 11, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Omega.6801]

No.

[The Boz.2038]

...but I kinda see where this would be going. And if you control the sources *real good* this actually brings good amount of granularity with boons to stuff, without the clunky "max X stacks per source" "rule". A skill that grants you 3 stacks of protection for 3 seconds could be good, if it wasn't on a 8s cooldown, for example.

Hell, you could modify *all* the boons into stacks this way. Take the current values, and jiggle it until you get the max current = 80% of max at 5 stacks. So, Fury would be 5% crit chance, and 25% at 5 stacks, Protection could be 10% damage reduction per stack, so 50% at 5 stacks, and Might could be easily 200 Power and Condi per stack, easily, so long as nobody, and this is the important bit, nobody could ever max out their own permanently, and could provide at most 2 stacks team-wide...

Then you could do other stuff with the stacks everywhere. Corrupts and steals could give more condis/more stacks depending on the amount of stacks removed from target. Maybe even the "seems useful but aren't" traits that give you 2 stacks of might for 5 seconds once per year could be removed and reworked into something actually relevant?

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

The problem with the boon-meta and the reason for your significant stack of confused/cry reactions is that it is convenient in its current state. I agree that it is quite imbalanced, but it makes the life of everyone a lot easier. Currently the highest focus appears to be on executing the rotation as good as possible, to get really close to the estimated benchmarks. If builds had to be re-adjusted for boon-support, the performance would definitely drop. Personally, I would highly appreciate an artificial reduction of the powercreep, but for many people going anywhere but higher is completely out of the question.

I do not think your suggestion can be copied 1:1, but it has potential to spark a different approach for future boon-balancing. Thanks for sharing ^^. 

Edited February 11, 2022 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870

[Astralporing.1957]

Your "solution" would not help at all - it would only replace one meta with another. Remember what the primary issue is: contrary to what you think it is not the "too easy" access to boons. The real issue is how big the impact of boons is.

Want to do something about it? Leave the access to boons as easy as it is already, or even make it easier. And, instead of messing with accessibility, nerf the effects of boons overall.

If the boons did not have the overwhelming impact to effectiveness they have now, the boon meta would not be so rigidly enshrined even among the groups with more laid-back approach. Ideally, you'd want that impact to be noticeable to a degree where top tier players would care about it, but not so big it would be practically required. I'd say that the boost from boons should be at best in the +10-20% range, and should never go above ~+25%. Currently, it's more like +100-200%, which is ridiculously high.

[Jski.6180]

I like to see a split in boons of self only boons and support boons maybe to the point that you cant give you self the same boons that your supporting with.

So i like your ideal as long as you have the ability to keep stacking boons for self the same but make it support only. As well as make the effect the same for all boons and some how make them stacking as well.

[Astralporing.1957]

41 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

This is such a ... pedestrian take, and it keeps appearing in these forums over and over.

One meta will replace another. Yeah. Sure. Big think moment. 200IQ conclusion.

But not all metas are created equal. Some are better for the game. Some are worse. A meta with more interchangeable parts is more attractive to me than this meta.

Yours would not have more intechangeable parts. In fact, it would almost certainly be even more strict in composition.

[The Boz.2038]

How... what? I literally used interchangeable as a descriptor of a desirable meta. How is a descriptor not a thing it describes?

Assuming "max stacks full uptime might is possible and desirable", then:
If five different valid builds over six different professions can provide, say, 2 reliable, constant might, if built for it, and eight provide 1, a team can be assembled by putting together a combination of any 2 from group 1 and 1 from group 2, or 1 from group 1, and 3 from group 2, or 5 from group 2. And the access is possible because different providers of might mentioned earlier can provide the same or different other stuff. A 2-might provider might be a DPS herald. Or a heal druid. Or a tank scrapper. And either can fit the party, because you don't have one overloaded boonbot role that is also untouched because the content doesn't challenge that aspect of the game at all.

And yes, such a meta, in which the few Core Providers Of Everything Ever do not dictate the rest of the party composition, but are there as more equal pieces that can be used to assemble a whole, is more desirable to the "LF druid, alacren, 2qfb" we have now.

[Astralporing.1957]

12 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

How... what? I literally used interchangeable as a descriptor of a desirable meta. How is a descriptor not a thing it describes?

Assuming "max stacks full uptime might is possible and desirable", then:
If five different valid builds over six different professions can provide, say, 2 reliable, constant might, if built for it, and eight provide 1, a team can be assembled by putting together a combination of any 2 from group 1 and 1 from group 2, or 1 from group 1, and 3 from group 2, or 5 from group 2. And the access is possible because different providers of might mentioned earlier can provide the same or different other stuff. A 2-might provider might be a DPS herald. Or a heal druid. Or a tank scrapper. And either can fit the party, because you don't have one overloaded boonbot role that is also untouched because the content doesn't challenge that aspect of the game at all.

And yes, such a meta, in which the few Core Providers Of Everything Ever do not dictate the rest of the party composition, but are there as more equal pieces that can be used to assemble a whole, is more desirable to the "LF druid, alacren, 2qfb" we have now.

Notice, how you're moving from 1 or 2 support slots for certain boon to more. That locks down overall group composition even more. Notice also, how classes that will be able to cover more boons (or cover the same amount, but with better dps and/or other utility) will still be prioritized. Which does not really change anything.

I mean, seriously, do you intend to push people to want more CFBs in groups?

 

[The Boz.2038]

"support slots"
Don't be so rigid. They wouldn't be pure support slots. That's the whole point.

[ArchonWing.9480]

The premise is just completely off, sorry. Like almost any 2 combination of classes can stack might. Elementalists stack tons of might. Warriors have group fury and might essentially baked into the class since vanilla. But yet these classes are having a hard time. On the other hand, neither firebrand nor renegade needs to stack 25 might on their own, so are we just hating on druids and tempests for no good reason when they have use only in strikes/raids?

Scourges are wanted everywhere and they really don't provide many boons. Yes they can give might but it's also optional. But they are taken because of their unique buffs and the damage they do.  Barrier spam allows people to bypass many mechanics. And same goes with Guardian blocks. Firebrand and scourge have a lot of diversity regardless of situation, even when no boons are required

This is only an issue in 5-person content due to its very nature demanding role compression. If might stackers don't provide the damage increase necessary to justify the slot, then it's just not going to be taken.

Balancing off instanced content is a pretty bad idea anyways, and splitting it off arbitrarily just causes needless confusion for the sake of imaginary balance when the real problem is several classes need a rework. Why exactly should everyone have to change for content that gets released like twice a year?

Anyhow, my problem with these boon complaints is that they usually just lack knowledge on how classes interact. And if this is about not being let into arbitrarily made groups, that's not why you're not being let in.

Edited February 11, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480