Alternate High-sustain builds for Open World (Post Nerf)

[Dadnir.5038]

On 4/6/2022 at 2:56 AM, Kuma.1503 said:

Wonder no longer, here are just some of the builds I've been running for open world content. These are builds that have performed well for me prior to the nerfs, and have been left completely untouched even after the nerfs.

Apart from 1 or 2 professions they mainly nerfed the sustained gained through offense. They didn't touch much other kind of sustain which still leave a lot of possibilities for high survivability builds. I would even dare say that 1 profession got buffed.

The true problematic is that people are seldom willing to sacrifice a bit of damage for survivability (especially in PvE).

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

1.8k HP ain't free, bruh.

With the amount of barrier you could generate with that "minor" trait, yes, it was.

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Then I have to question if that person even understands the point of having build diversity in an RPG. If something is not actually out of line then it shouldn't be of his concern. If he plays the game and doesn't like it then he can just play one of the many builds which don't involve it. This really sounds like a case of "stop having fun with things I don't like".

Except there is no paradox here, being glassy refers to your "tankiness" (or better lack thereof) while sustainability refers to your ability to "keep on going" meaning that there is no real contradiction here. If you couldn't take a hit before then no amount of re-sustain will enable you to take it. So in the end you're still as glassy as before, all that "% of damage dealt" based re-sustain really does is to make smaller mistakes more forgiving at the expense of having to commit to a more glassy build and a more aggressive playstyle.

Also, singling out and criticizing "% of damage dealt" based re-sustain for favoring offensive builds is just nonsensical because "set value" based re-sustain does the exact same thing for more defensive builds with both having their own unique set of up/downsides.

I mean that "HP regen on hit" requires / pushes the player towards a more active, offensive / risky playstyle and in terms of "% based" healing even punishes other defensive investments should really be obvious but for some strange reason for many people it somehow is not. Some people even call it "passive sustain" which makes no sense whatsoever given that the healing effect has a clear activation condition leading to the aforementioned effect on the players playstyle.

While I am broadly in agreement, I think there is a valid observation that resustain is supposed to involve investing in Healing Power, rather than having power/precision/ferocity also contributing to sustain. I was using "glass" as a shorthand for "invested nothing into defensive stats" rather than referencing the ability to take a damage spike specifically. (Although I would note that in scrapper's case, they could add to their ability to take a spike through barrier). There is an argument that increasing your offensive stats being the right answer both for more damage and more sustain is problematic design.

Granted, they did nerf lifesteal at the same time, but... there appeared to be a valid balance argument for that.

Perhaps the correct long-term response is to redesign them so they are linked to Healing Power somehow. In the meantime, though... well, they haven't even been boonsmited, because that term applies to deleting it in competitive through aggressive nerfing, while this seems to just be deleting them altogether. And for scrapper, that's a minor trait that they can't trade out. 

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

With the amount of barrier you could generate with that "minor" trait, yes, it was.

Being a minor grandmaster also implies that they've given up something else that could have been in the grandmaster minor slot instead. So they've given up 1.8k health and whatever the grandmaster minor might have brought otherwise.

It's a big hit to scrapper simply because, as I noted in my previous post, it's an innate part of scrapper and not something they can trade out for something else. Others such as, say, thief with Invigorating Precision at least have the option to swap them out for something that hasn't been aggressively nerfed - thief, for instance, can take No Quarter, reduce their ferocity investment by 250, and put that into defensive statistics instead to be at least closer to where they were before. Scrapper has no option to go "well, this trait is no longer worth it, I'll take something else" because they only way to do so is to trade out scrapper entirely.

Which a lot of people are doing because, hey, holosmith and mechanist aren't exactly known for their squishiness. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

While I am broadly in agreement, I think there is a valid observation that resustain is supposed to involve investing in Healing Power, rather than having power/precision/ferocity also contributing to sustain. I was using "glass" as a shorthand for "invested nothing into defensive stats" rather than referencing the ability to take a damage spike specifically. (Although I would note that in scrapper's case, they could add to their ability to take a spike through barrier). There is an argument that increasing your offensive stats being the right answer both for more damage and more sustain is problematic design.

Granted, they did nerf lifesteal at the same time, but... there appeared to be a valid balance argument for that.

Perhaps the correct long-term response is to redesign them so they are linked to Healing Power somehow. In the meantime, though... well, they haven't even been boonsmited, because that term applies to deleting it in competitive through aggressive nerfing, while this seems to just be deleting them altogether. And for scrapper, that's a minor trait that they can't trade out. 

Exactly.  When we talk about "free" or "low-cost" sustain (like the sustain traits/runes that were nerfed) we're talking about abilities that allow players to have dramatic increases in sustain without giving up damage.  This was true of torment runes, scrapper barrier, scourge barrier, battle scars.  Only the thief trait was an outlier.  While it did provide healing from damage, you had to give up a big damage trait to use it and thief was not overperforming on sustain or damage from utilizing this trait.

If scrapper is terrible now, the answer is not to give them back an overpowered minor trait.  This should be addressed by giving them the sustain they need at appropriate cost.

[Stx.4857]

Except we all know they aren't going to compensate scrapper.  They just nerfed its only sustain and called it a day.  

 

I find it fascinating that you continue to focus on the singular trait as if it was overpowered, without considering the whole package.  There are TONS of overloaded traits in the game, but that doesnt matter as long as the spec package isnt overtuned.  I mean jesus, Reaper has a trait that literally gives you 50% crit with small ramp...  not to mention the GM traits that give perma quickness, 33% crit, and 40% crit damage in shroud.   Ranger has 10% crit and 20% crit damage just for having fury active.  Weaver has 10% condi damage and 20% duration from ONE trait, Lol, and its not even a GM.  These individually look crazy, but all that matters is the specs performance overall.  

 

Scrapper wasn't sustaining more than condi builds and has far less mitigation as well because you have to play it full power.  The nerf crippled it and basically if you encounter a tough champ or want to solo anything tough, you are respeccing to something that can actually sustain, while dealing more damage too.  

Edit: again, im pretty sure they nerfed scrapper due to either WvW or raids.  But they did it incompetently and lazily, by not compensating the spec for its ONLY source of sustain.  I mean, how does bulwark gyro even make sense now?  The whole point of that skill is to redirect damage from your team to yourself, because the spec identity was supposed to be tanky, but its the squishiest engineer spec in the game.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Stx.4857

[Dadnir.5038]

39 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

Edit: again, im pretty sure they nerfed scrapper due to either WvW or raids. 

I think it's more a bandwagon nerfs than a direct attack to scrapper. The logic behind was probably: "We want players to have less sustain when they go full dps but there are traits that grant increasingly more sustain the more damage they do. Let's nerf these traits to a point that they aren't attractive options anymore!"

Obviously the wise thing would have been to fully rework those traits in such a way that they no longer grant increasingly more sustain the more damage is done but you know how balance work in this game, right? Why fix an issue when they can just make it less visible?

[Sobx.1758]

On 4/6/2022 at 3:00 AM, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

I honestly don't understand this. It's like there's blatant and obvious class favoritism at work. Condi mirage was already god-mode, same for many cele-gear builds. And those get a pass, whereas already weak PvE classes like thief get the shaft, hard-end. 

Can't speak for anet, but it seems those nerfs didn't exactly target "sustain in general", but instead builds that got extreme sustain from/despite still going full dps.

 

________________________

If someone's having trouble with ow content post-nerfs, they can always check LI builds. From what I saw in the past, they usually focus on having simplified playstyle, while at the same time remaining relatively safe. Tbh I didn't check current builds, but since there's mechanist build included, it seems they should be relevant post-nerf:

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Open_World#Low-Intensity_Builds

Edited April 7, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Buran.3796]

  Condi Renegade is still brutaly strong in OW. Torment rune users would miss the sustain from them (and also the shavings in Battle Scars), but the truly powerful builds use Nightmare and deal WAY more damage. Strong condi burst with both high single target dps and sustained AoE damage + range, high mobility, plenty of mitigation (Jalis) and bar breaking tools make it a well rounded all purpose design.

   Condi Soulbeast and Necro are still a beast, and barely affected by nerfs. I think that some of the new specs have potential, but so far, aside from Mechanist (which is powerful, tanky and easy to play) most of the newcomers have still a lot to prove before replacing the old solo OW meta.

[Tails.9372]

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

There is an argument that increasing your offensive stats being the right answer both for more damage and more sustain is problematic design.

And on the other hand there is also an argument that in a game which explicitly made a point about not wanting to push a "holy trinity" on the player the way how people sustain themselves throughout the fight should match the chosen playstyle in which case something that synergises well with while also making you commit to the playstyle in question would actually be the ideal.

One may also argue that the critique of it being "problematic design" ultimately doesn't have any substance behind it as in the end the actual performance is what really counts and should be what the builds are balanced around. Telling someone who plays a power based thief build that the IP nerf was justified while a plethora of other builds which do more damage, are tankier and have better self support are supposedly ok is just going to sound like spiteful nonsense to that person.

Furthermore, that "argument" you are referring to also omits something crucial: that the vast majority of builds are hybrids in some way and that getting X for building Y is already a rather common occurrence. Skills like Invigorating Precision give you self support for building for damage while skills like Empowered or Premeditation give you damage for building for self support. Strength of Shadows actually makes you tankier by going for more conditions (most of which are offensive in nature) while also giving you more damage by building for more tankiness at the same time. Nothing of this so called "problematic design" here is unique to these re-sustain skills and ofc. you don't see people rallying for various nerfs across the board which they would have to if this was actually about the concept itself.

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Perhaps the correct long-term response is to redesign them so they are linked to Healing Power somehow.

There are multiple issues with this approach, unless you play heal support toughness does pretty much the same thing but better and it would also heavily favor coni builds unless you also want to fuse precision and ferocity into one stat as power requires investment into 3 stats (as opposed to two for condi) and (unlike condi) can easily be reduced by a plethora of common forms of damage mitigation (e.g. the innate toughness of the mobs and all that self protection spam many mobs engage in).

Edited April 7, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Mell.4873]

You should add Virtuoso with the Inspiration trait line. 

Massive sustain from bleeds along with ability to further self/party heal. It probably one of the most helpful dps out there for group content. 

[The Boz.2038]

17 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If scrapper is terrible now, the answer is not to give them back an overpowered minor trait.  This should be addressed by giving them the sustain they need at appropriate cost.

What is the appropriate cost if the e-spec design is literally "gets in your face and bashes you with a hammer while eating your damage"? Should the class bash your face less, so it gets more tanky? Doesn't that entirely make it no longer a threat?

[Dadnir.5038]

11 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

What is the appropriate cost if the e-spec design is literally "gets in your face and bashes you with a hammer while eating your damage"? Should the class bash your face less, so it gets more tanky? Doesn't that entirely make it no longer a threat?

First, Scrapper's design isn't "gets in your face and bashes you with a hammer while eating your damage". The hammer is and have always been an optional tool that the scrapper have access to even if it complement it's traitline nicely.

As for what should be done, it is probably:

- Identify what the e-spec is supposed to rely on (CC, superspeed, combo or whatever)

- Add sustain scaling on healing power to reward the use of what the spec is supposed to rely on.

For the current scrapper, it probably mean: Gain X barrier with z scaling coefficient on healing power whenever you gain superspeed instead of "convert 5% of your damage into barrier".

[The Boz.2038]

1 minute ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

As for what should be done, it is probably:

- Identify what the e-spec is supposed to rely on (CC, superspeed, combo or whatever)

- Add sustain scaling on healing power to reward the use of what the spec is supposed to rely on.

So, "damage" is out of the question?
 

[Dadnir.5038]

1 minute ago, The Boz.2038 said:

So, "damage" is out of the question?

In a context where the devs want the characters to trade-off survivability for damage, "damage" is indeed out of the question.

For the answer, the context is always important.

If the context was: "we want the least possible difference between what a support, a tank or a dps can do", then "damage" would have been the answer.

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

You should add Virtuoso with the Inspiration trait line. 

Massive sustain from bleeds along with ability to further self/party heal. It probably one of the most helpful dps out there for group content. 

Taking Inspiration does mean that you're giving up a DPS line you could be running. It's often worth it, in the open world, but it's not a case of "increasing damage naturally leads to more sustain".

 

10 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

(cut for brevity)

One may also argue that the critique of it being "problematic design" ultimately doesn't have any substance behind it as in the end the actual performance is what really counts and should be what the builds are balanced around. 

(also cut for brevity)

 

 I'm not the person you need to be persuading here. I definitely agree that actual balance performance should be considered, especially when something is killed without having something to replace it. (Although I guess that in ArenaNet's eyes, the replacement was spectre having much more sustain than previous thief builds.)

From a broad picture design perspective rather than looking at specific builds, though, I can see how "the way to add more survivability on this build is to add more damage" structures can be... counterintuitive. And that's pretty much what those traits encouraged - investing in Healing Power would actually result in less sustain. It's probably not quite as straightforward as saying that apart from having that trait, you wanted to maximise your damage to also maximise your survivability, but it's... pretty close. They can also push you into a specific type of damage, as seen with condi scrappers getting a lot less out of that trait. So I can see why they might make that shift in design philosophy.

However, when you do drill down into the individual builds... they've kicked a lot of stuff that wasn't overperforming. And it's obviously a kneejerk reaction, in that it happened at the same time that they introduced a new trait of this type in Untamed (mind you, they've also introduced a new 300s trait in Spectre when they said years ago now that they were going to replace those, so... um, *sarcastic clap*). What they should have done is waited until they had something ready to slot in to replace it. When something is actively causing problems for the game, then yeah, you can justify nerfing it to death just to get rid of it and replacing it later, but I don't recall anyone going around saying that Invigorating Precision was ruining the game. It could, and probably should, have been left alone until they came up with something to actually replace it, rather than simply nerfing it to the point where it's no longer worth taking.

And this goes double for the minor traits that have been affected that can't be traded out for something more useful. Scrapper feels like it's now been turned into a bit of a druid-like elite specialisation: decent for support in group contexts, very marginal everywhere else.

 

3 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

In a context where the devs want the characters to trade-off survivability for damage, "damage" is indeed out of the question.

For the answer, the context is always important.

If the context was: "we want the least possible difference between what a support, a tank or a dps can do", then "damage" would have been the answer.

I wonder if one possible approach could be one where it's possible to have something scale by both damage and healing power?

For instance, what if the scrapper thing was (5 + HP/100)% of your damage (numbers subject to change, 15% at 1000HP just seemed good off the top of my head, but you could make it scale with HP faster)? That way, you still benefit from increasing damage output, but if you want to increase sustain, you might benefit more by increasing HP than you do by increasing damage directly. 

[Dadnir.5038]

26 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

For instance, what if the scrapper thing was (5 + HP/10)% of your damage (numbers subject to change, 15% at 1000HP just seemed good off the top of my head, but you could make it scale with HP faster)?

I find the idea interesting. Thought, I don't think it would make players happier.

I think it would be a fair thing to do in a game without precision and ferocity. I have a feeling that it would still favor glass dps more than builds that sacrifice damage for healing/sustain (which in the end, would lead players to completely ignore this scaling and complain that 5% is not enough).

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

What is the appropriate cost if the e-spec design is literally "gets in your face and bashes you with a hammer while eating your damage"? Should the class bash your face less, so it gets more tanky? Doesn't that entirely make it no longer a threat?

Appropriate cost is giving up damage or utility, not simply gaining massive amounts of barrier on offense at baseline.  For instance, changing adaptive armor by getting rid of the 15% boost to barrier received and replacing it with 15% barrier returned from damage dealt.  That way you choose to give up damage/utility in order to gain large amounts of sustain.  That would be appropriate cost for a sustain trait like this.

Compare to necromancer's parasitic contagion, which now grants 5% (formerly 10%) healing return from condition damage.

[The Boz.2038]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

In a context where the devs want the characters to trade-off survivability for damage, "damage" is indeed out of the question.

For the answer, the context is always important.

If the context was: "we want the least possible difference between what a support, a tank or a dps can do", then "damage" would have been the answer.

Hard disagree.

As a global design trend among all DPS roles? Sure. Yeah, okay, enforce your "don't turn stellar DPS into stellar sustain".
But it is absolutely alright to have *one* DPS designed as "I sustain through hurting you", and it is doubly okay to have it on Scrapper, seeing as it has never been stellar DPS in any way, shape, or form. The very top 99.9th percentile possible bench performance of a power Scrapper is still ~80% of what any other DPS class does. The cost was already paid. Give me my sustain.

[Dadnir.5038]

1 minute ago, The Boz.2038 said:

But it is absolutely alright to have *one* DPS designed as "I sustain through hurting you"

And there is, it is called the necromancer and that's done through low value life siphon. To gain increasingly more sustain throught increasingly more damage is a balance issue as it make one an effective tank without investment into "tank" stats.

Traits that give a percentage of damage as health simply aren't good for the game. Traits that give a fixed value of health scaling on healing power on hit are "better" from a design point of view.

The nerf was targeted indiscriminately on those traits that grant health based on a percentage of damage because they have the potential to trivialize the game and make meaningless builds that do trade something for their sustain.

[The Boz.2038]

Some sustan != full-on tank
 

[AliamRationem.5172]

51 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Some sustan != full-on tank
 

Oh, please.  You could spam flamethrower auto and generate 2k barrier per second with this trait.  How is that not full on tank from one minor trait?

[The Boz.2038]

6 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Oh, please.  You could spam flamethrower auto and generate 2k barrier per second with this trait.  How is that not full on tank from one minor trait?

Flamethrower auto is 1.1 power/second. Stop making things up.

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Flamethrower auto is 1.1 power/second. Stop making things up.

Sorry, meant 1k.  Just typo.  In any event, I don't know who you think you're fooling with this.  At 15% you were definitely full tank on scrapper and there are plenty of videos of that available showing constant stupid amounts of barrier from a minor trait.  If scrapper is lacking sustain, this is not the way.

[The Boz.2038]

1 minute ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

from a minor trait

OK, real talk.
There is no set-in-stone reason why minor traits need be "bigger" in impact than major traits. There is all reason that they should be *good*, since they are mandatory.

Going from 1k b/s in a full-on zerk build with a full stack of might on, down to 330, though? That's not a "nerf", that's "deleted effect from game". And let's just remember that 90% of the playerbase clocks in a ~3.5k DPS. The identity of the e-spec was, for 90% of the playerbase, outright deleted.