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

[AliamRationem.5172]

Just now, The Boz.2038 said:

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.

Then let scrapper choose to have full tank barrier at the expense of something else.  This was a grandmaster trait and then some shoved into a baseline minor trait.

[The Boz.2038]

And now we go back to the old chestnut of "Scrapper already paid for it by being 80% of a DPS".

 

[mindcircus.1506]

9 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

And let's just remember that 90% of the playerbase clocks in a ~3.5k DPS.

Do you have actual data?
 

[The Boz.2038]

1 minute ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Do you have actual data?
 

Direct quote from ANet.

 

[mindcircus.1506]

1 minute ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Direct quote from ANet.

 

Please provide.

[Stx.4857]

4 hours 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?

Because Scrapper builds don't have toughness, they dont have high uptime on protection, and they don't have any other sources of damage mitigation %.  They also have 14k base HP.

[draxynnic.3719]

20 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Please provide.

Finding something that was said months, possibly a couple of years, ago is often easier said than done, but I can verify from my own memory that there was a statement made to the effect that there was an order of magnitude difference in the damage output of experienced raiders and the like versus the majority of the player base (I think it was in the context of the difficulty of balancing encounters, especially open world encounters). Since the benchmarks are capped at around 40k, and the benchmarks assume pretty close to ideal circumstances, it's a reasonable extrapolation that there are a lot of people who'd be doing around 3.5k, especially on a profession like scrapper that doesn't reach 40k even on benchmarks.

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Finding something that was said months, possibly a couple of years, ago is often easier said than done, but I can verify from my own memory that there was a statement made to the effect that there was an order of magnitude difference in the damage output of experienced raiders and the like versus the majority of the player base (I think it was in the context of the difficulty of balancing encounters, especially open world encounters). Since the benchmarks are capped at around 40k, and the benchmarks assume pretty close to ideal circumstances, it's a reasonable extrapolation that there are a lot of people who'd be doing around 3.5k, especially on a profession like scrapper that doesn't reach 40k even on benchmarks.

We don't balance based on that, however.  For example, when that weaver bug was briefly a thing and weaver was generating tons of free barrier.  A lot of players on the forums were actually calling for them to keep it.  They didn't, of course.  And that was the right call to make because, while weaver lacks sustain on certain builds or if you're not very good with it, in the hands of a decent player with the right build it's one of the highest sustain builds you can play.  There are better ways to address the issue of weaver sustain.  That they never did is a separate issue.

[Hashberry.4510]

Yes, an awful lot of weight is put into a throwaway comment from Mike Z.