Still worth playing after the "balance" patch?

[crepuscular.9047]

open world PvE not so much difference, raids are a different story, PvP is still a total kitten show with EOD's ES running rampant deleting ES from other expansions, 36 potential specs to choose from but 3-5 spots taken up by Harb clearly shows there's a massive problem

[valeran.3029]

5 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Oh boy...

As someone who is increasingly frustrated with the design direction of the game and the latest balance patch let me reassure you.  Most of what they're focusing on revolves around group content, specifically boon support.  This will have a negligible impact on solo play in open world/story content and may even be a positive for you, depending upon the specialization you play. 

You have to understand that points of community anger such as the dominance of specs like mechanist and firebrand in group play have zero impact on players who stick to open world.  A good example of this is my favorite spec: weaver.  It has rock bottom representation in group play for the past 3 years and, if you main this spec, you might have expected some positive change.  Instead they buffed rifle and made mechanist even better.  Annoying, right?

But how is weaver for solo play open world/story?  Fantastic, actually.  So what if it isn't on the meta radar for raids/fractals/strikes?  If all you want to do is kick butt in open world/story content, weaver is a great spec!  To illustrate the point, here's a new clip I uploaded that I think even some of these dominant meta specs would have difficulty matching:

 

 

That's actually interesting.

 

I started an ele. I liked the feel of the combat it brought. I liked that you could swap on the fly between your elements, giving you access to aoe, heals, etc. But the damage vs time to cast? It just wasn't there. Add to it the squishy nature of ele's and I had to just give up on it in its current state.

 

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

19 minutes ago, valeran.3029 said:

 

That's actually interesting.

 

I started an ele. I liked the feel of the combat it brought. I liked that you could swap on the fly between your elements, giving you access to aoe, heals, etc. But the damage vs time to cast? It just wasn't there. Add to it the squishy nature of ele's and I had to just give up on it in its current state.

 

 

If you prefer a tankier version of the same build, here's the same boss solo in 35 seconds at 21k DPS, but using Trailblazer stats and without the extra boost from jade tech protocols and electromagical pulse masteries (I get 30 seconds if I add the masteries).  This build is actually very tanky.  With earth traits you get additional damage reduction, you can trait excellent protection uptime for even more damage reduction, and that's on top of having nearly 3.5k armor.

There's also the celestial build, which I like to run fire/arcane rather than fire/earth.  It isn't as tanky, focusing more on healing and evasion.  It also deals less damage, but is still an excellent choice for open world/story play.  Here's that build.  For comparison, my Balthazar solo time with this build is around 45 seconds.

The damage and sustain are definitely there in either case.  It's just a matter of putting it all together.  Weaver isn't the easiest class to learn.  For most people it requires some practice before it "clicks".

[valeran.3029]

2 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If you prefer a tankier version of the same build, here's the same boss solo in 35 seconds at 21k DPS, but using Trailblazer stats and without the extra boost from jade tech protocols and electromagical pulse masteries (I get 30 seconds if I add the masteries).  This build is actually very tanky.  With earth traits you get additional damage reduction, you can trait excellent protection uptime for even more damage reduction, and that's on top of having nearly 3.5k armor.

There's also the celestial build, which I like to run fire/arcane rather than fire/earth.  It isn't as tanky, focusing more on healing and evasion.  It also deals less damage, but is still an excellent choice for open world/story play.  Here's that build.  For comparison, my Balthazar solo time with this build is around 45 seconds.

The damage and sustain are definitely there in either case.  It's just a matter of putting it all together.  Weaver isn't the easiest class to learn.  For most people it requires some practice before it "clicks".

 

The one thing I've learned in my decades of gaming... is a lot of builds, especially in videos, are people with the best gear, best weapons... things MANY other players just haven't gotten yet. I ran into it in ESO where vids would purport great dps builds, soloing bosses, and when you looked into it, they had raid gear with the arena weapons... etc.

 

So yes, I want to see a build with NORMAL level gear on a normal build before I'm all on board.

[AliamRationem.5172]

27 minutes ago, valeran.3029 said:

 

The one thing I've learned in my decades of gaming... is a lot of builds, especially in videos, are people with the best gear, best weapons... things MANY other players just haven't gotten yet. I ran into it in ESO where vids would purport great dps builds, soloing bosses, and when you looked into it, they had raid gear with the arena weapons... etc.

 

So yes, I want to see a build with NORMAL level gear on a normal build before I'm all on board.

The difference between "normal" level gear and BiS in this game is 5% stats.  If you struggle in exotic you'll struggle in legendary gear.  You should put a little less stock in your knowledge and experience from other games and make a good faith effort to listen and learn about this game.  It might surprise you.  

See my response to you in the other thread where I demonstrate a champ solo in trash green gear worth <15 silver.  Again, gear doesn't matter as much as the build and how you play it.  For reference, my solo time in green gear against Balthazar (two steps below baseline exotic) is about 1:10.

[Gorem.8104]

Join the rest of us that have quit, its honestly A LOT more fun then actually playing the game. The cope and hope people who do have is so fun to watch. 

 

Not playing was the best idea ever. 

[Vision.7265]

20 hours ago, KRICKZ.2608 said:

I think chrono is dead now. Every other class can provide quickness and alac better than chrono... chrono was the class to provide both. also power chrono is dead. other classes make more dmg and give quickness more efficient than the chrono does. the dmg of the chrono is also really bad so this class isnt worth it to play.

Based on my history with class specs, it sounds like it should be my new main. Engi was underpowered for years until Holo spec then Mecha spec came out. I was really impressed with the big buffs to the class, but that's not how I roll. It used to be the hardest one to get okay dmg; now it's the bandwagon class so I have to switch to chrono. Thanks for that bit of info.

[Hotride.2187]

29 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Join the rest of us that have quit, its honestly A LOT more fun then actually playing the game. The cope and hope people who do have is so fun to watch.

Not playing was the best idea ever. 

Well I am reducing my time ingame (a few more weeks of wvw chests and it will be a significant decrease). And honestly I'm enjoying playing other games a lot more. This endless wait for competitive balance is just too much at this point.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

2 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Join the rest of us that have quit, its honestly A LOT more fun then actually playing the game. The cope and hope people who do have is so fun to watch. 

 

Not playing was the best idea ever. 

Well atleast some others don't mind and watched Teapot ...i mean the the PvE race .

(hmm the internal tears of Teapot , i can taste it from here ! (don't overload your players..green+survival vs survival+dps...dont make them do all the 3..) .

And while teapot will be using ranged tactics in the future , the rest will cry about "we need to do more dps , because we are in a huge meele danger " and then procced to stack scourges again for the barrier spamm)

For PvP players , wait till Octomber - now that the can of PvE worms have been opened

Edited July 9, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Shiina.4192]

1 hour ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Join the rest of us that have quit, its honestly A LOT more fun then actually playing the game. The cope and hope people who do have is so fun to watch. 

 

Not playing was the best idea ever.

 

1 hour ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Well I am reducing my time ingame (a few more weeks of wvw chests and it will be a significant decrease). And honestly I'm enjoying playing other games a lot more. This endless wait for competitive balance is just too much at this point.

 

I feel this more and more each day. Part of my stress the past few months has been over this game, what with the negativity I see in the forums/subreddit, which I'm slowly starting to believe. I feel conflicted about actually playing for any longer than I already have, but at the same time I feel like all my time and money will have gone to waste if I quit. Sunk cost fallacy.

 

ANet's sheer negligence is to blame for all of this. I don't understand why I'm still worrying over a company that has lied to us time and time again. What happened to Alliances? PvP rework? Elementalist (subjectively most fun class) CPR? Where have such promises gone?

I wanted to enjoy Guild Wars 2 for what it's supposed to be - to play the way I want with as many options provided to me as possible. I stayed for the class diversity. The freedom to fight in combat the way I like. The challenging but also rewarding combat. And what do I see now? An infestation of Guardians and Engineers. Too much of anything can be bad and look ugly. Simply put, it's not a good image for the game. GW2's uniqueness is eroding in my eyes.

 

So what is it now? A mere husk of what it used to be.

 

Good job, ArenaNet.

Edited July 9, 2022 by Aselia.1325
*subjectively, not objectively

[AliamRationem.5172]

51 minutes ago, Aselia.1325 said:

 

 

I feel this more and more each day. Part of my stress the past few months has been over this game, what with the negativity I see in the forums/subreddit, which I'm slowly starting to believe. I feel conflicted about actually playing for any longer than I already have, but at the same time I feel like all my time and money will have gone to waste if I quit. Sunk cost fallacy.

 

ANet's sheer negligence is to blame for all of this. I don't understand why I'm still worrying over a company that has lied to us time and time again. What happened to Alliances? PvP rework? Elementalist (subjectively most fun class) CPR? Where have such promises gone?

I wanted to enjoy Guild Wars 2 for what it's supposed to be - to play the way I want with as many options provided to me as possible. I stayed for the class diversity. The freedom to fight in combat the way I like. The challenging but also rewarding combat. And what do I see now? An infestation of Guardians and Engineers. Too much of anything can be bad and look ugly. Simply put, it's not a good image for the game. GW2's uniqueness is eroding in my eyes.

 

So what is it now? A mere husk of what it used to be.

 

Good job, ArenaNet.

The good news is all classes are viable.  They just aren't viable in direct competition for support roles with guardian and mechanist while both of these classes are perfectly viable if not outright competitive for DPS spots as well as both hybrid healer/support and hybrid dps/support.  That's why you see 2-3 times as many of these guys in groups as other classes and some classes like ele and warrior you hardly see at all.

Hopefully continuing to talk about it will force ANet to address it sooner rather than later, but their track record on this is abysmal.  How many years of firebrand dominating the support meta?  I can't see how they can allow mechanist to do the same.  It's awful for the game.

On the bright side, they seem to be prioritizing group PvE balance for the moment and making actual attempts to make room for everyone.  They just got off to a bad start by failing to bring these two classes in line.  That should have been the starting point.  Instead they somehow thought it was a good idea to buff mechanist DPS to make it one of the best power DPS specs as well as absolutely dominating in the support role and doing it with more ease than any other class.  Seems totally fair...

I think this is something they can fix and I hope they will do so quickly.  But again, for solo play these are inconsequential issues.  It doesn't matter who dominates the support meta when you're just doing open world/story play.  Like I demonstrated, even the worst low-representation specs for group play can be among the best for solo play.

[Dante.1508]

3 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Well I am reducing my time ingame (a few more weeks of wvw chests and it will be a significant decrease). And honestly I'm enjoying playing other games a lot more. This endless wait for competitive balance is just too much at this point.

Same i pretty much do dailies and log off now..

[KRICKZ.2608]

ye but some classes or not worth to play anymore in endcontent. i mean the current meta is 8x engi and 2x qfb in raids / strikes etc... chrono is no tank anymore chrono is not playable anymore. not even in normal pve. why should you play chrono when u can play virt?

 

Also the boons chrono give atm are holy kitten that bad.

[Gregg.3970]

On 7/8/2022 at 6:29 PM, Doggie.3184 said:

Just reroll to a class the dev's main and you'll be fine since it feels like they only do self-serving updates.

^^ MVP forum comment by far since patch update. 

[Razadune.9260]

6 hours ago, Aselia.1325 said:

I feel this more and more each day. Part of my stress the past few months has been over this game, what with the negativity I see in the forums/subreddit, which I'm slowly starting to believe.

    

Stay off the GW2 subreddit and your enjoyment of the game will increase. Frankly, stay off Reddit's gaming subs entirely your enjoyment of gaming as a whole will increase.    

    

The community there is egoistic kittenous garbage, and you're hard pressed to find anything to talk about there outside of a very narrow view of the game is a whole. There's virtually no discussion to be had that isn't complaining about whatever the crisis of the day is, and the people who dominate the subreddit have little to no idea whatsoever what the average player in the game is even doing on a day to day basis.

[DexterousGecko.6328]

I jump around to different mmos, and from my experience, if you listened to every community weeping and gnashing their teeth about buffs, nerfs, patches, the story direction, etc, you'd think that every mmo was the worst it's ever been.

 

The reality is usually much more mundane, the game is still the game, if you like it, play it, if you don't, don't. There are very few patches that change a game completely. The Star Wars Galaxies NGE patch is probably the closest, and even that is debatable.

[Gorem.8104]

9 hours ago, Aselia.1325 said:

 

 

I feel this more and more each day. Part of my stress the past few months has been over this game, what with the negativity I see in the forums/subreddit, which I'm slowly starting to believe. I feel conflicted about actually playing for any longer than I already have, but at the same time I feel like all my time and money will have gone to waste if I quit. Sunk cost fallacy.

 

ANet's sheer negligence is to blame for all of this. I don't understand why I'm still worrying over a company that has lied to us time and time again. What happened to Alliances? PvP rework? Elementalist (subjectively most fun class) CPR? Where have such promises gone?

I wanted to enjoy Guild Wars 2 for what it's supposed to be - to play the way I want with as many options provided to me as possible. I stayed for the class diversity. The freedom to fight in combat the way I like. The challenging but also rewarding combat. And what do I see now? An infestation of Guardians and Engineers. Too much of anything can be bad and look ugly. Simply put, it's not a good image for the game. GW2's uniqueness is eroding in my eyes.

 

So what is it now? A mere husk of what it used to be.

 

Good job, ArenaNet.

 

There's actually not much to the sunk cost at least when it comes to GW2, you don't lose anything if you quit. I quit this game for six years soon after Lw2 came out, came back last year and had a blast all over again. As the games buy once play forever its quite easy to quit and come back years later. Right now, other games and enjoying the view are more fun, so that's what I move towards, eventually I will of course leave the forums when it dies down as people wait for the next terrible update. 

 

Unless of course the game does truly have a death point and that's people's main worry right now, that they can't leave cause if they do, GW2 won't be there when they come back? 

[Tukaram.8256]

19 hours ago, valeran.3029 said:

 

The one thing I've learned in my decades of gaming... is a lot of builds, especially in videos, are people with the best gear, best weapons... things MANY other players just haven't gotten yet. I ran into it in ESO where vids would purport great dps builds, soloing bosses, and when you looked into it, they had raid gear with the arena weapons... etc.

 

So yes, I want to see a build with NORMAL level gear on a normal build before I'm all on board.

Very much this.  I look at some of the builds that get posted and it is all top end everything. I just use them as a skill guide because I know I will never have most of that gear. 😎

 

3 hours ago, tclark.8956 said:

    

Stay off the GW2 subreddit and your enjoyment of the game will increase. Frankly, stay off Reddit's gaming subs entirely your enjoyment of gaming as a whole will increase.    

    

The community there is egoistic kittenous garbage, and you're hard pressed to find anything to talk about there outside of a very narrow view of the game is a whole. There's virtually no discussion to be had that isn't complaining about whatever the crisis of the day is, and the people who dominate the subreddit have little to no idea whatsoever what the average player in the game is even doing on a day to day basis.

That is true of reddit in general. I thought it was just a page for whiney know it all 14 year olds ha ha 

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 minutes ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

Very much this.  I look at some of the builds that get posted and it is all top end everything. I just use them as a skill guide because I know I will never have most of that gear. 😎

 

That is true of reddit in general. I thought it was just a page for whiney know it all 14 year olds ha ha 

Let's just put this one to bed, shall we?  I went ahead and purchased all gear, runes, sigils, food, everything from the Trading Post for less than 10 silver per piece.  Full green gear (which is something like 20-25% less stats than legendary vs. only 5% less for exotic).  Then I went and solo'd avatar of Balthazar.  If you can solo this guy, most of the HoT champions shouldn't be a problem for your build.

Again, it's the build and how you play it.  That's the most important thing.  Gear quality matters, but it isn't going to carry you in this game.

Here's the video:

 

[Fuchslein.8639]

4 hours ago, tclark.8956 said:

    

Stay off the GW2 subreddit and your enjoyment of the game will increase. Frankly, stay off Reddit's gaming subs entirely your enjoyment of gaming as a whole will increase.    

    

The community there is egoistic kittenous garbage, and you're hard pressed to find anything to talk about there outside of a very narrow view of the game is a whole. There's virtually no discussion to be had that isn't complaining about whatever the crisis of the day is, and the people who dominate the subreddit have little to no idea whatsoever what the average player in the game is even doing on a day to day basis.

The same goes for the forum. Before eod it was bad, but after eod this forum became so toxic it's sad ...

[Tukaram.8256]

14 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Let's just put this one to bed, shall we? 

Put what to bed? I said I do not use the top gear either. Was I whining? Did I say I need it?  No. 

I have mostly exotic gear, and simply do not pay attention to the gear in the builds posted. 😎

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 minutes ago, Tukaram.8256 said:

Put what to bed? I said I do not use the top gear either. Was I whining? Did I say I need it?  No. 

I have mostly exotic gear, and simply do not pay attention to the gear in the builds posted. 😎

You were agreeing with this statement made by another player:

Quote

The one thing I've learned in my decades of gaming... is a lot of builds, especially in videos, are people with the best gear, best weapons... things MANY other players just haven't gotten yet. I ran into it in ESO where vids would purport great dps builds, soloing bosses, and when you looked into it, they had raid gear with the arena weapons... etc.

 

So yes, I want to see a build with NORMAL level gear on a normal build before I'm all on board.

The clear implication is that gear is what makes the difference here.  I'm illustrating the point that this is incorrect.  Like I said, gear matters.  It just matters a lot less than the build and how you play it.  This is in contrast to most other MMOs, where gear trivializes content that was once difficult.  

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I still play open world one-handed on most of my toons.  Mouse hand, usually.

Edited July 10, 2022 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[Obtena.7952]

Weird thread ... because none of the other balance patches resulted in you quitting, but THIS is the one?

Edited July 10, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[vandrefalk.6823]

Of course it's worth playing, balance patches come and go, they do shift the balance between professions but the content of the game otherwise is unchanged and still fantastic, so there's every reason to continue enjoying open world PvE and whatever else you want to check out.

 

You won't be sorry!