On Boons, Balance and Diversity

[GWstinkt.6094]

This post is going to be about some of the ideas and complaints that the forum in particular seems to keep bringing up about the current meta, access to boons and profession balance, diversity and uniqueness. Here are some of the complaints I have read quite frequently:

• Access to boons is too high and 100% boon uptime is bad. Boons force us to play boon specs instead of whatever we want. Access to boons should be greatly reduced or removed entirely.
• Professions are becoming too similar which hurts diversity. There should be more unique boons and effects that only limited professions have access to.
• Spec X is OP because look at how many people are playing it. X must be nerfed hard to make room for other specs!

 

Reduce or remove access to boons

I cannot imagine the people calling for this have actively played instanced PvE content. Reducing or removing a lot of boon access will not lead to more player choice or build diversity.

Case 1: Reduce boon uptime on things like alacrity and quickness to burst windows
Let's pretend access to quickness for example was reduced across the board, so that a player actively building towards providing quickness could at best provide 20% uptime on the boon. This would make groups think more carefully about when and how to use their quickness, rather than just keeping it up 100% of the time right?

Wrong. PvE players will always look for advantages to make clears faster, easier and more reliable. When a community of players plays the same content and looks for these advantages, a meta emerges. If access to very powerful buffs like quickness was limited to short windows per player, then groups will gain a massive advantage from having multiple players run boon builds.
If changes like this were made, boon providing builds would strictly outclass any pure dps build, as the benefit of providing your entire group with another chunk of boon uptime would far outweigh any personal dps anyone could provide. In such a world an all firebrand squad might actually be the objectively best and fastest way to clear any content 😄

Case 2: Remove (some) boons entirely

If the existence of powerful boons "forces" us to play boon providing builds then we should just get rid of them. Then everyone can play what they want.
Except we can already do that. A group of 5 players requires two players to provide quickness and alacrity. Generally one of those two players will also provide healing. This leaves 3 slots in the group open for any kind of pure dps build. A group has actually more slots for non boon builds than boon ones.

Removing boons from the picture would simply replace that one boon-dps slot with a pure dps one. We would lose out on a number of builds that use different gear, weapons and utility to provide boons, while gaining nothing. I assume this change is mostly called for by players who refuse to interact with the boon system much and end up feeling left out. I can assure you that taking aways boons from the rest of us would not make the game any better for you 😛

 

Professions losing their identity. Give us back unique access to certain boons and other effects to make things more diverse again

We don't even have to argue on this point, because we have had this exact thing for long stretches of time and we know where it leads us.
Unique buffs and effects limit profession and group diversity and player freedom. Back when Chronomancer had the only good access to group quickness, every group was forced to play a Chronomancer. Unique banner buffs literally gave us a role called "Banner Slave".

Putting a strong group buff onto a single profession or spec means that

• someone in the group has to play this spec
• players of this profession or spec are highly incentivised if not forced to play this exact role

Not only does this reduce the number of builds played on those professions and specs, it also reduces the number of builds that others can play. Every unique role like Banner Slave takes up a player slot in group play, leaving you with one less player who can simply play whatever build they like. If we had 5 unique, old banner like roles in the game, entire groups might become made of those exact roles rather than being filled by whatever players feel like playing.

 

Spec X is OP! I see it everywhere

There is certainly some truth to this. Strong specs will be played more than weak ones. If one spec is played by 20% of players, while another is played by 2%, thats a good reason to see if maybe one offers too much while the other offers too little. But I also see the sentiment that certain specs should be buffed and others nerfed strongly until we see a somewhat even representation of them in the game or that certain specs are clearly OP because they are played a lot more than others.

The reality is that even if every single spec was as equally good and viable as they can get, we would still see some specs dominate certain game modes, while others would barely see any play for many reasons:

Role: Not every spec does the same thing. Some specs are generally good in a lot of situations while others are more niche and excel in certain tasks but are meager in others. For that reason alone many specs would only see situational use while some would be present almost everywhere because they are generalists.
Difficulty: Some specs are more difficult to play effectively than others. That's great because every player gets to pick specs that fit their level of play, but player skill is not evenly distributed. Certain smaller groups will gravitate towards the more challenging specs while the broader community will always favor specs that are more simple and reliable.
Theme and Style: Professions and Specs are significantly different in how they look, feel and play, even when they end up bringing the same boons, healing and dps. Certain themes and styles will simply be more popular than others. It might not be the main reason people pick their profession on, but it for sure makes a difference. The human female meta might be more powerful and obvious, but there's for sure a comparible thing going on with specs.

To summarize, I'm not saying specs like Firebrand or Mechanist don't bring too much to the table and might need 1-2 things stripped away from them to make more room for other specs. I just want to point out that even if FB and Mech were mediocre performers, they would likely still see a lot of play, because their design and ease of use makes them desirable for a large group of players.

Edited August 6, 2022 by GWstinkt.6094

[Ashen.2907]

And yet when limited boon uptime was in fact the state of the game the common way to play did not center around an entire partg of, for example, mesmers providing quickness. The group centered around as heavy a composition of bursty dps to take advantage of those windows of opportunity created via shortlived boon uptime.

[GWstinkt.6094]

3 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

And yet when limited boon uptime was in fact the state of the game the common way to play did not center around an entire partg of, for example, mesmers providing quickness. The group centered around as heavy a composition of bursty dps to take advantage of those windows of opportunity created via shortlived boon uptime.

Like I said. When there are (almost) no strong boons like quickness are present, you just end up with everyone playing dps.

If providing boons is a viable playstyle, then it will pretty much always be a crucial part of the meta, as buffin an entire group adds more benefit than any individual player could provide on their own.

When providing boons is so limited, that it's not worth building around, then everyone just plays DPS and we lose out on an entire role with its own gear, builds and play styles. Personally I don't want to go back to a time where DPS is the only real role.

Edited August 6, 2022 by GWstinkt.6094

[Angesombre.4630]

It's still a question of DPS with only the one that provides the best advantage for the least loss. So in the end there will always be the same choices because we know very well that the other classes will never be at the same level. The fact to look for quickness and alac are there to boost the DPS so in the end the search for DPS is always the same.

[mungozen.2379]

11 hours ago, GWstinkt.6094 said:

cannot imagine the people calling for this have actively played instanced PvE content. Reducing or removing a lot of boon access will not lead to more player choice or build diversity.

Boon Support Roles are not a bad idea or concept, but 100% Alacrity and Quickness are not good boons to build a game around.  These boons are better served as profession mechanics focused on self only buffs.  These buffs fundamentally change how players play the game (much faster) and we have now lost many/all? Self buff Alacrity and Quickness builds since those traits and skills were changed or moved to support builds only.

As such, I think what you have seen more of is not issues with boons but issues with permanent Alacrity and Quickness and how it has forced the meta a specific way, combined with terrible updates to many eSpecs and Professions, some that are still floundering and waiting for fixes and updates  

 

[Infinity.2876]

To remove boons simply add boon removal to more classes this follows the devs' style and gives an excuse to buff spellbreaker .

 

Every body wins!

Edited August 6, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[JTGuevara.9018]

14 minutes ago, Infinity.2876 said:

To remove boons simply add boon removal to more classes this follows the devs' style and gives an excuse to buff spellbreaker .

 

Every body wins!

Seriously...they had a chance with spellbreaker by emphasizing a boon-stripping role and they blew it...

[draxynnic.3719]

Pretty much in full agreement with the OP here.

The irony is that a lot of what people are asking for, we've seen. ArenaNet tried reducing uptime back in the chrono monopoly days. It just pushed up the skill floor to fill what was still an essential role, or pushed groups to take another one. As for removing the importance of boons... anyone remember the warrior mesmer meta for dungeons? You'd probably replace the utility on mesmer for a healer nowadays for most instanced content, and then you'd stack whatever offers the best DPS.

And like the OP said, giving professions monopolies just results in spots that HAVE to be filled by that profession. Good if you main that profession and don't mind being in chronojail or its equivalent in exchange for a guaranteed place, I guess.

With respect to the "profession is overrepresented" thing: While there are certainly issues, I think people do need to recognise that there is also a certain degree of inertia when it comes to builds. If you have two builds that perform equally well, but one has been performing at that level for years while the other has only recently emerged, which do you think is going to be more populated? It's going to be the one that's been around longer. More people are going to have the gear for it, more people are going to have the experience with it to perform at a high level, and people who already have that gear and experience aren't necessarily going to want to start again with a new build that does the same thing at the same level as what they were using before. Getting people to shift requires that the new build be substantially better than the incumbent, and that's a lever that should be used sparingly.

 

22 minutes ago, Infinity.2876 said:

To remove boons simply add boon removal to more classes this follows the devs' style and gives an excuse to buff spellbreaker .

 

Every body wins!

I think this thread is PvE focused, but even there, I think there is a degree to which, since not everyone has access to boonstrip, ArenaNet has had to be hesitant about making boonstrip important when fighting mobs because that risks excluding professions that don't have that boonstrip, outside of organised content where players can make sure they have it when they're going to need it. But because of this, they disincentivise bringing boonstrip even for those professions that do have it. Making it more available would, however, allow them to make boonstrip more important in future content.

EoD was a bit of a "let's add mobility to everyone" expansion, so maybe the next could be a "let's add boonstrip to everyone" expansion, with its maps filled with mobs that use boons to give it reason to be used. Oh, and give stability access to more professions to break the firebrand near-monopoly in WvW.

[DeceiverX.8361]

3 hours ago, Infinity.2876 said:

To remove boons simply add boon removal to more classes this follows the devs' style and gives an excuse to buff spellbreaker .

 

Every body wins!

 

Following this logic, we should just make all classes get access to something like Purity of Purpose to no longer make conditions an issue in the PvP modes!

Solving an extreme problem by creating extreme counters to said problem rather than addressing the root problem just shifts the problem.  Now, any build trying to incporporate boons cannot exist.  The diversity does not change, and now ANet needs to give everyone unique effects again lol.

Boons aren't even so much the problem as much as AoE boons are the problem specifically.

If you want to be a boon-bot/tank/support, the damage lost by building that way should correlate linearly with buffing a singular player or maybe two depending on the class and how its damage gets invested, and only by that difference.

Most of these boon builds aren't taking 90% reductions in damage to give the rest of the party 10% more making things even out; they're taking 50% damage cuts to give the rest of the party a multiplicative 20% increase, which on its own is netting 90% more damage than if they went full DPS.

There's nothing wrong with people having a playstyle preference and opting out of "everyone playing DPS."  But the offset of lost personal damage as a support should be near 1:1 to personal lost damage versus total group-gained damage.

The demands for less boon access isn't about just reducing boon duration across the board; it's reduced access *for groups*, such that things like full-party perma-quickness/alacrity sourced from a single character literally does not exist and would take the collective sacrificing of *multiple* DPS players in order to achieve, equalizing the result should those support players opt for something else.

Because ultimately, GW2 was built on not having defined roles because it turns out in MMO's, nearly 80% of players want to play DPS, and a big issue circa 2010 in other more  role-based roleplaying games was being unable to find support/tanks which gates progression and generally causes players to leave en masse.

Edited August 7, 2022 by DeceiverX.8361

[DeceiverX.8361]

16 hours ago, GWstinkt.6094 said:

This post is going to be about some of the ideas and complaints that the forum in particular seems to keep bringing up about the current meta, access to boons and profession balance, diversity and uniqueness. Here are some of the complaints I have read quite frequently:

• Access to boons is too high and 100% boon uptime is bad. Boons force us to play boon specs instead of whatever we want. Access to boons should be greatly reduced or removed entirely.
• Professions are becoming too similar which hurts diversity. There should be more unique boons and effects that only limited professions have access to.
• Spec X is OP because look at how many people are playing it. X must be nerfed hard to make room for other specs!

 

Reduce or remove access to boons

I cannot imagine the people calling for this have actively played instanced PvE content. Reducing or removing a lot of boon access will not lead to more player choice or build diversity.

Case 1: Reduce boon uptime on things like alacrity and quickness to burst windows
Let's pretend access to quickness for example was reduced across the board, so that a player actively building towards providing quickness could at best provide 20% uptime on the boon. This would make groups think more carefully about when and how to use their quickness, rather than just keeping it up 100% of the time right?

Wrong. PvE players will always look for advantages to make clears faster, easier and more reliable. When a community of players plays the same content and looks for these advantages, a meta emerges. If access to very powerful buffs like quickness was limited to short windows per player, then groups will gain a massive advantage from having multiple players run boon builds.
If changes like this were made, boon providing builds would strictly outclass any pure dps build, as the benefit of providing your entire group with another chunk of boon uptime would far outweigh any personal dps anyone could provide. In such a world an all firebrand squad might actually be the objectively best and fastest way to clear any content 😄

Case 2: Remove (some) boons entirely

If the existence of powerful boons "forces" us to play boon providing builds then we should just get rid of them. Then everyone can play what they want.
Except we can already do that. A group of 5 players requires two players to provide quickness and alacrity. Generally one of those two players will also provide healing. This leaves 3 slots in the group open for any kind of pure dps build. A group has actually more slots for non boon builds than boon ones.

Removing boons from the picture would simply replace that one boon-dps slot with a pure dps one. We would lose out on a number of builds that use different gear, weapons and utility to provide boons, while gaining nothing. I assume this change is mostly called for by players who refuse to interact with the boon system much and end up feeling left out. I can assure you that taking aways boons from the rest of us would not make the game any better for you 😛

 

Professions losing their identity. Give us back unique access to certain boons and other effects to make things more diverse again

We don't even have to argue on this point, because we have had this exact thing for long stretches of time and we know where it leads us.
Unique buffs and effects limit profession and group diversity and player freedom. Back when Chronomancer had the only good access to group quickness, every group was forced to play a Chronomancer. Unique banner buffs literally gave us a role called "Banner Slave".

Putting a strong group buff onto a single profession or spec means that

• someone in the group has to play this spec
• players of this profession or spec are highly incentivised if not forced to play this exact role

Not only does this reduce the number of builds played on those professions and specs, it also reduces the number of builds that others can play. Every unique role like Banner Slave takes up a player slot in group play, leaving you with one less player who can simply play whatever build they like. If we had 5 unique, old banner like roles in the game, entire groups might become made of those exact roles rather than being filled by whatever players feel like playing.

 

Spec X is OP! I see it everywhere

There is certainly some truth to this. Strong specs will be played more than weak ones. If one spec is played by 20% of players, while another is played by 2%, thats a good reason to see if maybe one offers too much while the other offers too little. But I also see the sentiment that certain specs should be buffed and others nerfed strongly until we see a somewhat even representation of them in the game or that certain specs are clearly OP because they are played a lot more than others.

The reality is that even if every single spec was as equally good and viable as they can get, we would still see some specs dominate certain game modes, while others would barely see any play for many reasons:

Role: Not every spec does the same thing. Some specs are generally good in a lot of situations while others are more niche and excel in certain tasks but are meager in others. For that reason alone many specs would only see situational use while some would be present almost everywhere because they are generalists.
Difficulty: Some specs are more difficult to play effectively than others. That's great because every player gets to pick specs that fit their level of play, but player skill is not evenly distributed. Certain smaller groups will gravitate towards the more challenging specs while the broader community will always favor specs that are more simple and reliable.
Theme and Style: Professions and Specs are significantly different in how they look, feel and play, even when they end up bringing the same boons, healing and dps. Certain themes and styles will simply be more popular than others. It might not be the main reason people pick their profession on, but it for sure makes a difference. The human female meta might be more powerful and obvious, but there's for sure a comparible thing going on with specs.

To summarize, I'm not saying specs like Firebrand or Mechanist don't bring too much to the table and might need 1-2 things stripped away from them to make more room for other specs. I just want to point out that even if FB and Mech were mediocre performers, they would likely still see a lot of play, because their design and ease of use makes them desirable for a large group of players.

One problem with your post is that it's specifically from the lens of PvE; boons completely and irredeemably break WvW and even sometimes PvP where relative power and build diversity are even more significant from these stat bonuses.

The other problem is you're viewing this as people inherently suggesting the removal of roles versus the complaint that the in-out bonus damage of a support should simply correlate to roughly that of any given player.

If you play a support and do 60% less damage in order to buff your party, your AoE boon coverage should be limited to providing on average a small bonus of around 7% for each additional party member.  Your spot in the party is still worthwhile and the role technically increases value slightly in favor of playing supportive, but now playing a very specific build for permanent quickness coverage is no longer a be-all-end-all necessity because the party will lose a collective 33% of its damage, equating the support role to basically 300% the DPS of any given DPS player.

[Angesombre.4630]

3 hours ago, Infinity.2876 said:

To remove boons simply add boon removal to more classes this follows the devs' style and gives an excuse to buff spellbreaker .

 

Every body wins!

The profession that can from memory removed benefits: Necro, mesmer, war, revenant (the move for revenant has been increased so it is a nerf).

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

 

Following this logic, we should just make all classes get access to something like Purity of Purpose to no longer make conditions an issue in the PvP modes!

That's a strawman. Every profession in PvP already has some ability to remove or otherwise mitigate conditions. Exactly how much varies depends on build, with some builds being almost immune to conditions and others that pretty much have a "throw conditions on me please!" banner waving as soon as they enter a teamfight due to how limited their condition mitigation is. Most sit in a middle ground where good use of their mitigation will substantially reduce the condition threats they face but where the incoming application of damaging conditions likely will outmatch their mitigation.

It's certainly possible for ArenaNet to introduce boon removal to more professions without it becoming a case of "it's not worth bringing boons". Especially since it will likely need to be invested into - it'll then be up to players to decide how much they invest into, and since most boon removal options are likely to be less beneficial if fighting someone who isn't using boons, they become a bit of a gamble.

Quote

The demands for less boon access isn't about just reducing boon duration across the board; it's reduced access *for groups*, such that things like full-party perma-quickness/alacrity sourced from a single character literally does not exist and would take the collective sacrificing of *multiple* DPS players in order to achieve, equalizing the result should those support players opt for something else.

 

How long do you think it would take for the metagame calculators to figure out which is better, even if just by a little bit, and for that to become the new meta? Days? Hours? Minutes?

Ultimately, though, offensive support has to be noticeably more useful than just adding one more DPS, or the role is likely to disappear altogether.

Edited August 7, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Karagee.6830]

Banners stat increase and spotter crit chance increase have been removed from the game and with them 2 out of 9 classes, but quickness and alacrity, oh no, those cannot  be removed and need to be given to more classes instead, possibly ALL classes.

I see the genius logic of removing buffs and spreading buffs depending on which side of the bed we wake up in the morning.

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Karagee.6830 said:

Banners stat increase and spotter crit chance increase have been removed from the game and with them 2 out of 9 classes, but quickness and alacrity, oh no, those cannot  be removed and need to be given to more classes instead, possibly ALL classes.

I see the genius logic of removing buffs and spreading buffs depending on which side of the bed we wake up in the morning.

The difference is that if you give access to important boons to multiple professions, there are then multiple professions that can fulfil that role - however, having multiple characters in a subsquad filling that role wouldn't stack. Ranger spirits and warrior banners, however, offered unique buffs that stacked with everything except another ranger or warrior using the same spirits or banners respectively. So they each created their own role that they had a monopoly over.

The common thread, or "genius logic" as you put it, is in removing monopolies. Things that can be practically added to other professions, such as boons, are given to multiple professions so groups don't feel forced to take a specific profession to fill that role. Things that were inherently unique to a specific profession were removed so groups don't feel forced to take a specific profession to fill that role.

[Karagee.6830]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The difference is that if you give access to important boons to multiple professions, there are then multiple professions that can fulfil that role - however, having multiple characters in a subsquad filling that role wouldn't stack. Ranger spirits and warrior banners, however, offered unique buffs that stacked with everything except another ranger or warrior using the same spirits or banners respectively. So they each created their own role that they had a monopoly over.

The common thread, or "genius logic" as you put it, is in removing monopolies. Things that can be practically added to other professions, such as boons, are given to multiple professions so groups don't feel forced to take a specific profession to fill that role. Things that were inherently unique to a specific profession were removed so groups don't feel forced to take a specific profession to fill that role.

Perfect example of reading something and missing the point altogether. How many specialisations had alacrity when it was introduced? Yeah you guessed it. And even after it was made into a boon it was pretty much on only 2 classes for a long time (and people continuously whined about the 'monopoly' by mesmer and revenant for years). Now elaborate on how this was fundamentally different than banners or spotter and please explain why there were way way more complaints about lack of access to alacrity and quickness than there were about unique buffs. Obviously when you change it from a single class to multiple classes you also change it from a general buff to a shared boon to avoid stacking.

If they wanted they could have given the equivalent of spotter and banner to other classes and turn both into boons which, you know, is exactly what happened with alacrity. They could have done it and chose not to. Do you understand what I was saying now?

Edited August 7, 2022 by Karagee.6830

[Angesombre.4630]

Even with all the buffs for all the classes, it's still a problem because people will always choose the class that brings the most advantage and the least disadvantage and has the best DPS. If classes are made in a random way like it was done at the end of June it won't work, classes were never designed to do that or else it's going to take a lot of work, and when you see some new specialization *shove* vindicator.
I don't see them doing the work to better match the specialization without doing anything.

[GWstinkt.6094]

15 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

One problem with your post is that it's specifically from the lens of PvE; boons completely and irredeemably break WvW and even sometimes PvP where relative power and build diversity are even more significant from these stat bonuses.

I should have clarified that this post is purely about the PvE side of things. Boons and balance work very differently in PvP and WvW and I don't understand enough about either mode to really comment on them. From what I can tell, boon uptime is already greatly reduced in PvP and somewhat in WvW, but especially in WvW the sheer number of players you can stack on one spot means that there can be a lot of boons to go around. But again, I don't really know how boons currently affect those modes and what should be done about them.

 

15 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

The other problem is you're viewing this as people inherently suggesting the removal of roles versus the complaint that the in-out bonus damage of a support should simply correlate to roughly that of any given player.

I don't see why it should be that way. And what you are suggesting would be a removal of the dps / boon role. If having a boon support or not having one makes a minor difference to the parties overall dps, then why bother looking for one. Why bother gearing your character for a role that hardly makes a difference. Apart from speed runners, most people would probably just not bother anymore. Personally I think it's good that boons are so strong that a proper PvE group has to utilize them to perform really well.
What you are suggesting sounds to me like a world where "yeah you can bring boons.. or dont, it doesn't really matter, we'll take just as long to clear with or without them".

The boon meta forces us to think about how we build our PvE groups. It gives us reasons to prioritize different gear, skills and play styles rather than just going for any dps build. It forces groups to try and stick together to maximize boon sharing which gives more meaning to boss mechanics that force the group to split up or carry circles to or away from the group.
If there was no reason to stack in PvE, dodging boss mechanics would be super easy as all ranged players could just always spread out and attack from a distance.

All of these things might not be super complex or difficult, especially to an experienced player. But they add another layer of depth to GW2s combat. It might seem super easy and obvious now because the meta has long been established, but boons give us players another system to engage with, rather than simply picking whatever does good damage and hacking away.

 

8 hours ago, Karagee.6830 said:

Banners stat increase and spotter crit chance increase have been removed from the game and with them 2 out of 9 classes, but quickness and alacrity, oh no, those cannot  be removed and need to be given to more classes instead, possibly ALL classes.

I see the genius logic of removing buffs and spreading buffs depending on which side of the bed we wake up in the morning.

Apples and Oranges.

Yes, quickness and alacrity were also more unique at one point. Yes, you could make the argument that if everyone gets to give alac and quickness, why doesn't everyone get to have banners, spirits or spotter. But there are some very obvious responses to that:

Quickness and alacrity are boons. Boons are a system all professions share. It's easy and makes sense to integrate more rare boons into the existing skills and traits of each profession.
Banners and spirits are skills unique to their profession. We cannot simply give every single class access to banners without causing some other problems or doing a lot of work.

The unique buffs that were removed were all stat boosts. Most importantly they shared precision. This made hitting the crit cap quite awkward, because how much precision you needed to build yourself was dependent on whether your group had: banners, spotter and the mistlock bonus stats. Anet was (rightly so) unhappy with how this all played out, so removed those stat sharing traits and skills. Removing some of the non precision stat sharing traits was probably about consistency. The focus of group buffs is shifting stronger towards boons, probably because every profession can interact with them. So your ability to support is less dependent on being a specific class with a specific trait selected.

 

19 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Boon Support Roles are not a bad idea or concept, but 100% Alacrity and Quickness are not good boons to build a game around.  These boons are better served as profession mechanics focused on self only buffs.  These buffs fundamentally change how players play the game (much faster) and we have now lost many/all? Self buff Alacrity and Quickness builds since those traits and skills were changed or moved to support builds only.

As such, I think what you have seen more of is not issues with boons but issues with permanent Alacrity and Quickness and how it has forced the meta a specific way, combined with terrible updates to many eSpecs and Professions, some that are still floundering and waiting for fixes and updates  

The meta will always be "a specific way". That's what it means to have a meta. There are only two options:

Boon sharing can be good --> the meta will require boon sharing builds

Boon sharing can be not worth it --> the meta will ignore boon sharing builds

You can re-read in my OP about why reducing Alac / Quick uptime below 100% would not reduce the need for alac / quick builds. The only way to strip these builds from the meta is to make them not function / worth it at all.

I can see why losing self buffing alac / quick builds is a bit sad. It would be cool if certain builds had access to short, self only windows of alac or quickness that set them apart in how they play and are the reason why they are strong. It would set them apart from other builds. As it is now, there's no point in bringing your personal boon uptime when your party is already providing 100% for you.

That being said there are also issues and drawbacks to that. I'm sure there is a world where GW2 has great personal boons and design combat design that works with and around that. We just don't live in that world and the boon meta we have comes with its own good and bad sides.

[ThunderX.6591]

The problem in all this is a really simple thing that many don't remember; when boons was "limited", the power of the boons was different too.

When we had limited quickness, quickness was like 100%, not like now, the same with alac, alac was more like 66% and then, reduced to 33% (now is 25%), but the power difference was huge.

Now the difference is more bland, and we have more access to boons then before, so, isn't a simple "change 1 thing", but more, "change 2 things" and balance ensued.

And yeah, obviously, when there is a scarcity of boons, more dps is the answer (top dps class too), not a more diversification roster.

Edited August 7, 2022 by ThunderX.6591

[Karagee.6830]

2 hours ago, GWstinkt.6094 said:

Quickness and alacrity are boons. Boons are a system all professions share. It's easy and makes sense to integrate more rare boons into the existing skills and traits of each profession.
Banners and spirits are skills unique to their profession. We cannot simply give every single class access to banners without causing some other problems or doing a lot of work.

The unique buffs that were removed were all stat boosts. Most importantly they shared precision. This made hitting the crit cap quite awkward, because how much precision you needed to build yourself was dependent on whether your group had: banners, spotter and the mistlock bonus stats. Anet was (rightly so) unhappy with how this all played out, so removed those stat sharing traits and skills. Removing some of the non precision stat sharing traits was probably about consistency. The focus of group buffs is shifting stronger towards boons, probably because every profession can interact with them. So your ability to support is less dependent on being a specific class with a specific trait selected.

 

What are you talking about? Alacrity wasn't 'more' unique, it was unique. It was changed into a boon. More than one class got access to it. People proceeded to whine for years about how that monopoly (of 2 classes) on alacrity was bad.

How is that different than turning banner or spotter buffs into boons and giving it to more classes? Please do explain, if you can. Also note that the, let's call it debatable, reasoning by @Josh Davis.7865 and the balance team in their posts that spotter created problems to gear properly...would have been a non-starter if instead of deleting it, they made spotter into a boon, just like they did to alacrity all those years ago. 100% alacrity also is accounted for to calculate how much of certain stats you need on your gear (for example to have 100% boon uptime), so that leads to exactly the same gear considerations (i.e. you need more stats if you have no alacrity).

The did not want to do it. The chose not to do it. And if they can delete stat and crit buffs they can do the same with alacrity and other boons. There is no inherent reason to have alacrity and quickness in this game, it's a design choice, just like having the spotter buff or its equivalent boon, and that group of people within Anet, starting with @Josh Davis.7865, his minions and solar, are responsible for these choices.

If they were coherent and morally sound people they would have logically removed at least Alacrity as well. It's in fact them now forcing you to have 100% alacrity and quickness...

Edited August 7, 2022 by Karagee.6830

[Karagee.6830]

1 hour ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

The problem in all this is a really simple thing that many don't remember; when boons was "limited", the power of the boons was different too.

When we had limited quickness, quickness was like 100%, not like now, the same with alac, alac was more like 66% and then, reduced to 33% (now is 25%), but the power difference was huge.

Now the difference is more bland, and we have more access to boons then before, so, isn't a simple "change 1 thing", but more, "change 2 things" and balance ensued.

And yeah, obviously, when there is a scarcity of boons, more dps is the answer (top dps class too), not a more diversification roster.

Except when boons and buffs were scarce or unique, you were sort of forced to diversify or the whole party had to take the hit. Now you don't have to and that's why, in a time when we have the most elite specialisations ever, you also have the highest concentration in a handful of builds since PoF was released 5 years ago. What is mind boggling is that out of 9 new elite specialisations only 2 of the feature into this discussion, Mech and Virtuoso, and another 2 are not great, but passable, Specter and Harbinger...

They made even the majority of Eod specs unusable/unused in pve!

Edited August 7, 2022 by Karagee.6830

[ThunderX.6591]

1 hour ago, Karagee.6830 said:

Except when boons and buffs were scarce or unique, you were sort of forced to diversify or the whole party had to take the hit. Now you don't have to and that's why, in a time when we have the most elite specialisations ever, you also have the highest concentration in a handful of builds since PoF was released 5 years ago. What is mind boggling is that out of 9 new elite specialisations only 2 of the feature into this discussion, Mech and Virtuoso, and another 2 are not great, but passable, Specter and Harbinger...

They made even the majority of Eod specs unusable/unused in pve!

You know that the party composition when boons and buffs where scarce but more powerfull than today was literally only DPS as "the best you can get" zerk stile? (Zerk group idea started there)

You would get the easy (for you) best dps class the game offer and use it with any party you find for party contents, that was the game at that time. Healer, buffer, anything else? What are they?

[GWstinkt.6094]

1 hour ago, Karagee.6830 said:

If they were coherent and morally sound people they would have logically removed at least Alacrity as well. It's in fact them now forcing you to have 100% alacrity and quickness...

So removing alacrity is a moral decision now? 😄

We already have boons that boost damage, defenses and crit chance. Banners, spirits and stat traits don't fit in the boon table at all.
Should they just have made "Might 2", "Fury 2" and "Protection 2" instead of deleting them? 😄

1 hour ago, Karagee.6830 said:

The did not want to do it. The chose not to do it. And if they can delete stat and crit buffs they can do the same with alacrity and other boons. There is no inherent reason to have alacrity and quickness in this game, it's a design choice

Yeah, it is a design choice. Alacrity and Quickness are strong, unique buffs that change how combat feels. Having them around offers us something unique and valuable. The existence of the very powerful, yet somewhat limited boons is the main reason we have a dedicated boon role. It creates build diversity. The stuff they removed was literal stat buffs. It was very strong having them, but not very interesting or fun.

Whats so great about having these stat boons that they should have been kept around? And what's so terrible about quick and alac that they must go? I rarely see people provide reasons other than they don't like it.

[Angesombre.4630]

5 hours ago, GWstinkt.6094 said:

So removing alacrity is a moral decision now? 😄

We already have boons that boost damage, defenses and crit chance. Banners, spirits and stat traits don't fit in the boon table at all.
Should they just have made "Might 2", "Fury 2" and "Protection 2" instead of deleting them? 😄

Yeah, it is a design choice. Alacrity and Quickness are strong, unique buffs that change how combat feels. Having them around offers us something unique and valuable. The existence of the very powerful, yet somewhat limited boons is the main reason we have a dedicated boon role. It creates build diversity. The stuff they removed was literal stat buffs. It was very strong having them, but not very interesting or fun.

Whats so great about having these stat boons that they should have been kept around? And what's so terrible about quick and alac that they must go? I rarely see people provide reasons other than they don't like it.

I would say just the class balance. If a class is too efficient in a group it will be nerfed, while if it is solo it will be less efficient. So with the nerf it will be less effective in both areas even if it was originally only in 1 case. 
I would be for the suppression of the alac and quickness to be able to bring a better balance. 
The problem with giving all the advantages to everyone is the way to do it because I will take the herald as a reference. He has to keep his buffs active and for that it reduces his energy regeneration if he activates too much it can be negative, so he can't consume his skills as they want. But with quickness on the revenant as it has been done we are forced to spam the herald's skills if we want to get it, which is contradictory with the class as it has been built.

[Angesombre.4630]

I had forgotten about it, but I saw it again in a recent post. GW2 wanted to get out of the tank, dps, heal trinity. So they made all professions have their own personal heal. With the arrival of raids and druids mainly the heal has come back a good, as well as an evil. If we go in the direction you say we return to a different trinity because it would be more heal, boon, tank. Yes there will be almost always a tank even if it's different from other games and so a heal to bring back the health faster for those who can't bring it back enough. So there will still be DPS for the rest. 
But here too we are talking about a balancing that is not done in relation to 2 buffs that could have never existed and better balance the classes in relation to that. 
I put it in another post retaliation has already been removed and modified resistance.

[draxynnic.3719]

15 hours ago, Karagee.6830 said:

Perfect example of reading something and missing the point altogether. How many specialisations had alacrity when it was introduced? Yeah you guessed it. And even after it was made into a boon it was pretty much on only 2 classes for a long time (and people continuously whined about the 'monopoly' by mesmer and revenant for years). Now elaborate on how this was fundamentally different than banners or spotter and please explain why there were way way more complaints about lack of access to alacrity and quickness than there were about unique buffs. Obviously when you change it from a single class to multiple classes you also change it from a general buff to a shared boon to avoid stacking.

If they wanted they could have given the equivalent of spotter and banner to other classes and turn both into boons which, you know, is exactly what happened with alacrity. They could have done it and chose not to. Do you understand what I was saying now?

A lot of what I'd say has already been said, but to summarise: We already have a boon that increases power and therefore damage per hit (Might), one that increases crit chance and thereby substitutes for increased precision (Fury), one that decreases incoming damage and therefore substitutes for increased Toughness (Protection) and a universal effect that temporarily increases maximum hit points (Barrier). So what's really been lost are the 'on hit, inflict (condition)' effects of certain spirits. Most of the rest were simply doing what universal boons and effects are already doing, but in a way that stacks with those universal boons and effects.

They could possibly have retained more of the old feeling of spirits by making Frost Spirit just grant might and leaving the rest unchanged, but Sun Spirit might have still been a little too strong.

Edited August 8, 2022 by draxynnic.3719