On Boons, Balance and Diversity

[Syvaris Laskaris.5247]

15 hours ago, Opopanax.1803 said:

Makes you wonder how many raids you could pull off with:

10 warriors

10 elementalists

10 thieves

etc etc.

 

This would really reveal the ability of classes to pull off group content by tools that they have alone.

I'm guessing that all Guardian and all Revenant raids would fair pretty well...

10 warriors would just end up being a mix of Shoutsworns and Bannersworns.

[Ascency.3580]

removal of unique buffs is good on paper, but not all the buffs had to be targeted. the "meta defining" ones - sure. like banners and spirits. and spotter aswel, since it was affecting buildcrafting in a bad way. but most other buffs were for the most part optional, and pretty much noone was thinking about having or not having those. 

the biggest issue i have right now is that we are still left with two unique buffs, available to select few classes , and others dont have access to them, which is against this whole change - quickness and alacrity. sure, some classes have access to a tiny amount, plus theres sigil of rage and sigil of quickness, plus that other one that gives 1 sec of quickness, but thats not going to allow you to have own quickness when alone, and are pointless when in a group. alacrity being even worse offender, since u cant get it in any other way other then from classes that can provide it. 

every class should be able to have access to own quickness, and preferably alac aswel if built for it when alone, and only swap for more raw dps when its being provided from someone else. only then can we talk about unique buffs being a non issue. as it stands, playing something like an elementalist in ow feels clunky. and the issue with those two boons compared to any other boon is they affect HOW you play, not simply how effective what you do is (having less might, or no fury means u deal less damage, while not having quickness is decreasing your dps, aswel as survivability, and ability to deal with whats happening around you becouse you are more prone to being interrupted or interrupting your own skills).

quickness is now the biggest issue. it was the couse of controversial changes done to catalyst several times. warrior banners- same story. fb dominating the meta - same. and again, its implementation at this point is very limiting to group compositions, becouse groups will always pick the quickness provider that can do most outside of providing quickness (anyone seen any quickness scrappers lately?). its hard enough as is, to balance the dps of classes to allow for actual diversity, becouse they refuse to balance it around class complexity, throwing quickness into the mix makes it even worse, and by a lot.