Overdue for an overhaul

[Rauderi.8706]

As a very top-down thought on balance, I think it's time for a radical shift, because these piecemeal updates aren't really working. 

 

With the existing boon/condition structure, it should be much clearer which trait lines are for Power, Condition, individual boons, boon distribution, mitigation/defense, and healing. More specifically, which traits/utilities/weapons serve what purpose, down to how to access Fury/Alacrity/Quickness/etc more intentionally and ensuring the same level of "effort" is consistent between professions. 

 

And honestly, boons/conditions need intentional design affirmations too. Confusion/Torment don't work properly for PvE and suffered changes to make them work for static bosses. Quickness and Alacrity are just too powerful, so of course demanding 100% uptime became a thing, instead of limiting them to short, coordinated bursts. Defiance remains a copout for CC, especially for using soft CC, and Weakness hardly matters. The components exist, but there's no harmony within the context of their use, with design philosophy seeming to be "/shrug, well it's useful in [other game mode] or on normal mobs, so why change it?" And that's what I mean by intention. A given boon/condition should have utility in every bit of content, even if it means tweaking their effects based on the mode and the target. 

 

And since I'm on a row, may as well point out that the UX for identifying boons and conditions is unsatisfactory. Statuses hop around constantly. Standard boons and conditions should have their own place in the UI, with separate spots for other bonuses (food/etc), and a clear place for dynamic elements and unique buffs/debuffs to appear. 

 

In the absolute least, there needs to be a baseline design plan so these incremental changes can successfully go in a direction instead of stumbling forward in the vague area of player whims. 

[Mell.4873]

Hmmm I think the balance is fine outside of the current Mechanist conundrum. If anything the balance is has been the best in recent months, much better than it ever has been. I mean PoF and HoT launch was a complete mess with tones of exploits to get you absurd DPS.

This time around we only have mechanist and its not even top DPS.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Kulvar.1239]

Because DPS is the bread & butter of everything in this game, I would say even defensive or support trait line should have some damage increase bonuses.

A good base would be :

• Critical Damage
• Condition Damage
• Survivability / Solo damage
• Support / Team Heal
• Profession Mechanics

[GWstinkt.6094]

Nah.

[ArjukKagrim.6049]

You obviously belong to the golem worshippers, cause pmech IS top dps at most bosses due to being full ranged, inbuilt blink, ease of rotation. The same holds true to a lesser extent for virtuoso. But mech obviously overshadows it.

[Mell.4873]

10 hours ago, ArjukKagrim.6049 said:

You obviously belong to the golem worshippers, cause pmech IS top dps at most bosses due to being full ranged, inbuilt blink, ease of rotation. The same holds true to a lesser extent for virtuoso. But mech obviously overshadows it.

I think it has far more to do with the front loaded damage which includes the ranged element. Most of there power skills do damage right away while most other classes needs some level of set up. I mean "sic em" Soulbeast can get higher DPS but you need to set up the rotation with 2 skills before hand and of coarse be in melee.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Mell.4873

[oscuro.9720]

No. incremental balance won’t be effective immediately, but it will be the best route for long term balance. Bear with it, it will most likely turn out better than large scale balance patches. Anet has been doing a much better job of clear communication, sensible and measured balance patches at regular, frequent intervals. A suggestion to mess with that system is a bad one and will simply lead to more of the same problems that have plagued the game for a long time. 

[Urphen.2857]

First they need a clear vision and balance philosophy, they nerfed chrono in the past, dps and support stm build with the claim it was overpresented in every game mode while in reality you saw them only in raids, they nerfed ele because it began to be "Meta defining", but at the same time they allow now mecha to be everywhere...

e-specs should add new gameplay styles/roles and not something that compete with the other class Specs making them useless because they need to be nerfed so the newest can be the best.

 

[Rauderi.8706]

On 8/31/2022 at 5:41 AM, Urphen.2857 said:

First they need a clear vision and balance philosophy,

 

This. Right here is what I'm talking about. 

At the moment, there is no clear vision or balance philosophy. All they seemingly do is react, underwhelmingly, to player-meta exploits and spackle over design holes. 

 

By now, players expect certain things among a broader pool of wants: 

Alacrity

Quickness

Other boons (why bother mentioning, they go out like candy lol)

CC (let's fix Defiance while we're at it)

Condition damage

Healing

Critical effects/damage

 

 

But also:

Melee dps > Ranged dps (haha as if)

Power > Condition over burst periods

High action-per-minute/skills builds > Low APM/easier builds

 

And none of that holds true. Some of it is because of GW2's very loose design elements (talent spreads, utilities) which are unfortunately fundamental, which is why it needs to be leveled and built with purpose. 

[draxynnic.3719]

On 8/31/2022 at 6:44 AM, Mell.4873 said:

I think it has far more to do with the front loaded damage which includes the ranged element. Most of there power skills do damage right away while most other classes needs some level of set up. I mean "sic em" Soulbeast can get higher DPS but you need to set up the rotation with 2 skills before hand and of coarse be in melee.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that for most builds there's a big difference between what you can do against a golem with a perfect, uninterrupted rotation, and what you can actually achieve in a real fight with phases and mechanics and potentially a moving enemy and so on. For mechanist, however, that gap is fairly small. So while it might not be on top of the benchmarks, for most players in most combats, in practice it performs much better than pretty much everything else.

[Xenesis.6389]

Did people forget that when the game started you had five lines of traits that where clear on what their purposes were for? they even had stats connected to those trait lines to make that even more clearer. Normally the first line was tied to power, second is condi/crit, third is defense, fourth is heal/support, fifth is the class mechanic. These haven't changed much in their roles, other than the stats were removed.

The problem today is anet is just dumping new boons into the game wherever as quick fixes and not actually taking a broader look on the profession and where they should be appropriately placed. Like let's just give mirage alacrity spam on staff ambush while axe is suppose to be that specs main weapon. 🙄

Anet needs to reset themselves and figure out what all 36 specs should do, balance them properly and appropriately, and stop playing favorites.

P.S boons should be used for burst or defense windows, not up 100% of the time, as you might as well not even have boons and just have their effects on permanently.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Xenesis.6389

[draxynnic.3719]

12 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Like let's just give mirage alacrity spam on staff ambush while axe is suppose to be that specs main weapon. 🙄

I've maintained for a while that if they wanted to give alacrity to mirage, they should have done so by reworking (or just adding to) Dune Cloak. Give Infinite Horizon some real competition, and it would mean that alacmirage could have some flexibility in their weapon choices rather than having to go dual staff.

Mind you, part of that is that I tend to dislike 'swap between identical weapon sets' builds on principle.