[PvE] Balance Lead Update solidifies that power DPS and other DPS Guardian builds will continue to suffer for the next couple months

[Falseprophet.1502]

Don't bother responding to this post if you are a typical boring, pre-canned blue hate, "omg BuT FiReBrAnD" or "lol DH is viable or Power Willbender is sooooo good in open world!" regular who frequents the Guardian forum because they have nothing better to do. You're lacking substance, knowledge of the class, and aren't contributing to any meaningful conversation.

 

I wish the developers (now cmc and his team need to take ownership for the poor balance, enough inaction) actually responded to some of the thoughtful feedback posted on this forum from people such as @cat.8975, @MagicBot.1570, @supporthero.4520, and others...

 

Power Willbender desperately needs attention (see my dual attack post), Power DH needs some knob turning on some of its traits and longbow, core Guardian as a whole needs a redesign on stupid modifiers (Retribution, Unscathed Contender) that require ridiculous boons like Resolution and Aegis, and weapon redesigns (hammer ((the recent buffs were a JOKE)), scepter ((the pathing and damage)), and others).

 

Until there is actual action, these balance lead changes mean nothing.

 

Enjoy your two and a half months off, PvE Guardian mains!

Edited September 10, 2022 by Falseprophet.1502

[pallas.8150]

Guardians as a whole are in a great place. There are numerous other professions that need to be able to do as much.

[Falseprophet.1502]

1 hour ago, pallas.8150 said:

Guardians as a whole are in a great place. There are numerous other professions that need to be able to do as much.

 

15 hours ago, Falseprophet.1502 said:

Don't bother responding to this post if you are a typical boring, pre-canned blue hate, "omg BuT FiReBrAnD" or "lol DH is viable or Power Willbender is sooooo good in open world!" regular who frequents the Guardian forum because they have nothing better to do. You're lacking substance, knowledge of the class, and aren't contributing to any meaningful conversation.

 

 

Edited September 10, 2022 by Falseprophet.1502

[pallas.8150]

No, really - Guardians aren't suffering. You might as well say Mechanists should also start a thread saying how they under perform and disagreeing is meaningless.

[Falseprophet.1502]

4 minutes ago, pallas.8150 said:

No, really - Guardians aren't suffering. You might as well say Mechanists should also start a thread saying how they under perform and disagreeing is meaningless.

 

Your perception is your reality, unfortunately, your perception is quite wrong. Any power Guardian spec is in a terrible spot, arguably in a spot pre-2017. You're just going to peddle hollow rhetoric just to argue on the forums. Please, go do something better with your time.

[pallas.8150]

I play Guardian (Power, in fact). 

[Massimoni.9453]

1 hour ago, pallas.8150 said:

Guardians as a whole are in a great place. There are numerous other professions that need to be able to do as much.

Could you please elaborate further how "Guardians as a whole are in a great place."? Because when I look at the whole picture, I see the following:

 

DPS guard specs: All of them are at least a few k/sec short of where they should be, that's why you never see them anymore in advanced groups. VIRTUES DH sits at sub 36k, Willbender probably lingers somewhere below that, melee condi guards sit at benchmarks noticeably below some even ranged Power DPS. Power guard buffs were underwhelming at best, no Condi buffs in sight.

 

HFB: Got nerfed patch after patch after patch. Lost almost all of its Aegis access and after the latest Empower nerf can't even upkeep 25 Might despite already having some of the lowest healing output. Syg is basically overkill in the utmost of scenarios, the one stack of stability many classes can provide now is sufficient for almost all content.

 

qFB: Probably the most worthwhile guardian role available. Is now being outDPSed by POWER Herald and POWER Scrapper, the former giving 10 man boon extension and lifesteal and can trade some DPS for the best stability skill in the game while also being a CC god, the latter giving permanent superspeed, is pretty much unkillable and has a distance rez. Both don't have to deal with annoying cone mantras.

 

I don't see the "great place" in those things, but maybe you do. It takes arguments though to convince people who don't believe in things mindlessly.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Massimoni.9453

[Falseprophet.1502]

4 minutes ago, pallas.8150 said:

I play Guardian (Power, in fact). 

Ah, yes, the forum white knight who is now the the de facto rubber stamper declaring "guardian is good because I play Power Guardian and everyone else is wrong. But I'll argue that it is without providing any logic as to why it is good."

 

Let me tell ya something -- everything is good in open world, bud. Even that person's core ranger decked out in Bringer's stats.

[Massimoni.9453]

14 minutes ago, pallas.8150 said:

You might as well say Mechanists should also start a thread saying how they under perform and disagreeing is meaningless.

Sure you could do that, but you'd have a hard time finding arguments that support your thesis which is actually rather simple in the case of guard.

[Falseprophet.1502]

@pallas.8150 - since you "play Power Guardian," post something for me:

 

I want a golem log. You can use the typical raid set up for Power. I want you to run Radiance/Zeal/Willbender with Sw/Sw/GS. Standard raid boons, standard raid conditions, and 4M HP. If you break 32k -- I will apologize to you and tell you are correct in insinuating Power Guardian is good. I'll give ya the rest of the day for the log, that plenty of time to grind. Hell, I would love for you to even break 30k to compete with quickness Scrapper (if you hadn't figured this out already, power WB provides nothing to the group 🙂 ) 

[otto.5684]

3 hours ago, pallas.8150 said:

Guardians as a whole are in a great place. There are numerous other professions that need to be able to do as much.

Beside FB in PvE, is there any pve build that is in a good place? No. There is no place where DH is currently good. FB is obsolete in spvp. 
 

From PvE standpoint, only warrior is currently in a worse position. 

[Unicorn Luna.5204]

How is it established?

On 9/10/2022 at 4:40 AM, Falseprophet.1502 said:

Don't bother responding to this post if you are a typical boring, pre-canned blue hate, "omg BuT FiReBrAnD" or "lol DH is viable or Power Willbender is sooooo good in open world!" regular who frequents the Guardian forum because they have nothing better to do. You're lacking substance, knowledge of the class, and aren't contributing to any meaningful conversation.

 

I wish the developers (now cmc and his team need to take ownership for the poor balance, enough inaction) actually responded to some of the thoughtful feedback posted on this forum from people such as @cat.8975, @MagicBot.1570, @supporthero.4520, and others...

 

Power Willbender desperately needs attention (see my dual attack post), Power DH needs some knob turning on some of its traits and longbow, core Guardian as a whole needs a redesign on stupid modifiers (Retribution, Unscathed Contender) that require ridiculous boons like Resolution and Aegis, and weapon redesigns (hammer ((the recent buffs were a JOKE)), scepter ((the pathing and damage)), and others).

 

Until there is actual action, these balance lead changes mean nothing.

 

Enjoy your two and a half months off, PvE Guardian mains!

I play Power WB and DH as they're my favourite styles. No, they're not out DPSing classes played by people who know how to play them well. Yes I'm able to do more than enough DPS for any of the content I do - and I'm not talking about OW. In terms of pulling their weight, they do that well enough. They just don't top DPS charts unless I'm with players that are not performing at their best. Willbender isn't the only class espec that brings very little for the team and its alac share build is definitely well behind anything else providing alac as they can all do that with more boons and DPS or heals - but this discussion is on power builds so that's a conversation for another day.

Functionality speaking, both could be improved, but so could every class and spec.

My questions to you is:

What about cmc being balance lead establishes that power guardian and power classes will suffer for the next couple of months?

What do you mean by they will suffer?

If power-classes+power-guardian will suffer for the next few months due to this, why will they stop suffering in a few months?

What would you actually like to see besides offhand sword turning sword 3 into a dual attack? 

We all know longbow could be improved and that hammer has never been particularly useful outside of niche situations, this is not a new thing.

I don't really agree that retribution and unscathed contender need a redesign but what redesign do you think they need?

I do agree power guardian could be improved in some areas. The bottom line is it's not winning any DPS races on a speed run but it's able to pull its weight in any encounter the game has to offer. So my final questions are: What is it that makes you feel so strongly? Where is the suffering? Is benching lower than other classes really that bad?

You noted that some other users have thoughtful feedback that's worth mentioning, are you being thoughtful with how you engage people in this discussion?

 

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Luna.2158

[Massimoni.9453]

5 hours ago, Luna.2158 said:

Is benching lower than other classes really that bad?

Yes, yes it is if you care about providing a worthwhile performance to your squad. This is literally the point of discussion for every class on every subforum and rightfully so. It isn't directly about "benching lower" as some classes should just perform better than others, its about a ranking that makes sense. And there is ZERO reason for guardian builds to sit that low on the current ranking considering how all of them are melee with very distinctive disadvantages. I have no problem that my firebrand benches lower than a Condi untamed, I DO have a problem with it benching lower than a pMech or a pSlb.

Things that should be considered when balancing a DPS spec which aren't in the current state:

 

Power vs Condi? Condi has to deal with buildup and the occasional cleanse on certain bosses. Has some advantages IF MELEE when enemies are moving but overall should bench higher across the board.

 

Melee vs Ranged? I don't think it is a hard point to make that Melee builds should universally bench higher by AT LEAST >2k/sec if there aren't other aspects having influence on this like P vs C. Being closer to an enemy is riskier and therefore should be rewarded. Especially DPS uptime, an often forgotten aspect, is far better in Ranged builds resulting in better real life numbers.

 

Difficulty of play? In my opinion, harder builds to play deserve a bit higher DPS output because outside of personal enjoyment there'd be no reason to play a harder build over an easier one especially when the easier one performs better...

 

Unique class mechanics/playstyles? There are other unique aspects on some classes that should influence where they sit in the ranking. Scrapper for example basically has godmode outside of one-shot mechanics and has free access to a distance revive which should put it a bit below other specs. Herald still comes with 10 man affection on its class ability. Dragonhunter doesn't have such things yet benches noticeably below those while requiring multiple aftercast cancels through weapon stows to even reach its low benchmark. There are also a few classes that have dodging in their rotation which could put them in dangerous scenarios when they go for max DPS, also a reason to put those a bit higher than others to balance the inequality of golem vs. real encounter.

 

Generally I would do ALOT of changes if I was in charge in the current balance meta with my anchor point actually being pSlb instead of pMech as that supposedly sits in a good spot seeing how little to no people complain about it yet it makes almost as many builds obsolete as pMech does.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Massimoni.9453

[Falseprophet.1502]

18 hours ago, Luna.2158 said:

What about cmc being balance lead establishes that power guardian and power classes will suffer for the next couple of months? What do you mean by they will suffer? If power-classes+power-guardian will suffer for the next few months due to this, why will they stop suffering in a few months?

 

Power Guardian specs, arguably, were hit harder than other specs due to the removal of unique buffs. To answer your question, the reason why they will continue to suffer/struggle/whatever adjective you want to use is due to the direction of this new balance lead update. In the post they write:

 

On 9/9/2022 at 1:51 PM, Josh Davis.7865 said:

The October 4 balance update was originally planned to be our final ‘major’ balance update of the year.  However, we’re changing course a bit now that its focus has shifted to addressing issues in competitive play. We’ve added an additional balance update to our schedule for November 29, and with this update we’re aiming to get back to having our major balance updates include changes for all game modes, rather than a focus on a single area.

 

I've highlighted the important things here to make it easier for you to see. We will need to wait over two and a half months to even have a POTENTIAL change to Power Guardian that we so desperately need. As I wrote in the title of the post, "Balance Lead Update solidifies that power DPS and other DPS Guardian builds will continue to suffer for the next couple months," is well, true, because they've shifted the focus from what we were told was going to be an update in PvE to purely competitive. DH has been on the decline for YEARS, with little attention from any of the balance passes; you can read my post here. 

 

The knob turning damage coefficients on greatsword are not enough because well, you don't camp greatsword, and the hammer changes were pointless because the symbol is still attached to the auto attack. It. Needs. To. Be. Removed. From. The. Auto. Attack. Make Hammer 2 spawn the symbol. Until they change this, hammer will never be competitive. Additionally, power guardians,  @Massimoni.9453 sums this up pretty well,  needs to cancel/stow to even bench comparably to something like qScrapper, that brings subgroup quickness, whereas if DH drops a utility, they SUFFER even more. 

 

I'm not naive to the fact that you can do anything in this game with any spec. That was how the game was made. You've mentioned "holding your own weight." That can be achieved with anything. I can go make a core ranger with full Carrion's and go complete most content (HTCM excluded) in this game whilst being competitive and "hold my own weight." It does not mean it is balanced, good, or fine because you can kill things with nine other people. 

 

You really need to understand that balance =/= meta. You need BALANCE to introduce specs that have a chance to be introduced to the META (optimization). No Power Guardian spec has received the BALANCE it needs to be competitive in any meta situation. Yes, can you play guardian right now? Sure. Is it optimal? Absolutely not. You are inherently at a disadvantage when you play power Guardian because it has been neglected and will be continue to be neglected, potentially, until very late November. 

 

 

Quote

What would you actually like to see besides offhand sword turning sword 3 into a dual attack? 

 

I've wrote in the past that Willbender is antithetical to the design of core Guardian. With offhand sword turning your main hand three skill into a dual attack will allow the opportunity to bring up and introduce scepter or hammer into the Willbender kit without power creeping the condition variant of the build. Holy Reckoning needs to changed to compete with Restorative Virtues. RV works great with cWB, but it's absolutely horrible on the pWB but you're forced to take it because Holy Reckoning is worse. 

 

I would like to see buffs to Willbender Flames. It could be coefficient tweaks or making them proc more often. 

 

I think symbols are tangential to Willbender, too. I think these need to either be frontloaded or pulse around you similarly to gyros on the WB kit. 

 

I would like to see Holy Reckoning reduce the CD of physical skills and give physical skills a chance to proc Willbender Flames. This is two fold. It makes physical skills outside of Whirling Light more desirable in PvE. 

 

Quote

I don't really agree that retribution and unscathed contender need a redesign but what redesign do you think they need?

Why do you care for these traits so much? If you play a virtues DH, 30% of your damage modifiers relies on boons that will more than likely not have 100% uptime, thus creating even more of a disparity in a PvE scenario. I looked at a couple logs for MO recently and most DHs who completed MO have had between 70-85% uptime on Resolution depending on their comp. Aegis is even more unreliable, especially if you play pWillbender. There is not a single other profession that relies on these kinds of modifiers to be competitive. They need to be changed. Give Unscathed Contender the Awaken the Pain treatment or change Retribution to give the 10% bonus with a might threshold. 

 

Ultimately, this design is bad. It's entirely contradictory of Arenanet's philosophy of "better together" seen here: 

 

On 8/11/2022 at 7:59 AM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Guild Wars 2 is designed to encourage social gameplay–you should be stronger playing together than alone.

 

 

Quote

What is it that makes you feel so strongly? Where is the suffering? Is benching lower than other classes really that bad?

It's not just benchmarking. Benchmarking, at its core, means to compare something relative to see how you can improve. Power DH and Power WB bench poorly. It needs to be balanced in correlation to other classes in order for it to be competitive. See above when I talk about the difference between balanced and meta.

 

Quote

You noted that some other users have thoughtful feedback that's worth mentioning, are you being thoughtful with how you engage people in this discussion?

Absolutely. The forums are notoriously known for blue hate, nonsensical posts about how good Firebrand is, little to no understanding on what the issue is that power Guardian builds are having right now, and you can see it here in this thread. 

[Mell.4873]

I thought guardians where supposed to be a supportive class so why are you trying to get high benchmarks for power DPS.
That's like saying a Necromancer should be top DPS with the highest survivability (which it was for a while).

I mean Guardian outside of Condition Firebrand has never had good sustain like you said so why do you think this needs to change. Do you want everyone to be the same....? I mean Trap DH was played in raids for along time due to the Unique boons or Utilities it had and not because it had high power sustain.

To further my point Condition Guardian has some of the highest burst damage for any condition class with Fire being its primary source of damage.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Falseprophet.1502]

10 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

I thought guardians where supposed to be a supportive class so why are you trying to get high benchmarks for power DPS.
That's like saying a Necromancer should be top DPS with the highest survivability (which it was for a while).

I mean Guardian outside of Condition Firebrand has never had good sustain like you said so why do you think this needs to change. Do you want everyone to be the same....? I mean Trap DH was played in raids for along time due to the Unique boons or Utilities it had and not because it had high power sustain.

To further my point Condition Guardian has some of the highest burst damage for any condition class with Fire being its primary source of damage.

 

First, this is not a discussion about Firebrand so, irrelevant. 

 

Everything you've said is pretty inaccurate, especially with developers (and former developers) coming out stating that each class should be able to do everything. Even more inaccurate with the recent homogenization (adding alacrity/quickness/aegis/stability to other professions, removal of unique buffs).

 

"Trap" DH was not played in DH due to the unique boons or utilities it brought, LOL. It was played because it had high burst and good sustain for fights, allowed for signet share (which is gone), interchangeability for SYG, or good utilization of F3. It was also very competitive. If you want to point out raids specific, DH had a pretty good reign from 2017 to 2019, then has been subsequently nerfed and hit hard with the unique buff change. 

 

Don't agree? Look at the Wingman stats for raids: https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

 

 

 

[Dadnir.5038]

4 hours ago, Falseprophet.1502 said:

Don't agree? Look at the Wingman stats for raids: https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

Ah... The ultimate flawed argument...

Joke aside, most professions and respective e-specs (not just guardian) need QoL while the balance team tend to focus on tweaking numbers. That's where the issue has always been as when the quality of life is good, the character feel easier to play and when it feel easy to play players flock to the profession (because it's a game and people naturaly prefer taking the pleasant path than the ugly one).

Wingman simply show what's cost-efficient at a given time. And being cost efficient don't necessarily mean "OP". Contrary to most belief, specs are designed mainly with PvP in mind which eventually lead some specs to be more or less attractive in the other gamemodes. And the more competition there is the harder it is for the less attractive specs to shine in a given gamemode. DH and WB with their respective focus (damage/CC) aren't really attractive in PvE which is why you see few of them in the wingman logs.

 

It's pretty easy to understand, as an example, you won't see a necromancer focused on boon corruption popular in an encounter where the foes don't have boons to corrupt.

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, Falseprophet.1502 said:

 

First, this is not a discussion about Firebrand so, irrelevant. 

 

Everything you've said is pretty inaccurate, especially with developers (and former developers) coming out stating that each class should be able to do everything. Even more inaccurate with the recent homogenization (adding alacrity/quickness/aegis/stability to other professions, removal of unique buffs).

 

"Trap" DH was not played in DH due to the unique boons or utilities it brought, LOL. It was played because it had high burst and good sustain for fights, allowed for signet share (which is gone), interchangeability for SYG, or good utilization of F3. It was also very competitive. If you want to point out raids specific, DH had a pretty good reign from 2017 to 2019, then has been subsequently nerfed and hit hard with the unique buff change. 

 

Don't agree? Look at the Wingman stats for raids: https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

The unique buff change had nothing to do with since it was already at 2% by then.
The most impactful change wasn't even to do with Guardian it was the fact that Power Mechanist replaced most power classes.

Honestly it seem like a Mesmer situation with PvP all over again. If they nerf the most dominant profession mainly Mechanist we will see it being used. Maybe it wont return to 10% or even 5% but I bet it would be around 3%. This would bring it inline with most other professions play percentage in Raids.

4 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Wingman simply show what's cost-efficient at a given time. And being cost efficient don't necessarily mean "OP". Contrary to most belief, specs are designed mainly with PvP in mind which eventually lead some specs to be more or less attractive in the other gamemodes. And the more competition there is the harder it is for the less attractive specs to shine in a given gamemode. DH and WB with their respective focus (damage/CC) aren't really attractive in PvE which is why you see few of them in the wingman logs.

True I guess when it comes down to it Core was really what DH was bringing to Raids. With Willbender being a thing I don't think we will much play since that technically should be better with access to more mobility. Who knows high level raiding is outside most people attainment, I mean I barely touch it so most of knowledge comes from Fractals.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Mell.4873

[draxynnic.3719]

On 9/11/2022 at 5:08 AM, pallas.8150 said:

No, really - Guardians aren't suffering. You might as well say Mechanists should also start a thread saying how they under perform and disagreeing is meaningless.

It's a bit disingenuous to compare comments regarding guardian in general versus comments regarding metanist specifically. Metanist being dominant says nothing about scrapper and holo (in fact, metanist pretty much kills holo by being objectively better at basically everything). Firebrand is still doing well (yeah, condi firebrand technically benches below the competition, but it has other benefits and firebrand still the preferred quickness source) but that says nothing about power DPS builds, which Snowcrows haven't even bothered to benchmark.

To the OP, however:

It seems they had a pretty clear case of having more changes they want to make than they had time for, and prioritised PvP balance because that got left out last patch. If anything, to me it suggests that when the end of November rolls around, it'll be more comprehensive than it might have been otherwise. In the meantime, maybe try something else and expand your stable?

[otto.5684]

6 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I thought guardians where supposed to be a supportive class so why are you trying to get high benchmarks for power DPS.
That's like saying a Necromancer should be top DPS with the highest survivability (which it was for a while).

I mean Guardian outside of Condition Firebrand has never had good sustain like you said so why do you think this needs to change. Do you want everyone to be the same....? I mean Trap DH was played in raids for along time due to the Unique boons or Utilities it had and not because it had high power sustain.

To further my point Condition Guardian has some of the highest burst damage for any condition class with Fire being its primary source of damage.

1) First, guardian is not a supportive class. There are no supportive classes in GW2, only supportive builds.

2) Necro does not have the highest survivability. Large HP pool does not equal survivable. Also, condi Harbinger is one of the highest parsing dps, with tons of CC and boon removal.

3) condi FB does not have good sustain playing a dps build. DH and WB have better sustain when playing full dps.

4) What are DH unique boons and abilities? There are none. The only time DH was stacked back when Feel My Wrath had 8 sec quickness. Since that has been nerfed DH is nothing more than a dps. And its damage is currently on the lower side.

 

Only thing I may slightly agree on is that condi guardian has highest burst among condi builds. However, it is out dpsed by multiple power builds, that have higher burst. So… how is this supposed to be balanced?

 

To add, support is only factored in the damage output if:

1) It is part of the build, requiring no utilities, trait or weapon changes.

2) Using the support does not come at a dps loss. 

[Mell.4873]

32 minutes ago, otto.5684 said:

1) First, guardian is not a supportive class. There are no supportive classes in GW2, only supportive builds.

2) Necro does not have the highest survivability. Large HP pool does not equal survivable. Also, condi Harbinger is one of the highest parsing dps, with tons of CC and boon removal.

3) condi FB does not have good sustain playing a dps build. DH and WB have better sustain when playing full dps.

4) What are DH unique boons and abilities? There are none. The only time DH was stacked back when Feel My Wrath had 8 sec quickness. Since that has been nerfed DH is nothing more than a dps. And its damage is currently on the lower side.

 

Only thing I may slightly agree on is that condi guardian has highest burst among condi builds. However, it is out dpsed by multiple power builds, that have higher burst. So… how is this supposed to be balanced?

 

To add, support is only factored in the damage output if:

1) It is part of the build, requiring no utilities, trait or weapon changes.

2) Using the support does not come at a dps loss. 

1) Yeah I concede that point, I didn't elaborate but I meant the utilities and skills lend itself to supportive builds.

2) Condition Harbinger is giving up its Shroud survivability for more damage.

3) Hmm you might be right here, I'm only going off peoples benchmarks and most don't list the power equivalent for some reason. It does seem like Condition Willbender is better than Firebrand currently in terms of sustain.

4) I meant core Guardian skills + DH hunter power traits and utilities.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Mell.4873

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, otto.5684 said:

To add, support is only factored in the damage output if:

1) It is part of the build, requiring no utilities, trait or weapon changes.

2) Using the support does not come at a dps loss. 

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Being able to swap in something important for dealing with a mechanic, such as stability or aegis, with a relatively minor impact on overall DPS is an advantage. Having some effect in reserve that you don't want to have to use because it'll drop DPS, but which might be the difference between wiping and just pulling through if used right, is an advantage unless your group has that content down well enough that there's no risk of a wipe.

It's easy to overstate how much that is actually worth, though. Condi firebrand benching 36K when the average for a good condi build is around 38-39K? Might be fair enough. Power guardian being so weak that Snowcrows has removed it from the site? I think not. It might not be the top priority, since guardian does still have firebrand, but it really should be on the list at least, and sword and greatsword should be able to be buffed without buffing firebrand in the process. 

[Massimoni.9453]

9 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

To further my point Condition Guardian has some of the highest burst damage for any condition class with Fire being its primary source of damage

The highest burst part is true, however Burning as condition actually sucks. The main advantage of Condi classes is that their conditions still tick if you have to do mechanics or cannot attack the boss for a bit. Burning mostly negates this point as by the time you do something else your whole damage will be gone, resulting in a strange position where you lack the instant burst of Power but also don't have the safety buffer of "regular" Condi. Thief, Virtuoso and probably even Harbinger are far better here, they have just a tiny bit slower rampup but actually have conditions that last more than 4 seconds...

 

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Firebrand is still doing well (yeah, condi firebrand technically benches below the competition, but it has other benefits and firebrand still the preferred quickness source)

I have to disagree here. You already established that slotting for utility reduces your DPS - which is great as so many people firmly believe it doesn't - however:

1. Slotting utility drops you down into support-levels of DPS while coming much shorter in the support aspect. If I go out of my way and play a low benchmark build I at least want to make the most out of it. Also the need to rely on guardian for Syg etc. are gone for a few months now (nerf to 5 man and basically every class and their mother receiving access to stability lately) so I don't view that as a valid argument anymore. If you really run into a situation where you even have a DPS guard (a VERY rare sight nowadays) and need to rely on its support, you are either doing a crazy optimized speedrun strat or your supports are sleeping

2. Condi Firebrand itself has NO access to quickness, you have to directly slot for that which comes with big damage loss, so cFB and qFB are two entirely different discussions. It's only EoD specs that - for whatever reason - have inbuilt free quickness now. During the last few days I've seen more Heralds and Scrappers than qFB and rightfully so, because in my opinion they are just better at the moment

 

54 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Condi firebrand benching 36K when the average for a good condi build is around 38-39K? Might be fair enough

I don't think so. When one only looks at paper values the difference might seem rather small but recently Condi builds tend to favour bleeding, poison (long lasting, no downside on moving enemies) and ranged, while cFB has to deal with burning (+ lingering, small AoEs at that) and melee. Therefore in real life scenarios you are way more likely to reach the 38-39k of the "average condi class" than you are to reach 36k on cFB. I absolutely suck at cVirtuoso benching around 34,5k something while landing at around 35.8k on my firebrand. During my latest static raid clear I experimented and played cFB instead of cVirtuoso on any encounter I could (it's actually shocking how many roles mesmer can do that guardian can't). Result: Lower numbers across the board, sometimes even by a few k/sec, despite getting higher numbers on paper.

In a perfect world cFB and cWB would sit somewhere at the top of the benchmark leaderboard with their only aspect not straight up crowning them the king being that they are rather easy to play. ANet actually made the right step in this direction when they reverted their Mirage nerf, I'd just hope they would expand that.

[draxynnic.3719]

42 minutes ago, Massimoni.9453 said:

The highest burst part is true, however Burning as condition actually sucks. The main advantage of Condi classes is that their conditions still tick if you have to do mechanics or cannot attack the boss for a bit. Burning mostly negates this point as by the time you do something else your whole damage will be gone, resulting in a strange position where you lack the instant burst of Power but also don't have the safety buffer of "regular" Condi. Thief, Virtuoso and probably even Harbinger are far better here, they have just a tiny bit slower rampup but actually have conditions that last more than 4 seconds...

Eh, I think this is actually a strength. The longer duration conditions might feel like you're not losing damage when you have to do something else, but that's just masking the truth that maintaining that benchmark DPS still requires continuing to land hits in order to keep adding more conditions. Sure, burning stacks might drop off altogether while longer-duration conditions might still be running when you get back, but if you graphed your damage, the build using longer-duration conditions would still have a dip because they had a period where they stopped applying conditions. It's just that while a burn build might, say, drop down to zero in four seconds or so and then spend four seconds picking back up for a total of of 8 seconds doing an average of 50% less damage, a build with a different set of conditions might never go down to zero, but it still has a dip and then takes longer to ramp back up again, to have about the same net loss of DPS just over a longer timeframe.

However, those condition builds are more susceptible to losing DPS due to phasing and other condi clears. Which makes burning a bit of a pseudo-power in that it's more resistant to losing DPS due to phasing, but it also gets to ignore the enemy's armour (whether that's an advantage or a disadvantage depends on how much we're talking about).

42 minutes ago, Massimoni.9453 said:

 

I have to disagree here. You already established that slotting for utility reduces your DPS - which is great as so many people firmly believe it doesn't - however:

1. Slotting utility drops you down into support-levels of DPS while coming much shorter in the support aspect. If I go out of my way and play a low benchmark build I at least want to make the most out of it. Also the need to rely on guardian for Syg etc. are gone for a few months now (nerf to 5 man and basically every class and their mother receiving access to stability lately) so I don't view that as a valid argument anymore. If you really run into a situation where you even have a DPS guard (a VERY rare sight nowadays) and need to rely on its support, you are either doing a crazy optimized speedrun strat or your supports are sleeping

Swapping out a single DPS utility for SYG or Advance or MoL isn't that huge of a DPS loss. I'm not saying that condi firebrand (or any guardian really) should be punished just because healbrand or even quickbrand exists, but there are times when swapping one out leads to a smoother run than the relatively low DPS you sacrificed by swapping out Signet of Wrath or Renewed Focus.

42 minutes ago, Massimoni.9453 said:

2. Condi Firebrand itself has NO access to quickness, you have to directly slot for that which comes with big damage loss, so cFB and qFB are two entirely different discussions. It's only EoD specs that - for whatever reason - have inbuilt free quickness now. During the last few days I've seen more Heralds and Scrappers than qFB and rightfully so, because in my opinion they are just better at the moment

It's not quickness, it's the ability to suddenly throw out additional party healing (even if at lower coefficients) or a bunch of stability or a projectile reflection bubble or area resistance or whatever if your subsquad is under pressure and your healer isn't quite keeping up. Obviously, this doesn't apply to cWB, so if that's a build that is intended to exist, it deserves a bit more damage.

42 minutes ago, Massimoni.9453 said:

 

I don't think so. When one only looks at paper values the difference might seem rather small but recently Condi builds tend to favour bleeding, poison (long lasting, no downside on moving enemies) and ranged, while cFB has to deal with burning (+ lingering, small AoEs at that) and melee. Therefore in real life scenarios you are way more likely to reach the 38-39k of the "average condi class" than you are to reach 36k on cFB. I absolutely suck at cVirtuoso benching around 34,5k something while landing at around 35.8k on my firebrand. During my latest static raid clear I experimented and played cFB instead of cVirtuoso on any encounter I could (it's actually shocking how many roles mesmer can do that guardian can't). Result: Lower numbers across the board, sometimes even by a few k/sec, despite getting higher numbers on paper.

In a perfect world cFB and cWB would sit somewhere at the top of the benchmark leaderboard with their only aspect not straight up crowning them the king being that they are rather easy to play. ANet actually made the right step in this direction when they reverted their Mirage nerf, I'd just hope they would expand that.

I think I've largely addressed this. Guardians being reliant on enemies staying in fields is an issue with some bosses, to be sure, but burning is, if anything, better on phasing bosses. It does have the disadvantage of being mostly melee, but guardian is advertised as a favours-melee profession. Mesmer, particular virtuoso, actually feels a lot like it's basically the ranged counterpart to guardian, so switching out a DPS guardian for a virtuoso in a fight where range is useful just makes good sense.

I don't think cFB needs to be near the top due to its cleave potential (the benchmarks don't take into account getting extra tome charges from adds...) and potential to pull out a tome 2 or 3 and save the day. cWB should be higher because it doesn't have those features, though.

And the status of guardian power is just sad.

[otto.5684]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Being able to swap in something important for dealing with a mechanic, such as stability or aegis, with a relatively minor impact on overall DPS is an advantage. Having some effect in reserve that you don't want to have to use because it'll drop DPS, but which might be the difference between wiping and just pulling through if used right, is an advantage unless your group has that content down well enough that there's no risk of a wipe.

It's easy to overstate how much that is actually worth, though. Condi firebrand benching 36K when the average for a good condi build is around 38-39K? Might be fair enough. Power guardian being so weak that Snowcrows has removed it from the site? I think not. It might not be the top priority, since guardian does still have firebrand, but it really should be on the list at least, and sword and greatsword should be able to be buffed without buffing firebrand in the process. 

I agree to an extent. The issue is if you count every support utility the class can possibly access, that will be impossible to balance. Take another class, mesmer. Should the teleport or the projectile reflection be counted against every dps build? How about all possible CC from utilities, condi removal and so on. Are we going to deduct 500-1,000 dps from all guardian dps builds cuz you can slot Stand Your Ground or FmW? I am not saying the answer to this is simple, but it is very difficult to factor this into dps output. 

I would give higher value to higher burst and aoe, which DH does have a lot of. If DH is around 35-36k, that would be fair. Condi WB 37k. Power WB needs a full rework. Its issues are far beyond parsing. 

Edited September 12, 2022 by otto.5684