Are Core builds supposed to just be for levelling?

[wasss.1208]

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 Hats off, well written post.
 

1 hour ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Sure, but this is something Anet has NEVER excelled at in 10 years. Not sure why we should just assume they'll get better at it simply because some want Core to be equivalent to especs. Let's be realistic and realize that this is TOO MUCH of a load for them to balance.

A-net has a bad track record, when it comes to balancing. But lately, the patches feel less of a "Why did you do that? This is just change, for the sake of changing.", to "Yeah, I can see the idea behind it, even if I don't agree.".
 

 

1 hour ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Let's breakdown a power rev for example.

I'm going to be honest, I'm not hot on Revenant... or anything, that isn't Engineer at the moment, so excuse me for not keeping my post to the same quality, as you did.

The idea would be for the first round would be moving power from elit specs, to the core specs. They started with that, when it came to Engineer. Laser's Edge, for example, used to be at 25% at one point, then it got nerfed back, and that power went into the Explosives traitlines, to Glass Cannon, and Big Boomer.
Vindicator offers 25% in modifiers, and 240 power. This could be moved to one of the dedicated power traitlines. Or looking at the general state of the Revenant, they might want to give more power to core, for the damage, that they moved from Vindi. Like lowering the mods by 10%, but spreading 20% across the core lines. This way Vindi got a buff, and Core got much better.

The other thing they could do, is doing something with the Core specific F2. They could put a burst of damage, condition, heal, and something defensive, to the respective Legends. They could split these to have 0.001 mod in competitive modes, if they don't want this to be any more useful, than what they are now. This way, they gave Core an exclusive buff.

Other than these, they could decide, to put more damage, into a traitline, where they feel like it, even, if it feels odd. Think about Water on Ele, which has a 10-20% mod, for some reason. Or even some of the reworked traits in Warriors Defense traitline gives them bonus damage, on their CC heavy weapons, and more damage, when they have stability... the same trait gives them stability, after a CC. Or Engineers Tools line is supposed to be a utility line, yet it gets ~25% in modifiers after the patch, Static Discharge, reduced toolbelt CD, that leads to more damage, and Gadgeteer, which is more damage, because of Throw Mines... this is what I was referring to, when I said "clever designing".

Last resort would be a full overhaul, for a traitline, which they are doing anyways, for one or two lines, at every major balance patch. To bring an another Engineer example, the only damaging Explosives grandmaster trait used  to be Shrapnel. It gave power builds 200 dps. After the rework, we got Big Boomer, that sits at +15% at the moment.

Obviously, if a profession needs all of this, to get a competitive core build, it is a lot of workhour, and we might never see it happening, so my whole spitballing here is just entertaining a tought.

 

2 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

As I mentioned in my first post PvP/WvW is an exception in far more cases than pve due to the nature of the gamemode.

Good reasoning. My first tought about PvE being easier to balance is, because to me, if I can hit above 30k with something, I consider it viable, and I'll bring it as a DPS. PvP/WvW needs a much deeper understanding of what is going on, to hit a good balance between defense, offense, mobility, utility...
 

 

2 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Also I don't care about f2p or core players feeling like second class citizens that's not a valid concern for me.

Fair enough. In my oppinion, having a good f2p experience is important, to bring in new people. If they join PvP, and get steamrolled, because their spec is criminally undertuned, that isn't fun. Same, for getting kicked from dungeon/fractal, because their current spec realisticly can't hit, what a boondps does. These are a bit over exaggerated, I know, but I can see it happening rarely, and a bad experience like this could lead to a newcomer to quit.

Aside from f2p and core players, I very much enjoy playing core builds, despite owning every expac. I do enjoy bringing Core Engineer into instanced content atm, and I would bring other core builds, if they had a viable option for it.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

1 hour ago, wasss.1208 said:

@LucianTheAngelic.7054 Hats off, well written post.

Thank you! appreciate it, same to you!

1 hour ago, wasss.1208 said:

I'm going to be honest, I'm not hot on Revenant... or anything, that isn't Engineer at the moment, so excuse me for not keeping my post to the same quality, as you did.

The idea would be for the first round would be moving power from elit specs, to the core specs. They started with that, when it came to Engineer. Laser's Edge, for example, used to be at 25% at one point, then it got nerfed back, and that power went into the Explosives traitlines, to Glass Cannon, and Big Boomer.
Vindicator offers 25% in modifiers, and 240 power. This could be moved to one of the dedicated power traitlines. Or looking at the general state of the Revenant, they might want to give more power to core, for the damage, that they moved from Vindi. Like lowering the mods by 10%, but spreading 20% across the core lines. This way Vindi got a buff, and Core got much better.

The other thing they could do, is doing something with the Core specific F2. They could put a burst of damage, condition, heal, and something defensive, to the respective Legends. They could split these to have 0.001 mod in competitive modes, if they don't want this to be any more useful, than what they are now. This way, they gave Core an exclusive buff.

Other than these, they could decide, to put more damage, into a traitline, where they feel like it, even, if it feels odd. Think about Water on Ele, which has a 10-20% mod, for some reason. Or even some of the reworked traits in Warriors Defense traitline gives them bonus damage, on their CC heavy weapons, and more damage, when they have stability... the same trait gives them stability, after a CC. Or Engineers Tools line is supposed to be a utility line, yet it gets ~25% in modifiers after the patch, Static Discharge, reduced toolbelt CD, that leads to more damage, and Gadgeteer, which is more damage, because of Throw Mines... this is what I was referring to, when I said "clever designing".

Last resort would be a full overhaul, for a traitline, which they are doing anyways, for one or two lines, at every major balance patch. To bring an another Engineer example, the only damaging Explosives grandmaster trait used  to be Shrapnel. It gave power builds 200 dps. After the rework, we got Big Boomer, that sits at +15% at the moment.

Obviously, if a profession needs all of this, to get a competitive core build, it is a lot of workhour, and we might never see it happening, so my whole spitballing here is just entertaining a tought.

 

Yeah they definitely CAN do it, but I think it's far too much work generally and I do think it potentially leads to really bloated traitlines in core that do way too much. I already don't like the direction they've taken in a lot of professions where they've been mixing damage types in traitlines not intended for a different type of damage (for example, Devastation on Rev now gives All Damage despite traditionally being a strike damage only line). Perhaps this is just preference though.

I also think Elites should, well, be Elite and be notable for being that. I never liked their "Elites are a sidegrade" philosophy (which never happened really). At that point why even call them Elites? I've always seen Elites as being the focus and the core profession as being the shell molded into a direction into an Elite.

 

1 hour ago, wasss.1208 said:

Good reasoning. My first tought about PvE being easier to balance is, because to me, if I can hit above 30k with something, I consider it viable, and I'll bring it as a DPS. PvP/WvW needs a much deeper understanding of what is going on, to hit a good balance between defense, offense, mobility, utility...

Perhaps this should be the target; allow Core Specs to hit 30k-ish (I think a handful can at the moment honestly, I wouldn't be surprised) and then let Elites do the top tier damage/support. Then at least Core is playable without gimping themselves, but they also don't have to spend years fine tuning it to make it on par with Elites

[Mik.3401]

I think they realised just now that some core specs are busted AF for years whilst others are just bad. The especs were marketed as a new way to play a given class but in practice it is just a massive power creep during the expansion promotional period followed by tough nerfs when the new espec comes.

I think the complaints from the players made them re-think this strategy and just kill cores and make especs more equal. Problem is some cores (Nero, guard) just cannot be killed because they don’t nerf them enough.

So I would say yes to your question, but with the exception of the anet’s favourite classes

 

[Dawnbreaker.4901]

I played a Core build on my Necromancer for nine years before Harbinger was introduced. I'm considering going back to that build since, while, I don't hate Harbinger, I'm not really playing the specialization well and find myself making mistakes with it. I don't enjoy playing the Reaper or Scourge specializations either. I feel similarly with many of the other classes' elite specialization options.

Mirage is probably the elite specialization I enjoy playing the most, with Core Mesmer being one of the more unfun/annoying classes to play.

[Stx.4857]

There's no reason they can't update and improve the undertuned core traitlines.

 

Tools for engineer, acrobatics for thief just to name a few.

 

For those saying it would be hard to balance...  how?   Currently for PvE, you just take your elite spec of choice and then the best two core trait lines for dps.  For example, engineer always takes explosives and firearms, thief takes critical strikes and deadly arts.

 

So how would it be imbalanced to buff tools dps for engineer?  You aren't going to see tools replace holosmith, Scrapper, or mechanist...  if anything you may be able to play tools/explosives or tools/firearms.  And also if you did want to play a core build, tools/firearms/explosives would be closer to elite spec dps which is fine...  it's still not going to replace the spec mechanics, just gives more options.

[Ashgar.3024]

Core specs are all rounders and in a lot of scenarios they can be as good or even better than Elites. PvP and WvW roaming comes to mind.

 

They don't shine in PvE group content because players are encouraged to hyperspecialize in that type of activity, something better done by Elites.

Edited September 28, 2022 by Ashgar.3024