Role balance

[Freefox.4231]

Good afternoon,

It's been probably already discussion before (thanks if you send me the link then). For me there are things that are not logic with nowadays balance.

 Today there are 3 kinds of main role in the HL content :

- healer (quick/alac)

- support (quick/alac)

- dps

 

Nearly each class can do all or some roles using their elite spec and it's nice ! Somehow, some professions are badly balanced for this.

As DPS should be balanced between every elite spec, healers and support are not but could be very easily... here are some exemples :

 

Warrior : Why does quickness relies on normal skills like banners ? It should be bound to a specific elite spec only (like berserker granting quickness each time it's in zerk mode with maybe some boon duration with a torch)

 

Necromancer : Why doesn't scourge provide alacrity ? Todays it's not picked because it can't grant this boon. Else it would be very usefull but not more than any other healer!

 

I thing these are the 2 main changes i'd like in the upcoming balance patch. What are your thoughts about it ?

[Dadnir.5038]

I think you forgot the "quick/alac" behind dps.

29 minutes ago, Freefox.4231 said:

Warrior : Why does quickness relies on normal skills like banners ? It should be bound to a specific elite spec only

Indeed, the dev's choice to give shared quickness to core warrior is something quite difficult to understand.

 

32 minutes ago, Freefox.4231 said:

Necromancer : Why doesn't scourge provide alacrity ? Todays it's not picked because it can't grant this boon. Else it would be very usefull but not more than any other healer!

Giving alacrity to scourge, honestly, I don't think it's a good idea. The true issue with scourge is that it's support through boon conversion don't work well in PvE. The devs need to get together around a table and discuss the inexistent relationship between boon hate and defiance. Defiance is and have always been the main source of balance issues of the necromancer, it need a fix since 2015.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I think vindicator could use alacrity or a way to give allies swiftness. 

[soul.9651]

1 hour ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

I think vindicator could use alacrity or a way to give allies swiftness. 

I know they are going away from unique buffs and trying to homogenise the game, but i wish vindicator would provide some unique buff instead (since herald is there for quickness and ren for alac). Its kinda sad that they are changing the game this way.

[Freefox.4231]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Giving alacrity to scourge, honestly, I don't think it's a good idea. The true issue with scourge is that it's support through boon conversion don't work well in PvE. The devs need to get together around a table and discuss the inexistent relationship between boon hate and defiance. Defiance is and have always been the main source of balance issues of the necromancer, it need a fix since 2015.

True but it's not used this way in PvE. Best would be applying the specific boon while shielding as it's mainly use this way. No issue that they keep the actual gameplay for WvW or PvP tho.

 

10 minutes ago, soul.9651 said:

I know they are going away from unique buffs and trying to homogenise the game, but i wish vindicator would provide some unique buff instead (since herald is there for quickness and ren for alac). Its kinda sad that they are changing the game this way.

I understand your point but I can't agree with that. They do it fine because gameplay is unique per profession. I like the way that everybody will be able to do everything (after next expansion). For vindicator the bad thing for me is that viktor is useless in PvE as you don't switch a lot on it prefering full dps with archemorus. Well it's still better than during beta when you automaticaly switched to other Guy as you used a skill...

[Mell.4873]

5 hours ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

I think vindicator could use alacrity or a way to give allies swiftness. 

Renegade already has Alacrity so it would be redundant. Unless you did like Mirage Ambush but there isn't a mechanic like that for Vindicator. 

[Mell.4873]

I would love to see Deadeye provide Quickness; it can already provide Might and Fury to nearby Allies.

5 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Indeed, the dev's choice to give shared quickness to core warrior is something quite difficult to understand.

It kind of makes sense. Much like Ranger, no matter what Elite you play you can provide a vital Boon.

Saying that it does limit the potential Elites that can come in the future and might result in (I'm willing to bet they do this) a Revenant + X class mix. This means selecting that Elite will lock you out of any Utilities like Revenant.

5 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Giving alacrity to scourge, honestly, I don't think it's a good idea. The true issue with scourge is that it's support through boon conversion don't work well in PvE. The devs need to get together around a table and discuss the inexistent relationship between boon hate and defiance. Defiance is and have always been the main source of balance issues of the necromancer, it need a fix since 2015.

Yeah, Scrouge is already Amazing as it. Honestly give it to Reaper its already suffering and would really synergies well with lower cooldowns + Self-Quickness.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

5 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Renegade already has Alacrity so it would be redundant. Unless you did like Mirage Ambush but there isn't a mechanic like that for Vindicator. 

I don't see how it's redundant if they're different elite specs? It's just more options, and it would open up power/alac or heal/alac on vindicator. It's actually capable of some decent healing but lacks the boon support needed to be a meta pick. Renegade doesn't have a heal build in the meta either. 

[Mell.4873]

41 minutes ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

I don't see how it's redundant if they're different elite specs? It's just more options, and it would open up power/alac or heal/alac on vindicator. It's actually capable of some decent healing but lacks the boon support needed to be a meta pick. Renegade doesn't have a heal build in the meta either. 

I think that's kind of the point. Revenant is all about Support plus something.
The entire spec is about mixing two roles, it was never meant to be played purely one way.

Herald: Boons, Quickness + Power DPS

Renegade: Self-LifeSteal, Alacrity + Condition DPS

Vindicator: Self-Heal Buff, Burst Heals + Burst Power DPS

[Eekasqueak.7850]

2 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I think that's kind of the point. Revenant is all about Support plus something.
The entire spec is about mixing two roles, it was never meant to be played purely one way.

Herald: Boons, Quickness + Power DPS

Renegade: Self-LifeSteal, Alacrity + Condition DPS

Vindicator: Self-Heal Buff, Burst Heals + Burst Power DPS

Problem is that without alac or quickness nobody uses vindicator for healing, it's just power DPS when it's got the potential to be more. 

[Freefox.4231]

Yes scourge is amazing but never picked as a healer on HL content because of this big lack of unique boon...

 

 

@Eekasqueak.7850, I think they missed something with this last specialisation . My point of view, they should have removed this kind of F2 and let the player pick archemorus or Viktor skills instead. Would have been the first spec having 10 skills to choose. On normal content you could optimize your survival if need and go full dps if you play with mates. F2 only remained as the endurance refill mechanic.

 

I think they should go as they did for a lot of professions ; one profession being able to fit the 5 roles [adding here exelling in cdps or pdps and tank] BUT never let a spec being able to do everything. 

 

To go further, best would be something like this for pve only : all classes being able to be powerquick / condiquick + poweralac / condialac + quickheal / alacheal through his 4 specs.

 

Reminder it's PvE only. For WvW and PvP they should continue adapting as it's not meant to be played the same (we already have this skills effect cut between gamemods)

 

[Mell.4873]

9 hours ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

Problem is that without alac or quickness nobody uses vindicator for healing, it's just power DPS when it's got the potential to be more. 

True, maybe if Vassals of the Empire Extended boons by 2 seconds it could be a viable pick for Strikes or Raids.

I guess the real reason is Healers in general are pretty redundant in most content since it's not really keeping people alive, rather it's the boons that do.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Mell.4873

[mungozen.2379]

28 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

I guess the real reason is Healers in general are pretty redundant in most content since it's not really keeping people alive, rather it's the boons that do.

Healers who do not provide Boons are worse off than DPS who don't supply Boons.  In the homogenization of GW2, since they wanted to create 3 support roles (Heals, Quick, Alac) but only provided 2 support slots per 5 man group, it means that again, builds that can compress 2 roles (Heal+Alac or Heal+Quick) will be a better choice than Pure healing or Pure Boons.

If they had left boon sharing to 10 man and groups were built around 3 support slots in 10 not 2 in 5 we might be able to have pure Healers standing beside pure Quick and Alac providers.

At this point I am waiting for Anet to either make Heals+Alac the default combo (and update all Alac providers to have comparable Healing options), or balance all Alac and Quick providers to all have equal Healing capabilities.  Do note, I do not think pure healers have a future in GW2 PvE due to this role compression.  Rather eSpecs that do not have access to Alac or Quick should probably not bother being a healer.

PvP and WvW might find homes for pure healers, or professions built using healing traits.

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Healers who do not provide Boons are worse off than DPS who don't supply Boons.  In the homogenization of GW2, since they wanted to create 3 support roles (Heals, Quick, Alac) but only provided 2 support slots per 5 man group, it means that again, builds that can compress 2 roles (Heal+Alac or Heal+Quick) will be a better choice than Pure healing or Pure Boons.

If they had left boon sharing to 10 man and groups were built around 3 support slots in 10 not 2 in 5 we might be able to have pure Healers standing beside pure Quick and Alac providers.

At this point I am waiting for Anet to either make Heals+Alac the default combo (and update all Alac providers to have comparable Healing options), or balance all Alac and Quick providers to all have equal Healing capabilities.  Do note, I do not think pure healers have a future in GW2 PvE due to this role compression.  Rather eSpecs that do not have access to Alac or Quick should probably not bother being a healer.

PvP and WvW might find homes for pure healers, or professions built using healing traits.

I have seen on rare occasions more role compression. Fractals in particular go much smoother if everyone is providing damage so having one dedicated Support that provides boons and heals is not always the best idea. 

With the newer Support DPS fill the role of Alacrity and Quickness, there is a future in this type of content for a DPS Healer. Normally I see this in form of a Scourge or Mechanist but I don't see why Vindicator can't. 

 

Also I have told people if they do want play Vindicator (or even Virtuoso) as a Healer then just say your a DPS and secretly heal. 

Edited December 28, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Infusion.7149]

Two things: If scourge gets alacrity expect it to be nuked in terms of damage. Last I checked the plaguedoctor variant pulled 27K, not sure now. For a while it was 28K for full viper's (before torment changes rocketed it to 37K). The one place you can output plenty of alacrity is in Cold War when it is the frozen ground week (Frigid Footfalls). Just convert chill to alacrity. Scourge could have had the bonus of boon corrupts causing breakbar damage on par with fear when there are no boons (defiance is a stand-in for stability).

Warrior quickness isn't terrible and bladesworn stacking was used in speedruns due to tactics also outputting quickness.

There's really nothing stopping people from quick DPS + alac DPS and then one healer (say heal tempest mainly due to soothing mist overflow) but it is far less effective than when we had 10 man boons from heralds with draconic echo and 10 man shouts on tempest. I've seen CnD trying 10 man mirage alacrity recently in ritualist gear so maybe a further tradeoff of DPS will allow for things such as the old sub 20K DPS 10 man StM chrono and such.

In WvW people tend to play heal firebrand, heal boon rip spellbreaker, cleanse tempest, heal scrapper, and maybe heal vindicator (urn meme , but also the improved tablet). Of these only spellbreaker has a minor amount of quickness output because firebrands quickness is greatly lowered in WvW and scrapper lost quickness in competitive modes more or less along with herald. Alacrity can  be derived from support chrono wells and tempests if they give up substantial healing (aura heals) to output alacrity.  Since alacrity is from spirits on druid don't expect alacrity from druid.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

17 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I have seen on rare occasions more role compression. Fractals in particular go much smoother if everyone is providing damage so having one dedicated Support that provides boons and heals is not always the best idea. 

With the newer Support DPS fill the role of Alacrity and Quickness, there is a future in this type of content for a DPS Healer. Normally I see this in form of a Scourge or Mechanist but I don't see why Vindicator can't. 

 

Also I have told people if they do want play Vindicator (or even Virtuoso) as a Healer then just say your a DPS and secretly heal. 

Many groups get by with only minimal healing. There's alot of room for your self-heal being sufficient in high-level content, if you're careful with avoiding area attack and so on, so a Celestial healer is ideal.

 

Only some classes can make use of hybrid stats, and Vindicator isn't one of them. They'd have to end up on something like Zealot's, which is alot less efficient than hybrid builds like Celebrand, Celestial AlacHeal Tempest,  or even AlacRen. This is a major design flaw of a class, as Vindicator specifically lacks access to anything but power damage and healing, while every other class can hybridise quite significantly into condition damage and so on..

 

They're just not going to do 15-20k real-world DPS on a support build like Scourge can, for example.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Zaret.1450]

For banners it is most likely related to how they worked before, banners gave unique stat modifiers and that made a warrior almost essential to any pve group, thus creating the old bs, bannerslave, now the new banners are like this for that reason, to maintain the suport style they had, and as unique modifiers are no longer they neede to give warrior some special boon to make it usefull, in pve the 2 special boons are alac and quickness, thus making banners give quick.

For scourge... its complicated, scourge itself is an extremely extrange elite, in the dps side not that much but once you enter in the suport side... well, firstly you dont realy have any great boon, even stab, power or similar arent realy well done in its build, i mean it has problems maintaining 25 might, its stab is... well not that reliable, and it doesnt realy have healing capacity, now thats the bad side, the good one? you have an inmortal ambulance that can revive, revive and keep reviving forever as long as the player is skilled enought, and it had great barriers, that makes it both the perfect class for teaching bosses to new players or a last resort in case things are going wrong, if you added alac to the elite.... it woiuld be better, but on normal or high level groups it wouldnt be needed, while new groups and groups in a pinch would just get more carried, wich might end in a bad habit, so kinda difficult.

In the end having the elites as theyre now is mostly fine, some like rev, ranger, might need some core mecanic... renovation so to say, energy and pets are kinda wonkers and sometimes drag down the class, and other elites need some number changes, and adjustments, but i think scourge and berserk, mecanicaly and boon wise are decently covered as of now.

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Many groups get by with only minimal healing. There's alot of room for your self-heal being sufficient in high-level content, if you're careful with avoiding area attack and so on, so a Celestial healer is ideal.

 

Only some classes can make use of hybrid stats, and Vindicator isn't one of them. They'd have to end up on something like Zealot's, which is alot less efficient than hybrid builds like Celebrand, Celestial AlacHeal Tempest,  or even AlacRen. This is a major design flaw of a class, as Vindicator specifically lacks access to anything but power damage and healing, while every other class can hybridise quite significantly into condition damage and so on..

 

They're just not going to do 15-20k real-world DPS on a support build like Scourge can, for example.

Very true maybe we will get a good 4 stat armor with healing power in the future, a bit like the Dragon armor stats.

11 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

There's really nothing stopping people from quick DPS + alac DPS and then one healer (say heal tempest mainly due to soothing mist overflow) but it is far less effective than when we had 10 man boons from heralds with draconic echo and 10 man shouts on tempest. I've seen CnD trying 10 man mirage alacrity recently in ritualist gear so maybe a further tradeoff of DPS will allow for things such as the old sub 20K DPS 10 man StM chrono and such.

In WvW people tend to play heal firebrand, heal boon rip spellbreaker, cleanse tempest, heal scrapper, and maybe heal vindicator (urn meme , but also the improved tablet). Of these only spellbreaker has a minor amount of quickness output because firebrands quickness is greatly lowered in WvW and scrapper lost quickness in competitive modes more or less along with herald. Alacrity can  be derived from support chrono wells and tempests if they give up substantial healing (aura heals) to output alacrity.  Since alacrity is from spirits on druid don't expect alacrity from druid.

Yeah, I'm seeing it more and more. Again, I have run entire Fractals (even CMs) with some of the strangest DPS + Support builds, where I had to even play Inspiration Virtuoso since the healing was so bad.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Jobber.6348]

On 12/27/2022 at 11:21 PM, Freefox.4231 said:

Necromancer : Why doesn't scourge provide alacrity ? Todays it's not picked because it can't grant this boon. Else it would be very usefull but not more than any other healer!

That would make Scourge too powerful and it might get nerfed so no thanks. It's already a very strong Condi DPS, giving it Alac will make Alac Tempest and Alac Mirage jokes due to how much more utility Scourge can bring as well as how easy Scourge is to play. 

[Infusion.7149]

41 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Very true maybe we will get a good 4 stat armor with healing power in the future, a bit like the Dragon armor stats.

Yeah, I'm seeing it more and more. Again, I have run entire Fractals (even CMs) with some of the strangest DPS + Support builds, where I had to even play Inspiration Virtuoso since the healing was so bad.

In what tier and region? And timezone (it matters)?

Edited December 29, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Mell.4873]

3 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

In what tier and region? And timezone (it matters)?

US and T4 and know idea on timezone i live in NZ

[Infusion.7149]

Just now, Mell.4873 said:

US and T4 and know idea on timezone i live in NZ

I meant timezone you are playing relative to the region your account is situated, it doesn't matter where you live ... you could live in the north pole or Antarctica (one of guildmates used to joke , "hurry up we're going to lose all our power" ... they didn't actually live on Antarctica). 

[Mell.4873]

22 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I meant timezone you are playing relative to the region your account is situated, it doesn't matter where you live ... you could live in the north pole or Antarctica (one of guildmates used to joke , "hurry up we're going to lose all our power" ... they didn't actually live on Antarctica). 

GMT+13:45????
 

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

GMT+13:45????
 

If you play when you posted the above post it is before people get off from school or work if it's a weekday. At best you get people at lunch time on the west coast.

Please see https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/usa


(also sorry topic poster for being off topic)

[Obtena.7952]

The game has never been balanced for performance. I don't think anyone should convince themselves the addition of roles was going to change that. In fact, without extreme measures, that added level of complexity is more likely to make balancing by performance standards harder to do and therefore, result in WORSE performance balancing than before.