Is 25 stacks of might too much for wvw?

[blp.3489]

25 stacks of might provide +750 power and +750 condition damage, isn't that way too much for WvW?  It's way more power than you get from a complete set of Berserker armor and weapons so it seems to somewhat invalidate the tradeoffs you would expect with stats if you can get better than berserker power and also get condition damage just by being in a group that has someone sharing might.  Would there be a WvW gameplay downside to limiting stacks of might to 10 instead of 25?  It also seems that offering 1500 worth of combined power and condition damage to a hybrid class is too much of an advantage over power or condition damage builds, aggravating the celestial balance problem.

More generally it seems like Anet added some very strong boons to particular classes, which made those classes strongly favored if not "mandatory" in group compositions and now they are flooding the other classes with boon sharing in order to allow players to play the classes they want while still being able to share those boons, which is, imho, leading to too many boons without enough tradeoffs.  Reading the update plan it seems like they are only going to go further down this road.  It seems like class design is being designed for instanced group content, where there is no downside to players to having overpowered boons, which is fundamentally different to the situation in WvW where boons from group composition can drastically imbalance what would otherwise be a more even matchup between groups. 

Am I wrong?

Personally I would prefer not to have to coordinate group composition to the extent that the current boon setup favors.  I kinda wish there was a way that one could trade off the ability to receive shared boons for additional stats or better self-generated boons or something so I would have the option of being self-reliant without getting thoroughly run over by groups that are rampantly sharing boons.  Receiving periodic healing is one thing, receiving 1500 extra stat points or the DPS boost from quickness and alacrity is something different.

[Xenesis.6389]

Not much point discussing it, anet isn't going to do anything to nerf boons, players want the dps boons up 100% of the time, neither are interested in boon removals, players want more low intensity passive maximum damage builds, and anet wants to raise the minimum skill level by making sure everyone has 100% access to the dps boons. I would like boons to be used in more of a low duration burst manner, use them when you need them, but everyone disagrees with that, we are well beyond that point and anet will not take the time to revamp the boon spam combat system. 🤷‍♂️

[Dawdler.8521]

Its the same argument as the old ruins or the objective bonus - a buff is always fine, its just too much (or for objectives, too wide).

The "solution" here wouldnt be to cap stacks, but tp balance the actual gain to something merely being a "buff" similar to exotic vs ascended.

If 25 stacks might for example just gave you 10% extra power+condi, we would really just see it as well we of course want any advantage, but it doesnt really decide the fight.

Of course Anet will never to that. They've dug their hole, put up a machinegun and placed mines all around and they aint coming out.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Tao.5096]

I would recommend to not ask Anet to fix or rework any boons.

 

Last time they played with Stability boon it caused lag fiesta so much in WvW and their solution was to reduce the max allowed amount of players in each map by roughly 30%.

 

Also it did introduce stupid zerg builds and fights which of course affected the entire map.

 

You're in Briar and two zergs clash in top north camp?
You have 2-3 seconds lags...

 

And it did continue for years without any fix, rollback or anything...

[aspirine.6852]

2 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Not much point discussing it, anet isn't going to do anything to nerf boons, players want the dps boons up 100% of the time, neither are interested in boon removals, players want more low intensity passive maximum damage builds, and anet wants to raise the minimum skill level by making sure everyone has 100% access to the dps boons. I would like boons to be used in more of a low duration burst manner, use them when you need them, but everyone disagrees with that, we are well beyond that point and anet will not take the time to revamp the boon spam combat system. 🤷‍♂️

Right now they could double the boon strip cap and it would still not make a lot of difference I guess.

[Dawdler.8521]

30 minutes ago, Tao.5096 said:

Last time they played with Stability boon it caused lag fiesta so much in WvW and their solution was to reduce the max allowed amount of players in each map by roughly 30%.

Nothing really to do with stability I think. The lag was more the extended result of expansion specs causing a billion AoE circles and a metric kittenload of passive boons with skills doing everything at once and having traits causing them to do 10x more.

Stab was changed becaused the community demanded it. Just like objective buffs vs old siege, the game had turned unplayable because zergs couldnt move, too much CC. It was called pirateshipping for a reason, a melee push was a death sentence.

Of course that has made it stupid broken with even more boons on the following expansion specs but you get the idea.

[Riba.3271]

I understand why they want permaboons in PvE since most of time people just stand still doing DPS rotation and not having certain boons feels terrible. But for WvW, not having to make decisions just makes things worse

There are 2 reasonable options they can do to adress the excessive boon reliance within WvW:

1. Nerf bonus boon duration (Concentration)
   This would mostly affect sets with Concentration, so minstrel and celestial.. Which also happen to be the most complained stat sets in the gamemode
2.  Nerf boon potency
   Might, Resistance, Alacrity, Stability and Retaliation  have already been nerfed in the past, but another touch up to nerf boon potency by 20-25% across the board might be necessary. Examples: Alacrity would change from 25% -> 20%, Protection 33% -> 25% and Quickness/Vigor 50% -> 40%. Superspeed, Dwarf Elite and other potent non-boon buffs included. This would probably make fights longer across the board

1st option admits that boons aren't supposed to be permanent and 2nd option accepts existance of permaboons but in less destructive manner.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Riba.3271

[Stand The Wall.6987]

25 might quickness fury alacrity

wvw - world boss vs world boss

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

The answer is to increase boon hate.

[Kirevey.5079]

They just need to add more boon strips for WvW. But then again Anet is famous for Soon TM fixes, so, nvm.

[Chaba.5410]

The most cost effective answer is to remove might from attackers.  Just disable it when you're in enemy territory.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[Mistwraithe.3106]

The obvious thing to do would be to reduce the value of might slightly.

I'm a fan of multiple small incremental balancing changes rather than big bang changes, so just drop it by 5 power in WvW and see how it goes.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I've seen the "that guy" signal in the sky.  I must answer the call!

750 power and condition damage seems like a lot in a vacuum.  However, consider what you already have.  A build with a power primary stat with power runes and infusions will have 2647 resting power before boons.  Adding 750 on top of that will give you 3397, which amounts to a total increase of 28.3% in strike damage.  The more power you take away (runes, infusions, 4-stat armor) the more that might does for you proportionally, but that is because you were doing less damage to start with. 

Condition damage isn't as kind in scaling, since conditions have different growth rates.  A full Viper setup with + condition damage runes and infusions will have 1438 at base.  Adding 750 on top of that gets 2188, which will have the effects on the following conditions:

• Bleed: 108 to 153 (42%)
• Poison: 120 to 165  (37.5%)
• Torment Moving: 97 to 138 (42%)
• Torment Stationary: 127 to 179 ( 41%)
• Confusion: 190 to 263 (39%)
• Burning: 354 to 470 ( 33%)

It's definitely more.  Something like a 3-stat major set would have less of an increase.  This is all to illustrate the point that might does very little for you per stack, and even at maximum stacks it has less of an effect on your offenses than quickness does.  Reducing the maximum stacks from 25 to 10 would cut these changes down by around 60%, causing Might to become almost a non-factor in the game.  I'd be against it largely because I already have enough trouble securing kills in this game mode.  But, also know that the duration and number of might stacks granted by skills in WvW are far shorter and far less than they are in PVE.  It isn't so simple as having a might sharing teammate that'll give you 25 stacks.  

Edited May 5, 2023 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[andrewlcl.8176]

No, we just need more strippers. /s

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

You can tamper with might only after reducing Protection and Resolution to be 10% reduced damage instead of 33% reduced damage.

 

The answer is more mass boon removal, but Anet has shown that they want more boons in this game mode so good luck with that.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Lan Deathrider.5910

[Lonecap.4105]

Clown topic, damage is already low in WvW and on the contrary sustain is out of hand. It's been that way since Feb 2020. Damage has been so pitiful in WvW since then, that the game mode hasn't been the same since.

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

Clown topic, damage is already low in WvW and on the contrary sustain is out of hand. It's been that way since Feb 2020. Damage has been so pitiful in WvW since then, that the game mode hasn't been the same since.

In the meantime, thieves still backstab for 10k+, rangers kill within a rapid fire, warriors hit for 20k+ and even hybrids kill in seconds while having the target perma-stunned. 

But damage is low.

[Lonecap.4105]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

In the meantime, thieves still backstab for 10k+, rangers kill within a rapid fire, warriors hit for 20k+ and even hybrids kill in seconds while having the target perma-stunned. 

But damage is low.

If they’re hitting you that hard, then trust me, you can surely sneeze on them in return after mitigating their burst with LoS/evade/invul and they’ll hit downstate.

[Dawdler.8521]

40 minutes ago, ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

If they’re hitting you that hard, then trust me, you can surely sneeze on them in return after mitigating their burst with LoS/evade/invul and they’ll hit downstate.

Ok but you just said damage is low. If you admit that damage exist then... well you know.

[Lonecap.4105]

9 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Ok but you just said damage is low. If you admit that damage exist then... well you know.

The damage only exists by virtue of great sacrifices in build capability, these builds have little to no sustain, even no stunbreaks. And the damage is only possible in very specific conditions.

[Dawdler.8521]

45 minutes ago, ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

The damage only exists by virtue of great sacrifices in build capability, these builds have little to no sustain, even no stunbreaks. And the damage is only possible in very specific conditions.

You're really not arguing for damage being low here.

[Widebody.5071]

Kind of wasting your time and telling off on yourself, 25 stacks of might is the norm what actually happened to you to not want might stacks any longer?

[zengara.8301]

On 5/4/2023 at 6:29 AM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Not much point discussing it, anet isn't going to do anything to nerf boons, players want the dps boons up 100% of the time, neither are interested in boon removals, players want more low intensity passive maximum damage builds, and anet wants to raise the minimum skill level by making sure everyone has 100% access to the dps boons. I would like boons to be used in more of a low duration burst manner, use them when you need them, but everyone disagrees with that, we are well beyond that point and anet will not take the time to revamp the boon spam combat system. 🤷‍♂️

Well, the issue is that nobody is discussing it. Or at the very least, genuinely thinking about what it does. People are just thinking that "if they nerf boons, it somehow turns back to base game", without thinking about baby cages is 5 core hammer 5 guardian CC's or grave well, pulls you in and forces you into air and the immense amount of cc's they have added to the game etc. If you actually want to raise skill level, you increase damage, boons and healing. When damage got nerfed,the biggest change every skilled guild saw, was that they could not kill a blob as easily, because cordinated spike killed 20 less players so 80 people can just wet noodle their way to victory, based on numbers. Then they nerfed healing/boons and now it is impossible for smaller guilds to fight a blob, simply because the "skilled players" that could actually use the skills accordingly, is now limited/waiting to use their skills accordingly. "Burst low duration" just ends up with blob winning, because they got more, meanwhile the smaller guild is done after 1 push

Edit: In "theory" it sounds good, if you completely isolate boons. But in reality, if you chop off healing/cleansing/boons. And at the same time, lower dps. 3 necros that might down 30 people (back then, with dps build) in a 80 vs 25, will now down 10 and wont be able to kill them., meanwhile "burst cleansing" will only heal you for the first random 2 necros that throw their wells where it would hit 25% health, because these 2 necros from the blob are bad. But what about the 8+ others necros that will randomly throw wells that also hits you for 25% of your health? Now you don't have healing/boons nor damage, because the massive cooldown. Suddenly skill does not matter, it is just about numbers. I don't know how else to explain this. But boons are not the issue

Edited May 7, 2023 by zengara.8301

[Gehenna.3625]

I would say it should be reduced to 10 stacks everywhere in the game but it should be part of a MAJOR redo of boons, because just taking down one boon will create many imbalances. That's how precarious the boon system currently is.

It will take a lot of work to redo the boon system and it actually means that the whole combat system will need an overhaul but from my point of view it would be worth it because simplifying things and making boons less powerful overall, will make it easier to tweak and will solve various other issues.

But I'm not convinced at all that Anet wants to do this to begin with. I'm slightly hopeful now considering they're making some changes in the background that should allow them to do more with the game but who knows?

It may be a strength of the game that the combat system is so convolulted complex, but it also is its biggest weakness imo. It affects everything from (content) difficulty to inequality/imbalances. And those are the biggest complaints when you think about it. 

In the end it's not just an issue for WvW, but WvW definitely suffers the most from the inequalities it creates...imo of course.

[Thomas.2564]

Dont see the issue with boon sharing. Since it's accesable to everyone. Wvw is ment to be a coop battlefield. Roaming is a dead comcept these days 😂 since basically 90% of anyone running around alone these days, is playing some build based on out sustaining his apponent, rather then actually trying to kill him. Which is just boring af.  And this concept is apparently the present and the future of wvw. So dont expect the boon balling to end. Easier to just accept it imo.