Suggestion: Improving PvE Boon Support Builds

[Volcanis.4872]

After reading the latest studio update and balance philosophy from Oct 2022, I’ve come to 3 conclusions on how PvE boon support builds should be improved:

1. Granting allies quickness and alacrity should be constrained to elite specializations (no more banner quickness and spirit alacrity)

• Easier to balance and better role definition

2. All professions should be able to grant allies quickness and alacrity

• Debatable, especially with the balance philosophy of “Holes in Roles”, but given that Deadeye will now have a quickness support build, a Scourge alacrity support build seems like the next logical step

3. Granting allies quickness and alacrity should be mostly dependent on traits and/or profession mechanics and not exclusively weapon or slot skills

• Situational weapon and slot skills should stay situational

To simplify the balance discussion, let’s assume all builds invest in 40% boon duration for 100% quickness or alacrity uptime. In reality, some elite specializations should be better or worse than others.

PvE Quickness Support Changes

Spellbreaker - stun and daze grant quickness with No Escape

• No Escape immobilize is great in WvW and PvP, but we can split this trait (skill split) to grant quickness to allies in PvE

Firebrand - no change, except Liberator’s Vow should grant a defensive boon (not quickness) to allies when using a heal skill

• Mantra of Potence and Stalwart Speed should grant enough quickness to allies by tweaking the numbers

Herald - Facet of Nature - Dragon grants quickness with Draconic Echo

• Instead of “using a consume skill grants boons to allies around you” it should be “Facet of Nature - Dragon grants quickness to allies”

Untamed - grant quickness when you or your pet unleashes with a new trait that replaces Nature’s Shield

• Nature’s Shield can be combined with Cleansing Unleash to make room for a new trait

Deadeye - Fire for Effect grants quickness (in addition to its other effects)

• Either One in the Chamber or Improvisation should be required for 100% quickness uptime with hypothetically 40% boon duration

Scrapper - Function Gyro grants quickness with Kinetic Accelerator

• Instead of “when you grant superspeed to a target, also grant boons” it should be “Function Gyro grants quickness to allies”

Harbinger - no change

Catalyst - no change

Chronomancer - no change, but see Chronomancer below

 

PvE Alacrity Support Changes

Berserker - berserk grants alacrity with a new trait that replaces Last Blaze

• Last Blaze can be combined with Heat the Soul to make room for a new trait

Druid - Natural Stride grants alacrity with an aura that pulses each interval when you have no movement-impairing conditions

• The movement-impairing duration reduction can be removed for balance

Specter - Siphon grants alacrity with Shadestep (in addition to its other effects)

• Instead of “Wells grant alacrity on their initial impact” for Traversing Dusk it should be “Wells last 1 second longer" (Well of Bounty will provide alacrity on pulse 2) to help with alacrity uptime

Scourge - Manifest Sand Shade grants alacrity with Sand Savant (in addition to its other effects)

• Competes with Demonic Lore grandmaster trait for those worried about power creep

Tempest - attaining singularity grants alacrity with Lucid Singularity

• Can increase time to attain singularity for balance

Chronomancer - Well of Action and Tides of Time grant alacrity with Stretched Time

• Instead of "the first pulse of a well also applies alacrity to allies near the well" it should be "Well of Action grants alacrity to allies"
• Seize the Moment could also be "Well of Action grants quickness to allies. Tides of Time now also applies quickness in an area when cast" so Chronomancers can swap between Seize the Moment and Stretched Time to grant either quickness or alacrity with Well of Action and Tides of Time

Willbender - no change

Renegade - no change

Mechanist - no change

Mirage - no change

Thank you for reading and please let me know your thoughts.

[Kalthea.4326]

I couldn't disagree more.  The problem isn't that the boons can't be provided by each profession, the problem is that these boons exist and are so powerful that they triple DPS just by having them.  No matter what you do to swap around how those boons are provided, and who can provide them, it won't matter, they will always be the sole focus of any group that seeks to do content at a reasonable pace.

 

In any game I have seen in the past, buffs to attack speed and cooldown reduction are considered the pinnacle of power, as they grant you the ability to perform your actions faster and more frequently. Usually these skills have extremely long cooldowns because of how powerful they are, and cooldown reduction is done in small amounts.  It makes them a nightmare to design around if you give them to people permanently, as now you need to consider just how to make things work with those boons active.  From a pure design perspective, these boons need to be stripped from the game in one way or another, whether that be making them baseline and adjusting skills to provide other boons, or cutting them out entirely, as PvP and PvE balance aren't going to get any better with this swamp of boons and uptimes that people focus on so much now.

 

(That being said, I do like that you provided your own changes on how it could function with the classes. A good presentation, I just disagree with the notion.)

Edited May 10, 2023 by Kalthea.4326

[Noodle Ant.1605]

would like to point out that combat-restricted boon application (i.e. on hit, or profession mechanic requires resource that can only be built up in/through combat) will feel infinitely inferior to playing a spec that doesnt have any of those restrictions (e.g. ren f4), which allow it to be used freely out of combat and in between phases where theres nothing to hit - unless these specs have noteworthy incentives elsewhere

on a similar vein, there are specs that can apply boons with little to no cast-time/setup vs those that would require both setup and still have the ability to get disrupted

in conclusion: i dont believe tying boons to profession mechanic for all especs is really that ideal in terms of the underlying goal (which is option preference). for some this may work, whereas others require more thought (think of it practically, take the first phase of aetherblade hideout for example (boss moves around and evades, spread mechanic, phasing) and compare options against each other)

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I do question if homogenization is a good thing.  It's easier to build with strengths if not everybody has the same ones.  But really, all we've done is move the point of focus from quick/alac to things like aegis and stability.  Even if we give Deadeye group quickness, I don't see it uprooting Firebrand's domination over support anytime soon.  It makes me question what the whole point was if all we ever do is load up on Firebrand + Alac FOTM like we have for years now.  

[Volcanis.4872]

20 hours ago, Kalthea.4326 said:

(That being said, I do like that you provided your own changes on how it could function with the classes. A good presentation, I just disagree with the notion.)

I can agree with your point, but I think ArenaNet is focusing on making everyone having all the boons the norm in instanced PvE based on their balance updates. If you think about it, it actually makes balancing encounters easier if you know your players will have all these boons. I think some professions should be able to provide some boons better than others, which would create team diversity.

12 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

in conclusion: i dont believe tying boons to profession mechanic for all especs is really that ideal in terms of the underlying goal (which is option preference). for some this may work, whereas others require more thought (think of it practically, take the first phase of aetherblade hideout for example (boss moves around and evades, spread mechanic, phasing) and compare options against each other)

I'm not proposing all especs to have quickness and alacrity tied to their profession mechanic. My suggestion is to move away from using weapon and slot skills on cooldown and allow players to choose situational slot skills. The easiest implementation would be selecting a trait that is tied to a profession mechanic, but the trait could also modify some weapon and slot skills (like Chronomancer). I think some professions should be better (depending on the situation) at providing quickness and alacrity than others. Firebrand is quite easy, whereas my Scrapper Function Gyro would not be as ideal. However, Function Gyro has other effects and Scrapper brings superspeed, so if there is a situation where the encounter is largely static, Scrapper might be the better pick than Firebrand.

8 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I do question if homogenization is a good thing.

I think all professions should be able to provide quickness and alacrity depending on the elite specialization, but that doesn't mean all professions in all scenarios will be as good as another. As described above, depending on the scenario, one profession may be better than the other even if they both provide quickness because they can bring other things to the table.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Volcanis.4872

[Dadnir.5038]

23 hours ago, Volcanis.4872 said:

1. Granting allies quickness and alacrity should be constrained to elite specializations (no more banner quickness and spirit alacrity)

A part of me want to agree with you here. Another part understand that it would "force" players to buy extensions in order to get access to these roles and it feel wrong.

For me, taking an e-spec on warrior and ranger should change the boons provided by the banner and spirit trait.

23 hours ago, Volcanis.4872 said:

2. All professions should be able to grant allies quickness and alacrity

• Debatable, especially with the balance philosophy of “Holes in Roles”, but given that Deadeye will now have a quickness support build, a Scourge alacrity support build seems like the next logical step

Why scourge, thought? You push him as the "obvious" choice but he isn't designed for sharing boons. Logically, as the boon sharing e-spec of the necromancer, Harbinger should probably have the choice between providing either quickness or alacrity, just like chronomancer does (The strike damage option on the traitline is disappointing at best, I'd personally put the alacrity options there).

23 hours ago, Volcanis.4872 said:

3. Granting allies quickness and alacrity should be mostly dependent on traits and/or profession mechanics and not exclusively weapon or slot skills

I actually agree with that.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Dadnir.5038

[Noodle Ant.1605]

1 hour ago, Volcanis.4872 said:

I'm not proposing all especs to have quickness and alacrity tied to their profession mechanic. My suggestion is to move away from using weapon and slot skills on cooldown and allow players to choose situational slot skills. The easiest implementation would be selecting a trait that is tied to a profession mechanic, but the trait could also modify some weapon and slot skills (like Chronomancer). I think some professions should be better (depending on the situation) at providing quickness and alacrity than others. Firebrand is quite easy, whereas my Scrapper Function Gyro would not be as ideal. However, Function Gyro has other effects and Scrapper brings superspeed, so if there is a situation where the encounter is largely static, Scrapper might be the better pick than Firebrand.

this was more directed at the suggestions to completely yeet boons from an existing source to another. instead of axing the traits in question, a lot of these builds would simply like additional/alternative sources (e.g. from the profession mechanic/something it does, as you have suggested). like what i said earlier, some boons can function solely off the profession mechanic, but there are those that probably shouldnt (particularly when the 1 source fails in some way) and should instead present players with various options as to how to go about providing the boon. even those that are able to function solely off the profession mechanic could get a few additional options to support varying levels of boon duration, so you dont have to always run x% duration

id assume that most players will just fill the newly opened slot skills with damage skills, and situational slot skills/traits is something pure dps roles should still have available (also isnt boondps just dps that situationally grants boons?). the main point is that having to use the same type of skill repeatedly is not always fun, and if the new way of applying the boon does not end up being fun, then thats no good either

[Kalthea.4326]

11 hours ago, Volcanis.4872 said:

I can agree with your point, but I think ArenaNet is focusing on making everyone having all the boons the norm in instanced PvE based on their balance updates. If you think about it, it actually makes balancing encounters easier if you know your players will have all these boons. I think some professions should be able to provide some boons better than others, which would create team diversity.

The attempt at being diverse would work better if they weren't using a universal boon system where one profession has a far easier time providing those boons than others. On top of that, that doesn't really matter at all since boon uptime is so agregious, there's no reason to run anything except a class that can upkeep quick/alac, then fill the rest with DPS. Now the big issue is trying to remove the damage from boon providers, which will inadvertently hurt the specs more.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

I'd rather a straight nerf to boon potency, so they aren't considered mandatory enough to build entire teams and encounters around, and a nerf to boon availability, so they are used as needed for bursts, surviving mechanics, and special situations instead of ALL THE KITTEN TIME! 

Enough is enough already with all the boons all the time. This game doesn't have to be a college frat boon party. Let boons be an option for specific builds that want to specialize in them but not strictly considered needed for overall performance. Would help to equalize pugs and random/solo OW balance too.

I remember when boons were for bursts and coordination and generated by combo fields more than just skills clicked off CD. Combat was so much more dynamic.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Gaiawolf.8261

[Volcanis.4872]

On 5/11/2023 at 10:10 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

Another part understand that it would "force" players to buy extensions in order to get access to these roles and it feel wrong.

That's a fair point, but I haven't seen a core profession in an organized and serious PvE instanced content. If you want to bring core Warrior to a Fractal, it's likely a casual group and not being able to bring group quickness is probably not your concern.

On 5/11/2023 at 10:10 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

Why scourge, thought? You push him as the "obvious" choice but he isn't designed for sharing boons.

I felt Scourge was the obvious choice for the next alacrity support build since it already has a support role with barrier support. Also, not including Warrior and Ranger, necromancer is the only profession that does not provide group alacrity. 

On 5/11/2023 at 12:25 PM, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

even those that are able to function solely off the profession mechanic could get a few additional options to support varying levels of boon duration, so you dont have to always run x% duration

I believe ArenaNet want builds to require an investment in boon duration to provide high uptime of important boons. Look at the most recent Willbender and Mirage changes.

On 5/11/2023 at 9:14 PM, Kalthea.4326 said:

The attempt at being diverse would work better if they weren't using a universal boon system where one profession has a far easier time providing those boons than others. On top of that, that doesn't really matter at all since boon uptime is so agregious, there's no reason to run anything except a class that can upkeep quick/alac, then fill the rest with DPS. Now the big issue is trying to remove the damage from boon providers, which will inadvertently hurt the specs more.

I'm not sure if this is a controversial take, but I like how some professions are better and easier at certain roles. Guardian should be a great support profession (Firebrand quickness is relatively easy) and Warrior should be a great damage profession (recent Berserker update was a great buff to damage, but maintaining berserk is not trivial). Also, within your favourite profession, you should be able to do any role, but that doesn't mean you will be as good as another profession at that role. If I'm a Necromancer enthusiast, I would like to provide damage for my group as a Reaper or provide quickness with Harbinger. Now Harbinger is not the best quickness provider, but in a casual non-CM pick-up group, it should be sufficient to clear content.

On 5/12/2023 at 7:13 PM, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

I'd rather a straight nerf to boon potency, so they aren't considered mandatory enough to build entire teams and encounters around, and a nerf to boon availability, so they are used as needed for bursts, surviving mechanics, and special situations instead of ALL THE KITTEN TIME! 

Enough is enough already with all the boons all the time. This game doesn't have to be a college frat boon party. Let boons be an option for specific builds that want to specialize in them but not strictly considered needed for overall performance. Would help to equalize pugs and random/solo OW balance too.

I remember when boons were for bursts and coordination and generated by combo fields more than just skills clicked off CD. Combat was so much more dynamic.

Another possible controversial take, but balancing difficult content with the assumption that a group will have all boons is probably easier than balancing content with limited boon duration for certain boons. Now it is up to the group composition to ensure there is a high uptime of important boons in order to clear content with relative ease. There should be a difference between a pick-up group with little to no coordination and a serious static group with defined roles. 

Boons are also an easy way to make a skill or trait feel stronger and more altruistic.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

10 hours ago, Volcanis.4872 said:

I believe ArenaNet want builds to require an investment in boon duration to provide high uptime of important boons. Look at the most recent Willbender and Mirage changes.

these changes were intended to curb their performance, not make them run some arbitrary boon duration. for these two, you might want to note what they give up to simply gain access to shared alacrity - without forcing them to run inferior dps gear, theyd basically be full dps-adjacent builds with the ability to passively fart out important boons

i doubt anet would to slap a boon dura requirement on boondps that can overcap with 0% boon dura but struggle to perform. it becomes an arbitrary tradeoff. boondps builds should have significant tradeoffs (key dps elements) to provide those boons to begin with, and further boon dura would be taken to open up slot skills/traits for flexibility and or make skillspam less unfun. its just some of the tradeoffs arent nearly as big as they should be - hence arbitrary dmg stat to boon dura tradeoff. then it backfires because players now have to skillspam with less opportunity to reduce it (because minimum boon dura is higher) and it stops being fun again

[Volcanis.4872]

12 hours ago, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

these changes were intended to curb their performance, not make them run some arbitrary boon duration. for these two, you might want to note what they give up to simply gain access to shared alacrity - without forcing them to run inferior dps gear, theyd basically be full dps-adjacent builds with the ability to passively fart out important boons

i doubt anet would to slap a boon dura requirement on boondps that can overcap with 0% boon dura but struggle to perform. it becomes an arbitrary tradeoff. boondps builds should have significant tradeoffs (key dps elements) to provide those boons to begin with, and further boon dura would be taken to open up slot skills/traits for flexibility and or make skillspam less unfun. its just some of the tradeoffs arent nearly as big as they should be - hence arbitrary dmg stat to boon dura tradeoff. then it backfires because players now have to skillspam with less opportunity to reduce it (because minimum boon dura is higher) and it stops being fun again

How can you say the changes to Willbender and Mirage were not about running more boon duration when they decreased their alacrity boon duration? While I can agree that in some cases providing group quickness or alacrity should not require boon duration gear, I'm not sure if that can be done with appropriate balance. It's much easier to limit group quickness and alacrity duration and allow 100% uptime with boon duration gear. 

[Noodle Ant.1605]

12 hours ago, Volcanis.4872 said:

How can you say the changes to Willbender and Mirage were not about running more boon duration when they decreased their alacrity boon duration? While I can agree that in some cases providing group quickness or alacrity should not require boon duration gear, I'm not sure if that can be done with appropriate balance. It's much easier to limit group quickness and alacrity duration and allow 100% uptime with boon duration gear. 

because the intent was quite clearly stated before listing the changes? the only time where boon duration was mentioned was for mirage, but not before stating the overall goal of further reducing the damage output of the build. the size of the patch meant that only number changes could be implemented, and no reworks - how else could this goal be acheived without impacting other builds?

the reason why i mention low minimum boon duration requirements is because driving point of the future changes seems to based around "is the build fun to play?". ofc builds will range from 50% natural overcap to (ideally) 20% absolute bare minimum boon duration for 100% uptime. but the reasoning behind opening low boon dura builds is to allow excess boon duration to have more of an impact - so that e.g. mirage does not necessarily need to dodge less than every 5 seconds on average (skillspam). high minimum boon duration significantly impacts "comfort" boon duration space and, especially with similar skillspam/use off cd-type applications, it becomes completely antithetical to the main point of the future changes

but as i mentioned earlier, builds have varying tradeoffs to gain access to these shared boons. making builds require low boon duration is not hard, but trying to balance it with other boon builds (and their own adjacent dps build) is what causes certain builds to require high levels of boon duration in the first place

Edited May 17, 2023 by Noodle Ant.1605

[Kalthea.4326]

On 5/15/2023 at 9:58 AM, Volcanis.4872 said:

I'm not sure if this is a controversial take, but I like how some professions are better and easier at certain roles. Guardian should be a great support profession (Firebrand quickness is relatively easy) and Warrior should be a great damage profession (recent Berserker update was a great buff to damage, but maintaining berserk is not trivial). Also, within your favourite profession, you should be able to do any role, but that doesn't mean you will be as good as another profession at that role. If I'm a Necromancer enthusiast, I would like to provide damage for my group as a Reaper or provide quickness with Harbinger. Now Harbinger is not the best quickness provider, but in a casual non-CM pick-up group, it should be sufficient to clear content.

Normally I would agree with you, except that E-specs were designed to alter how Professions were meant to be played, not further enhance what they already had. Warrior has nothing but DPS E-specs, but has a ton of support options in its base kit, versus something like thief that has virtually no support options in base, but gets changed to a full on support when you introduce Specter. So their class designs aren't matching up with what they claim they want to do with these boon changes, and their vision (if they even have a cohesive one) is just causing more struggles for balancing. Sure, they're "removing variables", but by doing so, they're shutting some functionality out for the classes that relied on some of those variables to function in a vacuum. Take those away and they suddenly start struggling.

[Stx.4857]

What would it do for the game if Quickness only provided 30% attack speed and Alacrity only provided 20% cooldown reduction?  
 

I feel like part of the balancing issues with these boons is just how powerful they are.  Compare quickness in this game to something like Bloodlust in world of Warcraft.  That’s a 30% haste buff but still boosts your damage by a huge amount.  Quickness boosts attack speed by 50% which is like night and day.  You have to have it. 

[Volcanis.4872]

On 5/16/2023 at 9:57 PM, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

but as i mentioned earlier, builds have varying tradeoffs to gain access to these shared boons. making builds require low boon duration is not hard, but trying to balance it with other boon builds (and their own adjacent dps build) is what causes certain builds to require high levels of boon duration in the first place

I can understand and agree with your sentiments. There should be builds that don't need to invest in the hypothetical middle ground 40% boon duration, but it should not be 0%.

On 5/22/2023 at 12:03 PM, Kalthea.4326 said:

Normally I would agree with you, except that E-specs were designed to alter how Professions were meant to be played, not further enhance what they already had. Warrior has nothing but DPS E-specs, but has a ton of support options in its base kit, versus something like thief that has virtually no support options in base, but gets changed to a full on support when you introduce Specter. So their class designs aren't matching up with what they claim they want to do with these boon changes, and their vision (if they even have a cohesive one) is just causing more struggles for balancing. Sure, they're "removing variables", but by doing so, they're shutting some functionality out for the classes that relied on some of those variables to function in a vacuum. Take those away and they suddenly start struggling.

Regardless of the design goal of elite specializations, the reality is not all elite specializations alter how professions are played. Daredevil is just a thief with an extra dodge. I would argue that there is clearly 1 elite specialization per profession that drastically alters how core professions are played. Namely:

Warrior - Bladesworn (flow instead of adrenaline)

Guardian - Willbender (selfish virtues)

Revenant - Renegade (extra profession skills for offensive support)

Ranger - Soulbeast (no pet when merged)

Thief - Specter (no steal skills, but a shroud form)

Engineer - Mechanist (no toolbelt, but now has a pet)

Necromancer - Scourge (no shroud, but has extra profession skills)

Elementalist - Weaver (double attunements)

Mesmer - Virtuosos (no clones, but blades to shatter)

With regards to aligning class designs to boon support builds (i.e. warrior elite specializations being DPS focused and not support focused and therefore group quickness should stay in core specializations) I would say it's difficult to make that argument for boon support builds that already have this unalignment (i.e. harbinger is a damage spec, but provides group quickness and deadeye is a damage spec, but will get group quickness). I think the best fun and balance will come with every profession being able to fill every role (but some will do it better than others).

On 5/31/2023 at 10:29 AM, Stx.4857 said:

What would it do for the game if Quickness only provided 30% attack speed and Alacrity only provided 20% cooldown reduction?  
 

I feel like part of the balancing issues with these boons is just how powerful they are.  Compare quickness in this game to something like Bloodlust in world of Warcraft.  That’s a 30% haste buff but still boosts your damage by a huge amount.  Quickness boosts attack speed by 50% which is like night and day.  You have to have it. 

Changing the numbers of quickness and alacrity by that much will have major player outcry and require a ton of balance. Better for the developers to assume 5 and 10 player instanced content at the highest level to have every boon and then balance the encounter with that in mind. That doesn't mean just give the boss more HP, but perhaps have bosses corrupt boons or have a slow bubble that makes quickness only provide 25% attack speed. 

If a boss corrupts protection into an instant kill ability, then the group needs to adapt and NOT provide protection. If a boss creates a slow bubble in melee range, then the group needs to adapt and attack from range to gain the benefit of 50% attack speed instead of 25%.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Volcanis.4872

[Astralporing.1957]

On 5/31/2023 at 4:29 PM, Stx.4857 said:

What would it do for the game if Quickness only provided 30% attack speed and Alacrity only provided 20% cooldown reduction?  
 

I feel like part of the balancing issues with these boons is just how powerful they are.  Compare quickness in this game to something like Bloodlust in world of Warcraft.  That’s a 30% haste buff but still boosts your damage by a huge amount.  Quickness boosts attack speed by 50% which is like night and day.  You have to have it. 

Full boons should offer maybe a +25% damage increase. or, at best, +50%. The current situation however, where they offer more like +200% bonus, which makes them ridiculously overpowered, and completely obligatory, has to go.

[Raarsi.6798]

Have to agree with a couple of the posters in that certain boons--specifically quickness and alacrity--are simply too powerful, and it's definitely ruined my experience before in the game because I kept getting kicked from strike groups for not wanting to play a spec I couldn't stand playing anymore because they wanted one buff (seriously, I straight-up deleted my revenant as a result of it).

I'd propose one of three possible solutions:

1) Move quickness and alacrity effects away from elite specs and move them to core specs.  This would be the most tame solution, as every profession can bring either quickness or alacrity via some elite spec, and expanding them to being mechanics on core professions means that players could play other specializations without getting ditched by groups for not having those precious, unbalanced buffs.   Warrior is a good example of how such a solution would work for stronger buffs, as you can have a bannerslave build on any warrior spec because it's tied to the core class rather than some elite specialization.

2) Remove quickness and alacrity from the game entirely and balance enemies accordingly.  This would definitely be the nuclear option, and the one I personally prefer.  Buffs that powerful really shouldn't be in the game at all, and if devs are balancing enemies to factor in those buffs (which I'd expect they would for most, if not all PvE content), then that's just a middle finger to anyone wanting to play other specs on a given profession.

3) Change quickness and alacrity effects into personal buffs.  I feel like this solution would be the compromise of the two others.  By making them personal buffs rather than group buffs, they bring more power to those particular elite specs while allowing the chance for players to enjoy playing other elite specializations in PvE content.  On top of that, it would also enable devs to get a better gauge on how powerful those buffs are for the particular specs that bring those buffs, making it easier for them to adjust such buffs as needed.

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Raarsi.6798 said:

2) Remove quickness and alacrity from the game entirely and balance enemies accordingly.  This would definitely be the nuclear option, and the one I personally prefer.  Buffs that powerful really shouldn't be in the game at all, and if devs are balancing enemies to factor in those buffs (which I'd expect they would for most, if not all PvE content), then that's just a middle finger to anyone wanting to play other specs on a given profession.

If (and i say "if") they went with that option, it would be much easier to just make those effects baseline. This way devs would not need to have to rebalance half of the game (and pretty much all of the non-dungeon, non-story instanced content).

[Raarsi.6798]

16 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

If (and i say "if") they went with that option, it would be much easier to just make those effects baseline. This way devs would not need to have to rebalance half of the game (and pretty much all of the non-dungeon, non-story instanced content).

That is true, although it'd still be trickier for quickness since it'd still have to be nerfed if it was made into something baseline for all professions.

[Atomnium.1532]

Agreed with first response, i don't believe that Quickness and alacrity bring anything to the game but a hollow feeling of out-of-pace combat when they are missing.

I am pretty much convinced in this day and age, that the game would be healthier with those boons removed altogether and the base skill speed and recharge improved.

Edited June 10, 2023 by Atomnium.1532

[rotten.9753]

On 6/9/2023 at 1:19 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Full boons should offer maybe a +25% damage increase. or, at best, +50%. The current situation however, where they offer more like +200% bonus, which makes them ridiculously overpowered, and completely obligatory, has to go.

Where did you get that number (+200%)? It's vastly overestimated and closer to +100% with both quick and alac. I can only assume ANet should also take a look at might and fury because they increase your damage output massively as well and only promote stacking gameplay, right?

[Astralporing.1957]

17 minutes ago, rotten.9753 said:

Where did you get that number (+200%)? It's vastly overestimated and closer to +100% with both quick and alac.

Might alone is around 30% dps increase. Fury adds 25 to 30% (depending on build) crit chance, which on power dps is about 60-70% dps increase. Considering those are multiplicative, not cumulative, those two boons already add over 100% dps increase. And then you factor in alacrity and quickness (with, again, multiplicative effects)...

Yes, it is around +200%

[Cuks.8241]

5 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Might alone is around 30% dps increase. Fury adds 25 to 30% (depending on build) crit chance, which on power dps is about 60-70% dps increase. Considering those are multiplicative, not cumulative, those two boons already add over 100% dps increase. And then you factor in alacrity and quickness (with, again, multiplicative effects)...

Yes, it is around +200%

Keep in mind defensive boons are actually even crazier although harder to quantify. But at least there is still skill factor involved for some of them not just mash 1 or 2 buttons for 100% upkeep.

Also alac is just as effective defensive boon as it is offensive. The value here is completely insane.

If we compare this to the strongest offensive group buff in WOW. Bloodlust/Heroism give 30% haste for 40 seconds but you can't reapply it to a target for 10 MINUTES. So 7% uptime (more if the fight takes less than 10 minutes). This spell had a lot of controversy and nerfs in the past for how strong and essential it is.

In gw2 every boon is completely crazy compared to that. 33% dmg reduction, 25% CD reduction, 25% critical chance... All the boons are completely out of hand in this game.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Cuks.8241

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Also alac is just as effective defensive boon as it is offensive. The value here is completely insane.

Yes, i wasn't going into it, because it's much harder to quantify, but cooldown reduction indeed affects not only offensive skills, but also all the other ones - defensive abilities, heals, utilities. In fact, it affects skills that generate boons (including alacrity itself) as well...