WvW Players - What are your thoughts on Boon Strips for WvW?

[blp.3489]

Here's the balance team comments on boon strips:

It's at 1:21:19 if it doesn't jump there automatically.

Quote

The goal here is that... we'll probably end up reducing a lot of boons in a future update, we haven't gotten to a lot of boon adjustments in this patch... bring down the number of boon rips overall because that is part of our goals for WvW in the long term... we want the boon/boon rip balance to be in a sensible spot... this particular set of changes might push a little bit toward boons are very good and very prevalent meta... That also potentially enables pushing a bit more and getting into those melee fights instead of camping at range and getting boon ripped at range and not being able to really push in...

I'm not great at transcribing so listen for yourself...

Edited June 11, 2023 by blp.3489
Added partial transcript

[Xenesis.6389]

Spoken like a dev who doesn't play wvw.

99% boon spam 1% boon removal = balance

Like I said this is what they're aiming for.

I'll be waiting for when these guilds get bored because there's no challenge and I'll be the first to say, I told you so.

[Meva.8327]

At 01:22:24

"The reduction of all those ranged boon rips is to bring down the number of boon rips overall: that is part of our goals for WvW in the long term. We want boon balance to be in a sensible spot. This particular set of changes may push a little bit more towards the very good and very prevalent meta, but that also potentially enables pushing a little bit more and getting into those melee fights instead of camping at range and getting boon ripped at range and not being able to really push in."

Translation: playing melee boonballs is meta and we want to be even more meta. Any counter to boonballs bulldozing their way to victory will be purged.

Seriously, if this guy is one of those responsible for balance I can understand why ANet has a perfect track record of 15-plus-years of balance incompetence.

ANet should create test realms, or at the very least test days, to properly assess the effect of their whimsical updates. Having hard data to help them make the best decision is sorely needed.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Meva.8327
reverted version to be consistent with quoting

[Xenesis.6389]

54 minutes ago, Meva.8327 said:

At 01:22:24

"The reduction of all those ranged boon rips is to bring down the number of boon rips overall: that is part of our goals for WvW in the long term. We want boon balance to be in a sensible spot. This particular set of changes my push a little bit more towards the very good and very prevalent meta, but that also potentially enables pushing a little bit more and getting into those melee fights instead of camping at range and getting boon ripped at range and not being able to really push in."

Translation: playing melee boonballs is meta and we want to be even more meta. Any counter to boonballs bulldozing their way to victory will be purged.

Seriously, if this guy is one of those responsible for balance I can understand why ANet has a perfect track record of 15-plus-years of balance incompetence.

ANet should create test realms, or at the very least test days, to properly assess the effect of their whimsical updates. Having hard data to help them make the best decision is sorely needed.

I'd guess he doesn't know why fights start at range, to bait the strip/damage bombs first, sometimes that requires two or three baits if the enemy commander is smart, then load up your defenses and push through. Which if you think about it, the alacrity spam now counteracts and delays that even longer as you have shorter windows to push before aoes reload. 😏

Your boons are not getting ripped at range to any effect because you reload them before your actual push. Not to mention you should be moving and repositioning to avoid those bombs in the first place. They want to make it so there's no fear of pushing and really there should be, every player should be afraid to step into aoe bombs, and you should also use the reactive tools to get out of them and reposition, whether that's your dodge, stun break, stability, invul, etc. Not freely run over everything.

If they're so afraid of range they might as well nerf every aoe down to 450 range and call it a day. Notice how none of the cc's are getting nerfed, and they are the other major component to stop pushes and affecting the most important boon of all in stability. Ping pong bubble hasn't even been touched yet, in fact it's getting yet another cooldown reduction lmao. Wouldn't be surprised if the new meta drops necros and adds another guard for even more stability and ping pong combat.

To avoid all this balancing mess in the first place all they had to do was turn stability back into it's own self like super speed, one simple solution to solve the pushing problem. 🤷‍♂️

I see groups pushing every day, like what clown world wvw is the dev playing in to think it's pirate ship dominated combat. 2015 called, it said Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Men Tell No Tales 2017 is the last of the series.

🤷‍♂️

P.S Imagine having siege that is anti-personnel by designed, can hit up to 50 people, but it only tickles them. Next let's nerf arrow carts because they take away aegis from 2800 range! - Anet balance philosophy 2023

Edited June 11, 2023 by Xenesis.6389

[Hotride.2187]

Permaboons make this game into garbage, in any game mode. Reducing/removing boonrip from wvw is just lol.

[Abjurer.9302]

2 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

To avoid all this balancing mess in the first place all they had to do was turn stability back into it's own self like super speed, one simple solution to solve the pushing problem.

I was thinking this as well let CCs, stun breaks, and stability exist in a separate area for balancing.  Then let corrupts be the counter to boons like it was intended before the expansions were released.

Edited June 11, 2023 by Abjurer.9302

[ZTeamG.4603]

The change to boonrips honestly feels so out of touch that you could tell me it's an attempt at accelerationism--intentionally pushing the meta towards a worst case endpoint in order to have an excuse to rework the whole thing--and I'd believe you.  

Boonballs are one of the least fun aspects of the game mode. Heck, the only thing less fun is when the map is empty.

Playing in boonballs is either a snooze fest against lower number/less organized opponents or a lag fest against similar numbers, not to mention that being in such a large zerg usually means you can't see anything but red circles, you can't really take advantage of the movement that makes GW2 fun since you need to stay near the commander to get both boons and healing, and your individual contribution overall feels minimal.

Fighting against boonballs, on the other hand, ranges from incredibly boring to impossible unless you have your own. With how much Anet has buffed boon application and healing over the years, it usually isn't even worth trying to fight a boonball unless you have similar numbers and organization--and given how unbalanced the population usually is, you rarely do. 

 

Multiple facets of this upcoming balance patch just make boonballs stronger, from buffing cooldowns and heals to removing boonrips. Reducing boons overall would be a welcome change, but what we really need to make WvW more fun is three things:

-Reduced boon application so that boonballs don't have such high boon uptime.

-Higher target caps on offensive abilities--much higher--while keeping defensive/support abilities at 5 targets.  This way, groups can both actually get punished for braindead stacking and smaller groups and decentralized groups can actually stand a chance against the boonballs. Back before HoT, a skilled group of 15 could kill half of a group of 50 if they got the jump on them. With over-tuned support and pitiful target caps, that's impossible to do today. Is the vision for GW2's gameplay really "groups should be able to just stand in one spot and easily out-sustain anything and everything thrown at them by a smaller group"?

Heck, maybe even do a bonus week (like no downstate week) where all offensive target caps are set at 50. That'd be fun, and that'd actually result in a much more interesting and decentralized meta than what we have today.

-MORE boonrips. The current state of boonrips is already far too little. The sheer boon application most support classes have is ridiculous, and none of the current area boonrips even come close to outpacing boon application unless the enemy is standing still and alone in 5 different boonrip AoEs at once. Reducing boonrips is a terrible idea.

 

[Kirevey.5079]

Aren't some of the devs in charge of balance in a discord server with a bunch of guild leaders from guild that run heavy boonballs and there is where they talk about some balance ideas ? If the only feedback they are listening to is these kind of ppl, which are favored by the boon meta, then there is little hope for the game mode.

Every time I see someone from anet playing in WvW the only thing I can think of is that they have absolutely no clue on how to play the game, and every time I see them play they are following a big kitten boon ball group.

I feel that the game should reward good groups for using skills properly, instead of letting everyone just play longer by default. Look at guilds like ViP, BADA, BB, FOXY, etc. These are ppl that literally live more than 15s in a fight because they either outnumber the other team or they just SIT STILL and take damage until their CDs are all used. Then look at how many of the old 'fight guilds' stopped playing the game because their skill was just overlook by the constant spamming of kitten that other groups can do.

[Gorani.7205]

I am an Ele main, so having less boon strip skills is not a problem. I never had any. 😂

[Ferus.3165]

all anet devs have to do now (but ofc that won't happen) is to severely limit the ability to share boons.

What i mean is that you still get your own boons just fine, but e.g. every boon you share has only 20% of its current duration. That way you can still buff up for a quick push but it has to be coordiated and those boons don't just have a 24/7 uptime on everyone in the squad.

[Rosangelina.3694]

I think they definitely need more boon rips not less... plus I hate that they're changing much of necro boon corruption into just removing boons. I don't even play scourge or heavy condi builds on my necro usually, but the corruption was part of the identity of necro (not to mention it was simply fun to do to punish the overwhelming boon spam)...

Gotta say after returning to the game/wvw from pre-HoT days for the last few months it has been quite jarring. I was thinking that at the very least they should add more boonrips not less. But this is from someone who prefers small havoc and roaming, I hate just sitting in a massive zerg running over everything (or being run over by one lol). And now those scenarios will get even more prevalent,, wonderful.. Something tells me the devs play very little competitively outside the safety of their boonballs.

[scerevisiae.1972]

Agree the boon rip comments and nerfs feel very out of touch with the current game. Should be more boonstrips not fewer.

[Cogadh.1845]

At this stage just merge all squad members into one player model and give the commander full control with three abilities, 'damage', 'heal', and 'all the boons' that are autocast. Thats basically what wvw is turning into. 

[Floz.8904]

On 6/11/2023 at 8:06 AM, Bunbury.8472 said:

well, let's see if anyone at all approves of this weak kitten patch.

cos right now it seems like the Devs couldn't be more out of touch.

Straight up think this is a good change. It's encouraging a different playstyle and shaking the meta of necro scepter 3 up. You can still get equivalent rips with different builds.

Surprisingly, it sounds like >50% of players cant compete with organised guilds and even more surprisingly, people want PoF scourge back which literally had game breaking mechanics.

It shouldn't ever be an even application of boon and rips, much like cleanse and condi. There's a skill in building a boonball comp and executing it well, more so than throwing 3 shades at the enemy and relying on target cap loopholes to rip 15 boons.

[Kirevey.5079]

2 hours ago, Floz.8904 said:

There's a skill in building a boonball comp and executing it well, more so than throwing 3 shades at the enemy and relying on target cap loopholes to rip 15 boons.

That is not true, anyone and their mother can build a boon ball these days, if not themselves, they just go and copy the last build from somewhere in the internet. It almost always starts with a FB for stab, an extra healer/cleanse bot (used to be an engi, now we have tempests, vindi, druid), then a utility support then 2 dps. More aggro groups will run 2 supports and 3 dps. The dps spots are usually a mix of boon strips and spike dmg, and you fill them in depending on what your group needs. If you run less than 20 ppl it gets a little hard to get a balanced comp, which ends in groups running heavy scourges/spell breakers and usually DH o berzerkers for spike dmg. After 20 ppl you can pretty much run w/e you want for dps slots and it just works because at that point you can run over most groups.

I agree that you can run a boon ball skillfully but the main problem that ppl want to address is that the current meta (and the upcoming patch) makes it way too easy to run an unskilled boon ball.

Also something to keep in mind, there is a reason why ppl stack scourges, spell breakers and boon rip chronos, and why pretty much every rev out there is forced into malyx. I wonder what it is.

 

 

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 6/11/2023 at 1:20 PM, Xenesis.6389 said:

Spoken like a dev who doesn't play wvw.

99% boon spam 1% boon removal = balance

Like I said this is what they're aiming for.

I'll be waiting for when these guilds get bored because there's no challenge and I'll be the first to say, I told you so.

lol, my friend, its Tuesday morning with less than 4 hours on the clock and you have me rocking out. Remember I am ageing out here and me dancing around the room is not good for the heart, nor for waking the rest of the household. Now I need to find that knee brace. 

[prototypedragon.1406]

Honestly anet should just remove all boons and see what classes can stand without them and then adjust accordingly. reliance on the boons is defeating the purpose of customizing different available builds, unless you crap out boons and keep them up for 20 to 25 seconds or cycle them into a loop,you are pretty much useless.

[blp.3489]

Given Anet's announced intention to move away from needing to use skill rotations for maintaining boon uptime to having passive upkeep I really find the argument that boons are (or will be) a manifestation of player skill to be very questionable.  If boon upkeep is going to be passive I would prefer to just get rid of those boons altogether and let us freely choose our classes and builds without having to pick one of a small number of class builds that provide perma boon X.

[Dediggefedde.4961]

I have mixed feelings about this question. I would prefer more boon-rip excluding stability.
Most of the time I die in a zerg due to being stunlocked for 5s.
You can have every other boon overstacked and still slag and die if that one boon is stripped.

More boonstrip, but have stability stripped stack-wise.
Or a maximum stun duration of 3s.

[Floz.8904]

On 6/13/2023 at 9:47 AM, Kirevey.5079 said:

That is not true, anyone and their mother can build a boon ball these days, if not themselves, they just go and copy the last build from somewhere in the internet. It almost always starts with a FB for stab, an extra healer/cleanse bot (used to be an engi, now we have tempests, vindi, druid), then a utility support then 2 dps. More aggro groups will run 2 supports and 3 dps. The dps spots are usually a mix of boon strips and spike dmg, and you fill them in depending on what your group needs. If you run less than 20 ppl it gets a little hard to get a balanced comp, which ends in groups running heavy scourges/spell breakers and usually DH o berzerkers for spike dmg. After 20 ppl you can pretty much run w/e you want for dps slots and it just works because at that point you can run over most groups.

I agree that you can run a boon ball skillfully but the main problem that ppl want to address is that the current meta (and the upcoming patch) makes it way too easy to run an unskilled boon ball.

Also something to keep in mind, there is a reason why ppl stack scourges, spell breakers and boon rip chronos, and why pretty much every rev out there is forced into malyx. I wonder what it is.

 

 

I mean yeah, you've got valid points that anyone can slap a boonball together  but your points are dependent on running an actual comp where you need to build it based on 5 different variables per line and ensure you spec for the right builds. There's variance and skill expression in comped play more so than there is in clouds of scourges throwing rips.

The alternative to it being easy to run unskilled boonballs is that it's easy to run unskilled boon ripping classes.

100% agree that the majority of 30-50 man zergs are unskilled players. With more rips, you'll see the exact same issue and then you'll be faced by comped boon balls with more innate rips also. It's a net loss to introduce even more rips for everyone imo.

Just make boon access in builds cost more and remove pack runes and dura runes. At that point your boonballs are harder to attain or at least cost a group something else.

[Meva.8327]

26 minutes ago, Floz.8904 said:

The alternative to it being easy to run unskilled boonballs is that it's easy to run unskilled boon ripping classes.

I respectfully yet wholeheartedly disagee.

Boon rips are very situational and tactical. For example, you want to ensure you removed protection before your burst, or stability before your CC. On the other hand, getting your boons on is super simple: almost bolied down to smash buttons on cooldown.

Therefore, boon ripping builds are definitely FAR from unskilled. On the contrary, I would argue that they are the hardest to master.

[cyberzombie.7348]

On 6/13/2023 at 5:56 AM, blp.3489 said:

Given Anet's announced intention to move away from needing to use skill rotations for maintaining boon uptime to having passive upkeep I really find the argument that boons are (or will be) a manifestation of player skill to be very questionable.

Which puts a question mark on the balance direction. First they wanted to reduce ttk with the Feb2020 nerf, but now they're saying they want to ramp up the dps... by making perma quickness/alacrity a thing. 

No fine-tuning damage coefficients, surgical nerfs to sustain, or even ironing out some of the aftercast jank... just ramp up the game's already high APM in one of the most inorganic ways possible.

[Kirevey.5079]

2 hours ago, Floz.8904 said:

your points are dependent on running an actual comp where you need to build it based on 5 different variables per line and ensure you spec for the right builds.

I can't agree with this right now, because pretty much every class out there has a meta build to run, and there is little to no expression on those builds because pretty much all supports run minstrel, and all dps run mara, dragon or zerker. The little variance in builds like changing some traits rarely makes a difference in how the group ends up playing, which is keep stacked together, move as one, use your skills and repeat. 

2 hours ago, Floz.8904 said:

The alternative to it being easy to run unskilled boonballs is that it's easy to run unskilled boon ripping classes.

I don't see anything wrong with something like that. If unskilled players are able to just spam boons, why shouldn't those same bad players be able to spam boon strips ? It would still make a difference for skilled players that would know when to use those skills. Also, unless you are actually doing some kind of coordination for strips, they are ineffective, because spamming a boons trip here and there is countered by someone just getting the boons they lost almost immediately. Boon strips only become effective with some kind of setup, and allow good players to punish bad groups.

2 hours ago, Floz.8904 said:

100% agree that the majority of 30-50 man zergs are unskilled players. With more rips, you'll see the exact same issue and then you'll be faced by comped boon balls with more innate rips also. It's a net loss to introduce even more rips for everyone imo.

This is more of a problem with the game mode, it just doesn't scale well with big numbers. I'd rather have those big groups have more boon strips so their big boon ball fights end faster, rather that just having the current one where every single fight last forever for no reason at all. More access to thoe strips opens the chance for skilled smaller groups to have a chance to fight too.

 

2 hours ago, Floz.8904 said:

Just make boon access in builds cost more and remove pack runes and dura runes. At that point your boonballs are harder to attain or at least cost a group something else.

This I agree, boons should not be so easy to access, at least in WvW / PvP. Boon duration should be heavily nerfed or even removed. And all proc boons should be looked at because we have too many things giving 3 or more boons at once on very short CDs.

[Sereath.1428]

Bruh, sPvP moment.
Now we have people advocating for the removal of runes in WvW.
bUt tHe bAlanCe
It's true, the game will be balanced when everyone runs nothing but Divinity runes. As beautifully balanced as sPvP, which is such an interesting and fun gamemode, its player base of 73 players can back this up.

Players are as clueless as the devs trying to reinvent the wheel.
Even worse tbf, one is hobbyist and the other is a professional.
One doesn't even know what they want, the other at least kind of does, usually (game philosophy/design).
However, both parties can still have terrible approaches.

Edited June 16, 2023 by XxsdgxX.8109

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 6/11/2023 at 1:02 PM, blp.3489 said:

Here's the balance team comments on boon strips:

It's at 1:21:19 if it doesn't jump there automatically.

I'm not great at transcribing so listen for yourself...

Thank you for pulling that out, had needed to go find this to hear the logic so appreciate the legwork. Will have to take time to watch it all but thanks again.

So the background thought of people not pushing in a on big fights is due to people losing their boons and that might encourage more melee driven fights.

Which is ironic. I will typically dive into a zerg fight while not in a squad on a build that is pure melee, both weapon sets, so I have to get to them to fight. What makes me pause isn't the worry of losing any buffs that I picked up but how many boons I can see on my target. So the philosophy seems kind of backwards here.  Granted this might have been better stated as since we have so much ranged AoE people are hesitant to jump in without boons since they will melt in all the ranged AoEs. Which is what does make people stand off at range to fire so they can avoid the rings. If the idea is to move more back towards more melee based zerg fights versus ranged, why not address the ranged AoE versus adding more boons making that ranged AoE stronger and faster while removing ways for people to slow that down and melee can reach their targets to engage? 

Or create more incentives for melee weapons by either adjusting their attack range or their number caps. If you want a bit more hammer trains then the damage needs to land when a melee player closes in on others as an example of incentive to encourage for melee fights. 

The other aspect is that does further empower a  larger versus smaller force even further in both changes of adding more boons while reducing the number of strips/conversions. Which I won't go further OT about ZergsWarbands/Havocs and Roamers.