Let's discuss Quickness and Alacrity.

[Batalix.2873]

5 hours ago, xellink.7568 said:

That's not true. We just did a raid with all 10 thieves without the need of a quickness provider. 

Was it CM though?

 

EDIT: I'm only being half-sarcastic here, I think that is somewhat relevant information since my guild does meme runs but it's typically just normal mode wing 1, i.e. some of the least challenging encounters in raids.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, xellink.7568 said:

That's not true. We just did a raid with all 10 thieves without the need of a quickness provider. 

Ok, change "absolutely obligatory" to "practically obligatory". You can do encounters without some of those boons. The same way you could do them in greens. For most players it won;t be a nice experience, though. Too many of things do depend on at least one of those things being present. Especially with alacrity - a lot of boon support skills are designed around the alac'd cooldowns, not the base ones, for example.

Also, with 10 thieves, you didn't use detonate plasma?

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

23 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Quickness and alacrity are fine and spreading them to other e-specs to ensure every profession has access to both is fine. They just need to be balanced and applied in a smart way, which isn’t always happening when Anet gives the boons to a new e-spec/reworks specs. 

It's not fine though, because they're creating homogenization. they're trading uniqueness to standardizing every skill/trait in the game. You're losing out on unique buffs Professions used to have in exchanged for boons that doesn't do half of a good job than the original effect. You lose out on traits like spotter, that gives you 150 precision for the whole group, into fury, that everyone has access too, and so easy to maintain already.

When Anet do this, when they give everyone access to Alac and quickness, they're not giving more choice, They ending up doing the exact opposite. you just end up with choices that is removed from you, in favor of a boon that everyone is getting.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

1 hour ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

It's not fine though, because they're creating homogenization. they're trading uniqueness to standardizing every skill/trait in the game. You're losing out on unique buffs Professions used to have in exchanged for boons that doesn't do half of a good job than the original effect. You lose out on traits like spotter, that gives you 150 precision for the whole group, into fury, that everyone has access too, and so easy to maintain already.

When Anet do this, when they give everyone access to Alac and quickness, they're not giving more choice, They ending up doing the exact opposite. you just end up with choices that is removed from you, in favor of a boon that everyone is getting.

That's fundamentally wrong. They ARE giving more choices by expanding alac/quickness. Back when only Chrono could do Alac/Quick and unique buffs existed it was REQUIRED to take certain classes with certain abilities if you wanted to have a good team composition. Even after expanding quick/alac to FB/Ren this didn't solve the problem because still so few classes had access to these powerful boons. Moreover, Druids/Rangers and Warriors still were kept around because of their unique buffs; they were always guaranteed a spot in a group simply because of their unique effects. This did not give the players "more choice" at all and anyone that was trying to run a decent composition HAD TO run these classes. Now, with the removal of unique buffs and the spreading of quickness/alacrity there are dozens of choices that can be made. While there are some standout favorites, the meta now is FAR more diverse than any time previously.

I honestly can't believe you're arguing in favor of unique buffs. Homogenization is not an issue and not really happening in the way people say it is. Class identity is still much more heavily tied to how the class plays and thematic effects, not "oh Ranger provides 150 extra precision" or "Chrono is the only class that can give quick/alac."

Edited June 16, 2023 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

1 hour ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

That's fundamentally wrong. They ARE giving more choices by expanding alac/quickness. Back when only Chrono could do Alac/Quick and unique buffs existed it was REQUIRED to take certain classes with certain abilities if you wanted to have a good team composition. Even after expanding quick/alac to FB/Ren this didn't solve the problem because still so few classes had access to these powerful boons

Maybe because these boons are too overpowered? To The the point where it caused a paradigm shift? Hell, Alac was nerfed from having 66% cooldown rate, to 33%, legit cut it in half. Same with with quickness, when it originally had 100% attack speed, and affected revive speed and such. And somehow it's still essential. Quickness and Alac is harmful, FAR too harmful to keep existing, and either needs to be removed, or changed into something that isn't NEARLY as powerful as these two boons.
 

1 hour ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Moreover, Druids/Rangers and Warriors still were kept around because of their unique buffs; they were always guaranteed a spot in a group simply because of their unique effects. This did not give the players "more choice" at all and anyone that was trying to run a decent composition HAD TO run these classes.

Then gives the classes like necro something to make them stand out among the other classes. You don't gut other classes's unique buffs  and force a generic one down their throat. You're not making the game better doing that, you're compensating other classes for two grossly overpowered boon that should have never gotten as far as they did.

 

1 hour ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Now, with the removal of unique buffs and the spreading of quickness/alacrity there are dozens of choices that can be made. While there are some standout favorites, the meta now is FAR more diverse than any time previously.

It may look like that on paper, but the reality is FAR more grim than you think. By robbing classes from their uniqueness, and replacing it with something generic, you're making everything boring mechanically How a class play and the "thematic effects" Are absolutely irreverent when mechanically, they function the same. Great, Warrior has group quickness now, like every other class out there. At that point, when classes like warrior do get stuff like quickness or alac, what now? What else do they offer to the group? Nothing, because Anet already stripped their uniqueness away. They absolutely have nothing to offer when other classes can do it much better with more tools to boot.

This is what comes with Homogenization. You strip classes of their uniqueness mechanically, and as a result, you destroy any chance of adding unique tools to classes that sorely need them. This is why EOD elite spec were extremely underwhelming. The devs, again, pinned them selves into a creative corner due to the poorly thought out vision they created for themselves.

 

1 hour ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

I honestly can't believe you're arguing in favor of unique buffs. Homogenization is not an issue and not really happening in the way people say it is. Class identity is still much more heavily tied to how the class plays and thematic effects, not "oh Ranger provides 150 extra precision" or "Chrono is the only class that can give quick/alac."

Well believe it, because back then, it was healthy for the game. The Dev should have done a better job adding more unique tools to the classes kit, but it was honestly healthy. It gave class more of a reason to be relevent in content outside of being a quickness heal bot.

Again, how the class play, or the "Thematic effects" Doesn't mean anything, if mechanically, everything feels the same. I'd rather have the 150 extra precision for ranger, because at least it was something the group could used. And they did use it, before they changed it into a fury generator.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

2 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

It's not fine though, because they're creating homogenization. they're trading uniqueness to standardizing every skill/trait in the game. You're losing out on unique buffs Professions used to have in exchanged for boons that doesn't do half of a good job than the original effect. You lose out on traits like spotter, that gives you 150 precision for the whole group, into fury, that everyone has access too, and so easy to maintain already.

Ranger did not lose spotter because they wanted to give Ranger alacrity.

They removed spotter because they wanted to standardize gear sets, where you didn’t need multiple sets of gear to ensure you wouldn’t overcap Crit depending on who was in your group.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

14 minutes ago, AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

Ranger did not lose spotter because they wanted to give Ranger alacrity.

Never in my post did I directly say Ranger lost spotter due to alacrity, I said that homogenization was the cause, not that it actually relevant to the point I'm trying to make.

 

 

14 minutes ago, AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

They removed spotter because they wanted to standardize gear sets, where you didn’t need multiple sets of gear to ensure you wouldn’t overcap Crit depending on who was in your group.

And that's fine. But giving Ranger fury as a replacement make the spotter trait the way it is now makes the trait negligible. They could easily give your group something unique without compromising the overcap issue.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Barraind.7324]

  

On 6/11/2023 at 3:58 AM, Yasai.3549 said:

Quickness and Alacrity are treated like "essential boons"

They are essential. 

 

On 6/11/2023 at 3:58 AM, Yasai.3549 said:

if a class is unable to provide them, they are considered with less priority for content

You still need 50-60% of your squad (depending on fight) not trying to provide buffs besides incidental splashing of might/fury (and that needs to be more of a thing).  Nobody has "less priority" outside people in lfg wanting to make sure everyone isnt 'hi dps' and you can acually cover roles you want/need. 

 

On 6/12/2023 at 9:32 AM, TheQuickFox.3826 said:

1. Remove quickness and alacrity as applicable boons.
2. Include the effects of these boons in the default activation and recharge of skills.
3. ???
4. Profit!

Theres no ????.

3 is "Redesign every piece of content in the game, from level 1 critters up to HTCM, and balance-pass every weapon, utility and trait of every class and spec to now account for guaranteed alac and quickness at all times". 

 

  

11 minutes ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

They could easily give your group something unique without compromising the overcap issue.

Not when part of the reason for removing those entire line of traits was not having to bring certain classes/specs/builds for unique buffs, a non-0 number of which have to be geared around. 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Barraind.7324

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

1 hour ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

Maybe because these boons are too overpowered? To The the point where it caused a paradigm shift? Hell, Alac was nerfed from having 66% cooldown rate, to 33%, legit cut it in half. Same with with quickness, when it originally had 100% attack speed, and affected revive speed and such. And somehow it's still essential. Quickness and Alac is harmful, FAR too harmful to keep existing, and either needs to be removed, or changed into something that isn't NEARLY as powerful as these two boons.
 

Then gives the classes like necro something to make them stand out among the other classes. You don't gut other classes's unique buffs  and force a generic one down their throat. You're not making the game better doing that, you're compensating other classes for two grossly overpowered boon that should have never gotten as far as they did.

 

It may look like that on paper, but the reality is FAR more grim than you think. By robbing classes from their uniqueness, and replacing it with something generic, you're making everything boring mechanically How a class play and the "thematic effects" Are absolutely irreverent when mechanically, they function the same. Great, Warrior has group quickness now, like every other class out there. At that point, when classes like warrior do get stuff like quickness or alac, what now? What else do they offer to the group? Nothing, because Anet already stripped their uniqueness away. They absolutely have nothing to offer when other classes can do it much better with more tools to boot.

This is what comes with Homogenization. You strip classes of their uniqueness mechanically, and as a result, you destroy any chance of adding unique tools to classes that sorely need them. This is why EOD elite spec were extremely underwhelming. The devs, again, pinned them selves into a creative corner due to the poorly thought out vision they created for themselves.

 

Well believe it, because back then, it was healthy for the game. The Dev should have done a better job adding more unique tools to the classes kit, but it was honestly healthy. It gave class more of a reason to be relevent in content outside of being a quickness heal bot.

Again, how the class play, or the "Thematic effects" Doesn't mean anything, if mechanically, everything feels the same. I'd rather have the 150 extra precision for ranger, because at least it was something the group could used. And they did use it, before they changed it into a fury generator.

Mechanically the classes don't play the same though...Unique buffs have little to do with the mechanics of the classes and there are still plenty of additional mechanics (stab/aegis/barrier/CC/pulls/etc.) that all determine what a class can contribute in addition to alac/quickness. So no, they can absolutely still add additional tools to create diverse and engaging classes.

HOW a class goes about providing alacrity/quickness is also equally important. Just because two classes have the same boons does not make them mechanically identical; class identity is primarily from moment to moment gameplay not just what boons it brings

Edited June 16, 2023 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

2 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Mechanically the classes don't play the same though...Unique buffs have little to do with the mechanics of the classes and there are still plenty of additional mechanics (stab/aegis/barrier/CC/pulls/etc.) that all determine what a class can contribute in addition to alac/quickness. So no, they can absolutely still add additional tools to create diverse and engaging classes.

HOW a class goes about providing alacrity/quickness is also equally important. Just because two classes have the same boons does not make them mechanically identical; class identity is primarily from moment to moment gameplay not just what boons it brings

This is kind of a moot point quite frankly, Other classes have access to these tools at the end of the day. That's what ultimately matters. There's nothing a support will offer besides the necessities in a group comp. And in the exception that a class don't have something like stab for example, There's usually someone who's going to cover that weakness for you anyway. There's no other tools for you to apply other than the bare minimum.

It's kind of funny too, how the only support that of has any sort of uniqueness is specter. Rot Wallow Venom is the only buff in the game that augment other player's damage that isn't crutching on Alac and quickness. More of this please.

 

4 hours ago, Barraind.7324 said:

Not when part of the reason for removing those entire line of traits was not having to bring certain classes/specs/builds for unique buffs, a non-0 number of which have to be geared around. 

Spotter: 10% chance upon critical strike to give players a buff that increase their damage against vulnerable enemies for 5 second. Just to give an example on what they could do instead of giving spotter an generic buff.

[Jobber.6348]

5 hours ago, Barraind.7324 said:

You still need 50-60% of your squad (depending on fight) not trying to provide buffs besides incidental splashing of might/fury (and that needs to be more of a thing).  Nobody has "less priority" outside people in lfg wanting to make sure everyone isnt 'hi dps' and you can acually cover roles you want/need. 

We KNOW Quick/Alac is essential due to how overwhelmingly powerful they are as boons, so much so that they are being shoved into classes which used to have different gameplay traits being gutted in favor of  "essential boon application".

This thread is a talk about Quick/Alac but really it's more of a talk about the design philosophy of Anet's balance team which decides that gutting class traits, identity, playstyles is the way to do it. There is also the fact that the devs are balancing the game around 2 essential boons, which really should get people thinking if these 2 boons are just way too powerful. In the grand scheme of things, balancing the entire game around 2 boons is quite impactful to the rest of the game. 

So there's a camp here which wants these boons which are obviously so powerful in nature to be made baseline, because it's stifling the direction the game is heading. Just think about it: If we have specs that push Quick/Alac, then what about future specs that don't, are they immediately considered less and treated more like "hi dps" backfills? Because no one wants to consider things that don't have high Quick/Alac uptime first in a proper meta setup. 

There's another camp here that thinks it's fine, but Anet needs to wake up and see that homogenizing classes is not the solution. While this is a fair point of view, I don't trust Anet to do this properly, and the problem STILL exists because the 2 boons are still player-given. 

And then there's a third camp which are just here to troll, saying all boons should just be removed. 

Edited June 17, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[Astralporing.1957]

14 hours ago, Barraind.7324 said:

  3 is "Redesign every piece of content in the game, from level 1 critters up to HTCM, and balance-pass every weapon, utility and trait of every class and spec to now account for guaranteed alac and quickness at all times".

High level content is already balanced with the assumption of those boons being there 100% of the time. So are weapons, utilities and traits. And for OW maps it doesn't really mattter that much - since those boons are multiplicative in nature, they don't offer all that much to those normal OW players that do 4k dps on average.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Astralporing.1957

[Danny De Ditto.1345]

I agree, just remove them from the game, we never needed that shite before, we won't need it now. I'm honestly so sick and tired of having to LFG for a QHB/ALAC before anything else when i could just... LFG a simple healer and then get the rest as DPS within seconds.

These two boons give me such a bad vibe, same vibe i get from FFXIV's balancing team, where they homogenized every job to have basicaly near-copy-paste gameplay flow, especialy bad on tanks, coupled with their horrible 2 minute burst meta... Right now they're stuck in a situation where they'd have to rebuild their whole combat flow, i don't wanna see this game fall under the same rug.

 

Please don't follow their example, and don't fall into it's stereotype, the game got hype mainly because of two things: Story (It's a FF game, it'll always be hyped for it's story first and foremost), and YoshiP's leadership. Endwalker right now is honestly... meh at best.

Edited June 18, 2023 by Danny De Ditto.1345

[ascii.1369]

I agree that quick and alac are super unhealthy for the game.

I would probably suggest to straight up remove them both without making them baseline or anything. This would not just fix the current issue of having to balance around those two boons, it would also be an opportunity to rebalance the game and reduce power creep. Removing quick and alac would result in a huge decrease in power across the board. This could pose an opportunity to buff all professions appropriately to meet whatevere power level they want it to be at. For simplicity's sake these buffs should be number tweaks only and could come as lower cooldowns, lower casting times or just straight damage buffs.

Edited June 18, 2023 by ascii.1369

[Jobber.6348]

On 6/17/2023 at 2:33 AM, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

That's fundamentally wrong. They ARE giving more choices by expanding alac/quickness.

But that's kinda the thing: they aren't "giving more choice" by expanding Alac/Quick, because Alac or Quick are stuck and patted down into each Espec. If they truly wanted to "give more choice" they would have made Quick/Alac part of a support core traitline.

Let's take Necromancer for example. Instead of shoving Alac haphazardly into Scourge and Quickness onto Harbinger as literally "turn me on and stand myself near people", they could have put both into Blood Magic in some form. 

Just spit balling here: 
Blood Magic's Master line has long been very skewed toward Vampiric Presence for group content because both Banshee's Wail and Life from Death do not offer as much potential damage and chip healing as the Vampiric does.

So why not shuffle Banshee's Wail into the Adept tier to replace Quickening Thirst (pointless trait with the new change since Dagger never needed more LF generation), remove Life from Death, then proceed to add two new Master traits that one offers Quickness, and the other offering Alacrity? Now that would truly open up more options and future proof classes because you are ensuring no matter how future Espec performs, they will always be able to apply Quick/Alac to varying degree.

This could very well open up options like "AlacDPS Reaper" or "QuickHealScourge", combinations you would have previously never even imagined possible. 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[Pooh.6897]

Agreed. Alacrity and Quickness have become so strong that the entire game is warping around them. They need to be either seriously nerfed or completely removed. Will it happen? I have my doubts. But now we're reaching the point where classes are giving up core identities just so they can shoehorn in quickness/alacrity and the result is almost always a shambling abomination that would make Frankenstein look pretty. Please Arenanet, kill your darlings here and just straight up remove quickness/alacrity at this point. In the words of a famous jedi: "They're too powerful to be left alive".

[voltaicbore.8012]

2 hours ago, Darth Pooh.5638 said:

In the words of a famous jedi: "They're too powerful to be left alive".

No no no they might just push us out the window, give in to their fears, and plunge the galaxy into darkness all because they were too weak to fulfill their destiny of achieving balance. It will take decades of oppression before they come around and throw their alac/quick god down a really deep pit to restore balance.

[Pooh.6897]

"Boons are a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural" - a Guardian probably.

[Nephalem.8921]

On 6/17/2023 at 2:15 AM, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

This is kind of a moot point quite frankly, Other classes have access to these tools at the end of the day. That's what ultimately matters. There's nothing a support will offer besides the necessities in a group comp. And in the exception that a class don't have something like stab for example, There's usually someone who's going to cover that weakness for you anyway. There's no other tools for you to apply other than the bare minimum.

It's kind of funny too, how the only support that of has any sort of uniqueness is specter. Rot Wallow Venom is the only buff in the game that augment other player's damage that isn't crutching on Alac and quickness. More of this please.

 

Spotter: 10% chance upon critical strike to give players a buff that increase their damage against vulnerable enemies for 5 second. Just to give an example on what they could do instead of giving spotter an generic buff.

Rot Wallow Venom does not buff other players damage. It uses the specter's stats and is counted as specter damage.

Sometimes im glad devs dont listen at all. Some of the takes in this thread are just very very strange. Why is a passive always on 150precision stat buff good for the game? Why are always on stat buffs with no gameplay added good?

Diversity in gameplay matters. Not diversity in mandatory group buffs. That is just checkbox gameplay. You asked what warrior brings? Bladesworn has stellar burst and aoe cc. Spellbreaker high sustain and sustained dmg and great cc and boon rip. These are gameplay changing feats which are far more important than your passive stat buffs.

Mesmer has portal. Scrapper has superspeed. Herald has extreme heal. FB has best stab. List goes on. And most importantly the rotations and gameplay differs a lot between specs. Just because all classes can apply quickness and alacrity with all builds does not mean that all builds are the same. A quickness chrono plays vastly different than a quickness catalyst.

Your spotter take would make it mandatory in every power comp. Good job! There is no middle ground for unique buffs. Btw alacrity is not even that strong. From a pure dps perspective it is weaker than might and on par with fury.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Nephalem.8921

[rotten.9753]

I wish we had more traits like Daring Dragon, which now grants alacrity. Why is that? Because it changes the gameplay of Bladesworn tremendously compared to a pure DPS spec with Unyielding Dragon. You may have noticed that ANet added alacrity the that trait at no cost or nerf. This is because Daring Dragon was vastly underpowered and compared to Unyielding Dragon, the bench was in the ballpark of 30k dps range compared to the 40k benchmark.

The gameplay of Alacrity Bladesworn will be significantly different from the gameplay of DPS Bladesworn just because of that one trait. We need more traits like this, not stat traits like Spotter or Empowering Allies that some people consider class identity.

[vares.8457]

On 6/18/2023 at 7:10 AM, Danny De Ditto.1345 said:

 

I agree, just remove them from the game, we never needed that shite before, we won't need it now. I'm honestly so sick and tired of having to LFG for a QHB/ALAC before anything else when i could just... LFG a simple healer and then get the rest as DPS within seconds.

 

You can just do that. Quickness and alacrity are not mandatory. 
I really enjoy playing quickness or alacrity builds, so no, I don’t want them removed. 

[XenesisII.1540]

I feel like at this point major group boons like alacrity and quickness are being pushed for everyone to have it on 100% of the time. So they should have just added them to every profession core support trait line instead, so that every spec could also have access/the option to run them for the group, and attach them to the core mechanics of the profession instead of a certain line of utility skills, which then forces you to run all of those skills to get the most out of it. Also stop trying to separately shoehorn them into a couple different elite specs, it's a balancing nightmare that is now destroying specs.

Elite specs are suppose to be the "another way to play" your profession (and not copy another profession 🙄), and that should have ideally revolved around their class mechanics, not what boons they provide, which is what this mess is starting to look like. 🤷‍♂️

[xellink.7568]

On 6/19/2023 at 8:33 PM, voltaicbore.8012 said:

No no no they might just push us out the window, give in to their fears, and plunge the galaxy into darkness all because they were too weak to fulfill their destiny of achieving balance. It will take decades of oppression before they come around and throw their alac/quick god down a really deep pit to restore balance.

That will be guild wars 3. 

 

19 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Elite specs are suppose to be the "another way to play" your profession (and not copy another profession 🙄), and that should have ideally revolved around their class mechanics, not what boons they provide, which is what this mess is starting to look like. 

Deadeye is still the only class that can kneel, that's it's feature. Doesn't matter that it provides quickness.

Every espec still has its own feature. 

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

On 6/19/2023 at 10:09 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

Rot Wallow Venom does not buff other players damage. It uses the specter's stats and is counted as specter damage.

Then I apologize for being wrong, but this only reinforce my point. What exactly does Specter bring to the table that other classes can't do?

 

On 6/19/2023 at 10:09 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

Sometimes im glad devs dont listen at all. Some of the takes in this thread are just very very strange. Why is a passive always on 150precision stat buff good for the game? Why are always on stat buffs with no gameplay added good?

Because Spotter actually brought something onto the table. It stands out among the crowd, that isn't forced into a Heal alac druid. You're so hyper focus on Spotter having 150 Precision, You guys are outright incapable of thinking about compromises to make Spotter a fun and interesting group buff, That requires you to activate it too. It make you guys seem like you're content with Spotter doing pulsing fury, one of the most common Boons in the game.

 

On 6/19/2023 at 10:09 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

Diversity in gameplay matters. Not diversity in mandatory group buffs. That is just checkbox gameplay. You asked what warrior brings? Bladesworn has stellar burst and aoe cc. Spellbreaker high sustain and sustained dmg and great cc and boon rip. These are gameplay changing feats which are far more important than your passive stat buffs.

And that's great bladesworn and Spellbreaker can provide these things. But so can other classes dude. I'll give spellbreaker points for offering Boon ripping, but that's the only thing that stands out to me. But that's only because only few classes offer Boon stripping anyway. If I want to play a class with high sustain and sustained damage, and decent amount of cc options? I'd play Mechanist. They offer those things too, Outside of boon stripping

Even then, You call this diversity? You call the patch last year Diversity? During june 2022 patch notes? The one where everyone and their mother hated this one patch? It's called homogenization dude. And the devs are slowly making classes feel more of the same, more and more.

On 6/19/2023 at 10:09 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

Mesmer has portal. Scrapper has superspeed. Herald has extreme heal. FB has best stab. List goes on. And most importantly the rotations and gameplay differs a lot between specs. Just because all classes can apply quickness and alacrity with all builds does not mean that all builds are the same. A quickness chrono plays vastly different than a quickness catalyst

It just seems like you're going though the wiki to find that one thing that is unique to each class and call it a day. You might as well call them one trick ponies for how little they offer outside of things all the other classes offers.

And you're right. Rotation and game-play differ a lot between specs, but lets be honest here. No one in their right mind is going to choose quickness Catalyst over quickness Chrono, or quickness firebrand for that matter. Between how clunky Catalyst is, How much blood sweat and tears you have to put into Catalyst, and how unforgiving the rotation actually is. The reward for preforming well on cata is absolutely peanuts compared to other classes who can do the same thing much easier and with more efficiency.
 

On 6/19/2023 at 10:09 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

Your spotter take would make it mandatory in every power comp. Good job! There is no middle ground for unique buffs. Btw alacrity is not even that strong. From a pure dps perspective it is weaker than might and on par with fury.

Good. Now give every other class Unique traits like this, and we're in business.

My spotter take is just an example btw. There are a lot of ways of making Traits like spotter more interesting for the group. To make Ranger more appealing. Same goes with other classes. It doesn't even have to be passive either. It can require you to interact with one of your skills to make it work.

Also, Alac not strong? I can't take that seriously. The devs wouldn't be giving this buff to every single class. (Seriously, who asked for quickness Deadeye? Why do they need it?) They wouldn't be balancing around it, and they sure as kitten wouldn't be nerfing other classes as compensation for giving them Alac/quickness.


 

[Nephalem.8921]

3 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

And that's great bladesworn and Spellbreaker can provide these things. But so can other classes dude. I'll give spellbreaker points for offering Boon ripping, but that's the only thing that stands out to me. But that's only because only few classes offer Boon stripping anyway. If I want to play a class with high sustain and sustained damage, and decent amount of cc options? I'd play Mechanist. They offer those things too, Outside of boon stripping

Power mech does no damage and condi mech has no burst and limited cc. No sane person would play mech over spellbreaker on sloth/sama or in 99/98cm.

3 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

It just seems like you're going though the wiki to find that one thing that is unique to each class and call it a day. You might as well call them one trick ponies for how little they offer outside of things all the other classes offers.

No i do play all specs depending on boss and swap depending on what utility is needed. 

3 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

Good. Now give every other class Unique traits like this, and we're in business.

My spotter take is just an example btw. There are a lot of ways of making Traits like spotter more interesting for the group. To make Ranger more appealing. Same goes with other classes. It doesn't even have to be passive either. It can require you to interact with one of your skills to make it work.

Also, Alac not strong? I can't take that seriously. The devs wouldn't be giving this buff to every single class. (Seriously, who asked for quickness Deadeye? Why do they need it?) They wouldn't be balancing around it, and they sure as kitten wouldn't be nerfing other classes as compensation for giving them Alac/quickness.


 

We had that in the past. resulted in a lot of fixed raid spots because you wanted the unique buffs. Also all healers without a unique buff were basically unplayable. How is giving every spec a unique class not homogenisation?

Do the math. Alac is vastly overrated. It is still beneficial to have it in a group were everyone is on the the same skill level but if you have underperforming dps and a really strong dps player on alac duty it might be higher group dps to let the alac swap to pure dps.

In fractals the alac dps in some cases offer so little damage contribution that running with a 4th dps would result in faster clears instead of carrying the 3k dps support. If the group has a quick healer and the alac is not at least doing 50% of the dps it is not really worth the spot.