The beginning of the end

[Astralporing.1957]

3 hours ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

I'm not asserting that the changes didn't do any harm, I'm asserting that they were fairly visibly done with the incoming expansion updates in mind and they are "paving the way", so to speak, for these new things by dragging down currently established class tools and otherwise.

Like they have done practically every pre-expansion balance update before.

Erm... no. In previous cases they were indeed nerfing old especs, because new especs would come and take their places. This time there's no point to that, because there will be no new especs. Neither do most of the problems with this patch have anthing to do with trying to bring down specific weapons in some preparation that future weapons might shine in their place. So, i honestly do not see any connection between what is happening and what you think is happening - it's almost like we were talking about different balance change patches (and if so, i'd really want to see yours, maybe it's more interesting than the one all the rest of us received).

[SlayerXX.7138]

15 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Hmmmm idk, maybe the fact that the game at it's conception was meant to be played in such a way where each class had enough tools at it's disposal to perform a certain number of tasks (which were shared globally) and now we have reached a point where Yellow class does the same thing as Red and Blue and Green and it feels stale?

You are just sad your pet class doesn't get a free raid spot anymore. I don't see what is cool about putting a Warrior in every group because he has a monopoly on free stats. I don't see what you find attractive about that kind of design. You are no longer a slave, be happy. Please tell me what exiting things do you miss? Class stacking? Seeing the same profession every run?
Like come on man, did that little advantage you got really hide the fact that we are just monkeys pressing buttons? The game isn't stale because of some balance changes, it is stale because People play it for thousand of hours already. There is a limit what a single game can do.

Edited June 28, 2023 by SlayerXX.7138

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

3 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Ofc anet doesn't get that. And I don't expect them to rework core mechanics and abilities to cater to this weird, merged, non-espec form of theorycrafting.

I said it, if weapons is step 1, step 2 is cross spec utilities and step 3 will be the removal of elite spec traitlines altogether, making it possible to build multi espec lines.

And of course they will fail. No way they plan for numerous mini expansions and will stick to "weapon mastery" only. 

I'm really trying to understand what you are saying, but its hard because maybe, this has exactly to do with not being specific enough about homogenization.

Arenanet unlocking weapons is a good thing. Like I mentioned in my comment, that procedure is not homogenization, because doing that procedure increases the possibility space.

making all the weapons do the same thing, is homogenization because you are actually making uniform what said options do.  

Like I said there is a clear distinction between these kinds of changes, because one leads to an increase in a possibility space, where another does not.

On the topic of boons : Making all the skills in the game give the same boons is a homogenization procedure, because you are making skills do the same thing.

Being able to to take Multi espec lines = good thing...why? Because it opens up a huge possibility space. Making all specs do the same thing = bad thing...why? Cause it does not open up possibility space.

Do you get what I'm saying here? There is a clear difference between these things mathematically and you can't lump them together.

Edited June 28, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Grand Marshal.4098]

2 hours ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

You are just sad your pet class doesn't get a free raid spot anymore. I don't see what is cool about putting a Warrior in every group because he has a monopoly on free stats. I don't see what you find attractive about that kind of design. You are no longer a slave, be happy. Please tell me what exiting things do you miss? Class stacking? Seeing the same profession every run?
Like come on man, did that little advantage you got really hide the fact that we are just monkeys pressing buttons? The game isn't stale because of some balance changes, it is stale because People play it for thousand of hours already. There is a limit what a single game can do.

What's up with the strawman.

Never once did I mean that previous balancing was any good. It was simply fixable.

Now it isn't.

The burden is on anet for making firebrand the sole Quickness pick.

It was their issue that necro was dominant at stripping in wvw.

Their issue that scrapper made the game superspeed Fiesta.

It was their lack of balancing and diversity that lead to where we are today. 

They introduced role compression of extreme scales and that diluted the limits between professions. 

Because all could do everything, without a measuring stick for competitive classes, it felt so terrible in the past.

Hence the outcry for balancing all those years. 

Now we are beyond balancing. This opens up room for abuse of specs and core. How will they balance this out when they could not do it before, when some form of conceptual differentiation existed between classes?

Idk about losing a spot in no raid, I don't even do those. I don't care if I cannot do that well with my warr in wvw. What pisses me off is that anet for once more, instead of empowering different playstyles to perform similar tasks, decides that some half-thought weapon Mastery for all classes, will allow for diversity.

Diversity is already there, but it's now % damage traits and "while in mode/stance/hitting with skill pulse X boons around you".

Sure I can now do straps with dagger berserker, but at the same time let's take a look at SpB, the defining strip espec for warrior and how overly nerfed it has got in wvw. 

Something doesn't add up.

[Cuks.8241]

Oh we still have interesting and unique abilities that are suited for special situations. 

We just have to spam it off CD to keep a generic boon. 

Oh you thought CA is a great toolkit for supporting in nasty situations. Joke on you, you need to spam it off CD for alacrity. 

Oh you thought you can use overload water for tight situations for nice healing and cleasing? Sorry nope, spam that button for alacrity. Oh you dont need the healing, thats unfortunate. 

Oh look my Scrapper has this unique function gyro to ress people. Really nice, not really, spam that kitten for that quick. Oh you need to ress someone, how unfortunate your unique ress was on cd for a generic boon. 

Look at that Herald toolkit. Looks awesome, you can really adapt to any need with smart legend choice. Oh you guys need a bubble? Yeah I could do that but unfortunately I have to drain my energy and smash those legends on CD to upkeep that quick boon. Maybe boss will wait 10 sec when my boon rotation comes there. 

Disclamer, I didnt play all those builds so could be wrong on some but this is where we are in general. 

[SlayerXX.7138]

4 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Never once did I mean that previous balancing was any good. It was simply fixable.

And this is where we are fundamentally disagreeing. Balance in PvE was never fixable in an elegant way. Probably not in WvW either, but I don't know enough about WvW to be certain. It was in PvP, but that mode is long death thanks to nepotism so it doesn't matter.

Weapon swap, boons all of them, free utilities, the freedom in stats and a nerd player base willing to spend countless hours into the game to optimized it. There never was a chance to "fix" PvE. The current course is the best to reach a playable status quo without destroying the very foundation. GW 2 as an game engine is build for small scale, dynamic encounter. There is no fixing WvW or PvE, because they are too static. Every small advantage balloons into a gigantic difference in these static encounters.

I don't agree with everything in the patch, but the general direction is fine.

Edited June 28, 2023 by SlayerXX.7138

[Infusion.7149]

Your thread is a bit dramatic IMO since it has been stated by Arenanet that quickness and alacrity should be provided by any class. The reason is because of PvE players. The design goal has never been to make everything the same, it is to make it possible to have the main offensive boons and heals at least in PvE. Of course because people have been asking for aegis and other such boons that were originally exclusive it has been standardized a bit. If you had asked me if I ever thought warriors, rangers, engineers, elementalists and necros were getting party aegis I would have said I doubt it.

Diversity was still poor with the prior additions of alacrity to thief for instance and that has resulted in the need for a patch to rebalance the sources. Before firebrand and renegade we had chrono and druid, there is always going to be a preferred pair.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

3 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

since it has been stated by Arenanet that quickness and alacrity should be provided by any class.

And how's that working out for them? Not very good I reckon. Boon corruption, a unique aspect of necromancer as a whole, Not just scourge, is gone. Necromancer lost Boon corruption, To give Scourge alacrity.

Whatever Anet stated at this point is blowing up in their face, because people are getting fed up lol. Their "Lawful words" Isn't going to save them when the playerbase implodes.

Just you wait, they're gonna buff alac willbender, by taking away Guardian's Condi to Boon conversion. Just like they did with scourge, but with Boon to condi conversion.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

8 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Your thread is a bit dramatic IMO since it has been stated by Arenanet that quickness and alacrity should be provided by any class. The reason is because of PvE players. The design goal has never been to make everything the same, it is to make it possible to have the main offensive boons and heals at least in PvE. Of course because people have been asking for aegis and other such boons that were originally exclusive it has been standardized a bit. If you had asked me if I ever thought warriors, rangers, engineers, elementalists and necros were getting party aegis I would have said I doubt it.

Diversity was still poor with the prior additions of alacrity to thief for instance and that has resulted in the need for a patch to rebalance the sources. Before firebrand and renegade we had chrono and druid, there is always going to be a preferred pair.

It goes beyond PvE. It's simply more easy to understand the issues by talking pve. 

It has happened in comp too.

Always has. 

The issue here is, when the Balance devs don't try to build upon mechanics and balance out roles (strips, defensive boons, offensive boons) things become very, well, meta. You basically end up with the best performing ones.

I for one think that Anet was going somewhere last October by allowing so much variety in the secondary healer slot for wvw. We went from scrapper mandatory spots to , scrapper, Tempest, vindi, wb, warrior etc.

Ofc they could not follow through with that for stab and dps etc.

[Infusion.7149]

1 minute ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

And how's that working out for them? Not very good I reckon. Boon corruption, a unique aspect of necromancer as a whole, Not just scourge, is gone. Necromancer lost Boon corruption, To give Scourge alacrity.

Whatever Anet stated at this point is blowing up in their face, because people are getting fed up lol. Their "Lawful words" Isn't going to save them when the playerbase implodes.

Just you wait, they're gonna buff alac willbender, by taking away Guardian's Condi to Boon conversion. Just like they did with scourge, but with Boon to condi conversion.

There is massive build inertia so unless something new  is strictly better than other specs for a given boon support role (whether in terms of ease or consistency) there will always be a stagnant meta. You can see this when heal mech took over the healbrand spot circa EoD time or when Healbrand took over the chrono spot when diviners gear was launched and made renegade able to fill the alacrity gap.

The point of the goal is that people cannot complain they need to select a certain class to fulfill a role. The LFG is still an issue though, if we had ways to flag ourselves or players in a squad (as a commander) it would be massively beneficial to their design goal.

4 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

It goes beyond PvE. It's simply more easy to understand the issues by talking pve. 

It has happened in comp too.

Always has. 

The issue here is, when the Balance devs don't try to build upon mechanics and balance out roles (strips, defensive boons, offensive boons) things become very, well, meta. You basically end up with the best performing ones.

I for one think that Anet was going somewhere last October by allowing so much variety in the secondary healer slot for wvw. We went from scrapper mandatory spots to , scrapper, Tempest, vindi, wb, warrior etc.

Ofc they could not follow through with that for stab and dps etc.

Stability is always going to be stronger in competitive than in PvE. Stability was spread out a bit more with the notable addition of stability to warrior banner of tactics , stability on transmute magnetic aura, and the range increase on mantra of concentration for chronos (mesmers). There is also the addition of stability on druid (even though soulbeast had stanceshare), but I am pretty sure most people take firebrands or tempests over druid still and use some sort of revenant for inspiring reinforcement on chokepoints or scrappers with defense field (bulwark gyro) if they are still being used. Even if there had been no balance changes at all, for WvW in particular heal scrapper would have dropped in usage due to lack of tagging while camping med kit after the reward rework.

The bulk of the game is balanced around PvE, it is certain that WvW and PvP are afterthoughts. I had suggested a boon count cap on med blaster for years before it was finally implemented for instance.

While I do not agree with the removal of boon rips and corrupts on necromancer it is apparent someone on the dev team thinks that was necessary. Perhaps it was to isolate scourge as the corruption spec and decrease the effectiveness of a core condi or harbinger condi necro. With the nerfs to scourge and the stability access increase , trail of anguish is greatly reduced in effectiveness.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

4 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Erm... no. In previous cases they were indeed nerfing old especs, because new especs would come and take their places. This time there's no point to that, because there will be no new especs. Neither do most of the problems with this patch have anthing to do with trying to bring down specific weapons in some preparation that future weapons might shine in their place. So, i honestly do not see any connection between what is happening and what you think is happening - it's almost like we were talking about different balance change patches (and if so, i'd really want to see yours, maybe it's more interesting than the one all the rest of us received).

No, you're correct. That is the point. That is precisely what I was driving at. There are no elite specs this time around, yet they still followed this trend and on top of that did not communicate it.

However, if what you are positing is that they did not make any of these changes with changes to the game they absolutely knew were happening with the expansion, were in the pipeline as if implying their own devs don't know what is going on behind the scenes (which regardless of your opinions of ANet that is not that likely and if that were true it would be an entirely different and more egregious issue to dig into).

They have likely known about the expansion updates for a while now, they were probably the ones helping to develop things around Relics, Runes, and the weapons. If you think that did not influence how they approached this balance update...I don't know what to tell you. We're talking about them dropping a balance update they've been working on for months just a little over a month and a half away from the release of an expansion they have likely been working on for a greater amount of time than that.

I'm not saying "Oh, let it slide because..." I'm saying they needed to communicate better and they didn't and it would have been explicitly easy to do so...and they didn't.

[Astralporing.1957]

19 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

No, you're correct. That is the point. That is precisely what I was driving at. There are no elite specs this time around, yet they still followed this trend and on top of that did not communicate it.

So, you are insisting they still nerf current especs to make place for new ones, even though they do know new ones won't come? Why would they do that? That does not make sense.

19 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

However, if what you are positing is that they did not make any of these changes with changes to the game they absolutely knew were happening with the expansion, were in the pipeline as if implying their own devs don't know what is going on behind the scenes (which regardless of your opinions of ANet that is not that likely and if that were true it would be an entirely different and more egregious issue to dig into).

No, you are the one that says that they are nerfing current builds in preparation for new ones - which won't come because there won't be new especs. So, it's you that are thinking they don't know that following this old policy does not make sense this time.

19 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

They have likely known about the expansion updates for a while now, they were probably the ones helping to develop things around Relics, Runes, and the weapons. If you think that did not influence how they approached this balance update...I don't know what to tell you.

And i tell you that the changes they made this (and previous) patch do not make sense in context of freeing space for new weapons and rune/relic split. It's traits, utilities, and overall class gameplay that were targeted, and those have nothing to do with the stuff that will be coming.

If you think that a nerf to shades, for example, had anything to do with freeing space for weapons or relics, i really don't know what to tell you too.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

14 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

So, you are insisting they still nerf current especs to make place for new ones, even though they do know new ones won't come? Why would they do that? That does not make sense.

No, you are the one that says that they are nerfing current builds in preparation for new ones - which won't come because there won't be new especs. So, it's you that are thinking they don't know that following this old policy does not make sense this time.

And i tell you that the changes they made this (and previous) patch do not make sense in context of freeing space for new weapons and rune/relic split. It's traits, utilities, and overall class gameplay that were targeted, and those have nothing to do with the stuff that will be coming.

If you think that a nerf to shades, for example, had anything to do with freeing space for weapons or relics, i really don't know what to tell you too.

I'm not insisting that they keep up the trend, I'm just saying that is what they did. I'm actually saying that this policy and trend of theirs is silly.

To try and make it more clear, I guess, I'm saying that they made these changes within the context of what was in the pipeline coming with the expansion. I'm not saying that was a good thing or that it was the correct thing to do, I'm saying that they very clearly were designing this balance patch within a context that we knew nothing about, that we still know nothing about because we don't know what the new weapons and Relics will be doing. I'm also saying they didn't communicate this to the playerbase at all which was equally a mistake.

I don't know what got lost in translation here or something, but I think you entirely misread or misunderstood what I was driving at.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

There is massive build inertia so unless something new  is strictly better than other specs for a given boon support role (whether in terms of ease or consistency) there will always be a stagnant meta. You can see this when heal mech took over the healbrand spot circa EoD time or when Healbrand took over the chrono spot when diviners gear was launched and made renegade able to fill the alacrity gap.

The point of the goal is that people cannot complain they need to select a certain class to fulfill a role. The LFG is still an issue though, if we had ways to flag ourselves or players in a squad (as a commander) it would be massively beneficial to their design goal.

But back then, Classes can add something to the table. It wasn't nearly as stagnant as it was now. Druid should be the best Raw healing elite spec in the game, Scourge Should be the best at getting people up at downstate and giving them sustainability, just like Scrapper should be the best at Barrier, or how firebrand should be best at protecting the group and buffing and clensing players with condi.

They weren't define by two generic boons that Anet is giving to Every class in the game. They were define by what they can do and what they offer. Homogenization leads to a FAR worse stagnant meta, and the fact Players can any use elite spec weapon they want without being stuck in said elite spec, will cause even MORE stagnation than you even realize. Not diversity like they're aiming for. You can just Look over elder scrolls online during the update 35 patch to see how bad things has gone.

Anet lost sight of how class SHOULD work, and are doubling down on Quickness and alac as being their defining trait. These two boons caused nothing but harm and it needs to be removed asap.

 

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

While I do not agree with the removal of boon rips and corrupts on necromancer it is apparent someone on the dev team thinks that was necessary.

If Anet were to nuke all the playable content in this game and left you with only silverwastes, because they deemed it "Necessary." And it will be like that for years, Are you still going to blindly accept that nonsense? Cause I can promise you now, no one is as naive to cling to every single word Anet uttered this past month.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Darkblade.7634]

Quote

2 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

But back then, Classes can add something to the table. It wasn't nearly as stagnant as it was now. Druid should be the best Raw healing elite spec in the game, Scourge Should be the best at getting people up at downstate and giving them sustainability, just like Scrapper should be the best at Barrier, or how firebrand should be best at protecting the group and buffing and clensing players with condi.

They weren't define by two generic boons that Anet is giving to Every class in the game. They were define by what they can do and what they offer. Homogenization leads to a FAR worse stagnant meta, and the fact Players can any use elite spec weapon they want without being stuck in said elite spec, will cause even MORE stagnation than you even realize. Not diversity like they're aiming for. You can just Look over elder scrolls online during the update 35 patch to see how bad things has gone.

Anet lost sight of how class SHOULD work, and are doubling down on Quickness and alac as being their defining trait. These two boons caused nothing but harm and it needs to be removed asap.
 

 

Personally I like the overall idea to give Alac and Quickness to all classes so there are more options and everyone can play as many roles as possible with his favourite class.

That is imo a way better idea of balance then to give every class classspecific buffs and boons like we had with banners and spotter. Either those classspecific features are strong and desirable so every group wants that class in the group but only 1 time since it is best to stack as many of those classspecific features in your group or they are terrible and noone wants that feature and so doesnt want that class in his group at all.

Basicly the extreme version of " Bring the class and not the player".

The balance we had since last year with basicly only 2 alac and 2 quickness with 1-2 healers between them and then 6 dps were you could basicly play anything as long as your dps was fine is way more desirable imo.

Wouldnt ever understand someone who prefers to be a op rezbot to carry terrible players through content too hard for them while being useless in a good group over having the option to actually be a useful contributor to a good group.

Doesn't change the fact that the current patch ist terrible and needs a lot of fixing of numbers and some concepts how boons are generated.

 

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Darkblade.7634

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

5 hours ago, Darkblade.7634 said:

Personally I like the overall idea to give Alac and Quickness to all classes so there are more options and everyone can play as many roles as possible with his favourite class.

That is imo a way better idea of balance then to give every class classspecific buffs and boons like we had with banners and spotter. Either those classspecific features are strong and desirable so every group wants that class in the group but only 1 time since it is best to stack as many of those classspecific features in your group or they are terrible and noone wants that feature and so doesnt want that class in his group at all.

I don't think you understand the implication of what's going on. By giving Every class Quickness and Alac, and removing their unique abilites, Anet is not adding diversity, They are standardizing each and every class so every skill, trait, and mechanics are the same.

Boon corruption being removed as an option from Necromancers is a huge foreboding example. If a class, Known for corruption, have their corruption abilities removed. It means Necromancer are being set by example, and any other class has Boon corruption are not safe.

It also mean any unique form of Condi cleanses will be removed. To set the this to standard, and make sure every class has access to such a thing. Guardian's Condi to boon conversion? Getting removed from the game. Engineer's potion that convert a good chunk of condi into boons? Get it out of here.

This is what's going to happen if you keep giving classes everything. Once everyone is special, No one will be. And we're left with a stale, boring combat system that has been homogenized for no good reason, all because people want stuff like quickness and alac.
 

 

5 hours ago, Darkblade.7634 said:

Wouldnt ever understand someone who prefers to be a op rezbot to carry terrible players through content too hard for them while being useless in a good group over having the option to actually be a useful contributor to a good group.

Because Scourge's wasn't a "OP Rezbot". The content that the scourge was used on simply allow them to brute force mechanics and fight. That's not scourge's fault. That's the Devs fault for designing a raid/strike encounter without adding systems in place to prevent players from brute forcing it.

Even then, Who cares. Use the "Op rez bot" On Cm content like Harvest temple. You are not going to get away with the rezzing, I promise you. There are systems in place to prevent it, so to say Scourge's rez was op is tone deaf at best, because scourge was never the problem. The Encounters You get into simply allow them to do what they do without consequences.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Darkblade.7634]

Quote

6 hours ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

I don't think you understand the implication of what's going on. By giving Every class Quickness and Alac, and removing their unique abilites, Anet is not adding diversity, They are standardizing each and every class so every skill, trait, and mechanics are the same.

Boon corruption being removed as an option from Necromancers is a huge foreboding example. If a class, Known for corruption, have their corruption abilities removed. It means Necromancer are being set by example, and any other class has Boon corruption are not safe.

It also mean any unique form of Condi cleanses will be removed. To set the this to standard, and make sure every class has access to such a thing. Guardian's Condi to boon conversion? Getting removed from the game. Engineer's potion that convert a good chunk of condi into boons? Get it out of here.

This is what's going to happen if you keep giving classes everything. Once everyone is special, No one will be. And we're left with a stale, boring combat system that has been homogenized for no good reason, all because people want stuff like quickness and alac.
 

 

Because Scourge's wasn't a "OP Rezbot". The content that the scourge was used on simply allow them to brute force mechanics and fight. That's not scourge's fault. That's the Devs fault for designing a raid/strike encounter without adding systems in place to prevent players from brute forcing it.

Even then, Who cares. Use the "Op rez bot" On Cm content like Harvest temple. You are not going to get away with the rezzing, I promise you. There are systems in place to prevent it, so to say Scourge's rez was op is tone deaf at best, because scourge was never the problem. The Encounters You get into simply allow them to do what they do without consequences.

 

Just because you give every class access to quickness and alacrity doesnt mean that their style of gameplay will be the same. 

You can obviously make the style of generating those boons different between the classes like with the style of how Berserker or Scrapper generate quickness now.

The removal of booncorruption didnt have anything to do with the introduction of alacrity on scourge outside of being in the same patch so i dont see how that relevant.

Only the rez and barrier potential on scourge was reduced because otherwise the combination with alacrity would have been too strong. Also note that they not removed it but just nerfed it to not be too broken in combination.

Obviously some numbers still need tweaking, but i cant understand how people dont like the overall idea of giving necro/scourge alacrity and removing some of the op carry-potential of old healscourge for it.

It just gives you way more options in endgame-content to joint groups because you offer something valuable to all groups and not just something gimmicky to Training groups.

In all the experienced groups i joined for endgame content in the last year I seriously saw a maximum of a handful of scourges on support-positions because it just doesnt offer much for a experienced group outside of some gimmicky fights like boneskinner.

You take up a healerspot without offering alacrity/quickness which means one of the dps has to play boondps instead of full dps and the overall group dps is lower while also not offering that much to the group because there are a ton of endgame fights where even 1 normal healer is enough and you dont need the carry potential of healscourge at all.

So basicly anyone who wanted to play scourge and Support in better endgame-groups was screwed because noone wanted to take a healscourge there. 

Now with alacrity you have the real option to play Support scourge in endgame content with better groups.

Regarding your last column I just gotta say the following: 

First of all those oneshot-mechanics are more then rare in the endgame-content of gw2. There are basicly only a handful of bosses were you have something like that.

Mostly the community doesnt like those mechanics at all since they are really unforgiving and annoying in some part so adding even more of them in fights would most likely result in a ton of complaints from the community.

And you would really prefer to rework a ton of bosses and add instagib-mechanics while getting a ton of backlash from the community for it over just nerfing a gimmicky and op build which basicly only shines in some niche situations and doesnt have much to over outside of that.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

1 hour ago, Darkblade.7634 said:

Just because you give every class access to quickness and alacrity doesnt mean that their style of gameplay will be the same. 

You can obviously make the style of generating those boons different between the classes like with the style of how Berserker or Scrapper generate quickness now.

Scourge has to spam Barriers, Waste their heal to BARELY keep up with alacrity. Forced into using a skill that they should save for later. Meanwhile, Renegade can keep 100% uptime with Alac, with a single dedicated skill. Quickness Scrapper has to waste their skill to barely maintain quickness. Harbringer can provide Quickness by being in shroud. Is this the style of gameplay you're talking about? Because it's crap. As far as I can see.

People are going to flock over to renegade and Bladesworm for two things, and two things only. Efficiency, and ease of use. Upping the Alacrity duration for scourge isn't going to fix the fundamental Flaws Alacrity has. You can buff the duration as much as you want. But you're forced into a clumsy play style to make it work.
 

 

1 hour ago, Darkblade.7634 said:

The removal of booncorruption didnt have anything to do with the introduction of alacrity on scourge outside of being in the same patch so i dont see how that relevant.

Only the rez and barrier potential on scourge was reduced because otherwise the combination with alacrity would have been too strong. Also note that they not removed it but just nerfed it to not be too broken in combination.

It IS relevent because Those series of nerf share 1 thing in common. Standardization. This is the direction this game is heading towards. If you like the fact that alac and quickness is being given to every class, Then I'm sure you would love it if these classes also have access to group reflect, group condi cleanse, group invis, Boon ripping, Auras, Just to name a few.

Now I'm not saying that's going to happen, But this is a direction I'm seeing. It's the same path Elder scrolls took, and Gw2 will suffer the same faith eso did, If they continue on this path.



 

1 hour ago, Darkblade.7634 said:

Obviously some numbers still need tweaking, but i cant understand how people dont like the overall idea of giving necro/scourge alacrity and removing some of the op carry-potential of old healscourge for it.

It just gives you way more options in endgame-content to joint groups because you offer something valuable to all groups and not just something gimmicky to Training groups.

In all the experienced groups i joined for endgame content in the last year I seriously saw a maximum of a handful of scourges on support-positions because it just doesnt offer much for a experienced group outside of some gimmicky fights like boneskinner.

You take up a healerspot without offering alacrity/quickness which means one of the dps has to play boondps instead of full dps and the overall group dps is lower while also not offering that much to the group because there are a ton of endgame fights where even 1 normal healer is enough and you dont need the carry potential of healscourge at all.

So basicly anyone who wanted to play scourge and Support in better endgame-groups was screwed because noone wanted to take a healscourge there. 

Now with alacrity you have the real option to play Support scourge in endgame content with better groups.

All this tells is me that Quickness and Alacrity is so rooted into this game's combat system, you're effectively crippled without it. All the other stuff I've read is you having a personal bias with"Op scourge" over the fact that they don't have any quickness or alac. It should never take giving each class their own set of Quickness and alac, to make them balance. That is not how balance work. You might as make them a permanent addition to the game.



 

 

1 hour ago, Darkblade.7634 said:

Regarding your last column I just gotta say the following: 

First of all those oneshot-mechanics are more then rare in the endgame-content of gw2. There are basicly only a handful of bosses were you have something like that.

Mostly the community doesnt like those mechanics at all since they are really unforgiving and annoying in some part so adding even more of them in fights would most likely result in a ton of complaints from the community.

And you would really prefer to rework a ton of bosses and add instagib-mechanics while getting a ton of backlash from the community for it over just nerfing a gimmicky and op build which basicly only shines in some niche situations and doesnt have much to over outside of that.

What I would like to see is a down mechanic being reworked, so that the penalty stays as long you're in combat.Think of them as Lives in this instance. Get down a few time, and you're out for good.

There. Anet has indirectly nerfed scourge in a reasonable way, and players will still get punished for failing the mechanic. You don't need an open mind to easily think about these solution if you just sit down and think.

Anyway, Yes, Scourge's kit was Niche, In that case, Buff the existing kit. It didn't need Alacrity in their kit ti preform well. They just needed more juice.

They're a complete husk now, in favor of alac. With worst healing, Barrier, and a gutted revive speed on top of it.
 

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Jski.6180]

For the how many times now? Its just an update and its just an new way to do an expansion its not the end of the world nor the game.

[RenneBright.2473]

On 6/27/2023 at 9:53 PM, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Good job on almost fully homogenizing the game's combat.

You have, at long last, introduced the KEY boons to all specs. 

You are either Quickness or Alacrity. That's it, no other utility, no unique skills, no real incentive to play a class over the other. Does Quicknesss Zerker work better than Quickness Chrono? If so, you should play the Chrono for it's unique skills right? Too bad there ain't NONE.

The fact that you're even saying "no other utility, no unique skills" means you clearly have no idea what "utility" actually is, let alone what a boss' mechanic is.

[Mell.4873]

I mean the biggest problem we have had up until this point is a casual player let's say picks Healer Druid to be his main and gets to end-game and realises that they are not required for any PvE content due to the support boon limitation. 

I mean groups require these boons to function so I don't see an issue with allowing your favourite class to provide them. It's up to you to make it work since most people will pick the default best anyway. 

[Mell.4873]

On 6/28/2023 at 3:17 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

The irony I see here ... this might not be the balance people were asking for, but it's the balance that Anet was going to give them. Anet's balance has NEVER been about performance (or if it is ... we are still waiting to see it) and the introduction of roles wasn't going to fix that either. So while everyone was complaining that their class wasn't desirable in a team because it didn't have "insert boon here" ... well, Anet just 'fixed' that for all those people.

The result: there are still going to be instances where people play classes, even in their roles, where teams that are looking for meta won't want them. These players were wrong to ask for these boons, Anet took that idea and ran with it and nothing will change. Still people complaining they aren't desirable and Anet scratching their head why because they gave them the thing they asked for. 

The only shining light here is if you are a pure DPS role, because the only measure of that will be DPS. The sad part about that situation is that it give Anet lots of wiggle room to nerf the non-DPS elements of those spec if they desire, just to ensure they 'compete'. Gratz everyone ... we all just got pegged into roles and the changes we see to everything is going to reflect that. 

There is a scenario where these changes are in anticipation of expansion 4 ... but they didn't elude to that. Could have made for less outrage. 

 

Yeah I mean I built a Revenant purely to replace my Quickness and Alacrity support rather than using Mesmer. Then they go ahead and fixed Chronomancer for most part and Mirage next patch Staff gets Alacrity back. 

I guess this will be a reality for most people. Now I guess you just pick the Elite you want per game mode and do any role. 

Edited July 8, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Felices Bladewing.3914]

Anet in 2010: „i swing a sword, i swung it again“ - is uncool, every player should be in control of his/her own healing and utility. So every player is responsible on their own and we don’t want a holy trinity so players aren’t pigeon holed into roles so individual skill matters

Anet in 2023: „i click button x for a boon, and i do it again“ that is my only purpose for the group to increase overall dps oh and there is now dedicated healers because we need roles and pigeon hole people to do specific things. so we have a holy trinity now (we just got rid of tanks and filled it with other essentials)

[Myror.7521]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 I would say the patches themselfes are not as bad as many Players think or at least the Idea behinde them.

Gain

Access to quickness and alacrity share for every class is not a Bad thing. This 2 boons are needed everywhere so let every class getting a way to share them opens up more group variants than before the patch. For example before you where needed to Play one heal boon share spec into 1 boonshare Dps and cause only specific classes where able to share them it mostly ends up in Always the Same classes plus two DPS only classes. Now on the other Hand you could go for 1heal+1alacdps+1quicknessdps or 1quickheal+1alacdps or 1alacheal+1quicknessdps. I mean still some classes could not hold the 100% uptime share but this is a Balance issue and could get fixed more or less easy ^^

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 hour ago, Myror.7521 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 I would say the patches themselfes are not as bad as many Players think or at least the Idea behinde them.

Gain

Access to quickness and alacrity share for every class is not a Bad thing. This 2 boons are needed everywhere so let every class getting a way to share them opens up more group variants than before the patch. For example before you where needed to Play one heal boon share spec into 1 boonshare Dps and cause only specific classes where able to share them it mostly ends up in Always the Same classes plus two DPS only classes. Now on the other Hand you could go for 1heal+1alacdps+1quicknessdps or 1quickheal+1alacdps or 1alacheal+1quicknessdps. I mean still some classes could not hold the 100% uptime share but this is a Balance issue and could get fixed more or less easy ^^

You could make that argument, but mathematically, no it's not a good thing. If i had to make an analogy, you're solving a problem, with a bad solution...like in the Simpsons when Homer becomes garbage commissioner...his idea of "sticking all the garbage underground" was a solution to a problem of the over production of waste...until at some point, the whole town sank into a garbage dump.

I explain why mathematically it does this in the thread linked below (which also has two additional threads if you need less context) and the mathematics is clear. Opening up options that are different from each other is a good thing because the options are actually different and not comparable (if their differences are non-trivial). Once you create a way to make them comparable (by homogenizing their mechanics) you are then able to make comparisons, that then object themselves to further homogenization.

For example, if I have some boon like Alacrity, and I distributed it to 3 different classes... One has duration of 15s, another 5s, another 1s...then in order to have a game where not everyone picks the class with 15s duration, you must make ALL of them give alacrity of the same duration...10s for example, and when those skills do the same thing, the choice actually becomes superficial because the choices aren't different. If you do, keep up this procedure forever (called taking it to it's logical conclusion) like in the Simpsons... your entire game, being just "the same skill" is not a game. It's for this reason that homogenization of what skills do (making skills do the same thing), and the presentation of options (that are different) are two totally different operations and why the math/science there is extremely important to understand. 

Like in the analogy of the Simpsons, trying to solve a diversity problem, by making mechanics do the same thing, is like sticking your trash underneath the city. You are perhaps, solving some local problem like in your example, with a detrimental procedure. You don't need to even do such bad procedures to get diversity in the game you just need some core understanding of the principles and real actors that are at play in this problem.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2023 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684