Druid is the newest example of why Alac/Quick are design problems

[Flapjackson.1596]

Day one of the new balance patch and we are already seeing the struggles for some boon builds. Druid in particular is getting attention for having questionably low application of Might and Alac. The Alac is a necessity for Druid to be comparable to other healers, but forcing it into CA has upended the flexibility Druid previously enjoyed. Now you use your big healing form to give Alac. This means you can't time it for when you need, well... actual healing. You can't control your glyphs as well because your time spent in CA is dependent on your Alac uptime. The entire build has to dance to the tune of an obstructive boon. 

This is what I dislike about balancing around these boons so much. Builds become less snappy, less flexible, less responsive. People claim flexibility is increasing because more builds can do Quick/Alac, but I just see more builds becoming shackled to these boons. There is no freedom here. I would rather the devs end this eternal headache of which build gets which boon and how they apply it. Make these things baseline. Make the game easier for us and yourselves. Make elite specs stand out by things that are actually interesting. 

[Passerbye.6291]

Meanwhile they further buffed HFB for no reason, the one support class that was already meta in all PvE, gets even higher stab uptime (you could already reach 100% before), gets 17 might permanently from 2 skills, as well as exactly 100% quick uptime from mantra of potence alone with 100% boon duration, making everything else extra cushion for when your group isn't tightly stacked. Meanwhile druid, an already less frequently played build is further nerfed.

What I don't understand is, druid already had to arbitrarily go into CA for might uptime, then they go ahead and say "we won't force you to arbitrarily spam utilities for alac/quick" giving me hope for a reactive druid gameplay, something HFB has had ever since tome rework, making it the most versatile healer in the game. Then they put alac in CA, and not only that, they make the duration so low that you actually have to go into CA and camp it for the full duration for good alac uptime.

They first design a great class that has access to burst healing when needed, then force us to use that ability as part of a preset rotation to provide a core boon. Meanwhile I can burst heal, stab, stun break, projectile hate, provide extra might/fire field, resistance, condi cleanse, regen/vigor as needed on my HFB without being forced to incorporate them in my rotation for quick uptime.

They already have a functioning, and honestly WAY OVERPERFORMING, example of how a healer can be done, and they keep messing up gameplay for most healers from different angles while leaving HFB, by far the biggest outlier, be. What good did it do to free utilities from being spammed when you do the same thing with the main healing mechanic of the class. I swear they feel like a teenager who piles all their dirty clothes in a closet when they are asked to clean their room. Displacing a mess doesn't make it go away gentlemen.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Passerbye.6291

[Hotride.2187]

Playing alac druid in open world metas that need a lot of healing, I just scratch my head and wonder, why am I not on my heal mech? It just does everything better and is not extra effort...

For quickness and alac, IMO they just add pointless complexity to the game. They are baseline at this point, for pve group play...

[Dibit.6259]

28 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Playing alac druid in open world metas that need a lot of healing, I just scratch my head and wonder, why am I not on my heal mech? It just does everything better and is not extra effort...

This tbh is the one of the main results of their attempts to balance classes in game. They get rid of class unique buffs on the premise that people are restricted in what class they play and that things can be more diverse where each class can provide xyz boons . In reality this has resulted in certain classes being desired for certain roles because they provide xyz better, have better utility, or are easier to play. This patch has also resulted in some classes that were somewhat decent to be no longer able to do certain roles. It makes me sad how things have progressed in the last few years.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Dibit.6259
typos

[Doggie.3184]

They could always just delete quickness and alacrity and shave some CDs a bit more. 🙂

Edited June 28, 2023 by Doggie.3184

[Nimon.7840]

Don't worry it's the same with scourges alac application.

Renegade has to press one button that isn't doing anything else or is part of the rotation.

Scourge in the meantime:

Dps alac (probably around 25k dps) spams has to slot in every single barrier it has access to on full ritualist gear, to be barely able to keep up alac.

Heal scourge: has to permanently use F1,F3,F5 to be able to provide Perma alac. But then you only have regeneration, (warhorn 5 if you play warhorn), F4 (transfusion), your heal skill and serpent siphon as means to "heal" your allies when actually needed. While not being able to provide protection.

Meanwhile other builds don't need any boonduration to keep up their crucial boon. And that's what I don't get.

But hey: next adjustments to for example dps scourge are in 3 weeks. Hopefully anet addresses such issues there as well.

[Mourningstar.7309]

What confuses me is that this goes against the stated design goal of spamming otherwise unrelated-but-traited utilities for the sake of providing a boon.  Why does Firebrand and Renegade get skills (or in renegades' case, literally a single skill) dedicated to maintaining their key boon, while others have to do random nonsense?  This patch merely shuffled around the random nonsense that needs to be done to maintain boon upkeep for druid and scrapper, but at the end of the day it's still blowing cooldowns for a secondary effect rather than the main purpose of the skill.

[shib.1369]

I agree. I've for a long time been a defender of quick and alac. My defensiveness has been shaken a bit over time, and this patch was the last straw.

These two boons hamstrung the gameplay of soooooooo many specs/builds. Both when it comes to effectiveness/non-effectiveness and how degenerate/non-degenerate the gameplay feels (spammyness etc.).

It seems like every patch alac and quick are the main culprits behind butcherings of gameplay styles and weird unbalanced messes (alac specter benching 38k rn. just 1,7k behind pure dps specter). Scourge was nuked from orbit for the sole reason of introducing alacrity, but the alacrity build is hot stinking garbage! The reactive parts of HAM and druid gameplay has been massively reduced, and once again due to how alacrity's applied.

I honestly can write 10 000 of this if I had the time and energy, but I think I've gotten my point across.

Just get rid of these boons. They've turned into a massive tumor on spec design. Give us baseline cd reductions, speed increases, or whatever. Anything is better than the current scenario.

[shib.1369]

3 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

Renegade has to press one button that isn't doing anything else or is part of the rotation.

While this design looks so silly on the surface I massively prefer it over how many other specs work. Renegade is interesting on its own. It doesn't need its gameplay hamstrung by applying a single boon.

[Greyrat.2378]

Because they either don't really play these specs/professions or they don't have any unified view on how these boons should be distributed.
Final result is that it's just all over the place with various results.

One spec can provide alac/quick on demand, another one needs to hit something or generate resources to spend in order to provide it, making it awkward if you want to aim for 100% uptime.
One spec has the generation implemented into the general gameplay/rotation, another one has to spam everything off cooldown in order to upkeep it making the initial purpose of the skill obsolete.

There is no consistency and things like this are just massive oversight on their part.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Greyrat.2378

[Flapjackson.1596]

2 hours ago, shib.1369 said:

While this design looks so silly on the surface I massively prefer it over how many other specs work. Renegade is interesting on its own. It doesn't need its gameplay hamstrung by applying a single boon.

I agree. Renegade stands out because it achieves what the devs intend, which is for boon application to be as  unobtrusive as possible. 

Which just begs the question, why are these boons even in the hands of players in the first place? They are too powerful. Everyone knows permanently having them is too powerful. Every build gets balanced around the assumption the uptime on them is crazy high, yet it’s still something that is in control of the players. Why? What is the point?

I see these boons as a “net-negative” experience for the customer. Either you have them and it’s normal, our you don’t and it feels bad. They can’t make the application feel positive or rewarding because then it’s not guaranteed, and becomes an issue.

[shaz.8572]

I honestly think they need to address how the specific classes apply the boons in question 

I think they are close to preserving scapper identity, they just need to finalize how the boon application happens, 
I would say keep the trait, just include blast finishers, leaps and whirls as these are already in the kit and adjust how much they provide. 
 

This might actually be a GREAT solution for druid feels bad high apm gameplay right now. 
Maybe change the trait to apply ALAC based on blast and leap finishers and let people keep celestial for when they actually need it. 

The ranger class has loads of leaps and blast finishers  already baked in, they just need to adjust how the boon application works. 

Im sure the other classes that feel better like warrior or rev work on a similar principal, play the class and apply the boons for playing it a certain way for the most part. 

WE know they can do it based on how scrapper works, they just need to adjust the numbers more. 

[SlayerXX.7138]

8 hours ago, Flapjackson.1596 said:

Day one of the new balance patch and we are already seeing the struggles for some boon builds. Druid in particular is getting attention for having questionably low application of Might and Alac.

Isn't that only a numbers issue? 3/4 is quite short but easy to fix. The real problem seems to be that numbers are balanced around full ascended + food and in this special case perma quickness. That is why the boon dps struggle less then the healers in the patch. Because healers are "supposed" to have a lot of concentration.

I guess they tested it on an optimized build, then got a heart attack what 1,5 alac can do in perfect situation. Even now with the 3/4 sec alac you pump a lot of alac. With 100% boon duration, perma quickness, uninterrupted, depleting all astral force...

I guess they design goal was to give you enough overflow of alac so you can hold avatar for burst damage phases. Maybe they will remember that some peasants don't have full ascended yet.

[Raarsi.6798]

6 hours ago, Doggie.3184 said:

They could always just delete quickness and alacrity and shave some CDs a bit more. 🙂

How dare you speak common sense!  😂

Seriously, they really should just remove the buffs entirely.  In fact, I could've sworn there was a dev letter saying they would delete alac and make quickness only apply to the caster, so why on earth would they pull this atrocious 180?

Also, I'm convinced that the devs' actions toward these buffs confirms that old stereotype that all Anet devs are guardian mains.

[Scynte.1340]

How about putting some alac on a glyph and the rest on ca 4 and 5 if you have GotL? I'd rather not spam my ca abilities. 

[Flapjackson.1596]

1 hour ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

Isn't that only a numbers issue? 3/4 is quite short but easy to fix. The real problem seems to be that numbers are balanced around full ascended + food and in this special case perma quickness. That is why the boon dps struggle less then the healers in the patch. Because healers are "supposed" to have a lot of concentration.

I guess they tested it on an optimized build, then got a heart attack what 1,5 alac can do in perfect situation. Even now with the 3/4 sec alac you pump a lot of alac. With 100% boon duration, perma quickness, uninterrupted, depleting all astral force...

I guess they design goal was to give you enough overflow of alac so you can hold avatar for burst damage phases. Maybe they will remember that some peasants don't have full ascended yet.

It is in part a numbers issue yes. Even with full ascended and buffs though you still run into situations where you lose boons the moment you’re off group. Things like giving alac on G2 Kite are just off the table now. 

I wouldn’t fully call it a numbers issue though. Putting Quick and Alac on key components of spec kits overloads the function of those components. It goes completely against their stated goal to not do that, while behaving in an anti-synergistic manner because the moments you need to give Alac and the moment you need to heal/cleanse/etc are not the same.

Thing like quick on blast finisher or alac on barrier are the most elegant paths, but not every build fits into those models. The devs chase their tails constantly shifting Quick/Alac between core components that then get overloaded and specific skills that then get spammed off cool down. They just can’t win. It’s not a battle I find worth fighting.

[SlayerXX.7138]

1 hour ago, Flapjackson.1596 said:

It is in part a numbers issue yes. Even with full ascended and buffs though you still run into situations where you lose boons the moment you’re off group. Things like giving alac on G2 Kite are just off the table now. 

I wouldn’t fully call it a numbers issue though. Putting Quick and Alac on key components of spec kits overloads the function of those components. It goes completely against their stated goal to not do that, while behaving in an anti-synergistic manner because the moments you need to give Alac and the moment you need to heal/cleanse/etc are not the same.

Thing like quick on blast finisher or alac on barrier are the most elegant paths, but not every build fits into those models. The devs chase their tails constantly shifting Quick/Alac between core components that then get overloaded and specific skills that then get spammed off cool down. They just can’t win. It’s not a battle I find worth fighting.

The devs just work according to popular demand. I do have sympathy for them. For months the masses screamed to free the utilities, now complaining that the devs delivered, like there are many other options to put boons without breaking the game. I absolutely get your issue, but they have to put the boons somewhere. That is just the state the game evolved to. I feel in the case of druid the real shackle is harrier gear being the meta build. So the devs balance around 90%+ boon duration.

People optimize. Alac and quick are too entrenched in the meta to ignore. So the devs have to do something.

[Greyrat.2378]

31 minutes ago, SlayerXX.7138 said:

The devs just work according to popular demand. I do have sympathy for them. For months the masses screamed to free the utilities, now complaining that the devs delivered, like there are many other options to put boons without breaking the game. I absolutely get your issue, but they have to put the boons somewhere. That is just the state the game evolved to. I feel in the case of druid the real shackle is harrier gear being the meta build. So the devs balance around 90%+ boon duration.

People optimize. Alac and quick are too entrenched in the meta to ignore. So the devs have to do something.

You don't move alac/quick into skills that you have to spam again off cooldown just to get 100% uptime. That's just same situation as if you would leave them on utility skills.
Why do I have to spam and waste everything in CA as druid to keep up the alacrity while Bladesworn can generate alacrity just by using Dragon Slash which is already part of his rotation?
Why do I have to waste my skills like function gyro on blasting fields to provide quickness as scrapper when harbinger can use just his shroud to poop out some quickness?
This is such backwards thinking that makes me wonder what is going with people that are coming up with these changes.
How can you come up with quite good and easy/non disruptive way to provide boons like e.g. bladesworn or firebrand but do the complete opposite with e.g. druid?
Did they even test these changes in real scenario?
I do not want to bash on devs but this is not exactly rocket science, yet they manage to create the disparity between professions that provide these crucial boons even bigger, which feels exactly like the banners change fiasco year ago.
In other words they have no idea what are they doing unless it's a spec that they actively play.
This is just Solar Treatment 2: Electric Boogaloo

Edited June 28, 2023 by Greyrat.2378

[SlayerXX.7138]

46 minutes ago, Greyrat.2378 said:

You don't move alac/quick into skills that you have to spam again off cooldown just to get 100% uptime. That's just same situation as if you would leave them on utility skills.

Yeah obviously, but putting it on staff isn't a good idea too. I said it somewhere else too:"where did people think the boons move too, if we remove it from the utilities"

46 minutes ago, Greyrat.2378 said:

How can you come up with quite good and easy/non disruptive way to provide boons like e.g. bladesworn or firebrand but do the complete opposite with e.g. druid?

Firebrand is the golden child, that is not bound to the normal balancing economy. Bladesworn is a dps. If druid wouldn't be a healer and just could rotate, alac wouldn't be a problem

46 minutes ago, Greyrat.2378 said:

Why do I have to waste my skills like function gyro on blasting fields to provide quickness as scrapper when harbinger can use just his shroud to poop out some quickness?

Harbringer is a dps, that is also blessed by generous numbers. If druid had 1.25 alac base it wouldn't be a problem.

46 minutes ago, Greyrat.2378 said:

I do not want to bash on devs but this is not exactly rocket science, yet they manage to create the disparity between professions that provide these crucial boons even bigger, which feels exactly like the banners change fiasco year ago

They did to much at once and druid did fall between the cracks. Go pump alac on a golem with quickness and the optimized set up. You get to the 30 sec alac cap. I guess the devs deemed that sufficient. Unaware of the nuance. The real problem seems to be the reliance on quickness, as that seems to double the alac output.

Edited June 28, 2023 by SlayerXX.7138

[Eildon.1950]

Regarding both the support specs I play Druid and Scourge: the butchered both and need to revert these changes ASAP!

With druid at least with spirits we could mantain 100% alac uptime. Sure we had to spam spirits every few seconds but still...

With these changes I can no longer confortably mantain 100% alac uptime AND I have to spam celestial avatar each time it's off cooldown (mashing my keyboard and clicking like crazy). This completely ruins the purpose of celestial avatar (burst healing) and turns it into an even worse spamfest.

I also hate the changes to spirits in general because I can also no longer mantain their buffs with decent uptime.

Druid was fine and didn't need changes (can't speak for Soulbeast or Untamed because I don't main those specs). But ANet needed to fix the "spam issue" of spirits by making us spam celestial avatar EVEN MORE to get LESS alac uptime than before. See the irony here?

As for Scourge imo there wasn't a real need to introduce alac to the spec. It's nice bonus sure but the tradeoff is horrendous. Way less revive power and way less healing.

Again it falls under the same problem as the druid. We need to spam our defensive skills each time they're off cooldown (in this case barriers) to provide alac. Again it's a spamfest mashing my keyboard and the tradeoff is not worth it.

I don't see the need to change it just for the sake of "changing". If it ain't broken don't fix it.

[Furball.1236]

I agree too much emphasis may be put on alac and quick, but specifically for heal alac druid, everything is fine.

I gave it 1 try each in the golem room, once with the mild threatening damage field and once with the moderate field. In both cases, ~20 stacks of might, 100% fury, 75-80% protection was maintained. The alac uptime was ~80% with the mild field and 100% with the moderate field. I'm sure this will be better after I actually familiarize myself with the new tweaks I made. I've been using the same playing style to solo heal 10-man squads in raids or heal through 5-man squad in enraged Cairn and so on. The same amount of healing can be done in this rotation as well.

CA is an extremely strong healing mode but druid's non-CA healing is as good as several other heal classes. Without the need to go to CA for boon application, druid play will be as boring as the AFK healing mech. I'm glad to have enough complexity that makes you feel you're actually playing the game. Balancing between heal and boon is fun.

My guildie also played a druid yesterday in our HoT raids and we got close to 100% alac uptime with good might. I don't see problems in the real scenarios either.

 

The only potential concern is that we can't heal our spirits to refill our CA bar anymore. This was a great way to refill your CA bar instantly while you're tanking on the other side of the boss from the rest of your group. In this case, heal alac druid tank may struggle in keeping alac, however I've never tested.

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that I didn't have quick on me or other allies to heal for CA juice while I was testing in the golem room, which both would've further improved the boon application. Also, after CA is off-CD, there's still 14 sec before your alacrity expires assuming 0% quickness is on you, and there's 21 sec assuming 100% quickness is on you (because more quick = more CA skills = more extra alac output during CA). There is plenty of time to refill the CA bar.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Furball.1236

[Katary.7096]

The boons aren't the problem, the developers failing to implement the application of these boons in a decent manner is the problem. Renegade builds don't have to bend over backwards to apply alacrity, Firebrand builds don't need to sacrifice basic functionality to give out quickness. The reason why that is the case is that both builds have 1 or 2 dedicated skills which apply the boons in question and have basically no secondary effect.
Consider for a moment what would happen if "Grace of the Land" had been changed so that CA abilities apply resistance to allies instead of might. The basic problem would be the same, since Druids would be expected to sacrifice some of their best healing skills to no longer heal allies but instead provide them with permanent resistance. Fundamentally the same issue we have right now with the alacrity application method. And since this would not even involve alacrity, the boon itself can't be the problem. Poorly designed boon application is the problem.

[shaz.8572]

4 hours ago, Katary.7096 said:

The boons aren't the problem, the developers failing to implement the application of these boons in a decent manner is the problem. Renegade builds don't have to bend over backwards to apply alacrity, Firebrand builds don't need to sacrifice basic functionality to give out quickness. The reason why that is the case is that both builds have 1 or 2 dedicated skills which apply the boons in question and have basically no secondary effect.
Consider for a moment what would happen if "Grace of the Land" had been changed so that CA abilities apply resistance to allies instead of might. The basic problem would be the same, since Druids would be expected to sacrifice some of their best healing skills to no longer heal allies but instead provide them with permanent resistance. Fundamentally the same issue we have right now with the alacrity application method. And since this would not even involve alacrity, the boon itself can't be the problem. Poorly designed boon application is the problem.

I do honestly think that they gave scrapper a really good idea on HOW to apply the boons. 

Since we are kinda moving away from healer only uses staff type stuff with the release of the new weapons. 

I think that grace of the land should apply boons on blast finishers and leaps instead of forcing celestial, considering that not every one will want to burn celestial cool down, this will allow flexibility while retaining identity. 

Here is  list that i have seen on weapon skills. 

two leap finishers on sword 

one blast on hammer/ two if you count unleashed alt mode. 

one leap on dagger

one leap on great sword

one blast on staff 

one blast on warhorn

one blast on cele avatar mode. 

all spirits blast finish technically so 1 heal blast, 4 util blasts, 1 elite skill 

so even if they dont want to include leaps that would allow natural boon application assuming that you use staff, some main had and warhorn on druid, which allows multiple ways to provide the HOW with out forcing any one to burn celestial mode. 

This would allow a NATURAL FLOW to gameplay with out forcing it to always make you burn celestial avatar and you can still potentially keep alac up and heal with out disrupting the class too much while allowing people to just heal, dps or provide alac with the current traits as they are with out shoehorning it into something that doesnt feel good to play. 

I do hope that people consider this option as its the only way im seeing that will really allow the class to do what people want and we already know they can update the trait to allow finishers considering that is the route they took with scrapper alac trait. 
 

[Pie.2167]

Meanwhile, in WvW, Druid effectively replaced Chrono for squad/party alac.

[Barraind.7324]

1 hour ago, Pie.2167 said:

Meanwhile, in WvW, Druid effectively replaced Chrono for squad/party alac.

Theyve also been the hands-down best raid solo healer for as long as raids have existed.

This wont be the first time druid has been "literally unplayable" while also splashing enough healing to keep a squad up and having 100% alac uptime.