Groups want Alac HS now....

[Fast Sloth.6921]

so now groups demand alac hs for trivial content.... 😞

Anet, you made the hs class AMAZINGLY more fun to play as the alac really speeds up the game play by itself, the 1-1.5 seconds baseline. Anet: Total Win.

this is what's wrong with the community, the players that want to make a speed run group of optimal efficiency of theory crafted builds that live in their head.

Very little focus on the mechanics of the encounters, and only on the spec and charts. 

The problem is the abilities don't interact with the boss besides make u win slightly faster.

The encounters are practically trivial while people have expectations for player performance is of great irony and little significance, especially when the content is meant to be done daily, offers very little reward, and very little time difference in build compositions.

I think the players are entitled and greedy for no reason while there's not enough challenge through personal responsibility, ie: the stack & spam method of most encounters.

[Acanthus.8120]

From what I read, people were upset by shade duration being spammy and unfun, and not liking baseline nerfs for opt-in gains.

I'm upset for signets of suffering and corruption changes on top of that since I don't really play Scourge.

2 hours ago, Fast Sloth.6921 said:

this is what's wrong with the community, the players that want to make a speed run group of optimal efficiency of theory crafted builds that live in their head.

No, I don't. I even had a sustain-based build, which my past posts talk about. Don't speak for me.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Where are you seeing people asking for alacheal scourge?  I see people wanting healscourge on Boneskinner, but that's been the case for a long time.  Not seeing it called for anywhere else.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[Gaeb.2837]

Lol what? Why would groups ask for such a suboptimal build? 

There's always been demand for healscourge because of the magic corpse vacuum, and even nerfed it's still viable. Outside Boneskinner and learning runs though, no, there's no 'demand' for healscourge. Why would there be?  As is its a huge (and mindless, spammy - weren't we trying to get away from mindless/spammy?!) pita to optimize with the missing 10% concentration and low alac duration attached to Barrier, both of which are getting buffed next patch.   

 That said I wish they'd thought this out a bit more. Make the shroud pump out serious alac duration (which, if they bumped their current plan of Sandstorm Shroud to 5 or 6 pulses it might) so that we could be reactive and not just have to SPAM SKILLS ON COOLDOWN TO MAINTAIN ALACRITY like they in theory have been trying to get away from 😒   (also why the heck put protection on sandstorm shroud, which must be spammed as the greatest source of alac instead of on Sand Flare so that it can be used reactively?)

  

To be clear I never asked for / wanted alac on Scourge (and I'm glad that after next buff at least dps scourge will be whole again) but if they're GOING to implement it DO A GOOD JOB (and give us wiggle room in builds not require 100% concentration and spamming buttons nonstop to achieve full uptime - DPS-Alac should be a thing, heck DPS-Quick-Harb requires 0% concentration). 

 

Meanwhile in this same patch they somehow released multiple builds that require 0% concentration to get 100% uptime ... like, what is the concept of balance here? 

Edited July 3, 2023 by Gaeb.2837
Clarification

[LuRkEr.9462]

Yea, outside of bone skinner I have seen no demand for HS. Still HFB, HAM, Druid. Atleast until the patch Alac HS is pretty painful to play and its healing is kind of mediocre so in heavy damage fights it will struggle. 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

4 hours ago, Gaeb.2837 said:

 That said I wish they'd thought this out a bit more. Make the shroud pump out serious alac duration (which, if they bumped their current plan of Sandstorm Shroud to 5 or 6 pulses it might) so that we could be reactive and not just have to SPAM SKILLS ON COOLDOWN TO MAINTAIN ALACRITY like they in theory have been trying to get away from 😒   (also why the heck put protection on sandstorm shroud, which must be spammed as the greatest source of alac instead of on Sand Flare so that it can be used reactively?)

  

To be clear I never asked for / wanted alac on Scourge (and I'm glad that after next buff at least dps scourge will be whole again) but if they're GOING to implement it DO A GOOD JOB (and give us wiggle room in builds not require 100% concentration and spamming buttons nonstop to achieve full uptime). Meanwhile they somehow released multiple builds that require 0% concentration to get 100% uptime ... like, what?

Their July 18 proposals do allow for perma-Alacrity and perma-protection (assuming 85% boon duration pre-shade) with just placing shades and Sandstorm Shroud on cooldown, so that frees up a lot of flexibility on skill use.  Don't need to worry about protection being used reactively when it's just always up.

 

Heck, with max boon duration, Sandstorm Shroud alone will provide 12 seconds of alacrity on a 13.5 second effective cooldown (assuming Soul Reaping).

Edited July 3, 2023 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[AlchemistRai.7596]

what squad would ask for Alac HS? Training groups? people who don't understand how boons work?

[Obtena.7952]

9 hours ago, Fast Sloth.6921 said:

so now groups demand alac hs for trivial content.... 😞

There are teams ASKING for Alac HS? I call BS on that one, given the significantly better options for that role. Even scrub teams that would still benefit from the additional rezz capabilities of an Alac HS don't know enough to ask for that. So ... who is asking for this? Sounds to me like a VERY isolated incident. 

9 hours ago, Fast Sloth.6921 said:

Anet, you made the hs class AMAZINGLY more fun to play as the alac really speeds up the game play by itself, the 1-1.5 seconds baseline. Anet: Total Win.

Hold on ... your claim here is that the Alac HS is amazingly more fun to play? That doesn't make sense to me because even before this patch, you could spam shades and your team already had alacrity covered for you. The only change is that if you want to have 'fun' playing Alac HS, you are locked into a specific rotation and build to even be half as effective as other classes in that role. I don't see the 'fun' in struggling to fill a role that your team is relying on you for (and neither does Anet judging by the incoming corrections to the implementation). 

9 hours ago, Fast Sloth.6921 said:

this is what's wrong with the community, the players that want to make a speed run group of optimal efficiency of theory crafted builds that live in their head.

Very little focus on the mechanics of the encounters, and only on the spec and charts. 

The problem is the abilities don't interact with the boss besides make u win slightly faster.

The encounters are practically trivial while people have expectations for player performance is of great irony and little significance, especially when the content is meant to be done daily, offers very little reward, and very little time difference in build compositions.

I think the players are entitled and greedy for no reason while there's not enough challenge through personal responsibility, ie: the stack & spam method of most encounters.

I'm the last person to push meta on others when building teams BUT there is nothing wrong with people wanting to make optimal teams based on meta. The idea that players are 'personally responsible' for their performance is still very much an option but you have to choose to play that way. Unfortunately, this self-reliance no longer has the weight it used to as Anet has literally told us they are implementing specific roles for every spec to give players a 'place' in teams. 

In otherwords ... it's NOT the players that are greedy and entitled. This paradigm shift is coming from Anet itself as how they intend players to interact with the specs they are designing (and likely balancing future encounters around). 

But, if you are still convinced that the playerbase is greedy and entitled for taking up specs and playing them in their intended roles ... well, nothing stops you from making your own teams. 

Edited July 3, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

I can see folks wanting healscourge in the future for specific condition heavy fights after it gets some QoL updates.  But right now, no.  Outside of boneskinner and occasional training groups, nobody wants it.

[Artemis.8034]

I hate scourge now

 

[Gaeb.2837]

11 hours ago, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

Their July 18 proposals do allow for perma-Alacrity and perma-protection (assuming 85% boon duration pre-shade) with just placing shades and Sandstorm Shroud on cooldown, so that frees up a lot of flexibility on skill use.  Don't need to worry about protection being used reactively when it's just always up.

Heck, with max boon duration, Sandstorm Shroud alone will provide 12 seconds of alacrity on a 13.5 second effective cooldown (assuming Soul Reaping).

Too tight, its why I want them to give us another pulse or two on Sandstorm Shroud so we have flexibility. DPS alac builds won't do much if you need to hit 100% boondur. They've released multiple builds with more simple alac/quick management and/or less boondur require (some of their latest patch builds can provide full quickness uptime in berserker gear, wtf) heck just look at dps-quick-harb and the 0% boon dur requirement; why is alac scourge penalized? The sweet spot for me was the old quickscrap, where you could alter either boon duration or the number of gyros you brought to balance your uptime and had lots of flexibility for healing or dps. Right now the requirements are too tight to maintain full alac uptime (crimps DPS-Alac potential).

Keep in mind that providing alac via shade will be hit or miss given it most frequently will be cast on the target (especially if dps-alac). So more realistically you have F5+F3 that will put alac where you want it consistently/without effort, and the rest are long cooldowns or rotation-breaking stop to aim etc. Giving Sandstorm Shroud 6 pulses would put Alac Scourge on par with Alac Renegade (1 button on cooldown @ 80% boondur), which is not a bad benchmark from a fun / versality standpoint. Right now? Requirements are too tight.

 

If they want to give us perma prot, fine I guess (I didn't want alac to begin with), but not with such a high bar to maintain alac that we are pidgeon-holed into ONLY healer builds. DPS-Alac should be a viable thing. They also probably should tie the protection to the Nourishing Ashes trait rather than give it to DPS-Alac for free.

Edited July 3, 2023 by Gaeb.2837