Why Balance Patches are Professional Raiders skills dedicated ?

[Theros.1390]

All is in the title,

Please consider once for all that doing the perfect rotation and be able to reach the top DPS potential on a profession, is reachable by far less than 1% of the player base.

Please let the professionals shine, and let the casuals players do some decent damages in PvE.

 

[Stx.4857]

Condi Holo has been my main spec for years now and we finally got one patch where we did competitive DPS with other specs (and that’s only in a group setting with perfect support, in open world content condi holo is still behind a lot of specs) but we couldn’t have that could we?  NERF.  

[Suyheuti.1732]

They killed weaver and catalyst instead of nerfing warhorn. Thank you anet, hammer and oh dagger is garbage now.

Edit: I missed Wildfire nerf after being furious about trait nerfs in 2 specs. But hammer is still useless weapon

Edited September 26, 2023 by Suyheuti.1732

[DanAlcedo.3281]

It was always about golem builds. They have shown for years that nothing else matters in pve. 

 

[Beddo.1907]

There is already an issue with too big damage across the entirety of PvE. Any damage nerf is deserved honestly.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

23 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

There is already an issue with too big damage across the entirety of PvE. Any damage nerf is deserved honestly.

And why do you think that is? Instead of ignoring this big fat elephant in the room, lets point out the fact that elite weapon training has single-handedly increase dps across the board, and should have never been a thing. Every class wouldn't have 40k at the end of the day, Anet wouldn't have to retroactively balance these things.

Welcome to homogenization dude. The dps is only going to increase as long as their vision is to provide diversity. You don't think the new weapons are going to add even higher dps? I got news for you lol.

They do have to nerf all these powercreeps. But you also have to understand what caused this powercreep to begin with, and take the issue from it's roots. Blindly nerfing stuff because it's too strong isn't going to fix the fundamental problem. It isn't simple as "Nerf this because it's too strong." There has been too many of that, and a lot of classes suffer for it.

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Beddo.1907]

16 minutes ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

And why do you think that is? Instead of ignoring this big fat elephant in the room, lets point out the fact that elite weapon training has single-handedly increase dps across the board, and should have never been a thing. Every class wouldn't have 40k at the end of the day, Anet wouldn't have to retroactively balance these things.

Welcome to homogenization dude. The dps is only going to increase as long as their vision is to provide diversity. You don't think the new weapons are going to add even higher dps? I got news for you lol.

They do have to nerf all these powercreeps. But you also have to understand what caused this powercreep to begin with, and take the issue from it's roots. Blindly nerfing stuff because it's too strong isn't going to fix the fundamental problem. It isn't simple as "Nerf this because it's too strong." There has been too many of that, and a lot of classes suffer for it.

 

We already had builds over 40k way before the weapons.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Beddo.1907

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

13 minutes ago, Beddo.1907 said:

We already had build over 40k way before the weapons.

But back then, not every class could reach 40k dps. It was considered a anomaly at best. I don't see the point you're trying to make here.

You also have to think about how many patches we had that lead up to the point where every class can breach 40k, because patches like giving everyone and their grandmother quickness and alacrity definitely had a hand in the power creep.

The elite weapontraining trait is what sealed the deal though. Again, If we have to make nerfs, it has to be the right nerf, and not be blinded with the here and now.

If you just swing the nerf hammer wildly in hope that things will get balance, you're only going to get a pissed off playerbase.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267

[Gendalfs.7521]

They can differentiate skill damage depending what elite spec is equipped. See scourge patch notes.

Q: Why they nerfed pistol for every engie elite instead of just Holo?

Edited September 26, 2023 by Gendalfs.7521
Added info

[Dreams.3128]

WHY ARE THEY KILLING WEAVER AND ALL CONDI ENGIES?

I need an explanation because the math is not mathing. Someone please give me a logical explanation outside of the fact Warhorn was really strong on ALL Ele specs. Also I am REALLY confused as to why they are even TOUCHING Pistol. If anything Pistols should be getting BUFFED on Engies because they have been UNDERTUNED for a longgggg time. 

[Echostorm.9143]

They always do this.  A few people get a high DPS on the golem and the pearl clutchers start screaming for a nerf that will only really hurt casuals and normal players.

[Theros.1390]

58 minutes ago, Echostorm.9143 said:

They always do this.  A few people get a high DPS on the golem and the pearl clutchers start screaming for a nerf that will only really hurt casuals and normal players.

^

We're not all Snow Crows.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

I am still trying to figure out when any revenant build is overperforming. Said it once already but kitten was that a heavy handed backhand we got in that nerf. And poor vindi the sub 40k DPS (herald just scratches 40k if you are super sweaty tryhard) got put into a corner and blind put in front of them now.

[Stx.4857]

4 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

I am still trying to figure out when any revenant build is overperforming. Said it once already but kitten was that a heavy handed backhand we got in that nerf. And poor vindi the sub 40k DPS (herald just scratches 40k if you are super sweaty tryhard) got put into a corner and blind put in front of them now.

Quickness Herald was doing 40k+ while providing permanent uptime on all important boons including defensive boons.  It was way too good.  
 

Ideally they would have compensated with buffs to underperforming dps like vindicator…. But alas. 

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

2 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

Quickness Herald was doing 40k+ while providing permanent uptime on all important boons including defensive boons.  It was way too good.  
 

Ideally they would have compensated with buffs to underperforming dps like vindicator…. But alas. 

A pure DPS herald barely scratched 40k and that's with sweaty tryharding, and a quickness build was below that.

[Angesombre.4630]

3 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

Quickness Herald faisait plus de 40 000 $ tout en offrant une disponibilité permanente sur tous les avantages importants, y compris les avantages défensifs. C'était vraiment trop bon.  
 

Idéalement, ils auraient compensé avec des buffs pour les DPS sous-performants comme Vindicator…. Mais hélas. 

In that case, make sure you use concentration otherwise there's no point in just modifying the GS that was increased a year ago....

[Dreams.3128]

I'm still trying to figure out why they are using literally the 1% percentile of players that play these builds, when if anything, I have yet to see things like Condi Holo, Weaver or less popular classes, when every other CM for strikes or fractals and even in my TRAINING raids I have seen a PLETHORA of scourges, herald, firebrands. Honestly, all I've seen is really scourges since I've been in and out of the 'higher' end content. 

Shouldn't this be taken on a case by case basis instead of literally basing ALL of these results off of a fairly small population which do nothing but speedruns and trying to find ways to literally break raid fights. I feel like snowcrows REALLY is becoming a detriment at this point because folks know kitten well not even a quarter of GW2's population ever reaches those sort of numbers in their entire careers. 

Is raids now the sudden benchmark for when builds become 'overperforming' even though they actively have abandoned them and refuse to make any new raid wings?

Edited September 26, 2023 by Dreams.3128

[Gendalfs.7521]

55 minutes ago, Dreams.3128 said:

Is raids now the sudden benchmark for when builds become 'overperforming' even though they actively have abandoned them and refuse to make any new raid wings?

Thats the irony of this all.

But this wasnt ''main'' balance patch, just to calm down most peaks. Tho I still dont get Engie pistol nerfs lol

[itspomf.9523]

1 hour ago, Dreams.3128 said:

Is raids now the sudden benchmark for when builds become 'overperforming' even though they actively have abandoned them and refuse to make any new raid wings?

Yes, and the "build crafters" are the ones championing it.

It's the same slow rot you see in Path of Exile.

[Matoro.9708]

I think I've said this before, but maybe we should all just start pugging with terrible builds and failing at raids to make their metrics go crazy.

I call turret engi!

[Alcatraznc.3869]

8 hours ago, Matoro.9708 said:

I think I've said this before, but maybe we should all just start pugging with terrible builds and failing at raids to make their metrics go crazy.

I call turret engi!

 

The vast majority of player who run those dedicated raid build arent player doing raid with randoms. They already have static group. The majority of player doing raids with pugs are either people who are actually trying to encourage players into doing raids, people recruiting for static group or people selling raids.

 

You bringing garbage build would just hinder the remaining players willing to help other getting into raids. And I'm not even sure you will last long enough for your shenanigans to kick in.

[LadyKitty.6120]

As Kitty's written before in other threads: it doesn't matter if pros are testing or not when it comes to the fact of some traits and skills being stronger or weaker than they should be. Those problems would still exist and benchmarks/high-end players' logs simply show how bad those problems are in-game. Benchmarkers and hardcore players often do math (with intricate spreadsheets including all the skill and trait infos) to figure out best combos and simply apply the results to in-game gameplay and see how close the maths are to how a human can perform.

The numbers for damage calculations are available from wiki and the cast/animation durations for skills can be checked from logs (easy method) or by recording a video and checking the animation durations (hard, slightly unreliable method) so if you feel like a nerf or buff is unjustified, off to math you go and return with suggestions on changes to numbers as well as why and what might be possible side-effects.

Also, the problem of some builds overperforming isn't exclusive to raids. They are also prevalent in fractals, strikes and even open-world when there's big blobs of people, like metas and world bosses. If there's even a few players present who care about having a decent build (which also makes rest of open-world trivial since you can just pull in and nuke the mobs to death and burst champs), the bosses melt like butter. And from Kitty's experience, there's always at least 1 in 10 random players at world bosses. 

And when it comes to condi engi, the core version got caught in the collateral damage as condi holo was indeed overperforming and condi mechanist was really strong for a button-spamming LI build which mainly used pistol+pistol.

[soulknight.9620]

1 hour ago, LadyKitty.6120 said:

As Kitty's written before in other threads: it doesn't matter if pros are testing or not when it comes to the fact of some traits and skills being stronger or weaker than they should be. Those problems would still exist and benchmarks/high-end players' logs simply show how bad those problems are in-game. Benchmarkers and hardcore players often do math (with intricate spreadsheets including all the skill and trait infos) to figure out best combos and simply apply the results to in-game gameplay and see how close the maths are to how a human can perform.

Its not how balancing work. A trait or a skill may be overtuned to compensate for difficulty in applying it in practice. And it would be balanced to that extent. Benchmarkers are not testers, they are not doing community a favor in any way and the only thing they achieve with benchmarking is - measuring dps of a class against a dummy golem. Which has nothing to do with live encounters where you have to do mechanics, sustain yourself and do damage at the same time. A build that excels on a stationary dummy golem may fail hard in live encounters and vice versa a build that struggles to keep up with top dps spec on dummy golem can dish out more dps in live encounters. The two examples that comes into mind is pre buffed 32k dps scourge and pre buffed 32k dps power mechanist. Both of them dished out constant dps while providing decent utility and a lot of times they actually outperformed some of the 38-40k dps specs in real encounters. 

Thats why doing balance patches based on benchmarkers and "speedruners" stats is bad for the game. The majority of playerbase doesnt have the same "problems" that they have. And yet these patches affect every single one of us. 

[Solanaar.3714]

What would you expect to happen when they ignore maximum possible DPS and, as many of you suggest, balance for the casual (I'm also wondering, where do you find the casual? Surely not open world. Since in open world everything is viable except maybe glass Cannon builds. DPS is a non-factor there). I think it would go like this: Anet buffs/nerfs based on the median dps instead. Some builds would ultimately over perform in top DPS. Everyone will start playing that one spec because everyone recommend them. Case and point: how many scourges did you see recently? Did the amount increase since it was starting to perform more? I wonder...

Next argument many like to throw in here: "they only look at static golem benchmarks". Of course they do look at other things but have you thought about how impossible it would be to try to balance things for the miriad of real life situations? That's literally impossible. So ok let's say you play catalyst. lets say it's really strong at immobile bosses but falls off on mobile targets. So you look at their DPS on mobile bosses and buff them, now suddenly they do too much damage on stationaries. So you bring down the DPS, but reduce their reliance on combo fields, ignore the people who will cry about destroying the class identity and homogenization, but what's that? On this specific encounter the damage somehow went through the roof now. So you fix the thing that makes them over perform there but now everything else falls apart. IT. IS. IMPOSSIBLE. Do you realize how insanely complex balancing is. It is NEVER balanced, it's a constant push and pull. So yes now some builds will be weaker and others will stay strong, and somehow that one strong spec will be even stronger, who knows. Next patch will come and the one after that. The only issue is when some classes are never or very rarely played and that IS an issue with GW2 for sure. I'm not saying anet is good at balancing, but some of the things you people like to say wouldn't be said if you knew half of the variables that need to be accounted for in a balancing process.

 Lastly when you are a person that criticizes Anet looking at benchmarks (which you don't know that they do, you assume) and use these same benchmarks to decide a spec is unplayable you are both hypocritical and not a casual. Casuals don't have arcdps, don't know or care about if their engi pistol condi now ticks for 1.5 seconds less, they play what's fun to them. So don't speak for a group you don't belong to. You are allowed to complain, you have every right to and feedback, even the most emotionally charged one, can be useful but know who you are speaking for.

[soulknight.9620]

3 hours ago, Solanaar.3714 said:

Everyone will start playing that one spec because everyone recommend them. Case and point: how many scourges did you see recently? Did the amount increase since it was starting to perform more? I wonder...

Yes it did, ive had quite a few 6 scourges runs in raids and strike. But let me ask you a counter question, how many weavers did you see? Were they op to a point that every single group had 5+ weavers in there? Yet they were hit hard in the patch. 

3 hours ago, Solanaar.3714 said:

Next argument many like to throw in here: "they only look at static golem benchmarks". Of course they do look at other things but have you thought about how impossible it would be to try to balance things for the miriad of real life situations? That's literally impossible.

No, its possible and its their job to do so. 

3 hours ago, Solanaar.3714 said:

So ok let's say you play catalyst. lets say it's really strong at immobile bosses but falls off on mobile targets. So you look at their DPS on mobile bosses and buff them, now suddenly they do too much damage on stationaries.

You outline the skills that are stationary (like jade spheres, fields etc) and you nerf them, and at the same time you outline skills that can be cast while moving (majority of hammer kit) and buff them. Thats how you actually address this situation and streamline damage in both situations. Thats just common sense. 

3 hours ago, Solanaar.3714 said:

On this specific encounter the damage somehow went through the roof now. So you fix the thing that makes them over perform there but now everything else falls apart. IT. IS. IMPOSSIBLE.

No, its not. As an ele main i can see the spike of damage we got with addition of WH with weaponmaster training. If you played any other offhand you didnt actually see any major increase in dps. So the right answer would be to evaluate what makes WH such a good OH (spoiler - good utility and good dps) and nerf it accordingly to address a few problematic builds that use WH. What did anet do? Nerf traits that are used on every build thus making every non-overperforming build weaker. 

3 hours ago, Solanaar.3714 said:

Lastly when you are a person that criticizes Anet looking at benchmarks (which you don't know that they do, you assume) and use these same benchmarks to decide a spec is unplayable you are both hypocritical and not a casual. Casuals don't have arcdps, don't know or care about if their engi pistol condi now ticks for 1.5 seconds less, they play what's fun to them. So don't speak for a group you don't belong to. You are allowed to complain, you have every right to and feedback, even the most emotionally charged one, can be useful but know who you are speaking for.

You cant simply tag anyone "true casual" or "not a casual" and deny them the right to speak. Thats not how debating and conversation works. A lot of casual players have arcdps, they do care about being effective to an extent and they certainly look at balance patches and meta builds to follow. Looking up a build, getting to use it on a decent level and hooking up an arcdps doesnt make you "not casual" all of the sudden. So instead of trying to brand someone with yet another tag or expose them for being "not a casual", state your arguments and hear other people out.