The balance is...

[Shagie.7612]

10 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

And this mindset towards ANY Elite spec has no place in any balance discussion. 

 

I agree, I think it's really lame and the goal should be for people to be allowed to play whatever they want and to have them all be within a reasonable distance to others in the same role.

Specs with pets/AI that automatically attacks tend to present problems though. 

At low skill levels, the robot plays better than the players so the golem's basically the best player in the match and it's a free win, which isn't very good. It's not like the mechanist/beastmaster/whatever player really earned anything.
At high skill levels, they're either useless because exploitable AI, or extremely overwhelming because it's in addition to a smart player who actually has tools on top of it.

That's not even touching on the enjoyment factor, which is another problem. Not particularly great to be constantly getting beat up by an autofollowing pet.
I don't think that one's the greatest argument because having opposition in general is "unfun," anything your opponent can do is always going to be unfun for a lot of players.
But it is something that people tend to care about, both from the player's and developer's perspective.

I really think GW1 handled it the best, honestly. Pets were a small autoattacking dot and then you picked your skills that were your choices and your overall kit's utility, just delivered BY a pet. They didn't do anything automatically.

[Saiyan.1704]

10 hours ago, Tashigi.3159 said:

I am OK with it, but the amount of damage in the current meta is through the roof lol and yes, I am guilty of it, I do play a full power Scrapper and can kill most players before they can react. But still, this shouldn't be possible IMO

I feel the bigger issue at play is the number of players who don't know how to survive. TTK is honestly pretty good in this meta compared to the other meta's we've had. Scrapper is excellent at deleting people but it is also prone to getting deleted itself.

[Flowki.7194]

10 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

Not particularly great to be constantly getting beat up by an autofollowing pet.

Hahah yes.. that is so funny yet annoying at the same time. The ranger/engi practiclly at the other side of the map, oblivius, while you run through your options of what to do with this AI attacking: do I waste dodges? do I cc? do I kill it? is their ground to break its lock? can I play dead?

Edited December 16, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[Gotejjeken.1267]

On 12/15/2023 at 9:07 AM, Tashigi.3159 said:

I am OK with it, but the amount of damage in the current meta is through the roof lol and yes, I am guilty of it, I do play a full power Scrapper and can kill most players before they can react. But still, this shouldn't be possible IMO

They only spam the forums about this if it's thief or ranger.  

Also, good to see some things literally never changed when we have posters here complaining about not being able to outrun an AI pet.  How are those pointless aisle fights going guys? 😂

[Flowki.7194]

Yet another game where you have to completely give up mid becuase the gaurd+2 necros can face tank 100k damage, and then res if you do kill something.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

23 minutes ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Yet another game where you have to completely give up mid becuase the gaurd+2 necros can face tank 100k damage, and then res if you do kill something.

A game against a guard and two necros is easily winnable if you just out rotate, play 3 nodes, play objectives etc. And most importantly, don't 4v4+

[Eddie.9143]

hammer scrapper with elixir gun and med kit finally feels playable, kinda neat

[Frequency.6407]

1 hour ago, Flowki.7194 said:

Yet another game where you have to completely give up mid becuase the gaurd+2 necros can face tank 100k damage, and then res if you do kill something.

That's the juiciest throw by the opposing team you can get. Just ignore mid and it's a win.

[Flowki.7194]

41 minutes ago, Frequency.6407 said:

That's the juiciest throw by the opposing team you can get. Just ignore mid and it's a win.

It was skyhammer, not hard to bounce between home/mid for them, especially as their side noders were a willbender+SPB, slowing caps right down, and the gaurd/scourge basically owned hammer caps.

But this is all besides the real point, why should an entire team be forced into playing sides becuase of necro+gaurdian? that is not area denial through skill, its bs. You also don't consider that not everybody is playing a roam/high mobile spec, and such spec should not be forced out of contesting a gaurd/necro.. not at all, thats a clear sign of kitten poor balance.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[Shagie.7612]

I take it back, Renegade damage is actually bad considering how much it lacks in other areas.

Why I gotta eat Ghastly Claws for... 43% (up to 224% with max vuln) more damage than Sevenshot when it doesn't have to deal with proj hate like I do. The 1s shorter CD and torment don't make up for it.
Or Mes greatsword, or even scepter on ele despite the nerfs. There's plenty of ranged specs allowed to do way more damage without nearly as much struggle as shortbow has.

Since clearly nobody's interested in actually making decent changes to the spec, time to start amping up its damage modifiers until it's decent. Take Kalla's Fervor to 30%, who even cares anymore. If you get hit by citadel bombardment you deserve to die.

Anyways it's really frustrating to avoid a bunch of damage just to eat leftover cooldowns that still do more than I do anyways.

[arazoth.7290]

4 hours ago, Eddie.9143 said:

hammer scrapper with elixir gun and med kit finally feels playable, kinda neat

elixer gun feels worth as support? got to see that on engi then

[arazoth.7290]

2 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

Since clearly nobody's interested in actually making decent changes to the spec

I do 😢

[Kuma.1503]

3 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

It was skyhammer, not hard to bounce between home/mid for them, especially as their side noders were a willbender+SPB, slowing caps right down, and the gaurd/scourge basically owned hammer caps.

But this is all besides the real point, why should an entire team be forced into playing sides becuase of necro+gaurdian? that is not area denial through skill, its bs. You also don't consider that not everybody is playing a roam/high mobile spec, and such spec should not be forced out of contesting a gaurd/necro.. not at all, thats a clear sign of kitten poor balance.

Well... yes and no. 

Being forced to play to your stregnths to get the win isn't a sign of poor balance. Their win con is to force 4v4+. Yours is to deny it. The team that plays to their win con better wins. 

What is a sign of poor balance is if Necro/Guard is the only viable teamfight duo. 

Thankfully we're seeing some variety with eles, engis mesmers, teefs (specter still underrated), and revs all having good tf builds. 

We'd have more variety if we'd buff renegod tho. 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[Myror.7521]

@Sahne.6950 i gotta say it (an unpopulare opinion maybe). The real too strong things are not just condi zerker or bsw (both are too easy to Play still in 1v1s/this comes from Anet Holding the class in a more full tanky Playstyle) but instead its just scrapper and deadeye. Just think about it a scrapper that can Run around with permanent swiftness+superspeed deleting a whole Team in Seconds. While deadeye could teleport from Point to Point in seconds while doing insane ranged dmg out off stealth.

[Saiyan.1704]

3 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

It was skyhammer, not hard to bounce between home/mid for them, especially as their side noders were a willbender+SPB, slowing caps right down, and the gaurd/scourge basically owned hammer caps.

But this is all besides the real point, why should an entire team be forced into playing sides becuase of necro+gaurdian? that is not area denial through skill, its bs. You also don't consider that not everybody is playing a roam/high mobile spec, and such spec should not be forced out of contesting a gaurd/necro.. not at all, thats a clear sign of kitten poor balance.

Sky Hammer is a lot more easier to deal with if you're against a team-comp that dominates teamfights, compared to say, Raid on the Capricorn. That Capricorn map can be toxic against a team that can win bell 100% of the time without you able to do anything except for... pray you can win sides consistently... Skyhammer, who cares if they cap hammer? Decap a sidenode and stay on it but don't cap it completely. Right before it takes 1 more tick, get off the node, they win hammer then it's an instant cap when you get back on node after the hammer damage completes.

Even if you are a slow AF class you should be able to do something on side-nodes but if your team sucks.... then it sucks... and no amount of map strat can carry bad players who die at every corner.

But as for something like a WB+Scourge+SPB comp? The only issue there is the spellbreaker. Scourge is SLOW which means you can litearlly dodge his main damage (or deny his support).

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

5 hours ago, Myror.7521 said:

@Sahne.6950 i gotta say it (an unpopulare opinion maybe). The real too strong things are not just condi zerker or bsw (both are too easy to Play still in 1v1s/this comes from Anet Holding the class in a more full tanky Playstyle) but instead its just scrapper and deadeye. Just think about it a scrapper that can Run around with permanent swiftness+superspeed deleting a whole Team in Seconds. While deadeye could teleport from Point to Point in seconds while doing insane ranged dmg out off stealth.

How could ANerf know that insane mobility+stealth on demand+ huge range+high damage would be a bad combo?
They should just rollback to the previous state, you want damage you have to kneel.

[Kuma.1503]

Scrapper IS OP

But like

Does it need to have its superspeed cut to 1s per gyro before people stop claiming it has "permenant superspeed"?

Do ya'll know what permenant is?

 

[Myror.7521]

@Kuma.1503 i mean thats why i said perma swiftness and superspeed i of course doesnt meant it got perma superspeed but a mix between this 2 ^^. Also the problem on grenade scrapper is not its superspeed but its ranged/cleave dmg it got ^^

[Flowki.7194]

11 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Well... yes and no. 

Being forced to play to your stregnths to get the win isn't a sign of poor balance. Their win con is to force 4v4+. Yours is to deny it. The team that plays to their win con better wins. 

What is a sign of poor balance is if Necro/Guard is the only viable teamfight duo. 

Thankfully we're seeing some variety with eles, engis mesmers, teefs (specter still underrated), and revs all having good tf builds. 

We'd have more variety if we'd buff renegod tho. 

Yes ok, now compare the complexity of tempest/rev support to the complexity of gaurdian. Now compare the complexity of ele/rev dps to the complexity of necro. Now compare punishment for face tanking between rev/ele and gaurd/necro.

 

Unless people are completely bias AF, we all know the answer here.. garud/necro owning points for less effort should never be viable. But it is.. becuase Anet won't adress core mechanics, and just buff numbers so that simply specs become as effective as complex specs; All warrior, most necro, all gaurd, virt, mirage, SB, the current main offenders of being way too effective for the effort/risk and aplication of damage/mitigation.  This is not exlusively about effectiveness either, it is the quality of engagements.

 

You bring up "playing to your strenghts"? we were blocked from playing to our strengths in that game (and genuinely not a matter of skill, we downed garud/necro in initial fights after some effort >> ranged res). We had a support, we had 2 group fighters.. but scourge+gaurd is completely oppressive, mass blocks, mass shield, mass ground AOE spam, mass boon corruption, ranged resses, and face tank friendly. Why are you even defending it? At-least staff tempest had to kite.. im certainly not face tanking on rev or ele support/dps and getting away with it.

Just look at the mechanics of gaurd+scourge, the entire mitigation is litterally limiting them with active mitigation options, and giving them passive/facetank based mitigation, the same as warrior.. recieve 0 0 0 buff for eating a CC, then get boon rips, healing, stability for pressing the damage button you were about to press anyway.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[Eddie.9143]

15 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

I take it back, Renegade damage is actually bad considering how much it lacks in other areas.

Why I gotta eat Ghastly Claws for... 43% (up to 224% with max vuln) more damage than Sevenshot when it doesn't have to deal with proj hate like I do. The 1s shorter CD and torment don't make up for it.
Or Mes greatsword, or even scepter on ele despite the nerfs. There's plenty of ranged specs allowed to do way more damage without nearly as much struggle as shortbow has.

Since clearly nobody's interested in actually making decent changes to the spec, time to start amping up its damage modifiers until it's decent. Take Kalla's Fervor to 30%, who even cares anymore. If you get hit by citadel bombardment you deserve to die.

Anyways it's really frustrating to avoid a bunch of damage just to eat leftover cooldowns that still do more than I do anyways.

Shortbow needs it's damage to be way more reliable but lower, it can't be one shotting with shiro heal and impossible odds unless it's 15k or less no toughness cloth 

[Eddie.9143]

12 hours ago, arazoth.7290 said:

elixer gun feels worth as support? got to see that on engi then

Nah not support I play with demolisher, dragonhunter, durability relic. Med kit, elixir gun, tool kit

[Kuma.1503]

2 hours ago, Myror.7521 said:

@Kuma.1503 i mean thats why i said perma swiftness and superspeed i of course doesnt meant it got perma superspeed but a mix between this 2 ^^. Also the problem on grenade scrapper is not its superspeed but its ranged/cleave dmg it got ^^

Fair enough. Though if you want to single out anyone for perma superspeed, I'd focus on DE. They've got Scrapper beat, and they've got ports on top. 

The ranged cleave damage from nades... won't mourn it if nades get nerfed. I'm also tired of them being meta. Engi needs a power budget shift. 

2 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

[ Snipping to make post shorter. Dw i read the whole thing. ]

I am going to attempt to paraphrase here. 

1. Builds should be rewarded for complexity

2. Low effort builds should be unviable 

3. Rez skills OP

4. Scourge and Guard do a lot of stuff. Why u defend it's clearly broken?

 

Point 1 I agree with. There should be some reward for mastering a challenging class. Thankfully Ele is arguably the best support in the game. Ventari rev... is on the cusp of being good. It outputs MASSIVE healing numbers. 

But that's not good enough. In this burst heavy meta, healing back the damage people take isn't going to keep people alive when they explode off of 1-2 mistakes. Proactive support is what matters. You want to prevent the damage with blocks, stability, stuns, ect. Ele and Guard just so happen to be good at proactive support. Ventari is good at reactive support. If the meta ever shifts to be less bursty Ventari may be valued more. Currently, the meta just doesn't favor it. 

Point 2 is nonsense. Different people find different things difficult. There isn't an objective guage we can slap on what makes a build "high effort". Plus there's the simple fact that when a build becomes meta it takes less effort to play. Or to rephrase, the stronger your build, the less optimally you have to play it to be effective. This also means they require less effort. And if OP builds are easy... then any build that becomes OP should be made unviable. 

--Which is very close to Anet's balancing philosophy actually. You should consider applying as a balance dev! 

Point 3... Honestly... Idk if I'd call them OP due to the trade-off of putting them on your bar. But like. They feel so cheap man. Especially for classes that can cover the clast with stability. And now that DrD lost unblockable steal, Guard can protect the cast with aegis. 

Perhaps these should strip aegis/stab/stealth from you the moment you cast them? Idk. They're frustrating af. I don't run them when I play support because it feels kinda degen. 

Point 4 is just the typical way people argue here. "Let me list off all the stuff this build can do in a vacuum. Doesn't that sound broken? Yes? Why u defending it lol? I bet you feel silly right now". Not gonna argue against this one, but pointing it out like this brings my tired brain some amusement.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[arazoth.7290]

1 hour ago, Eddie.9143 said:

Nah not support I play with demolisher, dragonhunter, durability relic. Med kit, elixir gun, tool kit

Ohh eitherway going to check it out 😁

[Shagie.7612]

2 hours ago, Eddie.9143 said:

Shortbow needs it's damage to be way more reliable but lower, it can't be one shotting with shiro heal and impossible odds unless it's 15k or less no toughness cloth 

but y tho, mes greatsword does it, nade kit does it

plenty of skills with much less obvious telegraphs do even more damage from the same or greater range

rene has some of the lowest survivability in the game, it should hit just as hard as other glass builds 

[Flowki.7194]

3 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Fair enough. Though if you want to single out anyone for perma superspeed, I'd focus on DE. They've got Scrapper beat, and they've got ports on top. 

The ranged cleave damage from nades... won't mourn it if nades get nerfed. I'm also tired of them being meta. Engi needs a power budget shift. 

I am going to attempt to paraphrase here. 

1. Builds should be rewarded for complexity

2. Low effort builds should be unviable 

3. Rez skills OP

4. Scourge and Guard do a lot of stuff. Why u defend it's clearly broken?

 

Point 1 I agree with. There should be some reward for mastering a challenging class. Thankfully Ele is arguably the best support in the game. Ventari rev... is on the cusp of being good. It outputs MASSIVE healing numbers. 

But that's not good enough. In this burst heavy meta, healing back the damage people take isn't going to keep people alive when they explode off of 1-2 mistakes. Proactive support is what matters. You want to prevent the damage with blocks, stability, stuns, ect. Ele and Guard just so happen to be good at proactive support. Ventari is good at reactive support. If the meta ever shifts to be less bursty Ventari may be valued more. Currently, the meta just doesn't favor it. 

Point 2 is nonsense. Different people find different things difficult. There isn't an objective guage we can slap on what makes a build "high effort". Plus there's the simple fact that when a build becomes meta it takes less effort to play. Or to rephrase, the stronger your build, the less optimally you have to play it to be effective. This also means they require less effort. And if OP builds are easy... then any build that becomes OP should be made unviable. 

--Which is very close to Anet's balancing philosophy actually. You should consider applying as a balance dev! 

Point 3... Honestly... Idk if I'd call them OP due to the trade-off of putting them on your bar. But like. They feel so cheap man. Especially for classes that can cover the clast with stability. And now that DrD lost unblockable steal, Guard can protect the cast with aegis. 

Perhaps these should strip aegis/stab/stealth from you the moment you cast them? Idk. They're frustrating af. I don't run them when I play support because it feels kinda degen. 

Point 4 is just the typical way people argue here. "Let me list off all the stuff this build can do in a vacuum. Doesn't that sound broken? Yes? Why u defending it lol? I bet you feel silly right now". Not gonna argue against this one, but pointing it out like this brings my tired brain some amusement.

 

Well you kind of contradict yourself with point 1 and point 2, which is it? Furthermore, despite power cata being meta for god knows how long? there were NOWHERE NEAR as many power catas as say, necros. Never. But look at SB now, very strong, not that difficult to pick up, SB's EVERYWHERE. Cmon man, see it for what it really is.. exact same thing when condi cata hit, condi catas everywhere. Power cata? not at all.

 

 Revenent has a tool for every situation, it is very proactive with protection, CC, weakness, stability, projectile reflects etc, but it hits a wall of "lack of energy" during sustained high pressure onslaughts, the other supports are only limited by CD's, they can sustain those situations longer. Thats the real issue with revenent to me. Contesting against a gaurd and scourge is not a high pressure fight though, its closer to the opposite, moderate pressure but massive face tank mitigation... brainded attrition and then a renged res as your reward for overcoming it. We agree on that part at-least.. when I played tempest support I made an absolute point to never use "rage res", its so kitten.

 

Point 4 fair enough, but the consistant high representation of necros across time speaks for itself. Not bad for a class that everybody suggests "melts under pressure".

 

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Flowki.7194