30th January Balance Preview

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

2 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

It's funny how more people are upset that Mesmer still has one elite spec that Anet refuse to ruin then they are that Anet is ruining Mirage.

Only in your imagination. Is putting word in people's mouth your specialty?

[PrinceValentine.9320]

Chrono is out of control and a little shaving of their boon production should be ok so other specs can shine too. 

[ShadowKatt.6740]

41 minutes ago, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

Chrono is out of control and a little shaving of their boon production should be ok so other specs can shine too. 

I can't believe you're making me argue for this, but why?

The way I see it, if any spec, including core, should be all about the boons it should be Chrono. Given that their whole schtick is time control, Chrono should have a massive amount of boons and condition to give, in particular Swift, Super, Alac, Quick, Slow, Daze, and Immobile. There's really no other spec we have that's more in line with being the "support" class that we keep getting told we need than them and they should be able to give lots of boons to support that.

And yes, I am aware there are a lot of other boons out there. Full Might and Fury are mainstays of almost any group build, I get that. All I'm trying to say is that Chorons should be good at boons, and should be unparalleled in both speeding up allies and slowing down foes. And the other specs? They do need to shine but they have to shine their own way. They don't need to boon like Chrono because they aren't Chrono. We don't need overlap when we have choice.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

1 hour ago, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

Chrono is out of control and a little shaving of their boon production should be ok so other specs can shine too. 

We all can see you love Firebraindead, now please get off the soapbox. You made an exact thread on Druids too. 

And I'm very aware that it has been years that a spec can finally topple FB's monopoly in WvW zergs.

[PrinceValentine.9320]

3 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

We all can see you love Firebraindead, now please get off the soapbox. You made an exact thread on Druids too. 

And I'm very aware that it has been years that a spec can finally topple FB's monopoly in WvW zergs.

Keep dreaming.

[CafPow.1542]

19 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

And I'm very aware that it has been years that a spec can finally topple FB's monopoly in WvW zergs.

This surely has to be fixed. Can’t be a zerg where at least 1/5 of all need to be an HFB.

we prefer our routines. This is a thing for years so why change? 
Whoops i dropped my ironies.

 

btw i hardly struggle with mirages. But I’d never would have nerfed them. The main reason for my struggle is, that i never really understood how they work. So it’s a me-problem. Not sure if some nerfs might be justified still.

Edited January 24 by CafPow.1542

[Levetty.1279]

On 1/21/2024 at 6:21 PM, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Only in your imagination. Is putting word in people's mouth your specialty?

"ctrl+f Virtuoso 1/10"

Hmmm yes made up obviously.

[katte nici.9483]

Sure, nerf boon Chrono if you really have to. But why destroy power Chrono?

[PrinceValentine.9320]

On 1/24/2024 at 1:25 AM, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

I can't believe you're making me argue for this, but why?

The way I see it, if any spec, including core, should be all about the boons it should be Chrono. Given that their whole schtick is time control, Chrono should have a massive amount of boons and condition to give, in particular Swift, Super, Alac, Quick, Slow, Daze, and Immobile. There's really no other spec we have that's more in line with being the "support" class that we keep getting told we need than them and they should be able to give lots of boons to support that.

And yes, I am aware there are a lot of other boons out there. Full Might and Fury are mainstays of almost any group build, I get that. All I'm trying to say is that Chorons should be good at boons, and should be unparalleled in both speeding up allies and slowing down foes. And the other specs? They do need to shine but they have to shine their own way. They don't need to boon like Chrono because they aren't Chrono. We don't need overlap when we have choice.

what so special about Chrono that they need to have them all? I think more nerf should be done since you cant have all the important boons on a single class/spec, other specs will be left behind. 

[ShadowKatt.6740]

2 hours ago, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

what so special about Chrono that they need to have them all? I think more nerf should be done since you cant have all the important boons on a single class/spec, other specs will be left behind. 

What's so special about Chrono? Why should they get all of them, at least all the boons I listed? Because they should.

We're looking at the same picture from two different perspectives here. You're looking at it mechanically, I'm looking at it thematicly. Mechanically, you seem to (I don't want to make presumptions) want all professions and specs to be equal. And I understand that. From a mechanical standpoint, not wanting any spec to be underpowered or overpowered is a good thing and I even agree with it. Where I think we disagree though is the homogeneity. You want every profession to be able to boon and condition, to power, heal, cap, everything. And for that I disagree. Why do I think the Chrono should get all those? Because it's a time god, and as such it's better suited to the support role than the virtuoso. I think the primary function of the chrono should be to affect the battlefield, not the people, by speeding up time here, slowing it there, and rewinding it entirely. Speed for my team, slow for your team, and the rest just sorts out itself.

Here's the really big thing and it's the thing that I get pushback on ALL THE TIME over. "But what about power Chrono? what about support Mirage? What about {insert build here]?". I am not saying you can't do it. I have years of experience as a game master in a variety of tabletop games and one of the things I always ALWAYS impress on my players is do what you want. If you want to play a gnomish barbarian then you grab the biggest greataxe you can and you start swinging for peoples kneecaps, little buddy. Is it gonna be the strongest barbarian? Of course not. Is it gonna even be on par with the half-orc barbarian? NEVER! So does that mean it's broken and needs to be fixed?

N            N      OOOOO
NN         N      O          O
N   N      N      O          O
N      N   N      O          O
N         NN      OOOOO

Not every build needs to be the best at absolutely everything. Not only do they not need it, it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE. If you try to make every spec capable of every build you will inevitably find that one is always slightly better than the others and THAT will be the only one to use. Instead, every spec and every profession should be REALLY good at ONE thing. This does not preclude the use of other builds. If you wanted to run a power build on the more supporty Chrono, then slap on dueling and domination and do it. If you want to run support on Virtuoso, slap on Illusion and Inspiration and do that. But don't complain when one doesn't do as well as the other when the other was specifically made FOR THAT PURPOSE! This is actually one of the things that made Guild Wars 1 so unique and made it work so well. Every profession  was unique and because of that they were allowed to do what they did the best they could. Warriors did not need to heal; they had monks for that. Mesmers did not need to tank, they had warriors for that. Elementalists did not need to control; they had mesmers for that, and so on. And they were balanced, and it worked. That same mindset SHOULD have carried over here, but between the devs that are actually trying to make every spec work for every build and players who really demand that the healers should be able to fight and tank and the tanks should be able to heal as good as each other, no wonder the game is in the sad state it is. It's literally trying to divide by zero and the end result is what we have now.

[PrinceValentine.9320]

46 minutes ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

What's so special about Chrono? Why should they get all of them, at least all the boons I listed? Because they should.

We're looking at the same picture from two different perspectives here. You're looking at it mechanically, I'm looking at it thematicly. Mechanically, you seem to (I don't want to make presumptions) want all professions and specs to be equal. And I understand that. From a mechanical standpoint, not wanting any spec to be underpowered or overpowered is a good thing and I even agree with it. Where I think we disagree though is the homogeneity. You want every profession to be able to boon and condition, to power, heal, cap, everything. And for that I disagree. Why do I think the Chrono should get all those? Because it's a time god, and as such it's better suited to the support role than the virtuoso. I think the primary function of the chrono should be to affect the battlefield, not the people, by speeding up time here, slowing it there, and rewinding it entirely. Speed for my team, slow for your team, and the rest just sorts out itself.

Here's the really big thing and it's the thing that I get pushback on ALL THE TIME over. "But what about power Chrono? what about support Mirage? What about {insert build here]?". I am not saying you can't do it. I have years of experience as a game master in a variety of tabletop games and one of the things I always ALWAYS impress on my players is do what you want. If you want to play a gnomish barbarian then you grab the biggest greataxe you can and you start swinging for peoples kneecaps, little buddy. Is it gonna be the strongest barbarian? Of course not. Is it gonna even be on par with the half-orc barbarian? NEVER! So does that mean it's broken and needs to be fixed?

N            N      OOOOO
NN         N      O          O
N   N      N      O          O
N      N   N      O          O
N         NN      OOOOO

Not every build needs to be the best at absolutely everything. Not only do they not need it, it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE. If you try to make every spec capable of every build you will inevitably find that one is always slightly better than the others and THAT will be the only one to use. Instead, every spec and every profession should be REALLY good at ONE thing. This does not preclude the use of other builds. If you wanted to run a power build on the more supporty Chrono, then slap on dueling and domination and do it. If you want to run support on Virtuoso, slap on Illusion and Inspiration and do that. But don't complain when one doesn't do as well as the other when the other was specifically made FOR THAT PURPOSE! This is actually one of the things that made Guild Wars 1 so unique and made it work so well. Every profession  was unique and because of that they were allowed to do what they did the best they could. Warriors did not need to heal; they had monks for that. Mesmers did not need to tank, they had warriors for that. Elementalists did not need to control; they had mesmers for that, and so on. And they were balanced, and it worked. That same mindset SHOULD have carried over here, but between the devs that are actually trying to make every spec work for every build and players who really demand that the healers should be able to fight and tank and the tanks should be able to heal as good as each other, no wonder the game is in the sad state it is. It's literally trying to divide by zero and the end result is what we have now.

 

That's power creep mentality and that's not healthy for the game. 

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

what so special about Chrono that they need to have them all? I think more nerf should be done since you cant have all the important boons on a single class/spec, other specs will be left behind. 

SK wants the HoT-style monopoly back.

Thematically, though, chronomancer is the time mage, so it makes sense for them to have quickness and alacrity. Requiring different traits for them is an elegant means of preventing them from granting both at once, and ArenaNet has already shown a willingness to have two builds on mesmer that provide alacrity.

One thing I find ironic is that the 'each profession has a specific role' thing didn't really exist even in GW1. Tanky mesmer builds existed (without even considering the dreaded 55 builds), control elementalist was almost baseline (meteors, earthquake, blinding, by the end there was even a daze) and so on. The only true monopoly was monks healing, and that only lasted until ritualist arrived, although in practice a lot of players didn't really trust them. It's GOOD to have different ways of fulfilling the same role: if a player doesn't like the way one plays for any reason, they have alternatives.

And as I've said previously, there just aren't enough roles for each profession to have a unique function.

Edited January 26 by draxynnic.3719

[draxynnic.3719]

I read the whole thing - it was pretty much your usual spiel with different words. And you showed your hand when you said you wanted groups to be begging for you. We can't give that privilige to every profession: there are more professions then there are players in the standard 5-player unit most of the game is built around, and even if we extended effects to 10 targets and made the raid squad the standard unit, do we really want to enforce every group having all but one slot predetermined?

Regarding GW1 - I'm getting the impression that you just aren't as familiar with crazy builds as some. Mesmers with a full set of defensive skills could be pretty tanky. I'm not sure if they could beat a warrior doing the same without going 55, but they did pretty well, and the warrior would lose to a 55hp build or a permasin unless the mobs had the skills to break those builds. A blind-focused elementalist could shut down entire groups of physicals more effective than a mesmer, daze+epidemic (with mesmer secondary) pretty much shut down casters, and that's if you don't just stack a dozen meteor showers and keep the enemy knocked down for long enough to kill them. Believe me, my joke in GW1 was that I was basically playing mesmer almost regardless of profession: between blinds, dazes, knockdowns, and actual interrupts, there were few professions that couldn't run a control build, and depending on what you were facing, some worked better than mesmer did.

The closest we had to professions setting roles in GW1 PvE was pretty close to release. The 'holy trinity' was warrior tank (before 55 builds showed up), monks, and elementalist nukers. People didn't care about control at the time because, as mesmer players were told repeatedly at the time, dead is the best control effect (but in the meantime, triple meteor showers each from five E/Mes did the job for long enough). Over time, ranger found a role as a substitute nuker with Barrage (allowing the tank to be replaced with a wall of pets), and if you didn't specifically need to group enemies, a minion master necromancer made for a pretty effective alternative tank. Mesmers... up until the PvE/PvP balance split allowed PvE mesmers to actually be good, and Hard Mode made mobs last longer and have more armour, taking a mesmer into a group was generally either charity or impatience.

Meanwhile, the expansion professions were pretty much explicitly designed to break what monopolies there were. Assassin and dervish both broke the warrior monopoly on melee damage (not tanking, they never monopolised that, every solofarm build was basically a tanking build), and ritualist, paragon, and dervish all encroached on the monk healing and protection domains.

Sure, there were some roles that some professions were never able to fill, but ArenaNet realised actual monopolies where people had to beg for a specific profession were unhealthy early on, and GW2 is an extension of that philosophy. The only reason it might ever have looked otherwise is that Arenanet didn't have a good handle on what the roles actually were - of the 'soft trinity' of dps+support+control, control was rendered basically irrelevant by defiance, while they had the obviously-ridiculous-in-hindsight idea that a venomshare thief fit the 'support' role just as much as a healer or quickalacchrono did.

So they've now identified the core roles people are actually looking to fill in a group, and are aiming for every profession to be able to fill every role. As they said, in their advertising, was their aim back in 2012. If that idea is anathema to you, then like Burnfall and the other guy whose name starts with B, you're just playing the wrong game.

This doesn't mean homogenisation, though. Just like GW1, filling the same role doesn't mean you fill it the same way. People might choose a specific profession for a specific role because there's something about how the profession plays that role that makes them prefer it. Or the profession might have ancillary capabilities that make it more suited for a given fight than another profession, but where that might be swapped for a different fight.

[XenesisII.1540]

Boon balls ruining the game for 8 years, this is fine.

We've had specs that did "too much" that spent years in the zerg meta, this is fine.

We have roaming metas that do "too much" but don't even get touched for years, this is fine.

Mirage dodge does too much, NERF THEM WITH THE WORSE NERF IN THE GAME FOR THREE YEARS!

Chrono gets to spit out moar boon, NERF THEM SIX FEET UNDER THE CLOWN CAR! 

The alacrity spec that can't be the best of it, and everyone else for some reason needs to be given pieces of the mesmer pie.

P.S Mantra's suck, always have, always will.

[katte nici.9483]

If you're running Illusions Split Second still has the old cooldown. 🤫

[katte nici.9483]

I agree, if you actually want to use it for  its intended purpose and not to spam heals in some edge case build you often run into the problem that your target is barely out of range suddenly and the skill does nothing. It was good that you couldn't accidentally use it then.

[phokus.8934]

1 hour ago, katte nici.9483 said:

If you're running Illusions Split Second still has the old cooldown. 🤫

It's 15 seconds, not 12.

[DylanLucas.6058]

Balance patches are meant to drain the fun out of your soul, so that is what Anet done properly with this patch.

Soon everyone plays necro

Edited January 30 by DylanLucas.6058

[katte nici.9483]

1 hour ago, phokus.8934 said:

It's 15 seconds, not 12.

With Illusions its 10 1/4

edit: If you take Shatter Storm

Edited January 30 by katte nici.9483

[ShadowKatt.6740]

1 hour ago, DylanLucas.6058 said:

Balance patches are meant to drain the fun out of your soul, so that is what Anet done properly with this patch.

Soon everyone plays necro

Why would the end game be Necro? Obviously the long term goal here is for everyone to play Guardian, and I would rather play Solitaire than Guardian.

[Drag You Down.2615]

On 1/13/2024 at 5:37 AM, apharma.3741 said:

My tempest has 1296 healing power and giving an aura heals for 1815 in game with two "healing to others" increases

Are you talking about "Elemental Bastion" trait? I am sorry, there is no such a trait in PvE, because every Tempest will be forced to take "Lucid Singularity" which I HATE IT. Tempest is one of my most hateful healer, because you have several seconds that you cannot access the water attunement. That period is even longer than Druid's Celestial Form CD, This means that Tempest has very weak ability of heal through some extreme damage in long period WHILE providing 100% alacrity. Even you take some heals in your elite and utility skill, still way too little. You either have high heal or you have alacrity, but you just cannot have both.

When Chrono has the new Rifle and Berserker has the new Staff, Tempest will be the healer which has the lowest healing ability in PvE.

[phokus.8934]

1 hour ago, katte nici.9483 said:

With Illusions its 10 1/4

edit: If you take Shatter Storm

My guess is that Shatter Storm doubles up from Master of Misdirection.

[katte nici.9483]

It is probably just an oversight that will be "fixed" soon.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

18 minutes ago, Drag You Down.2615 said:

When Chrono has the new Rifle and Berserker has the new Staff, Tempest will be the healer which has the lowest healing ability in PvE.

If it makes you feel better, ain't no one using that rifle 🤣

[Ashantara.8731]

1 minute ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

If it makes you feel better, ain't no one using that rifle 🤣

Didn't it have a fancy teleport skill that will (Warning: sarcasm!) prove to be extremely useful in known combat scenarios? I'm sure your teammates will thank you for using this new feature. 😁