Balance and development choices are making less and less sense to me.

[Yogurt Goblin.5934]

Don't want to go on a huge rant here and I am very aware this opinion is my own, but the balance and development teams choices just make me lose interest in the game with each round of major updates. I'm not sure if there has been a huge shake up in the team or they have orders from above to how the game should be, but its weird to me.

So I'll just jump right in, the choices that they are making rarely have good intentions behind them in my mind. Whether this is a best-of-the-bad situation or actually malicious, either way its not good. I'll rattle off a couple of examples of things that aren't quite sitting right me;

• Balancing spec/builds by top dps on golem (dps that normal players don't achieve)
• Sometimes they balance encounters to the new power level of the game due to power creep (see above point) which just make the game more difficult for player who aren't in organised groups pumping out top dps. This has recently came up with raids now having the negative-buff for dying, which just won't affect the hardcore raiders but will really make it difficult for new raiders and players to complete wings.
• Buffing/nerfing a build for no reason, with the most recent examples of these being confusion nerf and WvW Willbender buff. I'm not really sure the devs are actually still playing the game anymore, because there is truly no reason to buff willbender when it desperately needs anerf.
• Weapon choices that offer nothing new/are just worse than previous. This one I'm looking at Ele pistol and Engi shortbow,  (which may be a coincidence that they both only have 1 weapon set in combat). The Ele pistol just sucks, Ele has a condition based ranged one-handed weapon, sceptre, so why add another one that is worse? they needed a power ranged weapon, or a main hand heal, or a ranged 2-handed weapon for either condi or power, but they go something useless. Engi has a different problem, shortbow does lots of different things, just not very well, want to use it as a support weapon, we mace/shield is better, use it for dps, all other weapons are better, so why add it in?
• Massive amounts of bugs getting through to live game. This is just getting worse and worse, they clearly aren't testing anything they are doing to an adequate enough level, but refuse to do a test realm, they need to swallow their pride and just start a test realm.

So yeah, might just be me, but the devs seems to be pumping out updates, based on the wrong type of data, their own preference to classes, or just being lazy and upping health and difficulty of encounters instead of doing their actual jobs with is to balance the game.

[Fueki.4753]

To me, the professions changes stopped making sense years ago.

And that was even before the current changes team took over.

[Cyninja.2954]

11 hours ago, Yogurt Goblin.5934 said:

Don't want to go on a huge rant here and I am very aware this opinion is my own, but the balance and development teams choices just make me lose interest in the game with each round of major updates. I'm not sure if there has been a huge shake up in the team or they have orders from above to how the game should be, but its weird to me.

So I'll just jump right in, the choices that they are making rarely have good intentions behind them in my mind. Whether this is a best-of-the-bad situation or actually malicious, either way its not good. I'll rattle off a couple of examples of things that aren't quite sitting right me;

• Balancing spec/builds by top dps on golem (dps that normal players don't achieve)

This is not the issue. The issue is that some builds attain certain performance easier than others. Yet even that is irrelevant since the game is power crept beyond what is needed for the majority of content by now. You are essentially complaining about there being fine-tuning at the top end level for a car which now can go 290 miles per hour instead of 300, while the speed needed to complete the race course is around 50.

The balance changes at the top end have almost 0 effect on the average player.

• Quote

  Sometimes they balance encounters to the new power level of the game due to power creep (see above point) which just make the game more difficult for player who aren't in organised groups pumping out top dps. This has recently came up with raids now having the negative-buff for dying, which just won't affect the hardcore raiders but will really make it difficult for new raiders and players to complete wings.

  Raids are many year old content. Most of the raids were developed with damage outputs of around 25k-30k tops. EVERY class can output a far larger amount of dps even when played on a mediocre level by now. Best example: Vale Guardian needs around 8k dps for success while most builds now pump out 4-5 times that in encounter (not golem).

• Quote

  Buffing/nerfing a build for no reason, with the most recent examples of these being confusion nerf and WvW Willbender buff. I'm not really sure the devs are actually still playing the game anymore, because there is truly no reason to buff willbender when it desperately needs anerf.

  WvW sees balance around large scale. Willbender is not represented in large scale thus it is seeing a pass. I do not disagree with your complaint, just stating that the factors around that mode sees balance simply do not show some builds to be problematic (even if they are for small scale).

• Quote

  Weapon choices that offer nothing new/are just worse than previous. This one I'm looking at Ele pistol and Engi shortbow,  (which may be a coincidence that they both only have 1 weapon set in combat). The Ele pistol just sucks, Ele has a condition based ranged one-handed weapon, sceptre, so why add another one that is worse? they needed a power ranged weapon, or a main hand heal, or a ranged 2-handed weapon for either condi or power, but they go something useless. Engi has a different problem, shortbow does lots of different things, just not very well, want to use it as a support weapon, we mace/shield is better, use it for dps, all other weapons are better, so why add it in?

  Not every idea pans out. Other new weapons are successes. Time will tell how the developers decide to approach this.

• Quote

  Massive amounts of bugs getting through to live game. This is just getting worse and worse, they clearly aren't testing anything they are doing to an adequate enough level, but refuse to do a test realm, they need to swallow their pride and just start a test realm.

  The seemingly higher amount of bugs is concerning. There has always been bugs in the past (we have tons of legacy bugs which have existed for years).

Quote

So yeah, might just be me, but the devs seems to be pumping out updates, based on the wrong type of data, their own preference to classes, or just being lazy and upping health and difficulty of encounters instead of doing their actual jobs with is to balance the game.

Not sure I agree. I think the balance overall is better than it has been for years. Not only that but we are seeing regular balance patches now unlike the past where we had years without proper balance adjustments. On an individual class level, sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some. That's the nature of the beast.

[ericpeggy.8206]

I really want to know what is Anet balance concept.

They made me feel they just try to cope with players.

We can find something wrong obviously in every patch, but they never thought.

Then we need a highly respected player to write a 10000-words article to show them where is wrong.

Why don't you just hire them?

Oh! We already have a elementalist master.

So they just need to hire another 8 masters.

 

[zeyeti.8347]

On 3/7/2024 at 10:07 AM, ericpeggy.8206 said:

Oh! We already have a elementalist master.

Yeah involved in pvp , not the slightest in pve i assure you htemp is the less played meta healer atm and fall really short to any other healers the game provide.

Not like they had suddenly a pet master who completely change all pets of the game.

I agree that balance is far better than few years ago , there is some diversity , but still some pre dominant classes who have unfair advantage , like why does herald have a 600 boon range and all the others 360-240-180 ? why does Fb and herald have the stability monopole (warrior seems to be pretty decent in it too now) , there are skill who don't give any sense to me, you have on one hand "stand your ground" who is 5 stab stacks for 6 sec on a 2624 (even better !) cd , and for example ele with "eye of the storm" with 1 stab stack 5 sec on a 30 sec cd .... it's obvious a player who want to be efficient and see his group need stab will take firebrand instead of ele (not arguing here about quickness-alacrity provider), and don't tell me the 5 sec of superspeed + breakstun are better ...

But some changes are good , some questionable , some completely have no sense at all , it depends on every one vision of the game , but there is one thing that doesn't lie , and it's data ! and data proof players don't like some classes and don't want to bring it in some content, and as pve is the main focus of the game (sorry but wvw and pvp are not even near the pve whole success) they should find a way to have at least one e-spec of each classes having a big % of playerbase enjoyement and efficiency.

Anyway ele pistol is benching 46k on the golem , so either ppl like it or not (most don't like it) it's gonna be nerfed so don't bother training on that it's gonna bench not more than 43k next patches , same for axe condi thief benching 54k (that's a bit high , but seeing how the rotation is complex , it should be higher than most dps build) 

-less complicated builds = less efficient

-more complicated builds = more efficient

Or else nobody is gonna play the complicated one if they perform the same as a build who require the apm of a dead oyster.

Edited March 9 by zeyeti.8347

[Shuzuru.3651]

2 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

why does Fb and herald have the stability monopole (warrior seems to be pretty decent in it too now) , there are skill who don't give any sense to me, you have on one hand "stand your ground" who is 5 stab stacks for 6 sec on a 26 cd , and for example ele with "eye of the storm" with 1 stab stack 5 sec on a 30 sec cd .... it's obvious a player who want to be efficient and see his group need stab will take firebrand instead of ele (not arguing here about quickness-alacrity provider), and don't tell me the 5 sec of superspeed + breakstun are better ...

That's called class diversity, in pve, 1stack is all you need in like 95% of the situation where you need stab.

Other support got a lot of thing firebrand and herald don't. Ranged heal? Herald will struggle, people down? Firebrand and herald can't help. Need any other utility that isn't reflect stab or aegis? (Boon rip, portal, immo, etc) Firebrand can't do it.

I think they are doing a good job at giving every support a "base kit" (might/Fury/regen/prot/stab/aegis, cleanse and healing capabilities), then it's up to class strenght and weaknesses 

[Yogurt Goblin.5934]

7 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

 

• Raids are many year old content. Most of the raids were developed with damage outputs of around 25k-30k tops. EVERY class can output a far larger amount of dps even when played on a mediocre level by now. Best example: Vale Guardian needs around 8k dps for success while most builds now pump out 4-5 times that in encounter (not golem).

This is exactly my point to everyone who has done Vale Guardian, this changes makes no difference, we rarely get downed and our dps compensates if someone actually dies. BUT to the new players and first time raiders, this actually affects them. Why make the raid more difficult (even if it turns out to me very slightly) for the people who want to learn raiding and would benefit from not having the death consequence. The people who the devs actually want this change to affect, it does nothing to them.

7 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

• WvW sees balance around large scale. Willbender is not represented in large scale thus it is seeing a pass. I do not disagree with your complaint, just stating that the factors around that mode sees balance simply do not show some builds to be problematic (even if they are for small scale).

I understand that there are multiple things going on in WvW (do the devs?) but its literally the job of the balance team to balance them. If Willbender is wreaking absolute havoc in small scale doing 1v3s and walking away like nothing happened to them, then this should be taken into account when balancing for large scales. 

 

7 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

• Not every idea pans out. Other new weapons are successes. Time will tell how the developers decide to approach this.

 I get that, but if you look on the Ele professions forum page over the years, you would see the stuff that they are asking for, and for the devs to do an absolute swing and miss on this just seems negligent. They ask for something or give feedback on open-beta events, then get ignored. If devs do this, they should have to tell us why.

 

7 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Not sure I agree. I think the balance overall is better than it has been for years. Not only that but we are seeing regular balance patches now unlike the past where we had years without proper balance adjustments. On an individual class level, sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some. That's the nature of the beast.

Of course, everyone is entitled to opinions you have yours and I have mine, but balance seems to be getting worse to me over the years. Yes I will definitely agree that previous the huge time between balance patches wasn't good, we would go years without them. But I also think that is adding to the problem for me. Previously we would get a major updates every year or 2, if it sucked it really sucked, but we aren't gonna get sucker punched again for another 2 years, but with the new model it is 4+ times a year and every update just seems like the devs are further and further out of touch with some of their player base. I guess it comes down to would you rather get something really bad rarely, or get something kinda bad more often.

[Mell.4873]

Depends the game mode but balance was way worse before EoD. Does anyone remember stacking Scourge in Fractal CMs? What about Scrapper in WvW or Reaper in sPvP. 

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Yogurt Goblin.5934 said:

This is exactly my point to everyone who has done Vale Guardian, this changes makes no difference, we rarely get downed and our dps compensates if someone actually dies. BUT to the new players and first time raiders, this actually affects them. Why make the raid more difficult (even if it turns out to me very slightly) for the people who want to learn raiding and would benefit from not having the death consequence. The people who the devs actually want this change to affect, it does nothing to them.

I disagree. These changes were literally put in place to prevent cheesing and multi rezzing over and over. When encounters were able to get completed with over 30 downstates during a single encounter, that's not something which is working as intended. This change is explicitly FOR new players because as you said: players above this skill level don't care and are unaffected.

You are looking at this from a reward perspective, not from an actual "learn the encounter" perspective. Yes, there comes a point where even new players should realize that they are making mistakes. Having players circumvent encounters this way does nothing for their ability to improve at an encounter. On the contrary, it facilitates a behavior of "oh someone else is going to fix my mistakes".

Again, raids are far below where they ever were, especially in regards to new mechanics which were added over the years like barrier. Barrier alone nullifies almost all attacks in wings 1-4. That does not mean that 1 player should be able to carry a group through the nastiest of fails. I mean in essence 2-3 experienced players can already do so.

[Yogurt Goblin.5934]

14 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

You are looking at this from a reward perspective, not from an actual "learn the encounter" perspective. Yes, there comes a point where even new players should realize that they are making mistakes. Having players circumvent encounters this way does nothing for their ability to improve at an encounter. On the contrary, it facilitates a behavior of "oh someone else is going to fix my mistakes".

Again, raids are far below where they ever were, especially in regards to new mechanics which were added over the years like barrier. Barrier alone nullifies almost all attacks in wings 1-4. That does not mean that 1 player should be able to carry a group through the nastiest of fails. I mean in essence 2-3 experienced players can already do so.

These 2 points perfectly sum up my point, and I think one of us see these as problems and the other doesn't so in the end we may need to agree to disagree I'm afraid.

But yeah, I am all for learning encounters and having individuals fix their gameplay mistakes, but making it more difficult for the beginners/new players of content to actually complete it seems like the wrong choice. Especially when they struggle to learn mechanics at the beginning of their raiding just to find out that hardcore/experienced raiders just cheese things with boons/barrier.

The boons are the real issue here and they should be the thing that is reduced, not the encounters difficulty increased. If Anet wanted to make things more difficult for ALL raider players, while also making it so players actually do the encounter mechanics, they would heavily reduce stab, aegis and barrier (with a lesser extent of alac and quickness). 

Right now we will have new player groups trying raids, actually do mechanics, dodging big attacks and learning as they go. We will also have the old raiders speed running by stacking in one place and spamming aegis, stab and barrier. Which of these 2 groups do you think is playing raids like they are supposed to/how Anet planned for us to play them? I personally think it is the new players. So it seems weird that they are the ones who are having raids made more difficult for them.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Yogurt Goblin.5934 said:

The boons are the real issue here and they should be the thing that is reduced, not the encounters difficulty increased. If Anet wanted to make things more difficult for ALL raider players, while also making it so players actually do the encounter mechanics, they would heavily reduce stab, aegis and barrier (with a lesser extent of alac and quickness).

You are assuming that Arenanet wants to make raids harder when they just might be wanting to establish a way of playing. Mass rezzing seems not to be what they intend for players to use to pass encounters. We have seen changes to this as far back as dungeons in vanilla and the removal of in combat way pointing after death as to not death rush content. Going down dozens of times is nearly the same thing.

I have probably close to 15-20k raid boss kills by now. I can sum up the amount of times where mass rezzing was part of the strat or necessity to complete an encounter on 1 hand, that is to say almost never, and I have run a LOT of trainings for guildies in the past or helped out. You are blowing this change WAY out of proportion.

Quote

Right now we will have new player groups trying raids, actually do mechanics, dodging big attacks and learning as they go. We will also have the old raiders speed running by stacking in one place and spamming aegis, stab and barrier. Which of these 2 groups do you think is playing raids like they are supposed to/how Anet planned for us to play them? I personally think it is the new players. So it seems weird that they are the ones who are having raids made more difficult for them.

Your and mine experience of raid content seems to wildly differ. The vast majority of new players entering raids are doing so with veteran players to guide them at this point in time, supported with Emboldened Mode for a while now too.

You are trying to paint a picture of skilled players having an easier time with content (they do after a certain skill level), willfully ignoring that getting to that skill level usually requires actually being able to complete the content without skipping things. This is not always the case, but most often.

Yes, boons are a very strong force multiplier. That's why the developers have been spreading them out to every class. Your assumption that making boons more scarce is somehow going to benefit new players versus veterans is flawed. Let me tell you: I have raided for nearly the entire time since raids have been in this game. Boons were almost never the issue for the groups I run with, no matter how scarce. That's something which applies to nearly all veteran raiders (to varying degrees I;d say, depending on how experienced they are).

Making boons more difficult to attain will have 0 effect on me or other veteran raiders. The composition will simply get adjusted. The players hit hardest will be inexperienced players because besides having to learn about boons, they will now have an even harder time to upkeep them.

Edited March 8 by Cyninja.2954

[Yogurt Goblin.5934]

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

You are assuming that Arenanet wants to make raids harder when they just might be wanting to establish a way of playing. Mass rezzing seems not to be what they intend for players to use to pass encounters. We have seen changes to this as far back as dungeons in vanilla and the removal of in combat way pointing after death as to not death rush content. Going down dozens of times is nearly the same thing.

I have probably close to 15-20k raid boss kills by now. I can sum up the amount of times where mass rezzing was part of the strat or necessity to complete an encounter on 1 hand, that is to say almost never, and I have run a LOT of trainings for guildies in the past or helped out. You are blowing this change WAY out of proportion.

Your and mine experience of raid content seems to wildly differ. The vast majority of new players entering raids are doing so with veteran players to guide them at this point in time, supported with Emboldened Mode for a while now too.

You are trying to paint a picture of skilled players having an easier time with content (they do after a certain skill level), willfully ignoring that getting to that skill level usually requires actually being able to complete the content without skipping things. This is not always the case, but most often.

Yes, boons are a very strong force multiplier. That's why the developers have been spreading them out to every class. Your assumption that making boons more scarce is somehow going to benefit new players versus veterans is flawed. Let me tell you: I have raided for nearly the entire time since raids have been in this game. Boons were almost never the issue for the groups I run with, no matter how scarce. That's something which applies to nearly all veteran raiders (to varying degrees I;d say, depending on how experienced they are).

Making boons more difficult to attain will have 0 effect on me or other veteran raiders. The composition will simply get adjusted. The players hit hardest will be inexperienced players because besides having to learn about boons, they will now have an even harder time to upkeep them.

Yeah I think we just see this differently, which isn't the end of the world. I guess I just see making raids more difficult by introducing the dying too much consequence (regardless of how small of a increase in difficulty) will disproportionally effect less experienced and newer players, which are the ones who should have it a bit easier in my eyes. If Anet sees that people are doing mass rezzing too much, they should balance the mass rez skills, and not just introduce a mechanic that punishes needing to get rezzed.

[Doggie.3184]

Thief gets 3 projectile weapons ina row that have no unique unreflectable skills instead of buffing the ranged weapons we've had since launch (Pistol and Shortbow). When PoF launched we got a Dead-On-Arival Rifle with same weaponskill loadout as P/P (in which they nerfed in advance to replace) and spend several years before even considering letting it pierce to fix it's QoL issues. EoD they then add bad mechanics no one has ever liked such as Shadow Strike's backwards teleport to Scepter and make it also generally the same as nerfed P/P with no AoE, no new gameplay outside of clunky ally targeting that takes ages to get off the ground with addition of splash healing...

Now we have this Axe release... with it's bugs, lack of adding what we're missing, annoying as all hell sound effect, unfinished/lazy animation work, has only 1 skill, lack of synergy with off-hands and no new off-hand to fix that, etc~ it's officially been the lowest point I've felt about the game since the deletion of Ricochet.

Thief still remains the only class without WvW group play builds~ even has a bug that prevents Daredevil dodge from stealthing if ally fields are overlapping yours which hasn't been fixed since HoT despite multiple reports and even a CM response. Like what is going on, do they need more staff? It's like they never have time to leave the golem to actually try things in all modes and just literally have no idea what would suit a thief/assassin player. If they told us that maybe it's just too hard to fix/don't want it fixed or that Thief's design philosophy is to be a loner who avoids allies then at least it's something and I'll know what to expect. I just feel like I'm being trolled at this point.

Edited March 8 by Doggie.3184

[zeyeti.8347]

On 3/7/2024 at 1:08 PM, Shuzuru.3651 said:

1stack is all you need in like 95% of the situation where you need stab.

Fractals says hello , there are some encounters where there is heavy cc like nightmare cm amam where the 5 stacks is very usefull and various other fracals where it comes handy , even so the shorter cd and longer uptime (it's 6 vs 5 sec so 12 vs 10 with boon duration) cd vs the longer cd and shorter uptime doesnt make any sense to me , same goes for some skills like lightning flash who is just a 900 port with same cd as some skills who include a breakstun , condi removal and 1200 range and have the same purpose usage for.

On 3/7/2024 at 1:08 PM, Shuzuru.3651 said:

people down? Firebrand and herald can't help.

Signet of Mercy this signet is on the shortest cooldown for an immediate rez and beat every other single rez ability in the game in term of cd (and has +120 concentration on it , so even if you don'use it it is not a waste as you can use more magi stuff for précision given might on crit. and healing output, on the other hand ele, hscg ... have no passiv usage for their long range rez ability (don't tell me you need the 4% vital force from sig of the undead as a hscg)  A bunch of guardian downed stacked can revive almost instantly the whole team after 4 sec just by pressing 3 , and even if the Fb has no strong healing from afar , the staff skill 2 combiend with 3 has decent cd and healing for a 1200 range combo skill , and staff 4 still heals like nuts on a 600 aoe around you.

Reminder the herald has a tablet who can go 1200 range and can heal output 6000 hp every 2 sec , it's not rezzing ppl but can secure a far away rez with anti projectiles, stab and healing output.  , so those two aren't even as bad as you seems to think in this peculiar situation , and not counting scepter who alows u to port to a fara way target ally and give decent barrier on a 900 range with short cd

So those two are far from bad at the long range healing situation.

On 3/7/2024 at 1:08 PM, Shuzuru.3651 said:

I think they are doing a good job at giving every support a "base kit" (might/Fury/regen/prot/stab/aegis, cleanse and healing capabilities), then it's up to class strenght and weaknesses 

That's true for most of them (except htemp) , the base kit seems to be good for any healer , but if you play an alacrity healer without a herald your choice would be really hindered or you would have to adapt your skills to your supp dsp (example i play hscg and have a quick harbringer , well i pretty much know switftness is gonna lack in my sub)  as the herald is the 5 stars offensiv support duo for any alac heal , same goes for quickness healer and alacrity dpses , the choice seems very narrow compared to the other type of duo. in term of alacrity dpses you have not the same variety of choice as quick dps.

In term of power alacrity builds , we have willbender , chrono and "no méta" power bladesworn , and those 3 are very lackluster compared of their quickness dps counterpart. Condi alacrity seems to have enough variety tough.

[Shuzuru.3651]

4 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Fractals says hello , there are some encounters where there is heavy cc like nightmare cm amam where the 5 stacks is very usefull and various other fracals where it comes handy , even so the shorter cd and longer uptime (it's 6 vs 5 sec so 12 vs 10 with boon duration) cd vs the longer cd and shorter uptime doesnt make any sense to me , same goes for some skills like lightning flash who is just a 900 port with same cd as some skills who include a breakstun , condi removal and 1200 range and have the same purpose usage for.

There is a reason why i didn't say 100%

As for one to one skill comparaison, it's irrelevant, you have to consider the whole package of what a class has to offer.

4 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Signet of Mercy this signet is on the shortest cooldown for an immediate rez and beat every other single rez ability in the game in term of cd (and has +120 concentration on it , so even if you don'use it it is not a waste as you can use more magi stuff for précision given might on crit. and healing output, on the other hand ele, hscg ... have no passiv usage for their long range rez ability (don't tell me you need the 4% vital force from sig of the undead as a hscg) 

I never saw any firebrand take this skill, the class simply don't have the space to take it, hscg usually got some space for it. And no one care for the 120 concentration on it, as much as the 4% lifeforce generation.

4 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

That's true for most of them (except htemp) , the base kit seems to be good for any healer , but if you play an alacrity healer without a herald your choice would be really hindered or you would have to adapt your skills to your supp dsp (example i play hscg and have a quick harbringer , well i pretty much know switftness is gonna lack in my sub)  as the herald is the 5 stars offensiv support duo for any alac heal , same goes for quickness healer and alacrity dpses , the choice seems very narrow compared to the other type of duo. in term of alacrity dpses you have not the same variety of choice as quick dps

I do agree that herald is strong support that probably didn't deserve another support weapon but it's clearly not an absolute option that got weaknesses (btw, right now, hscg + quick harb wouldn't lack swiftness)

Also, recently, we saw the arrival of a bunch of nice support build with good potential too : heal chrono with all the mesmer goodies, heal quick zerk and heal quick uptime who got good uptime on a good selection on boon, etc...

[Puck.3697]

Tbh I’ve played a lot of mmorpgs, and they don’t make sense ever, the more mmorpgs you engage with, the more you remorse Devs are aware they’re fighting a losing battle and meta will replace everything and anything regardless of how close they get things.

so they aim for randomness and things that will chase to shuffle things continuously to get things different

 

[zeyeti.8347]

19 hours ago, Shuzuru.3651 said:

I never saw any firebrand take this skill, the class simply don't have the space to take it

Well tell me what is mandatory to take as firebrand then ? you have basically 3 free skill , 2 utility and the ult ? if there is only a single stab needed f3-5 is enough , need more ranged heal ? bow is good for it , need max stab overload ? take stand your ground + ammo ult or the area that pulse stab , condi remove .... etc etc , so there is room to take it , you just need to see what your team needs or know your group xp.

i took this skill on Ko cm and i have lost the count on how many players i have saved cause they took the sniper aiming ricochet shot because of wrong placement, if you have to look at all long range rez skills this one is the best cause of it's 50 sec cd.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

On 3/7/2024 at 4:05 AM, Cyninja.2954 said:

• WvW sees balance around large scale. Willbender is not represented in large scale thus it is seeing a pass. I do not disagree with your complaint, just stating that the factors around that mode sees balance simply do not show some builds to be problematic (even if they are for small scale).

Just for this bit in particular I would have to argue that while Willbender might have very little to no representation in large scale, I'd say that isn't important. Firebrand does, as does Core Guardian probably and maybe even DH to some capacity. Willbender does not also need to have significant representation in zerg play because Guardian already does, so simply letting Willbender be as overtuned in small scale and roaming as it is, if not making it even more potent because they may seemingly be trying to buff it so it does have zerg representation, is an honestly extremely silly approach to its balance.

It would be like if they flipped the intent with Firebrand and decided to start loading mobility and damage into its kit so that it can function as a strong roamer as well. That would be weird and silly, and I'm sure now that I've put that out into the ether some Guardian main at ANet is about to get a little light bulb above their head.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

2 hours ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

Just for this bit in particular I would have to argue that while Willbender might have very little to no representation in large scale, I'd say that isn't important. Firebrand does, as does Core Guardian probably and maybe even DH to some capacity. Willbender does not also need to have significant representation in zerg play because Guardian already does, so simply letting Willbender be as overtuned in small scale and roaming as it is, if not making it even more potent because they may seemingly be trying to buff it so it does have zerg representation, is an honestly extremely silly approach to its balance.

It would be like if they flipped the intent with Firebrand and decided to start loading mobility and damage into its kit so that it can function as a strong roamer as well. That would be weird and silly, and I'm sure now that I've put that out into the ether some Guardian main at ANet is about to get a little light bulb above their head.

Don't you try to lump my firebrand in with those willbenders. Sure anything that hits core guardian will affect both, as it's their base class, but willbender specific abilities don't do a kitten thing for me. A lot of players that play firebrand don't play dragonhunter or willbender, and vice versa. Don't assume that just because one spec does something well, it will benefit a player of another spec. I main firebrand. I don't play willbender. I don't even know how to, they are so different. But I do play mirage. Are you trying to say that just because my firebrand is good in a zerg, my mirage doesn't need to? Well that goes for any spec or build then.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

3 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Don't you try to lump my firebrand in with those willbenders. Sure anything that hits core guardian will affect both, as it's their base class, but willbender specific abilities don't do a kitten thing for me. A lot of players that play firebrand don't play dragonhunter or willbender, and vice versa. Don't assume that just because one spec does something well, it will benefit a player of another spec. I main firebrand. I don't play willbender. I don't even know how to, they are so different. But I do play mirage. Are you trying to say that just because my firebrand is good in a zerg, my mirage doesn't need to? Well that goes for any spec or build then.

"Well that goes for any spec or build then"

Yes...I am saying that in a way but I think you lost your way a bit in what I was saying. In fact ANet, CMC specifically, has expressed that they would like there to be at least one viable Specialization for each class for each gamemode; i.e WvW, PvP, PvE. It is not unreasonable to believe that could easily extend into how they balance around Zerg gameplay in WvW.

Willbender has its place as a roamer just as Firebrand has its place in zergs, just as Chronomancer has its place in zergs and Mirage has its place as a roamer and so on and so on. I think what you misunderstood from what I was expressing is that Guardian specifically doesn't need more representation within its class in zergs, it quite literally has some of the highest representation for many years. Willbender does not need to also fill a spot in zergs for Guardian that Core Guardian, Firebrand and potentially Dragonhunter already fill. Guardian is represented.

For roaming WIllbender basically dominates for Guardian because of its high mobility and high burst damage, and arguably fairly flexible kit because even if they build for more sustain (Honor instead of Radiance) they still put out a lot of damage and still hold onto that high mobility. They can even just run Celestial stats, run the normal Radiance/Virtues/Willbender and accomplish a very similar setup for more sustain/survivability.

But that is okay...every single class does not need to be good at every single thing in the game all at once. That isn't to say you can't run around in a zerg with Willbender, its just in a coordinated group its fine if they forego taking a Willbender over something else. You still contribute, you can snipe backline or the tail of the enemy zerg. You just play differently under those circumstances. Or you roam with Willbender.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

19 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

"Well that goes for any spec or build then"

Yes...I am saying that in a way but I think you lost your way a bit in what I was saying. In fact ANet, CMC specifically, has expressed that they would like there to be at least one viable Specialization for each class for each gamemode; i.e WvW, PvP, PvE. It is not unreasonable to believe that could easily extend into how they balance around Zerg gameplay in WvW.

Willbender has its place as a roamer just as Firebrand has its place in zergs, just as Chronomancer has its place in zergs and Mirage has its place as a roamer and so on and so on. I think what you misunderstood from what I was expressing is that Guardian specifically doesn't need more representation within its class in zergs, it quite literally has some of the highest representation for many years. Willbender does not need to also fill a spot in zergs for Guardian that Core Guardian, Firebrand and potentially Dragonhunter already fill. Guardian is represented.

For roaming WIllbender basically dominates for Guardian because of its high mobility and high burst damage, and arguably fairly flexible kit because even if they build for more sustain (Honor instead of Radiance) they still put out a lot of damage and still hold onto that high mobility. They can even just run Celestial stats, run the normal Radiance/Virtues/Willbender and accomplish a very similar setup for more sustain/survivability.

But that is okay...every single class does not need to be good at every single thing in the game all at once. That isn't to say you can't run around in a zerg with Willbender, its just in a coordinated group its fine if they forego taking a Willbender over something else. You still contribute, you can snipe backline or the tail of the enemy zerg. You just play differently under those circumstances. Or you roam with Willbender.

I think you misunderstand the point that "guardian" doesn't represent me or what I play. I don't play guardian. I play firebrand, mirage, tempest, virtuoso, and scrapper. It doesn't matter what willbenders or dragonhunters can do if I never touch them and their playstyles. This is true for a lot of players, so comparing by base class just doesn't mean anything to us. 

Edit: And in case you are wondering, in FF14 I play scholar, but I don't play arcanist or summoner. 

Edited March 11 by Gaiawolf.8261

[KryTiKaL.3125]

13 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

I think you misunderstand the point that "guardian" doesn't represent me or what I play. I don't play guardian. I play firebrand, mirage, tempest, virtuoso, and scrapper. It doesn't matter what willbenders or dragonhunters can do if I never touch them and their playstyles. This is true for a lot of players, so comparing by base class just doesn't mean anything to us. 

Edit: And in case you are wondering, in FF14 I play scholar, but I don't play arcanist or summoner. 

Okay, and you are entirely free to play those classes as you see fit in the content you want to play them in...

What I am saying has nothing to do with what you feel represents you or what you play...or what other players feel represents them and what they play. It seems using "representation" is not entirely helpful when trying to explain what I'm trying to explain. I think it may be muddying the intended message.

I guess a possibly more accurate term may be "participation" or "attendance". So to reiterate with that new verbiage; Guardian participation in zergs does not need to be higher as Firebrand and possibly Core Guardian are some of the more common classes you will see (same thing with Scourge and Vindicator), and Willbender participation in roaming is the most common you will likely see, among several other classes.

So the point is that I don't believe they should be trying to bring balance changes to Willbender to try and bring up its participation in zergs because they are trying to balance it around zergs.

[nsk.4762]

On 3/7/2024 at 6:07 PM, ericpeggy.8206 said:

I really want to know what is Anet balance concept.

 

here you are. This is "living" document they say. but already dead or abandoned.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

24 minutes ago, nsk.4762 said:

 

here you are. This is "living" document they say. but already dead or abandoned.

From that 'document'

Counterplay is a fundamental piece of competitive gameplay in Guild Wars 2, and it's important to build skills that can be interacted with effectively. This means we generally don't want instant-cast skills that heavily impact an enemy because we want players to be able to see and react to what their opponents are doing. Instant skills are usually best as defensive skills, though we also want to avoid instant healing in significant amounts.

Yeah, they failed at all that.  

What's funny is he wrote all that too when ports were (and still are) a huge issue to the point to where now pretty much every class has one.  

Not only that, counterplay is now impossible because of boon spam and general visual clutter.  Not to mention stealth, which outside of cleave CC'ing a random area around you has no counterplay.  

[KryTiKaL.3125]

1 hour ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

From that 'document'

Counterplay is a fundamental piece of competitive gameplay in Guild Wars 2, and it's important to build skills that can be interacted with effectively. This means we generally don't want instant-cast skills that heavily impact an enemy because we want players to be able to see and react to what their opponents are doing. Instant skills are usually best as defensive skills, though we also want to avoid instant healing in significant amounts.

Yeah, they failed at all that.  

What's funny is he wrote all that too when ports were (and still are) a huge issue to the point to where now pretty much every class has one.  

Not only that, counterplay is now impossible because of boon spam and general visual clutter.  Not to mention stealth, which outside of cleave CC'ing a random area around you has no counterplay.  

Yeah...that counterplay part is particularly amusing because they have been consistently removing counterplay, ranging from less boon strip/boon corrupt, to the incoming change to things like Zealot's Defense where Guardians will be able to move with it now when one of the main ways to counterplay against that skill is to out range it or sidestep it.

ANet has consistently never kept with these philosophies they talk about, or they don't ever really commit to them. It has happened every single time.