Hot Take: Boon Strips/Corrupts are not the solution.

[ShadowStep.3640]

It feels like everyone wants the amount of strips/corrupts to be buffed way up to previous levels and even surpassing it. But combating boon bloat with massive strips just causes the flow of combat to feel like pendulum which is chaotic and wouldn't feel good. The better solution is to change the ways boons are generated, and primarily, shared to other players in WvW. 

Currently, boons are shared giving both the caster and the recipients the same boon duration. Example: Stand Your Ground gives 5 second Resolution and 6 seconds Stability to both the user and allies. Instead boons should give original duration to the user and half duration to allies. If you grant yourself 10 seconds regeneration, allies gain 5 seconds. You grant 4 seconds protection allies receive 2 seconds. This should obviously only be implemented in WvW as it would ruin PvE. Concentration would still benefit boon duration. 

 

Pros:

-Nerfs boon ball while still allowing for lots of boon generation.

-Makes counterplea easier and gives more value to corrupts and strips as boons are more valuable.

-Doesnt affect roamers/users generating boons. Allows them to still feel full impact of their abilities. 

-Raises skill ceiling of coordinated groups needing instances of stability/other high value boons rather than just vomiting them continuously. 

-Keeps individual player agency while still being able to generate support for allies but not allowing it to be excessive. 

-Encourages players to bring their own survivability in the form of utility skills (more value to bring my own stability vs relying on someone else)

Cons:

-Support players will feel their impact go down

-Players would need to adjust

-Low duration boons would be difficult to share

-Does not touch mechanics like barrier, auras, stealth

-idk maybe others.

[ArchonWing.9480]

It's not a bad idea, though some boons may have to be done per boon just because they are really short.

But people want corrupts not necessarily because they hate boon gameplay, but rather just want counterplay and punish people for just eating attacks mndlessly. It's not really a solution as much as Anet deleting a playstyle.

That being said, I think this system should be implemented out of combat for sure. Part of the lameness (and not just in large scale) is that people prebuff boons beforehand and try to stealth bomb randoms and then rinse/repeat. I mean as a tactic this is ok, but it's gotten to the point where you're at a massive disadvantage for not doing that and this results in groups constantly repositioning to get the proper edge.

It also makes everything so slow paced.

This actually used to be worse as I remember many a gvg back then was basically decided by whoever screwed up prebuffs/stealth, and it was so mind numblingly boring to watch.

Also I want to consider reducing the intensity of a boon as well. Stacking so much might has always been a problem in the game especially on classes that weren't supposed to stack it so easily.

Edited April 17 by ArchonWing.9480

[urd.8306]

As I said in another thread like this.
- bring back Epidemic. Make it corrupt 10-15 boons and let the corruption spread to targets in a 20 radius.
- give us a condition that punishes cleansing (similar to Unstable Affliction from WoW) that deals damage and silences the one cleansing.

Give this to two melee classes not in the meta and to two "more caster" classes not viable in the meta.

 

- give the spellbreaker bubble an additional effect that prevents healing inside the bubble

[XenesisII.1540]

It's not like we've never asked for boon rework, it's just pretty obvious they don't want to rework boons, and continued to add even more spam with quickness and alacrity additions last year. Boon balls were already strong enough without those reworks, so even taking away alacrity is pretty much a nothing burger move, while they continue to nerf boon strips every patch, so now the counters are even weaker than before they started buffing those support classes last year. At this point boons should probably be capped at 10sec durations like superspeed(this should have stayed at 5sec). But it won't happen.

PvP needs to have counter plays, when you have temporary boost of power above base power, you should ways to deny or remove it, this type of counter play is what brings in the skill aspect of game play, you being able to recognize, react, use the appropriate buffs/counters, at the appropriate times. It's not pve where you spam your boost so you get top dps at all times.

But no, apparently anet and their friends think the only thing you should be doing is throwing boons around 100% of the time and you can only challenge that group if you're running a similar meta setup and numbers, no if buts or what about its. Only raid bosses are allowed to challenge raid bosses and the peasants are just bonus bags waiting to be clobbered, these peasants shouldn't bother trying to scout or build or defend, just lay yourselves down on the railroad track and wait to be run over, that's your only purpose in wvw if you don't want to join a blob guild to do blob things in lord rooms as per the current anet devs philosophy.

[Ashen.2907]

Boons should exist to provide a window of opportunity, not to increase ongoing potency. An individual who benefits from a boon should be immune to receiving it again for a set amount of time. Tweaks to prevent trolling from "allies" would of course need to be added.

Edited April 17 by Ashen.2907

[Chaba.5410]

4 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

An individual who benefits from a boon should be immune to receiving it again for a set amount of time.

We're all boonballers.  People apply boons mindlessly to themselves and whoever just happens to be next to them just by pressing buttons all the time.

Edited April 17 by Chaba.5410

[Ashen.2907]

5 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

We're all boonballers.  People apply boons mindlessly to themselves and whoever just happens to be next to them just by pressing buttons all the time.

Indeed. A complication.

[Codename T.2847]

9 hours ago, urd.8306 said:

As I said in another thread like this.
- bring back Epidemic. Make it corrupt 10-15 boons and let the corruption spread to targets in a 20 radius.
- give us a condition that punishes cleansing (similar to Unstable Affliction from WoW) that deals damage and silences the one cleansing.

Or they could introduce a new condi that hurts affected players for some minor hp% each time they would receive a boon, but it could be stacked 😄

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I think OPs suggestion, or some variation of it, is a pretty good idea.

[Zephyrus.9680]

Boon strip is the most straightforward solution and is good because it mostly targets zerg fights where boons are the biggest issue. It would have minimal effect on small scale/roaming contexts. 

Nerfing boon duration or boons themselves is another solution but this overly punishes supports in small scale contexts where you may just be giving 1-2 other players those boons rather than 5. So I think boon strip is still the better solution. 

[XenesisII.1540]

1 hour ago, Zephyrus.9680 said:

Boon strip is the most straightforward solution and is good because it mostly targets zerg fights where boons are the biggest issue. It would have minimal effect on small scale/roaming contexts. 

Nerfing boon duration or boons themselves is another solution but this overly punishes supports in small scale contexts where you may just be giving 1-2 other players those boons rather than 5. So I think boon strip is still the better solution. 

And the fact they continue to nerf boon strips every patch in some way to this day, means it was an effective way to deal with boon spam. But they don't want that, they don't want to adjust the spam, they want to bath themselves in boons, gotta "feel good" running over keeps unopposed.

[Coldtart.4785]

It's obvious that increasing boon strip isn't the solution. We got to where we are because of power creep and no one ever solved power creep by buffing things. As a start I would suggest eliminating concentration (expertise too but that's another topic) and outgoing healing effectiveness from wvw. Even after that there are plenty of skills that will be far too strong on boon application or healing.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

This kind of suggestion will not work when there are 50+ people pumping out boons. The only real way to counter boon play, is for boon durations to be almost completely gutted to nothing or for strips/corrupts increased to where that pendulum exists so that one side can push into the pendulum and turn a fight.

[ZTeamG.4603]

I think offensive target caps being low is the biggest problem. If every offensive skill had no target cap while support/defensive ones were capped at 5, we'd see MUCH more interesting largescale gameplay. In its current state, the "right" way to play--the way that the balance incentivizes--is to stack as many people as possible on one spot and barely move. A point and click adventure that exists to spite all the potential that the combat system has. 

It would be much better if stacking in one spot was a death sentence and people instead had to play intelligently as parties of 5, working together with the larger zerg spread out over the battlefield.

[foxof.8752]

or there are too much boons, start by removing half of the boon and half of the condi, not only make it easier to manage and ease to server lag.

[Mikhael.2391]

On 4/17/2024 at 9:02 PM, ShadowStep.3640 said:

It feels like everyone wants the amount of strips/corrupts to be buffed way up to previous levels and even surpassing it. But combating boon bloat with massive strips just causes the flow of combat to feel like pendulum which is chaotic and wouldn't feel good. The better solution is to change the ways boons are generated, and primarily, shared to other players in WvW. 

Currently, boons are shared giving both the caster and the recipients the same boon duration. Example: Stand Your Ground gives 5 second Resolution and 6 seconds Stability to both the user and allies. Instead boons should give original duration to the user and half duration to allies. If you grant yourself 10 seconds regeneration, allies gain 5 seconds. You grant 4 seconds protection allies receive 2 seconds. This should obviously only be implemented in WvW as it would ruin PvE. Concentration would still benefit boon duration. 

 

Pros:

-Nerfs boon ball while still allowing for lots of boon generation.

-Makes counterplea easier and gives more value to corrupts and strips as boons are more valuable.

-Doesnt affect roamers/users generating boons. Allows them to still feel full impact of their abilities. 

-Raises skill ceiling of coordinated groups needing instances of stability/other high value boons rather than just vomiting them continuously. 

-Keeps individual player agency while still being able to generate support for allies but not allowing it to be excessive. 

-Encourages players to bring their own survivability in the form of utility skills (more value to bring my own stability vs relying on someone else)

Cons:

-Support players will feel their impact go down

-Players would need to adjust

-Low duration boons would be difficult to share

-Does not touch mechanics like barrier, auras, stealth

-idk maybe others.

This game mode needs diminishing returns on CC for and reduce CCs with removing stability to balance things up. stunlocks should not happen nor access to loads of cc by ONE class.

[Cyninja.2954]

On 4/17/2024 at 10:15 PM, ArchonWing.9480 said:

But people want corrupts not necessarily because they hate boon gameplay, but rather just want counterplay and punish people for just eating attacks mndlessly. It's not really a solution as much as Anet deleting a playstyle.

Thank you. This!

It's obvious the developers are trying to even the playing field in a similar way to PvE by just giving everyone boons while removing the boon denial abilities. What they seem to forget is that this comes at a cost of:

- removing counter play

- removing mistakes and punishment of mistakes

- results in a far more boring play style

The net question here is:"Why are players who are stepping out of aoes and who are mindful of where they stand and use their skills not rewraded. Similar why shouldn't players that run through every red field they can find not be punished?"

The entire dynamic of the reward behavior in a competitive mode has been neutered in an attempt to ease access to the mode via equalization. That's not something which works well with competitive modes (as limited as the competitive nature of WvW might be by now).

As to the idea at hand, I'm not opposed to it, but rather I'd adjust it and simply make boons provided to players be dependent on personal boon duration. This could shake things up a bit.

Edited April 21 by Cyninja.2954

[prototypedragon.1406]

Honestly scrap all boons give everyone a break bar. If your bar is broken take increased damage  for a set duration but you can still move after it breaks. All cc is a joke nowadays anyways when dealing with boon durations and reapplication.

[Mike.3196]

On 4/19/2024 at 12:31 AM, Coldtart.4785 said:

It's obvious that increasing boon strip isn't the solution. We got to where we are because of power creep and no one ever solved power creep by buffing things. As a start I would suggest eliminating concentration (expertise too but that's another topic) and outgoing healing effectiveness from wvw. Even after that there are plenty of skills that will be far too strong on boon application or healing.

It's no longer power creep hasn't been power creep for a while it was for 3months when zerker existed

[Szymon.5369]

On 4/21/2024 at 8:34 AM, Cyninja.2954 said:

 

The net question here is:"Why are players who are stepping out of aoes and who are mindful of where they stand and use their skills not rewraded. Similar why shouldn't players that run through every red field they can find not be punished?"

I feel like the answer to this lies at least partially elsewhere rather than in boons, people aren't punished for standing in red circles because AoE target cap is way, waaay lower than a zerg size, everything that isn't a coordinated damage spike spreads out harmlessly. So there is a way to punish stacking by AoE, but other than walking out you can counter AoE by stacking so hard that it flips the other side and it's no longer a real counter. Boons just synergize very well with that approach because the tigher the stack, the better boon uptime they get, so it ends up in a state where every mechanic in the game tells you to stack, and any risk you see tells you to stack even harder.

I'm probably completely wrong though because I know next to nothing about actual zerging (profile pic relevant).

[godfat.2604]

9 hours ago, Szymon.5369 said:

I feel like the answer to this lies at least partially elsewhere rather than in boons, people aren't punished for standing in red circles because AoE target cap is way, waaay lower than a zerg size

We used to have much less boon spam and much stronger boon strip, with slightly higher damage and worse healing, which was enough to kill a stack of zerg in under 5 seconds if they're standing on red circles, even with just target cap of 5 . Players will be dying fast enough to kill the next 5 targets, so I don't think target cap is an issue.

I would welcome them to raise the target cap if it's feasible, but the thing is this usually creates a lot more computation (similar to collision) on the server, so I doubt their server can handle that.

I think at this point we couldn't really point out a single reason why boon spam is such a big problem right now, because ANet kept making changes to make this worse, so all of them really added up. Just give a few examples:
* Much stronger healing nowadays
* Much more boons nowadays
* Much less boon strips nowadays
* Quite lower damages nowadays
Given that it's clearly their intention to keep doing this, I suppose this is their intended gameplay, and we're just shouting to the void.

I didn't enjoy pirate ship meta, but this is going to another extreme and it's ridiculously boring in a different level. I never thought the stupid ball meta can become reality.

[XECOR.2814]

Brother we need less generation not lower durations.

Where u are taking it is spam fire direction.

Where we need to go is have boon make impact by using at the correct opportunity when its required and the impact is very visible but scarce so you have to make a wise choice in the fight, when to use it.

[Cyninja.2954]

19 hours ago, Szymon.5369 said:

I feel like the answer to this lies at least partially elsewhere rather than in boons, people aren't punished for standing in red circles because AoE target cap is way, waaay lower than a zerg size, everything that isn't a coordinated damage spike spreads out harmlessly. So there is a way to punish stacking by AoE, but other than walking out you can counter AoE by stacking so hard that it flips the other side and it's no longer a real counter. Boons just synergize very well with that approach because the tigher the stack, the better boon uptime they get, so it ends up in a state where every mechanic in the game tells you to stack, and any risk you see tells you to stack even harder.

I'm probably completely wrong though because I know next to nothing about actual zerging (profile pic relevant).

You are not wrong, but it is important to distinguish between how target caps and boons affect stacking.

Both result in a specific damage increase, just to different targets.

Simplified:

- Increasing target cap

produces more damage overall because more targets are hit. Aka now instead of getting 5x1000 damage, you are getting 10x1000 damage (numbers meant for showcasing an example, not as actual ingame values)

It only reduces stacking until defenders are sufficient to out damage sustain, at which point exchanging blows while sieging changes. Everything before that point remains the same

Boons still increase incentive to stack because of their nature and the multiplicative effect they have.

Promots more important alpha strikes, aka first engage becomes more important and snowballing off of that becomes easier

- reducing boon duration

first and foremost reduces the multiplicative power increase boons provide. Both offensive as well defensive.

The damage to an enemy group increases, but not via amount of players hit, but relative damage dealt to lower amount of players. Aka now instead of doing 5x1000 damage (or 10x1000 damage as previously) you will do 5x2000 damage. 

You are now more incentivised to stay on stack as to better share damage to group.

- increasing boon removal options (aka counter play)

Very similar to boon reduction, but with the added element of having to be built around and properly executed.

Targets stripped of boons are punished twice over: first by being stripped of their defensive boons leads to more damage taken, and second by taking higher damage from enemy group which will have more offsneive boons up .

This has the potential to create "kill zones" even in a balance setting where boons are highly effective.

 

 

What is the downside to the boon removal approach? Well all of its benefits are also its detriments:

- requires dedicated boon removers

- requires skillful play, both targeting as well as managing an extra resource

- creates "kill zones" where slower players will be butchered

 

Different approaches will affect the boom meta in different ways. In general a mixed approach would be best in my opinion, while I do favor the counter play approach. 

Important also to note: many players enjoy stacking, they merely do not enjoy the stale nature of stacking without counter-play.

Edited April 23 by Cyninja.2954

[Nash.2681]

On 4/17/2024 at 11:56 PM, Chaba.5410 said:

We're all boonballers.  People apply boons mindlessly to themselves and whoever just happens to be next to them just by pressing buttons all the time.

This right here. As long as everyone keeps farting boons 24/7, no level of boon strip will be the solution. Boons simply get reapplied faster. However, if they spice up boon strips with a unique, unremovable condition (call it cursed, plagued or however you want) that prevents the reapplication of boons for a certain period of time, things might change fundamentaly...

[Zephyrus.9680]

1 hour ago, Nash.2681 said:

This right here. As long as everyone keeps farting boons 24/7, no level of boon strip will be the solution. Boons simply get reapplied faster. However, if they spice up boon strips with a unique, unremovable condition (call it cursed, plagued or however you want) that prevents the reapplication of boons for a certain period of time, things might change fundamentaly...

When there's enough, boon strips work fine though. It's only an issue when they're over nerfed. The situation now is that boon balls can even just sit in one spot and with the right comp almost nothing can touch them. From a balance perspective that is silly and looks terrible setting in one spot for 5 minutes taking no damage. But we don't need a silver bullet to make all boons useless, we just need boon strips buffed again to a level where there is counterplay. And preferably added to more specs.