The "glass cannon" concept doesn't exist in this game [Merged]

[Zekent.3652]

It just make no sense trying to play those "glass cannon" builds anymore, used to provide big damage at the cost of less tools/sustain but now everything hits like a truck while also having good tools AND sustain.

This needs to be fixed, a tab-targetting game shouldn't have this problem.

[Shagie.7612]

Before I start I just wanna point out that plenty of people have raised this concern and that I think it's one of the biggest parts of the game's powercreep over its lifetime.
I'm also not trying to say that the builds used as examples are super OP and need nerfed. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but they're being used for relative comparisons.

If I'm a Gunflame enjoyer, because I think Sol Badguy is awesome, and I jump into a match with other fairly squishy, high burst specs, what am I bringing to the table against them? If I get caught by the power Mirage, or the Deadeye, the Soulbeast, or whatever, I instantly lose. That's okay, that's how high burst fights tend to go. But on the flip side, if I catch those guys out, they have infinitely better tools to handle my attempt than I do to handle theirs.
Gunflame doesn't have many of the tools that those do, but also doesn't have significantly higher damage in exchange. Or at least, not enough to matter, because those other scary specs do enough to kill, and that's as much as you need.

I don't make any attempts to hide that I really like Renegade, it's basically the only thing I play anymore because I think it's fun, so it's what I'm most familiar with. I especially like Mallyx/Kalla, but this happens for both condi and power builds often.

If I'm fighting something like a DH, and I get caught by Spear, I lose. Even if I stunbreak the pull before getting all the way into the traps I've committed too much energy. I gotta skedaddle or I die because I don't have enough sustain to use that energy on anything but the DPS race. That's okay, he landed his win condition, he earned it.
Why then can I throw all 3 ghosts, SB4, and Citadel Bombardment onto the guy and between aegis, Shield of Courage and Wings of Resolve and a potential RF he isn't in the same situation? I've committed even more for my win condition, landed it, and it didn't get me anywhere.
If I get hit by a Willbender's immobilize, I die. If I get power blocked by a Mirage on my heal (or even just reactively on Call to Anguish tbh), I die. If a Holosmith realizes I exist, I die.

I don't think that having bad match ups is bad for the game, I think it's an important part of team compositions. What I don't understand is why I, the bad spec player, don't have the ability to either do the same thing back to them, or the ability to clobber something that they struggle with just as easily. That Holosmith that realized I queued for PvP while he was online is immune to me as condition Renegade, but if I go power, he still handles me incredibly well between all of his available tools while still outpumping me.

That's the case for almost all the weak builds, but especially glassier ones. They don't have a win condition because actual good builds do just as much or even more damage while having them beat in blocks/blinds/evades/invulns/stealth/mobility, sometimes even general survivability or tankiness.

What's their purpose, then? Clearly they're not allowed to do extra damage in exchange for the tools they lack, because otherwise getting hit by any of a warrior's rifle skills would have to do enough damage to set your computer on fire, so what are they supposed to do?

The gap between the top and bottom of the meta is larger than it's ever been and the poor balance between the haves and have nots is the main reason why, and there's no attempts to fix it and instead we just see the same handful of favored specs juggled around every 6 months.

Extend subject to whatever you think is squishy and weak.

anyways yeah i'm mad about landing lots of stuff on someone, avoiding as much as possible of theirs and still losing because i wanted to play guilty gear wars 2, i'm not denying it

Edited May 7 by Shagie.7612

[Shagie.7612]

OI YOU COPIED ME
I copied you?

whatever

[Terrorhuz.4695]

I feel your pain. Renegade is a particularly bad class for players to play and for devs to balance. Power zerker is better than you give it credit for (endure pain spam carries the spec quite a bit), but still not enough to take it out of the meme territory. #justiceForRenegades

[Shagie.7612]

23 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

Power zerker is better than you give it credit for (endure pain spam carries the spec quite a bit), but still not enough to take it out of the meme territory.

Power zerker in general, I don't disagree. You can play a defense power zerk build that can do that, as a sidenoder.
But not Gunflame builds. Rifle's really bad. Same for basically any warrior build that's trying to be a scary high damage build, ie the glass cannon.

Edited May 7 by Shagie.7612

[Zekent.3652]

5 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

OI YOU COPIED ME
I copied you?

whatever

Lmao, i'll just ask a mod to merge both posts i guess

[Dawdler.8521]

Ah yes, I do miss seeing more of the 1200 range teleport DH macro pre-loaded build that could fully kill you in 0.2 seconds (or faster than the game can register as you went into downstate before reaching 50% hp).

The way it was meant to be played, sigh… PvP and its kitten gear is a travesty, should always have used WvW gear and skill balancing.

[Endorphin.9147]

Glass cannon does exists. You could go around 1 shotting people on FA weaver or Core power mes. But why do that when you can dish the same dmg on a hammer vindi or an unga bunga untamed 🤡

[shion.2084]

7 hours ago, Zekent.3652 said:

It just make no sense trying to play those "glass cannon" builds anymore, used to provide big damage at the cost of less tools/sustain but now everything hits like a truck while also having good tools AND sustain.

This needs to be fixed, a tab-targetting game shouldn't have this problem.

scrapper wishes this was true.

[Flowki.7194]

Yeah its very clear the game is crept badly in dps/sustain and now mobility. The proof of this can be seen in the dismal representation of supports, I barely even see core gaurds anymore. Multiple specs are now demi god status, able to roam the map self sufficiantly and escape +1s with decent timing.

 

There is little insentive to play support when you and your entire team can play a decent dps+mobility spec with nion the same self sustain of a support. I still play some full support, but the overepresentation of roamers, leads to absolute chaos of indivuals randomly rotating, making it a nightmare on who/where to go. The roamers never take you into consideration in their positioning, or use of CC to help you help them, yet you can't just sit on mid alone.

 

I have nothing against roamers but there is way too much of it now, and the lack of supports in use dramatically reduces concious team playing.. which can't be healthy for the game, and limits spec representation. Many group fight builds that don't have good mobility are just free +1s now, with the absense of supports.

 

Roaming is probably one of the most selfish playstyles by nature (not meant in a bad way), it really shouldn't be over represented, as it needs group fighters to feed off.

Edited May 7 by Flowki.7194

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

3 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

should always have used WvW gear and skill balancing.

is this sarcasm?

[Clumsy.7926]

9 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

Power zerker in general, I don't disagree. You can play a defense power zerk build that can do that, as a sidenoder.
But not Gunflame builds. Rifle's really bad. Same for basically any warrior build that's trying to be a scary high damage build, ie the glass cannon.

So why is Lonecap constantly in the top 100 EU with rifle berserker? 😂

[Rdm.3186]

I like how the chrono f1 thread inspired more discussions about the oneshot and bruiser nonsense xD

In the end it is simple: GW2 is not a shooter and classes are not designed with low enough defensives to justify oneshot dmg, like killing with the first inc in less than a second, no matter if you use one skill or way more skills hitting at same time for it. Another evil are the majority of builds which have insane dmg (usually not top lvl burst but good burst + sustained dmg spam) and too much and too  good defense in one kit. Since they contradict the "high effort, high skill ceiling=high reward" attempt. Time to de-powewr creep the game if you want a skillbased game. If you are happy with the casual low skill ceiling approach and playing a game a 9 yo kiddo can play, then sure ask for buffs to whatever you think is not braindead and broken enough to compete with the meta picks. 

[Shagie.7612]

1 hour ago, Rdm.3186 said:

In the end it is simple: GW2 is not a shooter and classes are not designed with low enough defensives to justify oneshot dmg

You're right, actually. I don't think instantly dying, especially in a game with teleports, is very good design.
But some of those builds that lack in every other area would require that level of damage to be competitive and to make up for what they're missing.
So either you start slapping a bunch of non-damage stuff on top of them just like everyone else got, or you ramp their damage up to insane levels.

"Remove everything from virtually every other build in the game" is an even more ridiculous pipe dream and is only being used to try and ignore the people wanting the thing they enjoy playing to be competitive.

[Khalisto.5780]

EoD was bad for balance, i was playing fire weaver before that, then eod came, builds with 80% my sustain had double my damage, and that's pretty much how balance goes now.

 

[Saiyan.1704]

I'm convinced that if DE was deleted tomorrow, everything would be better.

The meta would settle and all 9 classes would be "meta" on metabattle.
The pvp population would suddenly return.
GW2 would enter Esports again, surpassing the Superbowl in viewership.
CMC gets promoted to CEO because he convinced the devs to delete DE. Every quarter, he flies overseas to have brunch with Kim Taek Jin.
GW3 gets announced with a release date of June 2025.

[Clumsy.7926]

11 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

I'm convinced that if DE was deleted tomorrow, everything would be better.

The meta would settle and all 9 classes would be "meta" on metabattle.
The pvp population would suddenly return.
GW2 would enter Esports again, surpassing the Superbowl in viewership.
CMC gets promoted to CEO because he convinced the devs to delete DE. Every quarter, he flies overseas to have brunch with Kim Taek Jin.
GW3 gets announced with a release date of June 2025.

Nah because hammer vindi would still exist

[Rdm.3186]

21 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

So either you start slapping a bunch of non-damage stuff on top of them just like everyone else got, or you ramp their damage up to insane levels.

"Remove everything from virtually every other build in the game" is an even more ridiculous pipe dream and is only being used to try and ignore the people wanting the thing they enjoy playing to be competitive.

But that is exactly the point, if you ramp up the dmg to an, as you call it correct "insane lvl", you just rigidify the bad balance and power creep and with that an insanely low skill ceiling state. That cannot be the way for competitive gamemodes. Even giving more active defense to spam would be better than giving oneshot dmg, since the fights would be spammy but at least still a bit interactive. But also that is just giving up on healthy, senseful and skillful balance and capitulate to the current no brain needed gamestate. So also not the way to go. 

I see the argument quite often, that ppl try to knockout actually good balance suggestiosn with the simple claim, that those suggestions are too unlikely to happen or impossible to do with anet. Impossible is clearly wrong (anet already did a big gamewide rework patch on feb few years ago, with the attempt to reduce power creep, and most of the theoretical philosophies of that patch were not even bad, they just failed the execution pretty hard). So there is prove, that bigger changes for a less power creeped game are in general possible.

How likely they are is another question but imo a question that should not matter for the way ppl make balance suggestions.

I think, it is important to show to anet, that we as player want a more skillbased and fair balanced game and that we are not happy nor accepting the way gw2 is going since years. Only that way you at least open up chances for improvements to happen. If we just accept and give up, for sure nothing will rly change (outside of what classes are more broken than some others after next patch, the overall gamestate will stay bad, just the fotm builds change a bit). If we, as the ones giving balance suggestions, only  work with what we think is only possible anyway with anet, we will not do any good for the game, we are just trying to cover bad balance with even more bad balance. 

Also my newest experience is (and i am not talking about you in particular here, more in general):

Often claims like " those changes will never happen or are unlikely to happen, so stop bringing them up and better come with suggestions how to deal with current gamestate so class/ build xy can compete" is just an easy way for ppl who disagree to those "bigger picture suggestions", to avoid the need to actually deal with those suggstions in a constructive way and instead they just knockout those suggestions with no effort and without the need of  well-founded counter-arguments (which actually do not exist,tho...). Actually a pretty poor, unfair and shortsighted way of dealing with actually good suggestions from ppl who disagree to them. Claim those suggestions are nto on the table (no matter that there is no prove that this is even true) and those bigger pic suggestions are off the table. GG. And often the ppl who disagree to big pic suggestiosn are ussually just too bad at the game or the class they wanna buff, to play them under the suggested skillful gamestate, so they do not like those big pic suggestions.

Sometimes those  "impossible to deliver by anet, so stop asking for it" claims are just an excuse for laziness to think about balance more gamewide, while in the end those ppl only care for their favoriite build/ class to be able to compete, no matter at what costs. 

The Truth is:

Good changes are never impossible, no matter how unlikely they might seem to be at some point. But if you don't even start to fight for good changes, they will for sure never come. So never stop trying (to reach the stars) or you will never change the world (or a part of the world, here gw2) to the better even a tiny bit. And even more important: If you are too lazy or too selfish to look at the bigger picture and reach for the stars yourself, then at least do not jump on ppl who actually invest the brainpower and effort to do so, just for your own little selfish goals. Do not impede visionaries, those are the ppl changing the world to the better even against all odds. 

For example, ranger feels like having an evade on almost every weaponskill (it is not that bad but you get what i mean). There is no real problem to delete some (not all ofc) of those evade frames. How often boons are available and their uptime is easy changeable, you can overall reduce stats on amulets, quickness, superspeed are things that should not exist or at least only very rarely and short available (like a block every 25-30 secs for 2-3 secs as example). And many things more. 

Edited May 8 by Rdm.3186

[Terrorhuz.4695]

18 minutes ago, Rdm.3186 said:

a block every 25-30 secs for 2-3 secs as example

That's already the case. Almost all blocks in the game follow the formula of 10% uptime (2s block, 20s cd; 3s block, 30s cd, so on so forth) and then they're tweaked case by case (chrono has 35s cd because it's two blocks)

[Rdm.3186]

2 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

That's already the case. Almost all blocks in the game follow the formula of 10% uptime (2s block, 20s cd; 3s block, 30s cd, so on so forth) and then they're tweaked case by case (chrono has 35s cd because it's two blocks)

You again showcase an incredible abiltiy to read and quote xD. I was talking about the uptime of superspeed and quickness should match the uptime blocks usually have.

Edited May 8 by Rdm.3186

[Vasdamas Anklast.1607]

Then there is post global damage nerf thief. That will play hard to get with you until they finally get that cheesy backstab with timely interrupt. Or just run away to another node if they know they aren't experienced to pull it off. Dunno, there was a balance of some sort with that damage. Some specs now just can't be punished.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

14 minutes ago, Rdm.3186 said:

I was talking about the uptime of superspeed and quickness should match the uptime blocks usually have.

this time you're right

[Rdm.3186]

27 minutes ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

my brother in christ I misinterpreted one of your messages, I didn't run over your cat. You can chill.

I am completely chill my friend. Just told you, that you not agreeing to me does not make me wrong, it just means only now you agree to me, not that i am only right this time. 

"misinterpreted one of my messages"? ONE??? xDDDDD

You missiread, missunderstand and miss my points (seemingly on purpose to distract from my good arguments about how to compare builds and if oneshot dmg should exist or not) since 5 pages in another thread, while being passive aggressive and trying to deny all my arguments with just calling me clueless and that i must be wrong by default about mesmer balance when i am not a mesmer main. You and the other mediocre at best mesmers were the rage kiddos being emotional and barely hidden toxic. Stop twisting facts  and chill yourself. Might my hug help you 🤗 

I am not surprised you miss my points so hard anymore, when all you are looking for, while unfocused skimming through all my posts, is how to win an argument going over dead bodies, having the only goal to find the tiniest thing to prove me wrong or not knowlegeable about something in the game. You did missread that part because you wanted to find a mistake of me soooo badly. It is what it is. Actually pretty sadge if you think about it. 

Edited May 8 by Rdm.3186

[Terrorhuz.4695]

5 minutes ago, Rdm.3186 said:

mad

You posted a thing, I answered.
You pointed out I misinterpreted your comment, I admitted it was an error on my side. We can now go on with our days, strengthened by the knowledge that it was a honest mistake on my side. You can unmad yourself.

Edited May 8 by Terrorhuz.4695

[Rdm.3186]

Just now, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

mad

Where am i mad? xD I am just putting things right you twist on purpose. You on the other side still seem to have nothing constructive to say and act like a 5yo. Dude it is cringe asf 😹 For your own sake pls staaaaaap! I am rly patient still taking you serious enough to answer to you