The Current Boon Ball Meta and Balancing Suggestions

[A Hamster.2580]

Right now, roamers and cloud type of players stand no chance against any organized group following the current boon ball meta. It is a tanky cele meta that has access to all the tools the game has to offer including condi dmg, power dmg, all boons including stab, resistance, alac, and aegis spam, superspeed, great barrier output and condi cleanse, powerful range resurrecting, and good hard and soft cc. This post will examine this meta and invoke balancing discussions so that solo players can have a chance of winning against organized group. Feel free to post your suggestions as well.

The boon ball meta as I understand it involves in each party a cele firebrand, cele renegade , cele scourge, a minstrel scrapper, and a power dps (berserker/marauders) like holosmith, soulbeast, berserker.

The Cele Firebrand:

This build provides good stability and aegis spam, and some quickness while dealing high burning condi dmg through the passive of Tome of Justice. Sometimes, the cele firebrand can even be the top damage dealer in the meter. The burning condi dmg works well in this meta because the cele scourge outputs all type of condi that helps to cover the burning condi from getting cleansed. A lot of roamers run cele or some high toughness stats and the burning here will just rip through it.

I recommend hard nerfing (maybe even completely removing) the burning condi output from Tome of Justice.

The Cele Renegade:

This build provides perma alacrity, perma fury, good resistance and even better stability than the firebrand while outputting decent boon strips. It is possible for this build to also output decent condi dmg, but it will have to sacrifice some of its boons output to do so.

I recommend completely removing alacrity like how it was done for druid, scourge, and tempest. Right now, it is giving perma alacrity to the entire party just by pressing one key every ~16 seconds. I also recommend hard nerfing the fury output by at least 50%. The healer/power dps can sacrifice a little bit of their kit to output fury. The weakness condi spam from using road should also be removed to lessen the insane condi spam from this meta.

The Cele Scourge: 

This build provides good barrier, good boon strips, powerful resurrecting in blood magic and transfusion, and many different types of condi spam to cover the burning condi from the cele firebrand from getting cleansed.

I recommend completely removing the teleporting of downed allies from transfusion. I know it got nerfed by increasing the cooldown of Garish Pillar to 60 seconds, but that doesn't matter when every party has a cele scourge. They just rotate their transfusions. They still have signet of undeath for long ranged resurrecting. I also recommend heavily decreasing the different types of condi that can be outputted from this build so that solo players survive with their condi cleanse. It is what makes the condi component of this meta so much stronger than it should be. By nerfing this condi component, maybe the meta will shift back to 2 minstrel supports + 3 berserker/marauder dps instead of the current 4 tanky supports + 1 berserker/marauder dps.

The Minstrel Scrapper:

This build provides good condi cleanse, boons, superspeed, and barrier.

I recommend completely removing the superspeed and decreasing the barrier and protection boon output a little bit. The superspeed just makes it very hard for solo players to cloud around them.

The Power DPS:

I feel berserker is in a good spot, but I think holosmith and soulbeast might be over tuned.

I recommend nerfing the damage of some of these so that the meta can shift to taking more than 1 berserker/marauder dps per party.

 

Edit: I posted this as someone who plays with an organized group 25-30 following this meta. The 4 tanky supports + 1 dps per party setup makes the outcome of a fight less dependent on skill and more dependent on numbers. Because of the current meta, I see way less of the following underdog victories:

1.) A cloud of veteran solo players beating an average skilled group of 25-30 comped players.

2.) A highly skilled group of 10-15 comped players beating an average skilled group of 25-30 average comped players.

3.) An average skilled group of 25-30 comped players beating a map blob 50+ below average skilled group of comped players.

Before this meta, I occasionally witness one of the three underdog victories outlined above. But ever since everyone started running cele, I cannot recall any of these adrenaline filled victories occurring. Now the only two factors in winning seem to be the number of players in your squad and whether or not they are obeying this 4 tanky support + 1 dps setup.

Edited July 22 by A Hamster.2580

[Cuks.8241]

I dont think nerfing specific builds will change anything. While you described the current meta very well this is not the only comp out there. We run something very similar as a casual comp but our competitive comp is quite different.

Also there are other builds that fit this meta very well like cele reaper, cele or power spb, various mesmer builds, minstrel tempest, minstrel vindi... And can be even stronger in right comp.

For a good comp you always look at all the pieces together. Everything needs to add up to a whole. Just looking at each class doesnt do much.

 

Edit: i do agree with alacrity removal. That boon is just silly.

Edited July 21 by Cuks.8241

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

I think this is a debate about what is boonball and what is running with an organized balanced compilation team. This is a competitive game mode so if you run with a comp vs a squad of random organization you will win in any pvp small and large weather it is league of legends to BLO. If the question is do we want to water down the competitive advantage that comp gets it will make the game feel less competitive which would be up for debate.

[Gehenna.3625]

4 hours ago, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

I think this is a debate about what is boonball and what is running with an organized balanced compilation team. This is a competitive game mode so if you run with a comp vs a squad of random organization you will win in any pvp small and large weather it is league of legends to BLO. If the question is do we want to water down the competitive advantage that comp gets it will make the game feel less competitive which would be up for debate.

I don't think it's watering down the advantage but rather curbing the insane advantage. Boonballs can easily take on a group of double their size and with a cap on the amount of players on a map that becomes problematic very quickly. 

Boons are just way too powerful. Sure, a boonball should have an advantage but just not as insanely big of an advantage that it makes people quit WvW and defending structures becomes pointless. The last while that I played WvW, I concluded that it's better to let other teams cap your objectives, particularly when you have an unorganized group vs an enemey boonball. The outcome of any engagement is already known when that's the case... so why fight on? In short, boonballs don't just have an advantage but an insane advantage and that's problematic.

Edited July 21 by Gehenna.3625

[senftube.6081]

Delete Cele and the game is fixed

[Hesione.9412]

11 minutes ago, senftube.6081 said:

Delete Cele and the game is fixed

Removal of cele means even fewer builds can go up against the boonball.

[Kozumi.5816]

Boonball is literally the developers VISION for WvW. It's not going anywhere.

[Cuks.8241]

14 minutes ago, senftube.6081 said:

Delete Cele and the game is fixed

Cele hybrids in boonballs are a mixed bag for me. It was the logical path for comped groups to land on cele because of just such huge raw stat advantage. Will it stick? Lets see, its not the definite meta at all.

On one hand I like to play cele hybrids because you kinda do everything. It is a  much more varied class gameplay and less one trick as more specialised comps.

But the engagements are a bit kitten. Mashed potato with condi bruh.

[Hotride.2187]

So funny to read cele made its way to zergs too. Always before in the cele threads I read, from players who clearly are not biased, that cele is not used in zergs and wvw is about zergs, so cele is fine. Would you look at that development.

Anyway, if you want to reduce boonball effectiveness, just undo the changes that deliberately made the boonball stronger - bring back 10 target caps for AOEs, bring back boonrip, bring back pre 2020 power dmg. Honestly, bring back one support per party.

You tell me if any one of these is likeky.

Edited July 21 by Hotride.2187

[Sheff.4851]

7 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

So funny to read cele made its way to zergs too. Always before in the cele threads I read, from players who clearly are not biased, that cele is not used in zergs and wvw is about zergs, so cele is fine. Would you look at that development.

Anyway, if you want to reduce boonball effectiveness, just undo the changes that deliberately made the boonball stronger - bring back 10 target caps for AOEs, bring back boonrip, bring back pre 2020 power dmg. Honestly, bring back one support per party.

You tell me if any one of these is likeky.

There is no period in the game when one support per party was viable. There have been a handful of times when it was two (such as during PoF, with Firebrand + Scrapper), but that required Firebrand being the only profession capable of providing good defensive boons, and Scrapper's Purity of Purpose trait being so strong that it single-handedly forced conditions out of the group-based meta entirely. Is that really a meta that people want to go back to, where support professions are so over-tuned that you only need to use one in a party? And how bad would damage professions have to be if you need to use four per party just to generate downs, if a single support is sufficient to keep an entire party alive in most cases?

[XenesisII.1540]

29 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

There is no period in the game when one support per party was viable. There have been a handful of times when it was two (such as during PoF, with Firebrand + Scrapper), but that required Firebrand being the only profession capable of providing good defensive boons, and Scrapper's Purity of Purpose trait being so strong that it single-handedly forced conditions out of the group-based meta entirely.

The support meta has always been two, whether you wanted to carry extra guard or an ele. Purity of purpose came into existence in 2018, and there were better metas before that, in fact I'm sure a lot of people may say the year before pof was one of the best times for balance. Purity trait was stupidly broken which I pointed out many times in the forums, they should have not allowed boons to be endlessly recycled, and it took them years to finally bother nerfing it down. Scrapper was the spec that was seriously over tuned with heals, cleanse, stealth, shield, stability, barrier, superspeed, it took them 3 years to finally swing the nerf bar at them.

 

29 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

Is that really a meta that people want to go back to, where support professions are so over-tuned that you only need to use one in a party? And how bad would damage professions have to be if you need to use four per party just to generate downs, if a single support is sufficient to keep an entire party alive in most cases?

Lol you don't think support is over tuned right now? wow. 

We don't want purity meta, we also don't want this boring 3-4 support meta either, but we do want our boon strips back, or nerfs to boon applications, which won't happen, so we'll take the boon strips back to the level before all support became over tuned. Feel free to report that to Roy and Cal.

[Skada.1362]

remove support from the game. support/healer cuck players ruin all online games tbh

[senftube.6081]

2 hours ago, Skada.1362 said:

remove support from the game. support/healer cuck players ruin all online games tbh

True

[Hotride.2187]

3 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

There is no period in the game when one support per party was viable. There have been a handful of times when it was two (such as during PoF, with Firebrand + Scrapper)

Didn't scrappers get added "later on" for the sneak giro, after FB got the nerf hammer to mantras? From memory, the zerg got a few cleansing tempests or scrappers, but not always one per party. Was a while back, maybe I'm misremembering.

[A Hamster.2580]

9 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

There is no period in the game when one support per party was viable. There have been a handful of times when it was two (such as during PoF, with Firebrand + Scrapper), but that required Firebrand being the only profession capable of providing good defensive boons, and Scrapper's Purity of Purpose trait being so strong that it single-handedly forced conditions out of the group-based meta entirely. Is that really a meta that people want to go back to, where support professions are so over-tuned that you only need to use one in a party? And how bad would damage professions have to be if you need to use four per party just to generate downs, if a single support is sufficient to keep an entire party alive in most cases?

I think I would prefer 1 of the same support + 4 dps VS 4 of the same support + 1 dps. I feel many groups usually lack support players, and those groups that are able to fill all the support spots in the squad in this meta most likely have players that reluctantly jailed themselves into the support role for the sake of winning.

[Sheff.4851]

8 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

The support meta has always been two, whether you wanted to carry extra guard or an ele. Purity of purpose came into existence in 2018, and there were better metas before that, in fact I'm sure a lot of people may say the year before pof was one of the best times for balance. Purity trait was stupidly broken which I pointed out many times in the forums, they should have not allowed boons to be endlessly recycled, and it took them years to finally bother nerfing it down. Scrapper was the spec that was seriously over tuned with heals, cleanse, stealth, shield, stability, barrier, superspeed, it took them 3 years to finally swing the nerf bar at them.

 

Lol you don't think support is over tuned right now? wow. 

We don't want purity meta, we also don't want this boring 3-4 support meta either, but we do want our boon strips back, or nerfs to boon applications, which won't happen, so we'll take the boon strips back to the level before all support became over tuned. Feel free to report that to Roy and Cal.

If support was over-tuned you wouldn't need four per party. As something becomes stronger, you need to stack less of it to maintain effectiveness. That's why most quad-support comps can get away with running just a handful of Holosmiths and Berserkers. Spike damage right now is very powerful, so you only need a few. Support, on the other hand, needs to get augmented with two different professions that provide barrier (Scourge and Scrapper) just so that groups can survive direct hits from Arc Dividers, Overheats, and Prime Light Beams. If you're upset that we're in a four-support meta, I'd be looking at barrier as the first problem, not boon access (and then shortly after that I'd look at Rite of the Great Dwarf, because Cele Renegade is a build that really should not exist given what it does).

[Sheff.4851]

6 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Didn't scrappers get added "later on" for the sneak giro, after FB got the nerf hammer to mantras? From memory, the zerg got a few cleansing tempests or scrappers, but not always one per party. Was a while back, maybe I'm misremembering.

Scrapper was added pretty much immediately, since the meta leading up to Path of Fire was pretty condi-focused, with Necros spamming Epidemic all over the place. Purity of Purpose in its original, un-nerfed form was quickly identified as a very, very strong trait for counteracting that. That's my recollection of it at least. Fundamentally, the PoF meta was Scourge, Firebrand, Scrapper per party for almost the entirety of the expansion, with people using stuff like Tempest every once in awhile.

[Sheff.4851]

15 minutes ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

I think I would prefer 1 of the same support + 4 dps VS 4 of the same support + 1 dps. I feel many groups usually lack support players, and those groups that are able to fill all the support spots in the squad in this meta most likely have players that reluctantly jailed themselves into the support role for the sake of winning.

That's, unfortunately, not how World vs. World groups have ever built squads, because it isn't effective, and working towards a balance environment where you could get away with using a single support would be extremely unhealthy. Fundamentally, boonballs use three supports.

One support, the primary support, is focused on boon generation, in particular Resistance, Stability, Aegis, Protection, and other defensive boons. Most often this is Firebrand, but Chronomancer is also pretty good on it. The primary support has incidental heals and condition cleanse, but it's usually not sufficient to keep a party alive in a fight.

One support, the secondary support, is focused on healing and condition cleanse. Right now there's four options for that role -- Druid, Tempest, Scrapper, and Vindicator. This support is in charge of making people don't fall over and die to damage and conditions, and while they have some defensive boon applications, it's usually not good enough to keep their party mobile. Inspiring Reinforcement on Revenant, for example, is not a good enough Stability skill on its own. The Scrapper trait that gives Stability when using Function Gyro is not enough. Defense Field is not enough.

These two roles are complimentary, and in PoF and into early EoD, it was pretty much all you needed. One support in charge of boons with some healing, one support in charge of healing with some boons. And then Arc Divider and Overheat got buffed, which meant groups had to add a third support.

This tertiary support is in charge of barrier and overall survivability, but that's not sufficient on its own to warrant a support slot. Usually, this means using a profession that can also remove boons, or has some other overall utility. Right now, Renegade and Scourge are the tertiary supports that people use most often, but Chronomancer, especially Dom/Inspi Chronomancer, is also a tertiary support. The role of these supports is to mitigate incoming damage, through the use of either barrier, or abilities which provide flat damage reductions, like Rite of the Great Dwarf. Renegade in particular also has the ability to generate Alacrity, which is a disgustingly powerful boon, and groups are going to prioritize Alacrity generation pretty much anywhere they can get it. If you remove Alacrity from Renegade, groups will play Chrono. If you remove it from Chrono, groups will play Willbender. If you remove it from Willbender, groups will play Mechanist. Alacrity is a meta-warping boon, and if it can be found anywhere, it will get used.

So why can't you run one support? Well, groups don't run these roles because ArenaNet forces them to. They run these roles because they are effective ways to survive and win fights. If you had a single support that could fill primary, secondary, and tertiary roles effectively, it would be a horrendously overtuned profession. Why wouldn't you just bring two of them, so that your group was virtually unkillable? The other balance lever that you can use is to reduce damage, which makes secondary and tertiary supports redundant. But then you wind up in a meta where the only way to do enough damage to down enemy players is to bring more people, and you make the current blob wars environment even worse, because bringing larger numbers of people is an even easier solution than it was previously.

[kash.9213]

Those 1-3 counter groups you listed will have better prospects when they're not on the clock trying to save a control point. I kind of agree with some stuff but I'd rather just bring down boons to have more brief clutch durations and bring up whatever else needs to after that but more importantly, this mode needs features that are semi persistent to keep player driven action rolling that's not locked down to a timer on one small point. We kind of do that now but that requires ignoring structures to get in a few large fights before prime time dries up. 

Have be kind of careful nerfing anything, even with boon balls, to not hand too much power and impact to those counter groups you listed on the flip side.

Edited July 22 by kash.9213

[Sheff.4851]

2 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

Those 1-3 counter groups you listed will have better prospects when they're not on the clock trying to save a control point. I kind of agree with some stuff but I'd rather just bring down boons to have more brief clutch durations and bring up whatever else needs to after that but more importantly, this mode needs features that are semi persistent to keep player driven action rolling that's not locked down to a timer on one small point. We kind of do that now but that requires ignoring structures to get in a few large fights before prime time dries up. 

Have be kind of careful nerfing anything, even with boon balls, to not hand too much power and impact to those counter groups you listed on the flip side.

I still think, personally, that no boon should have a duration of longer than about five seconds. Making timing matter more means that skill expression, and knowledge of when to use a specific ability, can contribute more to a fight overall than just pressing buttons off cooldown. I hope that this is the balance solution that they pursue to address boon uptime overall.

[XenesisII.1540]

10 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

If support was over-tuned you wouldn't need four per party. As something becomes stronger, you need to stack less of it to maintain effectiveness. That's why most quad-support comps can get away with running just a handful of Holosmiths and Berserkers. Spike damage right now is very powerful, so you only need a few. Support, on the other hand, needs to get augmented with two different professions that provide barrier (Scourge and Scrapper) just so that groups can survive direct hits from Arc Dividers, Overheats, and Prime Light Beams. If you're upset that we're in a four-support meta, I'd be looking at barrier as the first problem, not boon access (and then shortly after that I'd look at Rite of the Great Dwarf, because Cele Renegade is a build that really should not exist given what it does).

No, because you don't need to go overboard with damage, as you say spike damage is still very powerful right now. This is why I haven't even engaged much in the increase target caps for more damage discussions. Everyone is building to have as much sustain as possible. You don't even need to go down to 2support/3dps level to kill pugs, or even weak comp groups, and if you can super sustain through enemy comp burst you can win. This is the one and only thing you need to worry about, the strength of an enemy comp burst and the ability to mitigate/avoid it.

When you start running numbers in the 40-50 range with 3-4 support in your comp it becomes much harder to take down to the point that it requires a near perfect matching squad to be effective, or an absolute fluke mistake, or skill lag, to lose a few key players to eventually start crumbling, and even then most times these boon balls can just walk back out of the objective to reset with some reinforcements, most pugs don't have this luxury and wipe on the spot. These squads can still maintain enough damage through 1-2 glass cannons per group, and support can still do decent enough damage through minstrel with might and fury high uptime.

There are many different things they can adjust, but at the moment I don't think they are willing to. Celestial getting concentration and expertise without even an adjustment to it's other stats was a mistake, they should have never been added to that set in the first place. Scourge going full support with alacrity/barrier spam was another mistake that should not have happened, but the developers wanted to give every class at least one support spec to use. Adding more alacrity/quickness spam was a mistake, one they eventually fixed later. 

 

20 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I still think, personally, that no boon should have a duration of longer than about five seconds. Making timing matter more means that skill expression, and knowledge of when to use a specific ability, can contribute more to a fight overall than just pressing buttons off cooldown. I hope that this is the balance solution that they pursue to address boon uptime overall.

This we agree on, and actually I was thinking 10sec max duration, like superspeed. But the developers are not willing to listen nor make these type of changes. Maybe if the guilds talked to them about it, but why would guilds want to get rid of this huge advantage they have over the lesser organized. 🤷‍♂️

 

[Sheff.4851]

1 hour ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

This we agree on, and actually I was thinking 10sec max duration, like superspeed. But the developers are not willing to listen nor make these type of changes. Maybe if the guilds talked to them about it, but why would guilds want to get rid of this huge advantage they have over the lesser organized. 🤷‍♂️

 

I dunno, why don't people who are lesser organized want to use powerful tools that the game makes available to them? If you're outnumbered that's one thing, but if you're intentionally choosing to be disorganized, and not coordinate, it's hardly the game's fault when somebody more prepared shows up and rolls you. Especially because the coordinated groups are going to find any solution available to them within the game mechanics. If you nerf boonballs, they'll move on to the next tactics that reward organization and coordination, and then people will want to nerf that instead. And obviously, if you change the balance of your game so that coordination and organization don't matter, what's the point of it being a large-scale PvP game mode in an MMO. That sounds like a single player experience at that point, which isn't really what an MMO does.

[Zyreva.1078]

17 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

I dunno, why don't people who are lesser organized want to use powerful tools that the game makes available to them?

Maybe because they prefer to play classes/builds that happen to not be part of the boon ball meta? Maybe because they prefer lag free gameplay? Maybe because they prefer gameplay, where it's actually possible to see what's going on? Maybe because they think 2 blobs standing on top of each other spamming skills in a set rotation is ridiculous? Maybe they don't want to rely on 49 other random people to carry their kitten? Maybe they prefer strategic map play over deathmatch? Maybe because boon balling is simply not fun?

Do you need even more reasons? I could go on like this ...

Edited July 22 by Zyreva.1078

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

2 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

standing on top of each other spamming skills in a set rotation is ridiculous?

This sounds weird since this is the design of almost all mmos and other pvp games that have supports such as overwatch and league of legends. Also almost all of PvE requires stacking. Support has usually always peel and aoe limits in many games which is why they have the same mechanics everywhere.

[Junkpile.7439]

Just make healers squishy. Remove vitality and toughness from every stat set that have healing power.