Early look at the new meta

[zealex.9410]

If they resolved initiative and made thief have a proper rota id be fine with it. Hell it could have more dps too since its really focushed on st.

Hope they do the right thing and instead of nerfing it they actually make a rotation for it.

But in case they nerf thief they should keep it at around 35k dps.

[Brynioch.1873]

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

[Feanor.2358]

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@"Feanor.2358" said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see 50% higher representation of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Tenray.3175 said:Let's try to be more objective ... what else does thief has to offer:-still no unique raid buff-little to no utility that can be traded for BIG dps loss (not counting CC, that is another category for me)-many players forget what thief really is: IT IS A DPS CLASS. You cannot support/heal as thief nor can you tank, so what do you want thief to do ?

So basically exactly like ele, but with 20% more damage.No. Ele

has

a healing spec, very good one at that. One that occasionally is used, actually. Thief literally offers nothing to raids than dps (the only thing aside of that that it offered was help with skips, but that isn't a thing with raids)

@Tenray.3175 said:-many players also forget that range>melee always. Being forced to move alot in a raid fight is always a big >>effective<< dps loss. As a ranged it is much easier to maintain the dps.

Yeah, no. If you range, you don't stack. If you don't stack, you get no boons and your damage takes a jump off a cliff.That's not what was meant and you know it. A class whose attacks are ranged, even if it stacks in melee, has an advantage over a pure melee class if the boss happens to move, or you are forced to move, or you need to attack something away from boss.

Point in case: thiefs cannot clear orbs on gorse. They can't deal with pawns on MO. Can't effectively clear spiders at dhuum. Have serious problems on VG if your group doesn't skip mechanics by outhealing greens and outdps-ing/outhealing 3rd phase. Can't dps gorse effectively if you don't do fast cc (and you'd be surprised at how many groups don't). If they're not very good, they suffer massive dps loss on matthias if he's not kept in one place. Can't clear mines on escort. Has problems with spirits on KC. Can't clear shards on Xera (or stand on pressure plates during the second minigame). And someone already mentioned deimos standing in the mid safe strat.

And that's on top of problems caused by its lack of cleave.

All that basically means, that even if you take thieves, they can't be your only dps class. You must have other players doing all the things thieves can't. Now, compare that to weaver, which, even now, can easily take all the dps spots, with the sole exception of fights where you need condi (but then, ele can go condi too, and can deal a significant dps that way as well - enough that in such fights taking them will not really be a dps loss).

[Feanor.2358]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Tenray.3175 said:Let's try to be more objective ... what else does thief has to offer:-still no unique raid buff-little to no utility that can be traded for BIG dps loss (not counting CC, that is another category for me)-many players forget what thief really is: IT IS A DPS CLASS. You cannot support/heal as thief nor can you tank, so what do you want thief to do ?

So basically exactly like ele, but with 20% more damage.No. Ele

has

a healing spec, very good one at that. One that occasionally is used, actually. Thief literally offers nothing to raids than dps (the only thing aside of that that it offered was help with skips, but that isn't a thing with raids)

Yeah, very useful. Must be why Druids are used 18 times more often for healing.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Tenray.3175 said:-many players also forget that range>melee always. Being forced to move alot in a raid fight is always a big >>effective<< dps loss. As a ranged it is much easier to maintain the dps.

Yeah, no. If you range, you don't stack. If you don't stack, you get no boons and your damage takes a jump off a cliff.That's not what was meant and you know it. A class whose attacks are ranged, even if it stacks in melee, has an advantage over a pure melee class if the boss happens to move, or you are forced to move, or you need to attack something away from boss.

Point in case: thiefs cannot clear orbs on gorse. They can't deal with pawns on MO. Can't effectively clear spiders at dhuum. Have serious problems on VG if your group doesn't skip mechanics by outhealing greens and outdps-ing/outhealing 3rd phase. Can't dps gorse effectively if you don't do fast cc (and you'd be surprised at how many groups don't). If they're not very good, they suffer massive dps loss on matthias if he's not kept in one place. Can't clear mines on escort. Has problems with spirits on KC. Can't clear shards on Xera (or stand on pressure plates during the second minigame). And someone already mentioned deimos standing in the mid safe strat.

And that's on top of problems caused by its lack of cleave.

All that basically means, that even if you take thieves, they can't be your only dps class. You must have other players doing all the things thieves can't. Now, compare that to weaver, which, even now, can easily take all the dps spots, with the sole exception of fights where you need condi (but then, ele can go condi too, and can deal a significant dps that way as well - enough that in such fights taking them will not really be a dps loss).

And they still are 50% more popular.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Feanor.2358" said:Yeah, very useful. Must be why Druids are used 18 times more often for healing.Still infinity times more than thieves are picked for that purpose. Also, eles happen to be a bit more popular as healers in high-end fractals, due to their hard-carry ability (druid healing just can't compare).

And they still are 50% more popular.Obviously we can't have any class being more popular than weavers. That would be a crime.[/sarcasm]

(also, notice how in that table you have shown, thieves are mostly comparable to soulbeasts and engis/holos, and are completely missing from the support list)

By the way, where did you get the popularity statistics?

[Feanor.2358]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Feanor.2358" said:Yeah, very useful. Must be why Druids are

used

18

times

more often for healing.Still infinity times more than thieves are picked for that purpose. Also, eles happen to be a bit more popular as healers in high-end fractals, due to their hard-carry ability (druid healing just can't compare).

Rubbish. High-end fractal groups use druids exclusively. There's nothing a tempest healer can offer there. Need I remind you the actual high-end groups ran without a healer whatsoever? What you're talking about is carrying bad groups in t4. That's not high end by any measure.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

And they still are 50% more popular.Obviously we can't have any class being more popular than weavers. That would be a crime.[/sarcasm]

Obviously that was never even remotely the point. But I'm used to have my words being misinterpreted on purpose.

[Brynioch.1873]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.Weaver does not need to be best in slot at every boss. Statistics over all bosses are useless unless you want your class to be always best in slot (which is really bad design, competetiv over all bosses yes, best no). Also the statistic itself says medium confidence level, maybe wait one more week for actual reliable data.

https://www.gw2raidar.com/global_stats/area-16235Here something where Weaver is still on top.

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Tenray.3175 said:Let's try to be more objective ... what else does thief has to offer:-still no unique raid buff-little to no utility that can be traded for BIG dps loss (not counting CC, that is another category for me)-many players forget what thief really is: IT IS A DPS CLASS. You cannot support/heal as thief nor can you tank, so what do you want thief to do ?

So basically exactly like ele, but with 20% more damage.No. Ele

has

a healing spec, very good one at that. One that occasionally is used, actually. Thief literally offers nothing to raids than dps (the only thing aside of that that it offered was help with skips, but that isn't a thing with raids)

Yeah, very useful. Must be why Druids are

used

18

times

more often for healing.

Because they offer something besides healing and things chrono can't offer. It was discussed multiple times now. Tempest will never be meta unless the required healing get increased significantly. Same for firebrand and revenant unless chrono gets nerfed or their damage gets increased and mantras fixed.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Tenray.3175 said:-many players also forget that range>melee always. Being forced to move alot in a raid fight is always a big >>effective<< dps loss. As a ranged it is much easier to maintain the dps.

Yeah, no. If you range, you don't stack. If you don't stack, you get no boons and your damage takes a jump off a cliff.That's not what was meant and you know it. A class whose attacks are ranged, even if it stacks in melee, has an advantage over a pure melee class if the boss happens to move, or you are forced to move, or you need to attack something away from boss.

Point in case: thiefs cannot clear orbs on gorse. They can't deal with pawns on MO. Can't effectively clear spiders at dhuum. Have serious problems on VG if your group doesn't skip mechanics by outhealing greens and outdps-ing/outhealing 3rd phase. Can't dps gorse effectively if you don't do fast cc (and you'd be surprised at how many groups don't). If they're not very good, they suffer massive dps loss on matthias if he's not kept in one place. Can't clear mines on escort. Has problems with spirits on KC. Can't clear shards on Xera (or stand on pressure plates during the second minigame). And someone already mentioned deimos standing in the mid safe strat.

And that's on top of problems caused by its lack of cleave.

All that basically means, that even if you take thieves, they can't be your only dps class. You must have other players doing all the things thieves can't. Now, compare that to weaver, which, even now, can easily take all the dps spots, with the sole exception of fights where you need condi (but then, ele can go condi too, and can deal a significant dps that way as well - enough that in such fights taking them will not really be a dps loss).

And they still are 50% more popular.

Easier classes are always more popular.

[Feanor.2358]

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.

Which was the point. "Hard to play" it just the aggregation of the supposedly non-existent downsides to playing one.

@Miellyn.6847 said:Because they offer something besides healing and things chrono can't offer. It was discussed multiple times now. Tempest will never be meta unless the required healing get increased significantly. Same for firebrand and revenant unless chrono gets nerfed or their damage gets increased and mantras fixed.

Tempest will be the last on the line in any case. Both Firebrands and Revenants have strong heals and are able to offer something offensive - quickness (and aegis actually, since you can use it to block interrupting attacks and thus increase group dps) and AP + alacrity, respectively. Tempest only offers strong heals and good defensive support. But we will never see a PvE scenario where this defensive support is actually needed, aside from carrying bad players. So Tempest will never be meta, at least not in its current form. That's not just the issue with the uber-support Chrono. It's also an issue with Tempest itself.

[Brynioch.1873]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.

Which was the point. "Hard to play" it just the aggregation of the supposedly non-existent downsides to playing one.

Difficulty to play it not a downside. Having low single target DPS in comparison to AoE in single target vs add fight or low CC in a high CC fight is a downside.

@Miellyn.6847 said:Because they offer something besides healing and things chrono can't offer. It was discussed multiple times now. Tempest will never be meta unless the required healing get increased significantly. Same for firebrand and revenant unless chrono gets nerfed or their damage gets increased and mantras fixed.

Tempest will be the last on the line in any case. Both Firebrands and Revenants have strong heals and are able to offer something offensive - quickness (and aegis actually, since you can use it to block interrupting attacks and thus increase group dps) and AP + alacrity, respectively. Tempest only offers strong heals and good defensive support. But we will never see a PvE scenario where this defensive support is actually needed, aside from carrying bad players. So Tempest will never be meta, at least not in its current form. That's not just the issue with the uber-support Chrono. It's also an issue with Tempest itself.

All comparisions with druids are useless as long as chronomancer exists in the current form. Druid is not op but gets enabled by chrono.Tempest has also the range bonus and can heal on multiple locations at once. It is not just defensive support. But encounter design is key to make tempest an optimal choice on some bosses.

[Feanor.2358]

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.

Which was the point. "Hard to play" it just the aggregation of the supposedly non-existent downsides to playing one.

Difficulty to play it not a downside.

Yeah, no. Like you said yourself, easier things are always more popular. Therefore, being harder is perceived as a downside. Not to mention it actually translates to lower efficiency, as evidenced by the bigger gap in performance on real fight vs golem.

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:Because they offer something besides healing and things chrono can't offer. It was discussed multiple times now. Tempest will never be meta unless the required healing get increased significantly. Same for firebrand and revenant unless chrono gets nerfed or their damage gets increased and mantras fixed.

Tempest will be the last on the line in any case. Both Firebrands and Revenants have strong heals and are able to offer something offensive - quickness (and aegis actually, since you can use it to block interrupting attacks and thus increase group dps) and AP + alacrity, respectively. Tempest only offers strong heals and good defensive support. But we will never see a PvE scenario where this defensive support is actually needed, aside from carrying bad players. So Tempest will never be meta, at least not in its current form. That's not just the issue with the uber-support Chrono. It's also an issue with Tempest itself.

All comparisions with druids are useless as long as chronomancer exists in the current form. Druid is not op but gets enabled by chrono.Tempest has also the range bonus and can heal on multiple locations at once. It is not just defensive support. But encounter design is key to make tempest an optimal choice on some bosses.

Again, no. Chronomancer is irrelevant in this case. And designing encounters around some gimmick to make a specific healer useful somewhere is just sad.

[Brynioch.1873]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.

Which was the point. "Hard to play" it just the aggregation of the supposedly non-existent downsides to playing one.

Difficulty to play it not a downside.

Yeah, no. Like you said yourself, easier things are always more popular. Therefore, being harder

is

perceived as a downside. Not to mention it actually translates to lower efficiency, as evidenced by the bigger gap in performance on real fight vs golem.

For balance it doesn't matter if people perceive difficulty as a downside. It is not. The gap is different between bosses (like KC where weaver is still top with a lower golem benchmark...). Weaver does not need to be BiS on all bosses.

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:Because they offer something besides healing and things chrono can't offer. It was discussed multiple times now. Tempest will never be meta unless the required healing get increased significantly. Same for firebrand and revenant unless chrono gets nerfed or their damage gets increased and mantras fixed.

Tempest will be the last on the line in any case. Both Firebrands and Revenants have strong heals and are able to offer something offensive - quickness (and aegis actually, since you can use it to block interrupting attacks and thus increase group dps) and AP + alacrity, respectively. Tempest only offers strong heals and good defensive support. But we will never see a PvE scenario where this defensive support is actually needed, aside from carrying bad players. So Tempest will never be meta, at least not in its current form. That's not just the issue with the uber-support Chrono. It's also an issue with Tempest itself.

All comparisions with druids are useless as long as chronomancer exists in the current form. Druid is not op but gets enabled by chrono.Tempest has also the range bonus and can heal on multiple locations at once. It is not just defensive support. But encounter design is key to make tempest an optimal choice on some bosses.

Again, no. Chronomancer is irrelevant in this case. And designing encounters around some gimmick to make a specific healer useful somewhere is just sad.

This is the only option to preserve class identity and unique buffs while making specialisations relevant. Otherwise all roles get a blurry mess and you just take the one with the most damage and most utility baked in. Which creates an even more strict meta.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.

Which was the point. "Hard to play" it just the aggregation of the supposedly non-existent downsides to playing one.

Difficulty to play it not a downside.

Yeah, no. Like you said yourself, easier things are always more popular. Therefore, being harder

is

perceived as a downside. Not to mention it actually translates to lower efficiency, as evidenced by the bigger gap in performance on real fight vs golem.

For balance it doesn't matter if people perceive difficulty as a downside. It is not. The gap is different between bosses (like KC where weaver is still top with a lower golem benchmark...). Weaver does not need to be BiS on all bosses.

That is absolute rubbish. Introducing easier rotations with similar or better performance (even on the same class between for example specs) is nothing but power creep.

This can be seen ad absurdum when people where using the dps bug on thief to get their achievements. No one went in and said, oh let's take Soulbeast with their flametrap bug (which too made things easier). People went strait for the easiest solution to their desired result.

Again this is not about the damage that Deadeye brings. It is about the retard easy rotation with which it achieves this.

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:Because they offer something besides healing and things chrono can't offer. It was discussed multiple times now. Tempest will never be meta unless the required healing get increased significantly. Same for firebrand and revenant unless chrono gets nerfed or their damage gets increased and mantras fixed.

Tempest will be the last on the line in any case. Both Firebrands and Revenants have strong heals and are able to offer something offensive - quickness (and aegis actually, since you can use it to block interrupting attacks and thus increase group dps) and AP + alacrity, respectively. Tempest only offers strong heals and good defensive support. But we will never see a PvE scenario where this defensive support is actually needed, aside from carrying bad players. So Tempest will never be meta, at least not in its current form. That's not just the issue with the uber-support Chrono. It's also an issue with Tempest itself.

All comparisions with druids are useless as long as chronomancer exists in the current form. Druid is not op but gets enabled by chrono.Tempest has also the range bonus and can heal on multiple locations at once. It is not just defensive support. But encounter design is key to make tempest an optimal choice on some bosses.

Again, no. Chronomancer is irrelevant in this case. And designing encounters around some gimmick to make a specific healer useful somewhere is just sad.

This is the only option to preserve class identity and unique buffs while making specialisations relevant. Otherwise all roles get a blurry mess and you just take the one with the most damage and most utility baked in. Which creates an even more strict meta.

While I agree that chrono is the one enabling druids to get their raid spots, don't lump together multiple specs on other classes please. A dps tempest/weaver (in general weaver today) will do jack kitten worth of healing.

Yes, thief also needs something in this department support wise. That does not warrant the current balance situation.

[Brynioch.1873]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.

Which was the point. "Hard to play" it just the aggregation of the supposedly non-existent downsides to playing one.

Difficulty to play it not a downside.

Yeah, no. Like you said yourself, easier things are always more popular. Therefore, being harder

is

perceived as a downside. Not to mention it actually translates to lower efficiency, as evidenced by the bigger gap in performance on real fight vs golem.

For balance it doesn't matter if people perceive difficulty as a downside. It is not. The gap is different between bosses (like KC where weaver is still top with a lower golem benchmark...). Weaver does not need to be BiS on all bosses.

That is absolute rubbish. Introducing easier rotations with similar or better performance (even on the same class between for example specs) is nothing but power creep.

This can be seen ad absurdum when people where using the dps bug on thief to get their achievements. No one went in and said, oh let's take Soulbeast with their flametrap bug (which too made things easier). People went strait for the easiest solution to their desired result.

Again this is not about the damage that Deadeye brings. It is about the kitten easy rotation with which it achieves this.

So thieves should never be even viable as by design it's impossible to create a difficult thief rotation?

Power creep is an increase of power and/or utility niveau for the same budget. As deadeye still has less damage than weaver prior the patch it is actually a decrease in power, not increase.

Path of least resistance still doesn't make difficulty relevant for balance. It affects only the fun of some players.

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:Because they offer something besides healing and things chrono can't offer. It was discussed multiple times now. Tempest will never be meta unless the required healing get increased significantly. Same for firebrand and revenant unless chrono gets nerfed or their damage gets increased and mantras fixed.

Tempest will be the last on the line in any case. Both Firebrands and Revenants have strong heals and are able to offer something offensive - quickness (and aegis actually, since you can use it to block interrupting attacks and thus increase group dps) and AP + alacrity, respectively. Tempest only offers strong heals and good defensive support. But we will never see a PvE scenario where this defensive support is actually needed, aside from carrying bad players. So Tempest will never be meta, at least not in its current form. That's not just the issue with the uber-support Chrono. It's also an issue with Tempest itself.

All comparisions with druids are useless as long as chronomancer exists in the current form. Druid is not op but gets enabled by chrono.Tempest has also the range bonus and can heal on multiple locations at once. It is not just defensive support. But encounter design is key to make tempest an optimal choice on some bosses.

Again, no. Chronomancer is irrelevant in this case. And designing encounters around some gimmick to make a specific healer useful somewhere is just sad.

This is the only option to preserve class identity and unique buffs while making specialisations relevant. Otherwise all roles get a blurry mess and you just take the one with the most damage and most utility baked in. Which creates an even more strict meta.

While I agree that chrono is the one enabling druids to get their raid spots, don't lump together multiple specs on other classes please. A dps tempest/weaver (in general weaver today) will do jack kitten worth of healing.

Yes, thief also needs something in this department support wise. That does not warrant the current balance situation.

It was just about support characters. DPS are in a pretty good spot right now except necromancer.

[Feanor.2358]

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.

Which was the point. "Hard to play" it just the aggregation of the supposedly non-existent downsides to playing one.

Difficulty to play it not a downside.

Yeah, no. Like you said yourself, easier things are always more popular. Therefore, being harder

is

perceived as a downside. Not to mention it actually translates to lower efficiency, as evidenced by the bigger gap in performance on real fight vs golem.

For balance it doesn't matter if people perceive difficulty as a downside. It is not. The gap is different between bosses (like KC where weaver is still top with a lower golem benchmark...). Weaver does not need to be BiS on all bosses.

That is absolute rubbish. Introducing easier rotations with similar or better performance (even on the same class between for example specs) is nothing but power creep.

This can be seen ad absurdum when people where using the dps bug on thief to get their achievements. No one went in and said, oh let's take Soulbeast with their flametrap bug (which too made things easier). People went strait for the easiest solution to their desired result.

Again this is not about the damage that Deadeye brings. It is about the kitten easy rotation with which it achieves this.

So thieves should never be even viable as by design it's impossible to create a difficult thief rotation?

If it is impossible to create a difficult thief rotation by design, I'd say there's some issue with design. But not necessarily with balance - have them toned down to reasonable levels to balance the lack of complexity with a slightly lower damage output.

@Miellyn.6847 said:Path of least resistance still doesn't make difficulty relevant for balance. It affects only the fun of some players.Um... what?!

@Miellyn.6847 said:It was just about support characters. DPS are in a pretty good spot right now except necromancer.You seem to forget the blatantly overperforimg thief.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.

Which was the point. "Hard to play" it just the aggregation of the supposedly non-existent downsides to playing one.

Difficulty to play it not a downside.

Yeah, no. Like you said yourself, easier things are always more popular. Therefore, being harder

is

perceived as a downside. Not to mention it actually translates to lower efficiency, as evidenced by the bigger gap in performance on real fight vs golem.

For balance it doesn't matter if people perceive difficulty as a downside. It is not. The gap is different between bosses (like KC where weaver is still top with a lower golem benchmark...). Weaver does not need to be BiS on all bosses.

That is absolute rubbish. Introducing easier rotations with similar or better performance (even on the same class between for example specs) is nothing but power creep.

This can be seen ad absurdum when people where using the dps bug on thief to get their achievements. No one went in and said, oh let's take Soulbeast with their flametrap bug (which too made things easier). People went strait for the easiest solution to their desired result.

Again this is not about the damage that Deadeye brings. It is about the kitten easy rotation with which it achieves this.

So thieves should never be even viable as by design it's impossible to create a difficult thief rotation?

That is not my problem. That is Arenanets problem and their balance teams. They have done complete re-hauls of other classes (see mesmer phantasms for example). The fact that initiative is hard to balance or design around is a design error and should not be used as justification for dumbing down the game.

@Miellyn.6847 said:

Power creep is an increase of power and/or utility niveau for the same budget. As deadeye still has less damage than weaver prior the patch it is actually a decrease in power, not increase.

Path of least resistance still doesn't make difficulty relevant for balance. It affects only the fun of some players.

Again absolute rubbish argument. Imagine every class was now redesigned in a way that all they had to do was press 1 button to achieve the absolute similar result. While technically there is no power creep in output at the top end, the input would drastically be reduced complexity wise. Thus creating power creep since classes can easier achieve their peak performance. Yes, power creep can be not only top end based but also mid and low end based.

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:Because they offer something besides healing and things chrono can't offer. It was discussed multiple times now. Tempest will never be meta unless the required healing get increased significantly. Same for firebrand and revenant unless chrono gets nerfed or their damage gets increased and mantras fixed.

Tempest will be the last on the line in any case. Both Firebrands and Revenants have strong heals and are able to offer something offensive - quickness (and aegis actually, since you can use it to block interrupting attacks and thus increase group dps) and AP + alacrity, respectively. Tempest only offers strong heals and good defensive support. But we will never see a PvE scenario where this defensive support is actually needed, aside from carrying bad players. So Tempest will never be meta, at least not in its current form. That's not just the issue with the uber-support Chrono. It's also an issue with Tempest itself.

All comparisions with druids are useless as long as chronomancer exists in the current form. Druid is not op but gets enabled by chrono.Tempest has also the range bonus and can heal on multiple locations at once. It is not just defensive support. But encounter design is key to make tempest an optimal choice on some bosses.

Again, no. Chronomancer is irrelevant in this case. And designing encounters around some gimmick to make a specific healer useful somewhere is just sad.

This is the only option to preserve class identity and unique buffs while making specialisations relevant. Otherwise all roles get a blurry mess and you just take the one with the most damage and most utility baked in. Which creates an even more strict meta.

While I agree that chrono is the one enabling druids to get their raid spots, don't lump together multiple specs on other classes please. A dps tempest/weaver (in general weaver today) will do jack kitten worth of healing.

Yes, thief also needs something in this department support wise. That does not warrant the current balance situation.

It was just about support characters. DPS are in a pretty good spot right now except necromancer.

No it's not, and you'll realize this once Arenanet re-balances thief as they have with every class which had this kind of performance with similar input. If you were in any way interested in the well being of thief as a class, you'd be asking for a proper rotation with a reflected damage output.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:There are no downsides. Weavers are immortal and kill everything on the map with their mere presence.

Outside of the lack of CC yes, there are no downsides for taking weavers in raids. Or do you play without healer/support? But same applies for thief.

If there were no downsides, everyone and their mother would be playing weavers. Instead, we see

50% higher representation

of Deadeyes. Already. And then we have Meteor Shower fix incoming. And I bet we have ele players currently gearing their thieves.

Also note how the damage output difference on the golem (~30%) is smaller than the difference in actual fight (~50%). That's because there are no downsides to playing weaver, too.

It just proves that Weaver is hard to play. And most players are not that good at Weaver. Nothing else.WOW, it proves ... as in, it's a fact?!!! ... And then you continue with a highly subjective choice of words about something that's 'hard' to play! Really .... Please, next time start a sentence like that with: 'I think' or 'In my opinion' it tells me that ....Anyway, back OT: Imo it's even blatantly wrong. Hard to play is completely subject to the player him/herself. E.g. some people find it difficult to press a lot of buttons in a perfect order. Others find it difficult to perfectly place their combo fields so it's not going to get overwritten by a "I don't care about anything else but

my

rotation, player". And there are even people that make it a sport to time their dodges so they both sync perfectly into their rotation as well as to counter the mechanics!!! Anywho, the whole point is that the word: 'hard' could have a different meaning for every single player out there!I don't think I can prove it, but with some logical thinking, I'd say it really has to do with that ArenaNet has designed a game (much unlike GW1) where you are much more tied to playing 1 (or a few) class(es) that players consider their main. Their game is not designed to easily change gear, builds, etc. Otherwise they would've introduced (a good implementation of)

templates

already! Furthermore, ANet puts a lot of effort in the look and feel of their classes. They all look and feel very distinctive, which also ties you much easier to a character you prefer to call your main. So, even while Weaver was/is (DPS-wise)

the

best option for years now, you still and always have those crazy Necro, Rev and Thief mains that still play/try-hard even though they're trash-tier (also for years now, with the exception of the Thief atm of course).

More the reasons for ANet to take balancing far more serious than they're doing right now. And please start by bringing statistical gaps and benchmarks ('facts' that can be really proven) closer together and not by catering Joe and Mary who scream out loud that they have a 'hard' time playing their favourite character!

[Feanor.2358]

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:Hard to play is completely subject to the player him/herself.

That's just wrong. "Stand in one place & autoattack" will clearly be easier for anyone than anything else. Therefore, it is not completely subective. Or if you prefer, you can do objective observations on what players find easier or harder. The data I quoted, however, means precisely this - one of the two builds compared is objectively harder to play.

[Brynioch.1873]

@Feanor.2358 said:

If it is impossible to create a difficult thief rotation by design, I'd say there's some issue with design. But not necessarily with balance - have them toned down to reasonable levels to balance the lack of complexity with a slightly lower damage output.

@Cyninja.2954 said:No it's not, and you'll realize this once Arenanet re-balances thief as they have with every class which had this kind of performance with similar input. If you were in any way interested in the well being of thief as a class, you'd be asking for a proper rotation with a reflected damage output.

As that would require a complete redesign from the ground up of the class that will never happen, the well being of thief should be non-viable in raids? Also an AoE class should do more single target damage than a single target class?

As revenant and engineer both have a more complex rotation than weaver and weaver still does more damage can we assume weaver needs to be nerfed further to reflect the complexity of the rotation?

The DPS difference between brackets is higher for deadeye than weaver, so deadeye has a higher skill ceiling?

Are Power Soulbeast and Power Revenant also overperforming as they also do more damage than Weaver according to your data?

[RaidsAreEasyAF.8652]

@"Feanor.2358" said:That's just wrong. "Stand in one place & autoattack" will clearly be easier for anyone than anything else. Therefore, it is not completely subective. Or if you prefer, you can do objective observations on what players find easier or harder. The data I quoted, however, means precisely this - one of the two builds compared is objectively harder to play.

Is there really any class thats "hard" to play? Maybe condi engi but everyting else is really easy. Weaver wasnt really that hard to begin with and just got easier. Of course, if you want to squeez out the last 2-3k dps thats a different matter, but still.

Apparently even "Stand in one place & autoattack" is pretty difficult to do. I constantly see players 2-3k below me on deadeye. There must be more to it than "51111151111 omfg lol look at my deeps".

[Feanor.2358]

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

If it is impossible to create a difficult thief rotation by design, I'd say there's some issue with design. But not necessarily with balance - have them toned down to reasonable levels to balance the lack of complexity with a slightly lower damage output.

@"Cyninja.2954" said:No it's not, and you'll realize this once Arenanet re-balances thief as they have with every class which had this kind of performance with similar input. If you were in any way interested in the well being of thief as a class, you'd be asking for a proper rotation with a reflected damage output.

As that would require a complete redesign from the ground up of the class that will never happen, the well being of thief should be non-viable in raids?

That's exactly like saying "why nerf epi, why not let necro be viable in raids". The fallacy in both cases is exactly the same - they aren't just "viable", they're broken AF. Epi got nerfed, so will DE.

And just like with epi, I'm not against the class being viable in raids. I'm against it being broken.

@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:That's just wrong. "Stand in one place & autoattack" will clearly be easier for anyone than anything else. Therefore, it is not

completely

subective. Or if you prefer, you can do objective observations on what players find easier or harder. The data I quoted, however, means precisely this - one of the two builds compared is objectively harder to play.

Is there really any class thats "hard" to play? Maybe condi engi but everyting else is really easy. Weaver wasnt really that hard to begin with and just got easier. Of course, if you want to squeez out the last 2-3k dps thats a different matter, but still.

Apparently even "Stand in one place & autoattack" is pretty difficult to do. I constantly see players 2-3k below me on deadeye. There must be more to it than "51111151111 kitten lol look at my deeps".

Everything becomes easy with practice. However, there's a difference in the amount of practice it takes. No doubt there's more to DE than 5111151111. Also no doubt it is significantly less complex than weaver.

[Brynioch.1873]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

If it is impossible to create a difficult thief rotation by design, I'd say there's some issue with design. But not necessarily with balance - have them toned down to reasonable levels to balance the lack of complexity with a slightly lower damage output.

@"Cyninja.2954" said:No it's not, and you'll realize this once Arenanet re-balances thief as they have with every class which had this kind of performance with similar input. If you were in any way interested in the well being of thief as a class, you'd be asking for a proper rotation with a reflected damage output.

As that would require a complete redesign from the ground up of the class that will never happen, the well being of thief should be non-viable in raids?

That's

exactly

like saying "why nerf epi, why not let necro be

viable

in raids". The fallacy in both cases is exactly the same - they aren't just "viable", they're broken AF. Epi got nerfed, so will DE.

And just like with epi, I'm not against the class being viable in raids. I'm against it being broken.So weaver was also broken as it had even more damage AND got nerfed multiple times already?

[Dadnir.5038]

@"RaidsAreEasyAF.8652" said:Is there really any class thats "hard" to play? Maybe condi engi but everyting else is really easy. Weaver wasnt really that hard to begin with and just got easier. Of course, if you want to squeez out the last 2-3k dps thats a different matter, but still.

Is there indeed? ...Strictly speaking there is no profession harder to play than another. There are only build that have a rotation more or less complexe. And even that is highly subjective to the player based on it's own abilities and understanding of the profession and build used.

[Feanor.2358]

If weaver had more damage high end groups wouldn't be epi bouncing VG instead of taking weavers. And it wasn't broken either, as unlike both DE and epi bouncing it required some actual effort to get decent damage output.

[Agrippa.1693]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:Hard to play is completely subject to the player him/herself.

That's just wrong. "Stand in one place & autoattack" will clearly be easier for anyone than anything else. Therefore, it is not

completely

subective. Or if you prefer, you can do objective observations on what players find easier or harder. The data I quoted, however, means precisely this - one of the two builds compared is objectively harder to play.

Yea, I have to give you that one, not playing the game is even easier though, not been born at all is even easier than that! But let's please stay in a realm of reality here AND OT for that matter. But yea, again, I'll give you that one, you have proven your point! I stand corrected.

OT: the game is at least that balanced that you can say that every class has their difficulties in how to play them, be it in their rotations, their placement, their timing of certain abilities, etc. I know a person who hates to be in/near the boss all the time, and has an absolute build in nature of removing himself from the danger area all the time (after he needs to return asap of course to still receive boon uptime and heals), hence Staff Weaver is a lot better suitable for him (he also plays piano, so laughs at the rotations of the Weaver) than a D/D Deadeye. So for him the whole hard to play assumption is the exact opposite of that what you might consider hard to play.But my whole point is: please let's not cater to those kind of arguments, be it the ones about ppl that find Weavers hard to play or the ones that find Deadeyes hard to play. Let's cater to numbers/statistics/benchmarks and balance on that please (at least as a starting point)! ANet, please! (Edit: which btw, will already bring DE in a lower position as it stands now, for their numbers are far off atm. You don't even need (subjective) argumentation for that one.)