A Note on Future Boon Direction

[Irenio CalmonHuang.2048]

Greetings Tyrians!

We are aware that the previous update to Runes and Sigils, coupled with the balance updates released this week, created a situation where boon duration has become a more highly-valued resource.

As you can see in the December 11 release notes, we’re moving toward a world where various professions are specialized at offering different boons and not all boons can (or should!) be provided by a single profession.

Toward that end, we wanted to let you know that we’re looking at new attribute combinations for the coming year to offer you better options. You may want to watch for those updates before making significant changes to your gear.

Merry Wintersday!

~GW2 Systems Team

[Aktium.9506]

sounds good man

[meri.9187]

seeker seeker seeker seeker seeker seeker seeker seeker seeker

pls

Also, wtb more than 8% boon duration from herald line. We're supposed to be the boon class wink wink

Love to mess with new stat combos though.

[Biggie Shorty.8190]

Thanks for the info, really appreciate the extra communication regarding the recent changes.

[Brujeria.7536]

Linking certain boons to certain classes is a very good change. Please dont ignore the boon uptime and boon application while you do this, as it stands there is already alot of boon spam, giving better itemization options to increase boon duration will make this situation only worse in WvW and PvP.

Boons should affect the game if used at the correct time- if you can achieve 100% uptime with a lot of reapplication it looses its purpose and becomes mandatory and meaningless.

[Xstein.2187]

Just under curiosity in regards to the whole boon directions, what was the thought process behind the specific changes to signet of inspiration instead of simply lowering down the number of boons it affects in combination with lowering the duration if necessary?Thanks,

[SloRules.3560]

So, mesmer is just screwed in WvW than? You can't use wells in WvW....

[josebaabasolo.5680]

Could you say when are those attribute combos coming? If it's soon enough to say not to rush regearing...why wasn't this shipped with the balance patch?

[HELLruler.4820]

Please consider merging Quickness and Alacrity. They have a lot in common (making actions faster) and that would be helpful to make Chrono less dominant since it's the only class that can output both of those insanely important boons.

As a second note, check Ranger's spirits (especially Spirit of Frost) and Warrior's banners. Those two mechanics make these two classes way too important because spirits' and banners' buffs are unique and no other class can bring something alike to compete for their squad spot.

[Zlater.6789]

Can you throw us a bone and chuck us a free stat reselect by any chance? The last year or so has been very rough on support players, especially chrono players. Atm the only way a person can reasonably play support is with legendary gear, which I feel is pushing the gw2 game philosophy a bit far. Especially because right now its like, any random patch could totally make your favourite support profession obsolete and ruin the investment we've made into it.

[rabenpriester.7129]

What do we do in the meantime? Balance patches in preparation for the "real" balance patch coming up is going on for a year now, it gets just a bit on my nerves.

[Jaidy.1824]

Now if you could do this with applying conditions. Where a single class can't drop all possible condi's on you, w'r on the right track.

[Cannabrah.7842]

Can you please also consider boon application in fractals, you know the only supported 5 man content you have?

[Titan.8215]

The problem is that important boons are bounded to a few classes, overall with alacrity and quickess. Also could you do that other supports get good buffs? Because for example:Tempest: fire aura give 5%+ direct damage and 5% condition damage while people have aura fire effect. (this is similar to a glyph of empowerment of druid). Auras up to 5 to 10 ppl.Firebrand: aegis give might and fury (via trait), aegis application up from 5 to 10 ppl.Necro supports needs also some unique effects that makes it competent enough, otherwise barrier are pretty good..

The problem in my opinion is that druid gives so much boons and unique buff (empowerment, spotter, spirits) also has pretty good cc and mobility, (im not asking for a nerf, i love druid), while other support doesn't even give any unique buff from profession like druid. You have to make other support more competent.

Also you should increase the buffs like empower allies, spotter, engi buff, rev buff, from 5 to 10 people because thats make more versatile compositions.

And to end, remember that even if you focus on 10man content, changes like the one for chrono which imo were so significant, in 10 man isn't that that bad, but on a group of 5 people you know lack even more, and fractals is still a thing.

[Etterwyn.5263]

I've thought along these lines. HOT and POF created too much overlap. some is fine, such as each class should at least be able to give itself might and quickness, but make others more exclusive, and control the amount of sharing.

Same applies to conditions. Confusion is already mostly exclusive to Mesmers, but beyond that there's just a ton of overlap. I mean we've got Necros burning and Guardians bleeding, all of a sudden. Class discrimination is compounded by certain classes that can do too much (boons or conditions) all by themselves.

[Kassablanca.5821]

WHAT BOON DOES thief provide? lol

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

The result is no more optional slots for dps classes because you need them all in specific rolls now which is far far worse what we had before all the work the balance them did in months n losing the meta for more class diversity is now thrown out of the window can anyone understand that ?

[Lucinellia.9247]

This is nice and I am looking forward to the possibility of Seeker gear for my silly Might share Deadeye build, but you'll see no real change to raid compositions requiring double Chronomancer until you realise the problem is that there is no alternative that for quickness and alacrity together in the one profession. I think you need to really consider why you feel you need to stick with that design when it has resulted in 3+ years of 20% of a raid being Chronomancer (if you want to have any hope of reasonable kill times), resulted in memes such as chronojail and is slowly making raids unenjoyable for people that have been here since W1 release.

I really hope you will consider elites as we move into LS5 that can offer alacrity and quickness. It doesn't need to be as good as Chronomancer - same as any potential changes to Renegade or Firebrand - but PvE is crying out for an alternative. A similar situation is present with Druid and Warrior to a less degree due to their unique buffs.

New stat combinations will be nice, but you need much larger structural changes if you want to have a game with a semblance of support balance in instanced PvE.

[Rauderi.8706]

New attribute combos? I've got my fingers crossed for a few:

Power/Precision/HealPow/Concentration (possibly Heal/Conc major?)The real +All Stats! Just spread out Celestial's points to fill in Expertise and Concentration.

Basically, I see players craving those support stats (healing/concentration) while keeping their damage stats and not getting mired in Tough/Vitality.

Of course, returning boon duration/Concentration to the appropriate warrior trait line would also be grand, thx.

[Meriva.4173]

Wondering what kinda of boons necro's have to share :p

[Lascax.2163]

New equip stats will not fix that much.

The glaring problem is that this patch is incomplete at the cost of having us waiting a month before playing properly or worse regearing again.Also, this boon distribution will most probably make even more slots mandatory in the meta than before, but we don't know so let's have fun finding a new meta for just 3-5 weeks.

Why aren't the wells applied on 10 people?Why aren't the wells larger to avoid clunky movement?Why can't SoI just share Qck/Alacrity and stays like now for the rest of boons?

This patch was clearly done with the Episode release in mind, but now that is postponed after holidays ( justifiably, ANet Staff need to take this break ), this will leave us with a troubled and clunky gameplay unnecessarily during a period where most people have free time.All of this sums up as a clear lack of proper update planning.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:Toward that end, we wanted to let you know that we’re looking at new attribute combinations for the coming year to offer you better options. You may want to watch > for those updates before making significant changes to your gear.

We certainly appreciate the heads up. Please keep in consideration that crafting Minstrel gear isn't more "fun" than crafting Berserker or Marauder - it's just way more expensive and time consuming, because 'reasons'. It essentially says that if you want to play support, you have to work harder and spend more resources to do so.

That ship has sailed, but please keep in mind for future recipes and such, that some attribute combinations are drastically more expensive to acquire than others, and a level playing crafting field would be appreciated.

[Zephyr.8015]

New stat combos won't fix that fact you killed an elite spec.

[Tzarakiel.7490]

In my opinion a support build needs permanent uptime on at least 2 offensive boons, 3 defensive boons, and a unique effect to be good enough. If anet's plan is to have the classes use only 1 or 2 boons each they will kill off most support builds and make almost all boon duration bonuses useless. Max uptime on 1 or 2 boons is not worth enough to lose an offensive stat.

[TheGrimm.5624]

Thank you for the heads up. That does help quite a bit and cuts down on re-gearing cost. Cheers!