The new balance - a conclusion

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

@Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

@"rabenpriester.7129" said:No good pulls, no entangles, no spirits (ress spirit? cc from storm?), lower CC, no good pushes, no active damage mitigation/blocks/distortion for tank, awkward use of buffs (mantra aoe, renegade alacrity aoe and their respective ranges), awkward mechanics like renegade energy management that reduce how freely you can use your already limited utility, low base hp and armor... and a million other things I forgot. We've been through this list a million times.

Forced to go 2x firebrand means you'll run 4x hybrid builds if you want druid buffs, resulting in overall less personal damage, less utility and less group damage.

Don't act as if these builds were something new that no one thought about. They just aren't good enough. But it seems like you hate Chronos and chrono players enough to play them out of spite based on your "bye bye chrono", so play what you want and feel free to dismiss the better, yet still bad build. But please don't act as if yours was superior. :D

I'd happily play fb+rene if it was any good

or

fun to play, preferrably both. It is neither. :)

There are not, because people don't build on them. (Like, the +100 precision)In cm's druid + chrono is trash since the first day. Chrono DPS is trash, druid dps is trash, druid heal is not constant, war DPS is often trash, you lose 2 slots to support 2 DPS and a war. Did or do we see Harrier/Minstrel chrono ? Why ? Because people have copy/paste raid compo without reflexion. You were like "I'm chrono healer _Okai but we need a druid for frost spirit and mights" And you're like "Do you even Math ????????" War doesn't need rune of strenght to take the shout and be PS (actually it's even easier since the patch)In raid I'm okai, with Kiting, mobile boss, various phases ... Ventari's skills are akward to manage and FB's mantra need a proper placement. Otherwise range is same as wells.

Forced to go 2x firebrand means you'll run 4x hybrid builds if you want druid buffs, resulting in overall less personal damage, less utility and less group damage.

But in raid, once again do we need to copy/paste group 1 to group 2. Ren+FB is (A healer + middling DPS) perma quickness+alacrity+fury+might+retaliation+prot+... it fills easily a Melee focused group; because yes, it is good. Druid/soulbeast and chrono can fill the other with war *and keep add 10 allies spirits etc, pull with focus, take aggro.

Actually I don't see here people looking for a new composition, I see people looking for the same meta but how to fix chrono. It's not my definition of Balance.

You can run one group with a FB Heal/tank/support then depending how much alacrity and if you need more might you can choose between chrono and revThe other group has a only an condi FB with the rune for perma quickness the rest stays as it is. This is just the trade off in raids you can make either more reliable boons or more base dmg. Which cost you 1 slot more then before and for some not even that some guild running with 2 druids or 1 druids and 1 FB since forever.

Nobody is happy about this with just this 6 classes are already set in stone and I'm sure there will something come around like we need more might over all we need a Tempest for pre stack might or we need a Soulbeast with spirits or something I would calculate with 3 free dps slots you can juggle around with.

The fractal meta is even better with fb + rev again the Soulbeast for spirits , DPS chrono for utility then BS .. ..... the main DPS doesn't fit in here anymore :s

[Nimon.7840]

Finally chrono is nerfed after 3 years.

It was way to overpowered.

All I hear from original post is like: I wanna get the op chrono back, cause we are too bad to play without.

And that's what I hear from a lot of raidteams.

We played firebrand/rev comp. We had on most bosses over 90% quickness uptime and over 80% alacrity uptime.The only issue we had was protection and swiftness uptime.

But people just have to get used to not being able to ignore all mechanics from bosses, because they do have aegis of stability.

We are currently waiting for the new stats that were announced, but we might be trying out seraph-firebrands for some less damage but better boon uptime on aegis and protection

What we now are missing is deleting warrior banners and druids spirits, so they aren't essential anymore

[sigur.9453]

@Obtena.7952 said:I don't see a reason they need to ... it's not like there are so few comps that can complete content where raids need to be toned down to those comps. Maybe if people didn't try to just play how some website tells them, they would realize there ARE solutions to complete content outside of their narrow ideas of what they have been told is optimal.

See, this is the problem with pushing meta ... hardly any players know how to figure out how to play for themselves anymore. The can't figure out what to do when something changes.

for a lot of people it isn´t about completing the content anymore, if you are just in for the loot, maybe it isn´t the right content for you anyway. you can pretty much kill almost every boss with 10 necros autoatacking, but would that be fun? and thats the problem right now, you can either choose to play without optimal boons which is super akward and feels cluncky or play a super strict settup that make anoying (yes there are no hard mechanics, just anoying ones) mechanics even more anoying. missing out alc/quickness especially when you simply went for deleting a bomb at sabetha is the wort feeling ever. doing mechanics should be rewarding not punishing for your own gameplay expierience,

[sigur.9453]

@"Nimon.7840" said:Finally chrono is nerfed after 3 years.

It was way to overpowered.

All I hear from original post is like: I wanna get the op chrono back, cause we are too bad to play without.

"All in all, current balancing might not make raiding impossible. But it sure makes it unpleasant, unfun and frustrating. Especially if you are trying to optimize squad dps"

read again. its about optimizing. its also a rich statement comming from someone that was outrageous after the epi nerf.

[Zunki.3916]

It's pretty easy to me: Increase all/most buff mechanics to 900 radius at least for PvE. It bothered me from start that most of ele buffs (and obviuosly others) are at a 180/240 radius and this forces to stack. I don't understand why Anet feels stacking for every encounter is somehow fun or good gameplay.

[Nimon.7840]

@sigur.9453 said:

@"Nimon.7840" said:Finally chrono is nerfed after 3 years.

It was way to overpowered.

All I hear from original post is like: I wanna get the op chrono back, cause we are too bad to play without.

"All in all, current balancing might not make raiding impossible. But it sure makes it unpleasant, unfun and frustrating. Especially if you are trying to optimize squad dps"

read again. its about optimizing. its also a rich statement comming from someone that was outrageous after the epi nerf.

I wasn't outrageous about the epi nerf but about, how it was done, because the addcleave also was nerfed.

Also if you speak about optimizing DPS.With double firebrand +1 renegade +1 druid you actually gain DPS.Because these 2 firebrands together can easily do the same DPS as 1,5 regular DPS players.While giving quickness every 8 seconds.

Before you had 2 chronos, one doing no DPS, and the other one doing maximum DPS of a half DPS player.So if you played double healers, then they wouldn't do DPS either. So you have 0.5dmg dealers this way.While firebrand comp has 1.5

So now you could argue, that you only play one healer.Now they would be even, but you then have to compare it with only one healer in the firebrand comp as well. So renegade could play dps-buffer adding another 0.5 DPS dealer.

So in terms of the amount of damage dealers, you will definetly do more DPS by playing with firebrands.

The only issue could be, that if someone has to go away from the squad, that player will almost instantly loose all his boons and is slower in doing sab-cannons for example.But as soon as he joins the squad again, he'll have his boons back up after 8 seconds.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@sigur.9453 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:Finally chrono is nerfed after 3 years.

It was way to overpowered.

All I hear from original post is like: I wanna get the op chrono back, cause we are too bad to play without.

"All in all, current balancing might not make raiding impossible. But it sure makes it unpleasant, unfun and frustrating. Especially if you are trying to optimize squad dps"

read again. its about optimizing. its also a rich statement comming from someone that was outrageous after the epi nerf.

I wasn't outrageous about the epi nerf but about, how it was done, because the addcleave also was nerfed.

Also if you speak about optimizing DPS.With double firebrand +1 renegade +1 druid you actually gain DPS.Because these 2 firebrands together can easily do the same DPS as 1,5 regular DPS players.While giving quickness every 8 seconds.

Before you had 2 chronos, one doing no DPS, and the other one doing maximum DPS of a half DPS player.So if you played double healers, then they wouldn't do DPS either. So you have 0.5dmg dealers this way.While firebrand comp has 1.5

So now you could argue, that you only play one healer.Now they would be even, but you then have to compare it with only one healer in the firebrand comp as well. So renegade could play dps-buffer adding another 0.5 DPS dealer.

So in terms of the amount of damage dealers, you will definetly do more DPS by playing with firebrands.

The only issue could be, that if someone has to go away from the squad, that player will almost instantly loose all his boons and is slower in doing sab-cannons for example.But as soon as he joins the squad again, he'll have his boons back up after 8 seconds.

So what prevented your group from playing Firebrand+ Renegade before this patch? It was absolutely viable then too. Let me guess, you ran double chrono.

Nobody asked for all boons on chrono. People made due (and solo chrono quickness up-time hasn't been permanent since 2 patches ago) as a result of an improper balance patch.

Don't worry, Firebrand is so overpowered, in 2-3 months when the dust has settled, there will be some changes made to that class (it has been overpowered for 3-4 patches now. Chrono was simply more useful in fractals and raids). Same goes for renegade (though less overpowered compared to Firebrand, and less played). Obviously chrono is going to get nerfed again since the current 7 mesmer meta should not be (which it really shouldn't).

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Chrono wont be saved its obviusly and i doubt fb and ren will keep get to be replacement since anet will balance them to the same way

[Yasi.9065]

Quickness on chrono is way more difficult to maintain than alacrity btw.

While I like the input you guys are trying to give, believe me, I considered it all already, tried several comps with my static that made it past planning stage. And so far each and every comp came with problematic downsides.

Ren/FB cant stack up boons long enough to leave for mechanics, chrono/druid cant re-apply boons fast enough when stripped due to mechanics. This directly influences your squad dps and your dmg taken.

You can work around things like only having 240 radius pull instead of 600 radius focus pull. A scourge with epidemic takes away quite a bit of pressure.

But theres total no-goes. Like not having 100% protection on bosses like dhuum. Not having 25 might 10seconds into the fight. Not enough fury for power dps. Significantly lower estimated squad dps due to running too many healer just to cover essential boons. Even lower actual boss dps due to having to send dps off to do mechanics.

Again, Ive done the math. Ive done the testing. This thread is a conclusion. I really REALLY dont want to explain every step I had to take to get to that painful conclusion, just because you think you thought of something really new and cool no one considered before.

Heres a list of support builds I considered, calculated, mix and matched and tested:

• Druid -> harrier or condi or power
• Tempest -> harrier or condi or power
• Herald -> harrier or power
• Deadeye -> power with strength runes and scholar runes
• BannerPS -> power
• Engi -> HGH harrier holo
• Chrono -> boons or power (and "only" providing SoI and alacrity OR quickness to maximize personal dps)
• Firebrand -> harrier or condi or power
• Renegade -> harrier or condi or power
• Scourge -> minstrel or condi support mix (yes, it involved seraph and plaguedoctors, no it wasnt good)

If your idea is already listed here, chances are theres a downside to it you havent yet discovered yourself - probably because you lack willing victims eh friends to help you test it in raids and so far have only had the possibility to test on golem - or only ran pretend numbers in your head. Sorry to sound so arrogant, but having sunk considerable time into this already, its rather infuriating to have someone come here and say "well, its only bad balancing because you havent considered everything yet" or "ren/fb is the solution!!!11"

[Cyninja.2954]

@Yasi.9065 said:Quickness on chrono is way more difficult to maintain than alacrity btw.

While I like the input you guys are trying to give, believe me, I considered it all already, tried several comps with my static that made it past planning stage. And so far each and every comp came with problematic downsides.

Ren/FB cant stack up boons long enough to leave for mechanics, chrono/druid cant re-apply boons fast enough when stripped due to mechanics. This directly influences your squad dps and your dmg taken.

As such the most viable all boss meta currently is:1-2 chrono (tank+support)2-5 dps chrono (power chrono for pdps, mirage for cdps) for SoI boon copy1 banner slave2 healers

and thus we are back to a more restrictive meta where 2-3 dps slots are replaceable for random dps classes while the rest is fixed.

[Yasi.9065]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Yasi.9065 said:Quickness on chrono is way more difficult to maintain than alacrity btw.

While I like the input you guys are trying to give, believe me, I considered it all already, tried several comps with my static that made it past planning stage. And so far each and every comp came with problematic downsides.

Ren/FB cant stack up boons long enough to leave for mechanics, chrono/druid cant re-apply boons fast enough when stripped due to mechanics. This directly influences your squad dps and your dmg taken.

As such the most viable all boss meta currently is:1-2 chrono (tank+support)2-5 dps chrono (power chrono for pdps, mirage for cdps) for SoI boon copy1 banner slave2 healers

and thus we are back to a more restrictive meta where 2-3 dps slots are replaceable for random dps classes while the rest is fixed.

You need 1 healer max, and tbh, with 2x harrier/giver support chronos not even that. Fury can be covered with banner of discipline until boss health < 75% and might from sword phantasm gets extended enough so you dont need a might stacker. Frost spirit isnt quite as good on dps chronos since it doesnt affect illus.

Chrono dps however has its own downsides and only really shines on golem bosses. Everything with short phases results in mediocre to suboptimal dps.

But yes, currently the solution to all problems with ren/fb comp, is to just throw dps chronos at it.... Which just in itself is so infuriating and WILL be patched in mid of january, wanna bet? Most likely by adding concentration scaling to SoI. Because anet cant tough fb/ren, its after all the comp they want to promote to meta.

[phs.6089]

I'll repeat this: the message was loud and clear.Give your HoT classes a rest, PoF is out for a year now.Try and see what you can do.

[Yasi.9065]

@Nimon.7840 said:All I hear from original post is like: I wanna get the op chrono back, cause we are too bad to play without.

What... the...? What does an obvious disconnect between balance team and content design team have to do with me wanting -according to you- chrono back? I dont btw. Im quite happy with the majority of changes, most of them I actually asked for quite vocally here and on reddit. Namely the nerfs to cc and stability/resistance spamming.

What anet did, however, was leave us for at least a month with an incomplete balance patch that didnt solve the problems of fb/ren comp - which btw I also tried repeatedly to bring to attention - while changing chrono in a way that still makes chrono mandatory, but now just worse to play on most raid encounters.

All your celebration on how chrono is dead, btw, is at least a month too early, because until next balance patch, the pug meta will be:2 boon chronos1 druid1 healer1 power BS5 DPS

With more mechanics getting shifted from chrono onto BS/DPS (and yes, most likely onto scourge, since its perceived lowest boss dps).

For speedclears it will be:2 boon chronos1 druid1 BS6 DPS

Remind you of something?

[Laila Lightness.8742]

@Yasi.9065 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:All I hear from original post is like: I wanna get the op chrono back, cause we are too bad to play without.

What... the...? What does an obvious disconnect between balance team and content design team have to do with me wanting -according to you- chrono back? I dont btw. Im quite happy with the majority of changes, most of them I actually asked for quite vocally here and on reddit. Namely the nerfs to cc and stability/resistance spamming.

What anet did, however, was leave us for at least a month with an incomplete balance patch that didnt solve the problems of fb/ren comp - which btw I also tried repeatedly to bring to attention - while changing chrono in a way that still makes chrono mandatory, but now just worse to play on most raid encounters.

All your celebration on how chrono is dead, btw, is at least a month too early, because until next balance patch, the pug meta will be:2 boon chronos1 druid1 healer1 power BS5 DPS

With more mechanics getting shifted from chrono onto BS/DPS (and yes, most likely onto scourge, since its perceived lowest boss dps).

For speedclears it will be:2 boon chronos1 druid1 BS6 DPS

Remind you of something?

Soon it be 1ren,2fb. Bs. 6dps(druid is not really viable 5% dont do more dps than 1 more dps and its boons is rather generic fb and ren can easly upkeep it better than druid)

[Yasi.9065]

@"phs.6089" said:I'll repeat this: the message was loud and clear.Give your HoT classes a rest, PoF is out for a year now.Try and see what you can do.

I tried. Repeatedly. It only works on some raidbosses, and then only with a very very fixed comp that supplies missing utility/boons. Because anet didnt solve the problems of that comp, they just threw more aegis/stab/dps at it and tried to nerf the hot competition enough to make the pof variant look better.

Id love for fb/ren to be a thing. I love playing alacrity renegade (both harrier and condi) and firebrand is just so op. If the game was only about quickness, alacrity, stability and aegis... fb/ren comp would win hands down. But it isnt. Its also about being able to stack boons to leave to do mechanics, its about being able to bring additional utility, while doing your "core" job.

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Soon it be 1ren,2fb. Bs. 6dps

Soon alliances will be released.

[phs.6089]

@Yasi.9065 said:

@"phs.6089" said:I'll repeat this: the message was loud and clear.Give your HoT classes a rest, PoF is out for a year now.Try and see what you can do.

I tried. Repeatedly. It only works on some raidbosses, and then only with a very very fixed comp that supplies missing utility/boons. Because anet didnt solve the problems of that comp, they just threw more aegis/stab/dps at it and tried to nerf the hot competition enough to make the pof variant look better.

Id love for fb/ren to be a thing. I love playing alacrity renegade (both harrier and condi) and firebrand is just so op. If the game was only about quickness, alacrity, stability and aegis... fb/ren comp would win hands down. But it isnt. Its also about being able to stack boons to leave to do mechanics, its about being able to bring additional utility, while doing your "core" job.

So, what happened to 'Raids are easy AF?' If a single class could cheeze it to the grade of being easy AF, clearly there was something wrong, no?

This reminds me days Brawler was introduced in Tera and Mystic got RevampYou could slap a mystic with 4 brawlers and there was nothing that this composition couldn't clear.

New dungeon came with brawler and 'slaying run' was done in under 6 hours. There were 'sigils' that increase your crit damage if your HP was below 50% they called 'slaying'

[Laila Lightness.8742]

@phs.6089 said:

@Yasi.9065 said:

@phs.6089 said:I'll repeat this: the message was loud and clear.Give your HoT classes a rest, PoF is out for a year now.Try and see what you can do.

I tried. Repeatedly. It only works on some raidbosses, and then only with a very very fixed comp that supplies missing utility/boons. Because anet didnt solve the problems of that comp, they just threw more aegis/stab/dps at it and tried to nerf the hot competition enough to make the pof variant look better.

Id love for fb/ren to be a thing. I love playing alacrity renegade (both harrier and condi) and firebrand is just so op. If the game was only about quickness, alacrity, stability and aegis... fb/ren comp would win hands down. But it isnt. Its also about being able to stack boons to leave to do mechanics, its about being able to bring additional utility, while doing your "core" job.

So, what happened to 'Raids are easy AF?' If a single class could cheeze it to the grade of being easy AF, clearly there was something wrong, no?

Now firebrand ren will cheese so lets balance them too ☺

[Cyninja.2954]

@Yasi.9065 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Yasi.9065 said:Quickness on chrono is way more difficult to maintain than alacrity btw.

While I like the input you guys are trying to give, believe me, I considered it all already, tried several comps with my static that made it past planning stage. And so far each and every comp came with problematic downsides.

Ren/FB cant stack up boons long enough to leave for mechanics, chrono/druid cant re-apply boons fast enough when stripped due to mechanics. This directly influences your squad dps and your dmg taken.

As such the most viable all boss meta currently is:1-2 chrono (tank+support)2-5 dps chrono (power chrono for pdps, mirage for cdps) for SoI boon copy1 banner slave2 healers

and thus we are back to a more restrictive meta where 2-3 dps slots are replaceable for random dps classes while the rest is fixed.

You need 1 healer max, and tbh, with 2x harrier/giver support chronos not even that. Fury can be covered with banner of discipline until boss health < 75% and might from sword phantasm gets extended enough so you dont need a might stacker. Frost spirit isnt quite as good on dps chronos since it doesnt affect illus.

Chrono dps however has its own downsides and only really shines on golem bosses. Everything with short phases results in mediocre to suboptimal dps.

But yes, currently the solution to all problems with ren/fb comp, is to just throw dps chronos at it.... Which just in itself is so infuriating and WILL be patched in mid of january, wanna bet? Most likely by adding concentration scaling to SoI. Because anet cant tough fb/ren, its after all the comp they want to promote to meta.

Oh I agree completely.

PUG groups usually run with 2 healers, often both druid. Occasionally with a different 2nd healer.

Also don't discount the fact that running this many SoI to a certain extent removes the need for boon duration gear. This can increase group performance. Otherwise you can replace 2-3 mesmer with other dps. Essentially any fight which has:

• is pdps heavy (since mirage perform nicely on condition bosses)
• has very short damage phases (Gorseval, KC, Xera (if you consider the crystal phases), CA)

will be not ideal.

The upside:

• less classes required to gear and master
• less loading times if people are using arc build templates
• the raid can split up for fights like TL
• the support mesmer can go tank for fights like SH where 2 tanks are required

Is this desirable? No. It is though once again the hand dealt by Arenanet.

People running FIrebrand+Renegade are running a superior composition to double chrono, but an inferior composition to a 7 mesmer squad. Funny enough, Firebrand+Renegade was an absolutely valid alternative to double chrono (besides say TL or SH) last patch, yet people did not chose to run it due to convenience and habit. The only reason people are not shifting faster to one of the 2 new raid compositions is the already mentioned further balance in the future, and the fact that double chrono still works to some extent even if vastly inferior to TB+Ren.

Now let's take a guess who is going to get blamed at the end of all this, once again: chrono and mesmer players.

[Setz.9675]

@Yasi.9065 said:

@Setz.9675 said:If not having permanent protection is an issue go bring a hammer guard.

You do realize hammer guard symbol only works if you can stack and is 5 man? So you'd need to bring 2 of those. Loosing 12k dps on each, thats 24k less squad dps. Sorry, unacceptable.You do realise you can use GS/hammer and not permanently use hammer right? Losing a few thousand dps to survive an encounter thanks to protection is completely acceptable, and if protection wasnt needed, why bother in the first place?

@Setz.9675 said:If quickness is an issue instead of 2 druids take 1 druid 1 firebrand (for fotm dont take the druid and use a FB instead). Previously mentioned guard could take Feel my wrath elite shout.

FB in fractals actually sucks because your pulls are too small, you dont have a port for skips. If you want to stack might on a fb you have to bring scepter. That means you run into trouble with fury uptime. If you bring fury and leave might stacking to PS-bannerwarrior, that bannerwarrior needs strength runes. Ren might stacking means you have to stack tightly for alacrity again, which is kinda the point of this thread.You can run FB + chrono you know, fury uptime in fractals can be remedied by FB+DH both using Feel my wrath. PS banner warrior + dumplings can do 8-10 might stacks, yes they fall off easily but they come back just as fast as well, no rune change needed here. Stacking tightly for boons has always been a thing, stop pretending it hasn't.Most importantly though... the last time I raided with 2 druids was hm... when anet changed gotl to 10man might. Not to mention, solving quickness issues in one group with a fb healer doesnt solve them in the other subgroup. And it adds another supporter to the mix, lowering your squad dps quite a lot, opening up a whole other can of worms because your dps drops below "can skip" point on most encounters. Not to mention, too low squad dps means your fullclear turns from < 3 hours to > 4 hours. Extra time spend on content thats not fun in current balancing.So you dropped 1 druid in favor of dps which made raid clearing faster and allowed you to skip mechanics (thats bad game design in itself, being able to skip mechanics). Again this is so ridiculous, dropping support roles in favor of dps is good, dropping dps for support is bad. With the only argument that you would actually have to do mechanics during boss fights instead of bashing a health golem.

@Setz.9675 said:If vigor is an issue druid could take Spirited Arrival over Windborne notes to get 16s of vigor for the party every 20s for simply swapping a pet. Or have engi take medkit (infusion bomb, AoE 10s vigor, 30s cd)

Actually, vigor isnt a problem, but its a symptome. A boon that should be accessible to all support builds - like fury and protection - thats only available to a select few.If vigor isnt a problem than stop complaining about it. The only boons that are needed are quickness/alacrity/fury/might, everything else is completely optional. If you dont want to make compromises to existing builds to get optional boons, the problem is you.

@Setz.9675 said:Druid providing might or herald providing prot/fury is OP but chrono providing LITERALLY EVERYTHING is the baseline right? its meta dont change it. rofl

Did I say this anywhere? Stop projecting please. Ill spell it out just for you: the problem isnt that chrono got nerfed, the problem is that it was done in a way that doesnt properly work in most raid/fractal encounters, while leaving gaps that have been there for ages in alternative comps.Lowering cooldown on SoI to 20seconds, reducing boon extension time to 3 seconds would probably solve already quite a lot of the mentioned issues. Reducing cooldown on wells, pulsing boons on wells and reducing duration would also help. Increasing radius of shield4 illu procc to 300 or 360.Still leaves problems with fury and might. But well, at least it would be a start.Muh projection. Low duration quickness on a 5 time application cap is going to do nothing, the moment you run out of the stack you lose your buffs. the moment you run back you get your quickness maybe a second or two back faster, its moot.And of course, mechanics usually are staggered, so that means, if you are unlucky enough, you are the poor guy that has to wait 20seconds SoI extension of any boons you might get while waiting, meaning you are left with low might, low fury uptime, low protection uptime, etc.Real buffs are granted by chronos and dps classes should never do anything more than dps. More projection on my side I guess?

@Setz.9675 said:My english isnt good enough to properly mock this, again not Anets fault that you cant make adjustments.

Please refrain from answering without having properly reading the post you are answering to. Its bad form. Thank you. As I already said all the way up at the beginning. I tried, Ive done adjustments. The result is unsatisfying because -> see first post for reasons.You tried making adjustments by shuffling old meta builds around. We also know you wont compromise on raid dps so we all know how much effort you put into making these adjustments. Or is this even more projection from me?

[Laila Lightness.8742]

I dream of pure dps group XD

[Laila Lightness.8742]

@Setz.9675 said:

@Yasi.9065 said:

@Setz.9675 said:If not having permanent protection is an issue go bring a hammer guard.

You do realize hammer guard symbol only works if you can stack and is 5 man? So you'd need to bring 2 of those. Loosing 12k dps on each, thats 24k less squad dps. Sorry, unacceptable.You do realise you can use GS/hammer and not permanently use hammer right? Losing a few thousand dps to survive an encounter thanks to protection is completely acceptable, and if protection wasnt needed, why bother in the first place?

@Setz.9675 said:If quickness is an issue instead of 2 druids take 1 druid 1 firebrand (for fotm dont take the druid and use a FB instead). Previously mentioned guard could take Feel my wrath elite shout.

FB in fractals actually sucks because your pulls are too small, you dont have a port for skips. If you want to stack might on a fb you have to bring scepter. That means you run into trouble with fury uptime. If you bring fury and leave might stacking to PS-bannerwarrior, that bannerwarrior needs strength runes. Ren might stacking means you have to stack tightly for alacrity again, which is kinda the point of this thread.You can run FB + chrono you know, fury uptime in fractals can be remedied by FB+DH both using Feel my wrath. PS banner warrior + dumplings can do 8-10 might stacks, yes they fall off easily but they come back just as fast as well, no rune change needed here. Stacking tightly for boons has always been a thing, stop pretending it hasn't.Most importantly though... the last time I raided with 2 druids was hm... when anet changed gotl to 10man might. Not to mention, solving quickness issues in one group with a fb healer doesnt solve them in the other subgroup. And it adds another supporter to the mix, lowering your squad dps quite a lot, opening up a whole other can of worms because your dps drops below "can skip" point on most encounters. Not to mention, too low squad dps means your fullclear turns from < 3 hours to > 4 hours. Extra time spend on content thats not fun in current balancing.So you dropped 1 druid in favor of dps which made raid clearing faster and allowed you to skip mechanics (thats bad game design in itself, being able to skip mechanics). Again this is so ridiculous, dropping support roles in favor of dps is good, dropping dps for support is bad. With the only argument that you would actually have to do mechanics during boss fights instead of bashing a health golem.

@Setz.9675 said:If vigor is an issue druid could take Spirited Arrival over Windborne notes to get 16s of vigor for the party every 20s for simply swapping a pet. Or have engi take medkit (infusion bomb, AoE 10s vigor, 30s cd)

Actually, vigor isnt a problem, but its a symptome. A boon that should be accessible to all support builds - like fury and protection - thats only available to a select few.If vigor isnt a problem than stop complaining about it. The only boons that are needed are quickness/alacrity/fury/might, everything else is completely optional. If you dont want to make compromises to existing builds to get optional boons, the problem is you.

@Setz.9675 said:Druid providing might or herald providing prot/fury is OP but chrono providing LITERALLY EVERYTHING is the baseline right? its meta dont change it. rofl

Did I say this anywhere? Stop projecting please. Ill spell it out just for you: the problem isnt that chrono got nerfed, the problem is that it was done in a way that doesnt properly work in most raid/fractal encounters, while leaving gaps that have been there for ages in alternative comps.Lowering cooldown on SoI to 20seconds, reducing boon extension time to 3 seconds would probably solve already quite a lot of the mentioned issues. Reducing cooldown on wells, pulsing boons on wells and reducing duration would also help. Increasing radius of shield4 illu procc to 300 or 360.Still leaves problems with fury and might. But well, at least it would be a start.Muh projection. Low duration quickness on a 5 time application cap is going to do nothing, the moment you run out of the stack you lose your buffs. the moment you run back you get your quickness maybe a second or two back faster, its moot.And of course, mechanics usually are staggered, so that means, if you are unlucky enough, you are the poor guy that has to wait 20seconds SoI extension of any boons you might get while waiting, meaning you are left with low might, low fury uptime, low protection uptime, etc.Real buffs are granted by chronos and dps classes should never do anything more than dps. More projection on my side I guess?

@Setz.9675 said:My english isnt good enough to properly mock this, again not Anets fault that you cant make adjustments.

Please refrain from answering without having properly reading the post you are answering to. Its bad form. Thank you. As I already said all the way up at the beginning. I tried, Ive done adjustments. The result is unsatisfying because -> see first post for reasons.You tried making adjustments by shuffling old meta builds around. We also know you wont compromise on raid dps so we all know how much effort you put into making these adjustments. Or is this even more projection from me?

Druid is old meta tho since ren fb can do its job too

[Astralporing.1957]

@Obtena.7952 said:I don't see a reason they need to ... it's not like there are so few comps that can complete content where raids need to be toned down to those comps. Maybe if people didn't try to just play how some website tells them, they would realize there ARE solutions to complete content outside of their narrow ideas of what they have been told is optimal.

See, this is the problem with pushing meta ... hardly any players know how to figure out how to play for themselves anymore. The can't figure out what to do when something changes.That happens when you start to balance encounters around the top percenters in a game where performance of those can be several times greater than of average player. And when the same is true about performance of builds.

@Nimon.7840 said:Because these 2 firebrands together can easily do the same DPS as 1,5 regular DPS players.Not if one of them is going to be a tank.Forgot about that one, did you?

[Laila Lightness.8742]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:I don't see a reason they need to ... it's not like there are so few comps that can complete content where raids need to be toned down to those comps. Maybe if people didn't try to just play how some website tells them, they would realize there ARE solutions to complete content outside of their narrow ideas of what they have been told is optimal.

See, this is the problem with pushing meta ... hardly any players know how to figure out how to play for themselves anymore. The can't figure out what to do when something changes.That happens when you start to balance encounters around the top percenters in a game where performance of those can be several times greater than of average player.

@Nimon.7840 said:Because these 2 firebrands together can easily do the same DPS as 1,5 regular DPS players.Not if one of them is going to be a tank.Forgot about that one, did you?

Do we need a tank anymore?

[Grogba.6204]

Someone has to stack toughness to move certain bosses around. (Also Desmina hits like a truck)And you need at least 251 toughness over your Firebrands by nature of https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Imbued_Haste

edit:There is also the issue that guardian only has two blocks which greatly impair the possible dps if used for tanking and only block a certain number of attacks (mace (1) and Focus (3)). There is the invuln of renewed focus and a metric ton of aegis application for the group at least but evading VG blue for example is a lot harder to do with a guard than with a mesmer (Sword 2, Sword 4, Shield 4, F4).Renegade is even worse in that regard, having a single block on staff (and strong damage mitigration in Jalis) and damage absorb and a second block are gated by herald.

[Vinceman.4572]

And here is my question because I don't have the time to do the calculations myself nor am I really interested in wasting investing my free time with it:

What exactly is the gear we have to use if we run 2 fb + 1 ren? (Under the assumption we'll easily be able to respec the next balance patch when new gear will be introduced)I really wanna know how this turns out to be so much superior vs. double chrono, especially on Desmina but also on other bosses with a fixed tank spot.(And I don't want to have variants, it must be set in stone so we don't have downtimes, I only allow one of the tanks having a 2nd gear available for Demina!)

(Edit: Keep in mind it must be puggable otherwise we have a way more strict comp and decisionmaking which speaks for running the "old" meta. So it has to be realistically applicable. Things like: here you go harrier ren and fb tank, the next ren tank and condi fb and then condi ren + condi fb are no valid solution)