Raids are not balanced when there is a 9-10k Difference between professions.

[Nimon.7840]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:You're ignoring the fact that nobody does 100% benchmark dps in actual situation at most bosses, but there are some bosses where it's doable. But the thing about benchmarks is: how much of the build's potential dps you need to do for successful boss kill. For ex. if every dps needed to do avg. 14k boss dps during burns to succeed (VG is around that), Reaper would need to do 50% of max. potential, scourge 55% of max. potential and chrono 35% of max. potential. Doesn't sound big? In no green strat, which people mostly do atm, reaper get popped out of shroud if green pops and can get locked in axe which means byebye dps. To make it even worse, reaper's dps is backloaded and VG infamously gets a lot more difficult to dps on in last 33%. Thus reapers may need to play at 70% of max potential just to get the kill while power chronos get away with half of that.And that's why it's currently relatively a LOT easier to kill bosses than pre-PoF as people have a lot more margin of error due to power creep...on the classes that have crept. Necro currently does less than top pre-PoF dpsers.

It's irrelevant if it's doable because it's not necessary for an individual to reach the benchmark to be successful in endgame content.

Also, the thing about benchmarks is NOT about how much of the builds potential DPS you need to kill a boss because that potential is irrelevant to killing a boss for two reasons:

So you would always carry one person? Can I join your raid group. Then I gg at the beginning of every fight, go do something else while you kill the boss for me? Because it's only relevant that the party reaches the goal right?

Nothing I said should give you the impression people shouldn't be expected to participate as part of a team and that expectation in no way contradicts my point either. Your question is disingenuous.

But to be fair to your question ... if my group can 9 man a raid ... why would we bother to team if you if you are just going to AFK and not be an active participant? We get nothing from taking you in and the risk to us to complete the raid is the same ... So ... I guess your question is ridiculous as well.

See. You as well dont want to carry people with bad (or no) dps.So what makes you think, that it's fine, that necro dps players don't want to play their own class, because they feel like abusing their group, not being able to contribute to the boss the same amount as other classes do?

[Obtena.7952]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:You're ignoring the fact that nobody does 100% benchmark dps in actual situation at most bosses, but there are some bosses where it's doable. But the thing about benchmarks is: how much of the build's potential dps you need to do for successful boss kill. For ex. if every dps needed to do avg. 14k boss dps during burns to succeed (VG is around that), Reaper would need to do 50% of max. potential, scourge 55% of max. potential and chrono 35% of max. potential. Doesn't sound big? In no green strat, which people mostly do atm, reaper get popped out of shroud if green pops and can get locked in axe which means byebye dps. To make it even worse, reaper's dps is backloaded and VG infamously gets a lot more difficult to dps on in last 33%. Thus reapers may need to play at 70% of max potential just to get the kill while power chronos get away with half of that.And that's why it's currently relatively a LOT easier to kill bosses than pre-PoF as people have a lot more margin of error due to power creep...on the classes that have crept. Necro currently does less than top pre-PoF dpsers.

It's irrelevant if it's doable because it's not necessary for an individual to reach the benchmark to be successful in endgame content.

Also, the thing about benchmarks is NOT about how much of the builds potential DPS you need to kill a boss because that potential is irrelevant to killing a boss for two reasons:

So you would always carry one person? Can I join your raid group. Then I gg at the beginning of every fight, go do something else while you kill the boss for me? Because it's only relevant that the party reaches the goal right?

Nothing I said should give you the impression people shouldn't be expected to participate as part of a team and that expectation in no way contradicts my point either. Your question is disingenuous.

But to be fair to your question ... if my group can 9 man a raid ... why would we bother to team if you if you are just going to AFK and not be an active participant? We get nothing from taking you in and the risk to us to complete the raid is the same ... So ... I guess your question is ridiculous as well.

See. You as well dont want to carry people with bad (or no) dps.

No, I don't want to carry someone that purposefully takes advantage of the team by doing absolutely nothing by going AFK to get loot. That IS NOT the same as being willing to play with people that play builds they want to play even if those builds aren't high DPS or team support builds. That means EVEN if me and my team can 9 man a raid, I'm still willing to take a 10th player because they are willing to contribute ... THAT is the difference. Someone willing to contribute vs. not. It has nothing to do with bad or good DPS ... and that has never been a problem for me or the people I team with either.

If you don't see that difference (or don't want to because you think it makes us the same), then we have nothing to discuss. If you're trying to demonstrate I'm some kind of hypocrite, it's not going to work. If anything, it helps me explain further why DPS gap isn't a problem unless you MAKE it a problem for YOU.

[Sobx.1758]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@"LadyKitty.6120" said:You're ignoring the fact that nobody does 100% benchmark dps in actual situation at most bosses, but there are some bosses where it's doable. But the thing about benchmarks is: how much of the build's potential dps you need to do for successful boss kill. For ex. if every dps needed to do avg. 14k boss dps during burns to succeed (VG is around that), Reaper would need to do 50% of max. potential, scourge 55% of max. potential and chrono 35% of max. potential. Doesn't sound big? In no green strat, which people mostly do atm, reaper get popped out of shroud if green pops and can get locked in axe which means byebye dps. To make it even worse, reaper's dps is backloaded and VG infamously gets a lot more difficult to dps on in last 33%. Thus reapers may need to play at 70% of max potential just to get the kill while power chronos get away with half of that.And that's why it's currently relatively a LOT easier to kill bosses than pre-PoF as people have a lot more margin of error due to power creep...on the classes that have crept. Necro currently does less than top pre-PoF dpsers.

It's irrelevant if it's doable because it's not necessary for an individual to reach the benchmark to be successful in endgame content.

Also, the thing about benchmarks is NOT about how much of the builds potential DPS you need to kill a boss because that potential is irrelevant to killing a boss for two reasons:

So you would always carry one person? Can I join your raid group. Then I gg at the beginning of every fight, go do something else while you kill the boss for me? Because it's only relevant that the party reaches the goal right?

Nothing I said should give you the impression people shouldn't be expected to participate as part of a team and that expectation in no way contradicts my point either. Your question is disingenuous.

But to be fair to your question ... if my group can 9 man a raid ... why would we bother to team if you if you are just going to AFK and not be an active participant? We get nothing from taking you in and the risk to us to complete the raid is the same ... So ... I guess your question is ridiculous as well.

See. You as well dont want to carry people with bad (or no) dps.So what makes you think, that it's fine, that necro dps players don't want to play their own class, because they feel like abusing their group, not being able to contribute to the boss the same amount as other classes do?

lmao, are you seriously trying to make an argument out of "20k-30k dps is the same as typing /gg at the start of the raid"?Nice one.

[LadyKitty.6120]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Nimon.7840 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:You're ignoring the fact that nobody does 100% benchmark dps in actual situation at most bosses, but there are some bosses where it's doable. But the thing about benchmarks is: how much of the build's potential dps you need to do for successful boss kill. For ex. if every dps needed to do avg. 14k boss dps during burns to succeed (VG is around that), Reaper would need to do 50% of max. potential, scourge 55% of max. potential and chrono 35% of max. potential. Doesn't sound big? In no green strat, which people mostly do atm, reaper get popped out of shroud if green pops and can get locked in axe which means byebye dps. To make it even worse, reaper's dps is backloaded and VG infamously gets a lot more difficult to dps on in last 33%. Thus reapers may need to play at 70% of max potential just to get the kill while power chronos get away with half of that.And that's why it's currently relatively a LOT easier to kill bosses than pre-PoF as people have a lot more margin of error due to power creep...on the classes that have crept. Necro currently does less than top pre-PoF dpsers.

It's irrelevant if it's doable because it's not necessary for an individual to reach the benchmark to be successful in endgame content.

Also, the thing about benchmarks is NOT about how much of the builds potential DPS you need to kill a boss because that potential is irrelevant to killing a boss for two reasons:

So you would always carry one person? Can I join your raid group. Then I gg at the beginning of every fight, go do something else while you kill the boss for me? Because it's only relevant that the party reaches the goal right?

Nothing I said should give you the impression people shouldn't be expected to participate as part of a team and that expectation in no way contradicts my point either. Your question is disingenuous.

But to be fair to your question ... if my group can 9 man a raid ... why would we bother to team if you if you are just going to AFK and not be an active participant? We get nothing from taking you in and the risk to us to complete the raid is the same ... So ... I guess your question is ridiculous as well.

See. You as well dont want to carry people with bad (or no) dps.

No, I don't want to carry someone that purposefully takes advantage of the team by doing absolutely nothing by going AFK to get loot. That IS NOT the same as being willing to play with people that play builds they want to play even if those builds aren't high DPS or team support builds. That means EVEN if me and my team can 9 man a raid, I'm still willing to take a 10th player because they are willing to contribute ... THAT is the difference. Someone willing to contribute vs. not. It has nothing to do with bad or good DPS ... and that has never been a problem for me or the people I team with either.

If you don't see that difference (or don't want to because you think it makes us the same), then we have nothing to discuss. If you're trying to demonstrate I'm some kind of hypocrite, it's not going to work. If anything, it helps me explain further why DPS gap isn't a problem unless you MAKE it a problem for YOU.

Seems like you're assuming that rest of your squad is capable of carrying easily. That might be possible in evenly skilled squad with other dpsers playing the top-tier builds but it'll become an issue the lower rest of the squad is in burn dps potential if squad was already just slightly above the success point with top tier builds and a reaper.

Let's take an example: at Gorseval, the dps check is quite high in no walls-strat, especially with fast CC. Assume that every dps in the squad does about 40% of bench during burns as they're not very good with mechs and they're only doing 50% of bench at golem each due to not having optimal gears/lack of practise. The strat choice is mid CC to compensate for lack of skill.For dpsers, we have condi banner warr, and 5 dpsers of choice. Supports do 15k dps total and banner warr does 13k as condi is nasty for newer raiders. Thus they're 28k total. The strat requires total 110k burn dps or Gorseval wipes the group. Thus 6 dpsers need to do 82k dps total. For dpsers today, we have power soulbeasts (upper mid-tier dps), power daredevils (lowest mid-tier dps) and power reapers (low tier dps).Power soulbeast's average bench is 37500 and 40% of that is 15000.Power daredevil's average bench is 34600 and 40% of that is 13840.Power reaper's average bench is 29500 and 40% of that is 11800.

Let's start from the lowest: the all-reaper squad. They'd do 70800 dps total which is 11,2k short of 82k and thus they can't succeed at this skill level. To succeed, they'd need to up their game by 15% to 46% of benchmark during burns. But there's another issue: Gorseval does huge damage during breakbar and thus reapers can't use shroud during it. But since we're talking about 40%ish skill level, ofc half of them do and get locked in axe for a good while. Thus reapers lose 15% of their current outgoing dps by average during burns (Kitty's being generous here), which means 10k dps each at 40% skill level. Thus they'd each need to play at 54,5% of bench to actually succeed.If you had power soulbeasts only, they'd do 90000 dps and that'd leave them 8k marginal so they don't even need to play 40% of benchmark level during burns. They'd succeed at 36,5% of benchmark skill level.

So, at this point, reaper needs to play at 18%p higher level than soulbeast (54,5% vs 36,5%) to bring as much dps to table as soulbeast does (except power soulbeast also brings Spotter :3). It you twist that a bit and compare those percents, one could say that reaper at this kind of skill level needs to be 49% more competent at their class than soulbeast at damage-intensive bosses. Ofc that difference becomes smaller as the reaper and soulbeast go up in skill level towards 100% benchmark and at reaper's 100% benchmark, power soulbeast needs to play at 78,666...% of benchmark for same result. Thus Reaper needs to be 27% more skilled than power soulbeast at their class to reach same dps when reaper's playing at max potential and if power soulbeast does 79% of benchmark or higher, reaper with perfect rotation loses every single time.

Then, when it comes to carrying...5 soulbeasts with a reaper at 40% skill levels do a total of 85000 dps which is still slightly above the required dps to succeed so a less-skilled squad can still carry one reaper putting up equal effort if they're playing high-benching builds. But if there's 2 reapers, that drops the total dps to 80000 which means the squad won't succeed unless they either get better dps classes or up their own dps game. Meanwhile DD, reaper and 4 soulbeasts would do 83840. Still enough to carry.

Now let's take a squad of 6 power daredevils as dpsers. Together they do 83040 dps which is a bit over 1k above threshold in this example. It's obviously clear that replacing even one daredevil with reaper means wipes unless the reaper plays a LOT better than the daredevils. Though then again, unless there's something seriously wrong with the DD build, you can't do that low dps as daredevil even by purely auto-attacking. DD's dps/skill required ratio is a LOT better than reaper's (everyone says reaper is easy but to be at least decent at it, it actually takes a bit of effort to learn how to play it effectively) and thus reaper needs to put like 100%+ more effort to playing to reach the same at lower skill level and even then, power DD out-dps's perfect reaper simply by spamming 2222 and nothing else, doesn't even need to keep up Bounding Dodger.

Obviously the squads are rarely as singular by structure as these examples nor the skills levels are equal across the board. But like probably clear from that, reaper needs to clearly outskill rest of the squad at lots of bosses to not feel carried (if you know what your dps is compared to others) and in good squads, a perfectly played reaper feels totally outmatched by rest of the squad if the squadies have ever practised their rotation. Even power renegade, which used to be a reaper-tier build, now outmatches reaper by 5k dps while also bringing superior utility and being a lot tankier than reaper. A power daredevil can take Invigorating Precision for godmode and still outdps reaper. The best version of power scrapper doesn't even need to sacrifice anything to enter godmode while also bringing ridiculous utility and outdpsing reaper.

And no, Kitty's not dissing reaper here. She really loves playing it but feeling carried by any decent squad feels bad. Obviously decent squads kill the bosses in less than half of enrage timer but since good raiders like to shave off minutes from clears and use speedclear strats which do require heavy dps to succeed, reaper is at serious disadvantage in competent squads. As a random fact, reaper ending up in such a bad spot is a big part of why Kitty's felt so discouraged from playing since last balance patch (she took a long break after that BP when balance suddenly took that huge powercreep with big gap between utilitysome top dps builds and lower-tier pure'ish dps builds like teefs and necros). And she's prolly not alone with that feeling.

[Obtena.7952]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:And no, Kitty's not dissing reaper here. She really loves playing it but feeling carried by any decent squad feels bad.

That's just a hangup you need to get over if this game continues to support the idea that people can play how they want. Everyone contributes when in that team and everyone is carrying everyone else in that team to some degree, even if most of the players are highly capable. Even if there was 5 players that could solo a raid ... they are going to generally get a full team to play with ... and it's not to make those other 5 people feel inferior for being carried ... it's because they recognize that those other 5 people are going to contribute to the success of the encounter.

I mean, what you are actually telling me here is that Anet needs to buff Necro DPS ... so you don't feel bad anymore? If you didn't feel bad about this ... would you still feel like Anet needs to buff NEcro DPS?

[Josiah.2967]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:And no, Kitty's not dissing reaper here. She really loves playing it but feeling carried by any decent squad feels bad.

That's just a hangup you need to get over if this game continues to support the idea that people can play how they want. Everyone contributes when in that team and everyone is carrying everyone else in that team to some degree, even if most of the players are highly capable. Even if there was 5 players that could solo a raid ... they are going to generally get a full team to play with ... and it's not to make those other 5 people feel inferior for being carried ... it's because they recognize that those other 5 people are going to contribute to the success of the encounter.

I mean, what you are actually telling me here is that Anet needs to buff Necro DPS ... so you don't feel bad anymore? If you didn't feel bad about this ... would you still feel like Anet needs to buff NEcro DPS?

Knowledgeable raiders are not the problem. Wanting to help the group more is not a bad thing.

[LadyKitty.6120]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@"LadyKitty.6120" said:And no, Kitty's not dissing reaper here. She really loves playing it but feeling carried by any decent squad feels bad.

That's just a hangup you need to get over if this game continues to support the idea that people can play how they want. Everyone contributes when in that team and everyone is carrying everyone else in that team to some degree, even if most of the players are highly capable. Even if there was 5 players that could solo a raid ... they are going to generally get a full team to play with ... and it's not to make those other 5 people feel inferior for being carried ... it's because they recognize that those other 5 people are going to contribute to the success of the encounter.

I mean, what you are actually telling me here is that Anet needs to buff Necro DPS ... so you don't feel bad anymore? If you didn't feel bad about this ... would you still feel like Anet needs to buff NEcro DPS?

Did you skip the math part? The problem isn't that much in the high end (though it semi-ish when doing some high-dps strats) but the low end. Ofc enrages aren't an issue to semi-decent squads but they become an issue in inexperienced squads that are at the border of success/failure and have multiple inexperienced reapers. At that borderline, the "irrelevant" difference between the dps's does make a difference between 1-shot and one hour of wiping. Kitty's been there, seen that sadly.It's not just that reaper is 20-25% behind everyone else in dps but reapers get punished way harder than pretty much anyone else if things go south. Since shroud is essential for reaper's damage, getting knocked out of it right after entering it due to damage pressure and not benefitting from scholar like most of other power dpsers do if you enter shroud with health below 90% punish even further and you don't have much control over that as reaper in instanced content (unless you take Blood Magic for heals with shroud 4 but that is a dps loss, too). Low potential and harsh punishments, totally ok apparently, especially when you add a not-so-superexperienced player into the mix.

It's not like people are requesting "ANET, MAKE REAPER 50K DPS!?!?!". Just 10% boost to 33k'ish would be nice to close that gap a bunch and to bring it to almost equal ground with other builds of similar stature (about 13-15% would bring to same ground) while still having inferior survivability (shroud is a 2-edged scythe) and utility. Pretty much every other class has their top power/condi dps builds at/above 35k dps while necro's both builds are below 30k. (and condi thief, except the ultimate awkward pistol+dagger with Shadow Strike. Both thieves need a some boost to catch up with competition.) It's more like you're the only one here who's insisting that it shouldn't get any boosting in PVE. Actually, out of curiosity, can you give a couple points about why not boost it?

And when it comes to feels, guess how patch notes have been explaining some balancing decisions? "We're also enhancing several core ranger traits and some select weapon skills that we felt were on the weak side." - the big balance patch on Feb 25th. It's kinda been memefied a hell of.

But guess you have no idea what kind of player you're writing with. Guess who's been working on making more and more builds acceptable during last 3 years? Who's shown (simple) options through Kittymarks when everyone's parroted the 200-paged meta rotation gospel? (and who preached Heal Scourge gospel a year before Teapot realized it's potential and made it popular) In case you didn't know, Kitty's spent last 3 years trying to show that off-meta builds work, too, and she's continuously trying to figure out more ways for people to play with whatever build they want. Efficiently. And in case you didn't notice, Kitty also mentioned words "scrapper", "condi thief" and "22222 daredevil without Bounding Dodger" which aren't quite popular among the meta believers.

Kitty's worked quite damn hard to increase build diversity in this game when everyone's been stuck in 15-20ish builds out of thousands of ways to play this game and the very reason Kitty so mad at this topic because the recent powercreep and the gap between necros+condi thief and everyone else is DECREASING the number of ways people can play how they want in squad content.

Kitty's not sure if you're on reading on mobile phone. If so, you can't see the links in Kitty's signature so here's some links for you. Please check them before you reply :3

Kitty's youtube channel (with about 850 videos of raids, fractals and strike missions, mostly playing off-meta however Kitty wants): https://www.youtube.com/LadyKittyKittymarks Build Testing channel with quite a bunch of alternative build+rotas to play with: https://youtube.com/c/KittymarksAnd Kitty's benchmark spreadsheet of hundreds of builds (though incomplete, from July 2019 BP): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZTdQqAYMN_IBnEwuYgQlHnNTxvLLlhzCMhNUOqiQra0/edit?usp=sharing

[Obtena.7952]

@Josiah.2967 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:And no, Kitty's not dissing reaper here. She really loves playing it but feeling carried by any decent squad feels bad.

That's just a hangup you need to get over if this game continues to support the idea that people can play how they want. Everyone contributes when in that team and everyone is carrying everyone else in that team to some degree, even if most of the players are highly capable. Even if there was 5 players that could solo a raid ... they are going to generally get a full team to play with ... and it's not to make those other 5 people feel inferior for being carried ... it's because they recognize that those other 5 people are going to contribute to the success of the encounter.

I mean, what you are actually telling me here is that Anet needs to buff Necro DPS ... so you don't feel bad anymore? If you didn't feel bad about this ... would you still feel like Anet needs to buff NEcro DPS?

Knowledgeable raiders are not the problem. Wanting to help the group more is not a bad thing.

And regardless of your DPS, you are helping the group because no one in a team is there to be carried. The concept that you are being carried because you aren't top DPS is so contrived it's nonsense. I actually explained this exactly in the post you quoted.

[Obtena.7952]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:And no, Kitty's not dissing reaper here. She really loves playing it but feeling carried by any decent squad feels bad.

That's just a hangup you need to get over if this game continues to support the idea that people can play how they want. Everyone contributes when in that team and everyone is carrying everyone else in that team to some degree, even if most of the players are highly capable. Even if there was 5 players that could solo a raid ... they are going to generally get a full team to play with ... and it's not to make those other 5 people feel inferior for being carried ... it's because they recognize that those other 5 people are going to contribute to the success of the encounter.

I mean, what you are actually telling me here is that Anet needs to buff Necro DPS ... so you don't feel bad anymore? If you didn't feel bad about this ... would you still feel like Anet needs to buff NEcro DPS?

Did you skip the math part? The problem isn't that much in the high end (though it semi-ish when doing some high-dps strats) but the low end.

Honestly, I did a bit, because frankly, it's a little much. But the message was clear.

I don't think there is a 'problem' at the low end because it's only natural that players at the lower end of performance have a harder time. I mean, let's just put this on the table ... Anet makes the content reasonably hard without just giving it away for nothing right while still enabling a wide range of builds and player performance ... There is SOME expectation for meeting a threshold of performance ... it's simply not the threshold that justifies needing a narrow DPS ranges across classes. There is obviously a balance to be struck.

If Anet buffed DPS to bring more builds into the ALREADY known range of capable builds, that's fine. I mean, I think my big problem here is that there is a big difference between people arguing we need more DPS because Necro isn't 'meta' enough and giving Necro more DPS to enhance gameplay or differentiate themes, etc ... 'Not meta" is probably the WORST reason I can think of to justify Necro DPS buff, because meta has NOTHING to do with how Anet designs the classes or the content of the game. It's nonsensical to me and it's nonsensical to anyone that simply plays however they want to play with people that think the same. It's a completely player-derived target and it means nothing in the context of how this game works.

[LadyKitty.6120]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:And no, Kitty's not dissing reaper here. She really loves playing it but feeling carried by any decent squad feels bad.

That's just a hangup you need to get over if this game continues to support the idea that people can play how they want. Everyone contributes when in that team and everyone is carrying everyone else in that team to some degree, even if most of the players are highly capable. Even if there was 5 players that could solo a raid ... they are going to generally get a full team to play with ... and it's not to make those other 5 people feel inferior for being carried ... it's because they recognize that those other 5 people are going to contribute to the success of the encounter.

I mean, what you are actually telling me here is that Anet needs to buff Necro DPS ... so you don't feel bad anymore? If you didn't feel bad about this ... would you still feel like Anet needs to buff NEcro DPS?

Did you skip the math part? The problem isn't that much in the high end (though it semi-ish when doing some high-dps strats) but the low end.

Honestly, I did a bit, because frankly, it's a little much. But the message was clear.

I don't think there is a 'problem' at the low end because it's only natural that players at the lower end of performance have a harder time. I mean, let's just put this on the table ... Anet makes the content reasonably hard without just giving it away for nothing right while still enabling a wide range of builds and player performance ... There is SOME expectation for meeting a threshold of performance ... it's simply not the threshold that justifies needing a narrow DPS ranges across classes. There is obviously a balance to be struck.

If Anet buffed DPS to bring more builds into the ALREADY known range of capable builds, that's fine. I mean, I think my big problem here is that there is a big difference between people arguing we need more DPS because Necro isn't 'meta' enough and giving Necro more DPS to enhance gameplay or differentiate themes, etc ... 'Not meta" is probably the WORST reason I can think of to justify Necro DPS buff, because meta has NOTHING to do with how Anet designs the classes or the content of the game. It's nonsensical to me and it's nonsensical to anyone that simply plays however they want to play with people that think the same. It's a completely player-derived target and it means nothing in the context of how this game works.

Fact is: players make an MMO, company makes the RPG. Without other players, there's no squad content and thus it's not much of an MMO and MMO players who do instanced squad content pretty much always focus on effectiveness more or less, with some exceptions. End-game PVE players aren't usually very focused on the thematics. (Otherwise we'd have guardian tanks instead of everyone asking for chronomancer.) And since endgame players focus on effectiveness (in pretty much every MMO but GW2 players perhaps the most for whatever reason), company's main available method to affect how they play is by balancing. Since there's now a huge gap in balance, the builds at the deep end aren't very wanted by effective players, thus narrowing the builds available. That means people can't choose as much how they want to play or other players choose who they play with. And that who obviously isn't the person with inefficient build if there's better options available. For maximum wanted options for people to play how they want, weapons, skills and traits should be balanced by their raw efficiency in optimal situation, dps uptime, survivability and utility when it comes to dps stuffs, narrow enough differences that using them wasn't intentionally nerfing yourself to hell like the situation is now with some weapons, and boon outputs+heals should be balanced so that each healer is somewhat balanced compared to each other with their ups and downs. In PVE, the situation was quite decent before that powercreep patch (and Deadly Ambition revamp. Why Anet whyyyyy?) in that regard though some weapons need some serious power-up as for ex. warr's hammer hits like wet noodle compared to pretty much any other weapon in this game (rev's hammer isn't much better). It'd also be nice to have ele's Flame Axe doing some damage as it has interesting mechanic but it hits extremely low (about as bad as Frost Bow and Earth Shield which are defensive weapons, 15-16k in Kitty's tests year ago). A year ago Kitty did 30-32k on top builds of each profession and sadly there existed weapons that never breached 20k in Kitty's tests even when optimized. 20k-25k in her use is memezone and the aforementioned weapons weren't even worthy of meme title. ._.

Tl;Dr Endgame PVE is about efficiency, not thematics 'cause that's what players want and players are the squads, not Anet. Balance better, more narrow pls and boost currently useless weapons plssss.

[Obtena.7952]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:Tl;Dr Endgame PVE is about efficiency, not thematics 'cause that's what players want ....

Maybe for you that's true, and you have the choice to play GW2 like it's a job where you get rewarded for efficiency. For others, that's not true.

[Black Storm.6974]

For me the endgame PvE is more about “thematic” than “efficiency”.

I mean, I try to improve myself, but I only play what I enjoy (mostly Reaper), and I enjoy it thanks to how Reaper is designed (even if its potential DPS is, by design, one of the lowest).For the same reason I can’t play Scourge condition, no matter how efficient it is or could become.

I’m playing with people that accept me as a Reaper and I put a lot of effort into trying to improve “myself” as a “fighter”. I do that since years and most people accept me.

I’d appreciate some DPS boost, but I don’t think ArenaNet have to give that to us. Anyway I expect that DPS boost to come, since I doubt the DPS difference is so big by design. Maybe it is simply something that happened (a kind of mistake), because probably ArenaNet don’t really think about the future benchmarks when doing balance patches.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

You guys are on the forum more than the game itself

[Jheuloh.4109]

I'm impressed this thread's still going!

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Jheuloh.4109" said:I'm impressed this thread's still going!

Well the subject have been argued upon since GW2 release in 2013 throught countless threads. The truth is that ANet tried countless time to "fix" the problem but ultimately failed to achieve something that satisfy everyone. The necromancer's design just doesn't work well within the PvE end game's design.

[Jheuloh.4109]

Yeah, in all seriousness I get it. I've noted elsewhere that every class seem to just be a grab-bag of traits and abilities that sound cool and fill up the slots but don't really paint a bigger picture. We figured that out by sorting order from the chaos of traits, abilities, and gear interaction. The results are pretty weird, as in Chrono Tank or Banner Slave. Plus there's all sorts of funky stuff like Beastmastery being the place to go for Greatsword & Axe mastery as a ranger. That stuff rubs like it should belong in Skirmishing but Skirmishing is full.

It doesn't seem like ArenaNet has a ton of manpower available to sit down and go through every single class with a fine-tooth comb to give them more direction and making their minutiae easier to read, if there is any interest in such things. So every class just gets the lowest effort nerf/buff possible and anything deeper can get really outlandish from a player's perspective because nobody is on the same page about a class's kit.

[Josiah.2967]

Anyone else hoping for a balance patch? A guy can be optimistic. :-)

[Mini Crinny.6190]

@Josiah.2967 said:Anyone else hoping for a balance patch? A guy can be optimistic. :-)

They normally announce them on a friday (Or have done recently in the past) but there might be some small changes

[LadyKitty.6120]

@Josiah.2967 said:Anyone else hoping for a balance patch? A guy can be optimistic. :-)

Kitty's been hoping for that since Feb. 26th.

[Nimon.7840]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:

@"Josiah.2967" said:Anyone else hoping for a balance patch? A guy can be optimistic. :-)

Kitty's been hoping for that since Feb. 26th.

Regular (pve) balance patch schedule would have been 2 weeks ago no?Anet released living world on that date. So I was hoping for a balance patch last week.

And here we are, another week of no changes... :disappointed:

So either they are happy with the current state, or something interrupted their normal schedule.If something interrupted it, it would have been nice to communicate. Even a small sentence like "the balance patch is postponed/delayed for around 4 weeks due to ..." Would have made me happy.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:

@Josiah.2967 said:Anyone else hoping for a balance patch? A guy can be optimistic. :-)

Kitty's been hoping for that since Feb. 26th.

Regular (pve) balance patch schedule would have been 2 weeks ago no?I think they do balance patches in the middle of a PvP season now? Idk was sorta expecting a couple of small changes yesterday but meh, soon™

[Cerioth.7062]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@LadyKitty.6120 said:

@"Josiah.2967" said:Anyone else hoping for a balance patch? A guy can be optimistic. :-)

Kitty's been hoping for that since Feb. 26th.

Regular (pve) balance patch schedule would have been 2 weeks ago no?Anet released living world on that date. So I was hoping for a balance patch last week.

And here we are, another week of no changes... :disappointed:

So either they are happy with the current state, or something interrupted their normal schedule.If something interrupted it, it would have been nice to communicate. Even a small sentence like "the balance patch is postponed/delayed for around 4 weeks due to ..." Would have made me happy.

Honestly I think COVID-19 messed up a lot of their plans.