It easy to nerf heal burst..but what about blocks and stealth?

[Arheundel.6451]

Why the blocks and stealth application keep getting a free pass from this company?

When there is talk of sustain reduction I already know what happen, they always go for "heal burst", specifically targeting certain professions over and over and over again (elementalist for example) . But what about : boons/blocks and stealth? Always getting a free pass or at worst a slap on the wrist and we end up in situations where professions without any stat investment gain more sustain than the professions using heal burst which comes from heavy healing power investment.

The situation has become even more apparent after the reduction of direct damage coefficients, the only way to pass through this "barrage" of blocks/evades and "rapid stealth re-application" is to heavily invest in condition damage , which not surprisingly is the current nerf target on the forum.

There is not enough direct damage to punish stealth/blocks users when that short window of opportunity appear, heck there is not enough direct dmg to punish boon tanks etc etc.

There is one concept in videogames called too much active sustain , when a profession can chain blocks or evade or stealth in rapid succession , it can leave the opponent with a sense of hopelessness, the window of opportunity to retaliate comes briefly and now there is not enough direct damage to capitalize on that opportunity

Condition pressure is now the only thing left to counter this..oversaturation of defensive abilities which absurdly are not considered a form of sustain by anet, when they are in other MMO. I pray Anet will be wiser when the times of nerf comes again...

[Sovereign.1093]

How does blocks and stealth give you so much a bad time?

[DemonSeed.3528]

Stealthed opponents can still receive damage, for blocks just wait them out or bait them. With most people you can get a "feel" for their block rotation.

[Dawdler.8521]

@"Arheundel.6451" said:the only way to pass through this "barrage" of blocks/evades and "rapid stealth re-application" is to heavily invest in condition damage...Condition pressure is now the only thing left to counter this.So you answered your own question.

I dont get it.

[KrHome.1920]

A direct damage reduction is only a problem, if the block uptime of a build is so high, that there is simply not enough burst anymore to kill the build in between the blocks.

• This did only affect dragon hunter, which has an immense block uptime and did become a lot more viable after the patch.

---

If bursts are still possible, then blocks scale down with the damage. The less damage you block, the less effective your block as a defensive tool is.

• That's why core necromancer did start to shine after the balance patch. Its defense became stronger as you had to decimate shroud with attacks because the shroud degeneration could be traited to basically 0 - overall resulting in a very high durability you could not bypass via kiting like it is possible against a reaper.

(edit: I am talking about PvP! Core necro can still be traited to basically 0 LF degeneration in WvW - which is fine as other builds are a lot stronger in WvW than in PvP as well)

[Bish.8627]

Blocks are really not that strong, not only are they short, so many have abilities that can't be blocked. Aegis is strong for one hit, but not block. Honestly block should be stronger.

Imob, not that needs plain removing.

[ArthurDent.9538]

Out side of extreme cases and ooc resets (mostly a factor of mobility) simply reducing healing will reduce the sustain of evade/block heavy specs. Giving something like thief high access to evasion can be counter balanced by also giving it low self healing so that it doesn't take as much damage as other specs over the course of a fight but when it does they can't just heal it off as effectively. Don't always nerf what is strong about something, that will just make everything homogenized and the only difference will be particle effects. Instead, sometimes nerf things that are weak to emphasize that spec's intended weaknesses. When doing this the key is to hit things that can't simply be replaced, don't nerf unused traits or utilities but going back to the thief example giving all their heals low hp/s potential can balance out how easily they can avoid damage. Having different strengths and weaknesses brings much more true diversity then just making everything average.

[Taobella.6597]

block almost non existence with how much unblock-able mech there are in game now. if you are losing to block you probably playing a build that has no chain hit. that just getting hard counter.

for stealth if we talking group play just drop paint marker or use sniff.

[Sovereign.1093]

Necros drop unblockables maybe it's time to use staff again :)

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Chronomancer and Mirage blocks didn't get a free pass with the balance update...