Anet, what is your actual intention with Manifest Sand Shade?

[Odeezee.7362]

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

Now that the stacking bug has been fixed, we've got potential to bring the single-shade interaction to a more respectable level. Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go

up

from where it's currently at.

talking like this is the very reason i lack any faith in the balance teams ability to balance their own fucking game. what fucking heavy support does Scourge bring? do you guys even play your game or do you just live inside of xml files all day? other professions bring heavy DPS and moderate support, whereas now with your "fix" today Scourge now brings mediocre DPS with negligible support and you have the audacity to call it heavy???!!! O.o smh.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Aktium.9506 said:

@Karl McLain.5604 said:Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go

up

from where it's currently at.

No kind of support that's actually needed or wanted over existing support options like PS Warr, Chrono and Druid. Necro would have to have Alacrity, Banner buffs or Grace of the Land to ever be considered an alternative.

Or at least something akin to them. Unique buffs, not healing (including Barrier) or boons, are needed for Necro support to be desired.

For example, Lich Form was recently reworked to have a skill that actually lowers an enemy's Vitality stat. Now, the uptime on that effect is pathetic and thus not worth considering as an actual support, but the ability to actually lower a target's stats is incredibly fitting thematically for Necromancers and would fit as a unique form of support.

[Swiftwynd.1685]

Actually, and I know people will hate this, as a "real support keeping people alive in a raid setting using supportive runes/statsets/gear" and not in the "im going to speedclear this boss," Scourge is currently top Tier. The problem is, with Greater Sand Shade from Sand Savant, you arent hitting the entire raid like it advertises.

Once this bug is fixed, any "damage lost" from running a scourge instead of a second druid is absolutely made up for with the improved survivability of your raid encounter. The functional damage added by maintaining scholar buffs and preventing downs or very rapidly reviving downed players is exceptionally useful in "normal" raid runs with players of average to slightly above average skill. Currently, only Keep Construct and Gorseval have any real DPS check requirements. Ever other raid boss can be done with exceptionally average team-wide dps, and the inclusion of a supportive Scourge at the expense of one druid is not going to tank that.

I speak from the experience of someone who manages a raiding discord with over 2,000 members and who runs at least 4 training runs per week personally :)

[logan.5846]

@Odeezee.7362 said:

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

Now that the stacking bug has been fixed, we've got potential to bring the single-shade interaction to a more respectable level. Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go

up

from where it's currently at.

talking like this is the very reason i lack any faith in the balance teams ability to balance their own kitten game. what kitten heavy support does Scourge bring? do you guys even play your game or do you just live inside of xml files all day? other professions bring heavy DPS and moderate support, whereas now with your "fix" today Scourge now brings mediocre DPS with negligible support and you have the audacity to call it heavy???!!! O.o smh.

Who needs perma alacrity and quickness when you can bring a 2k shield that barely lasts a second?

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Swiftwynd.1685 said:Actually, and I know people will hate this, as a "real support keeping people alive in a raid setting using supportive runes/statsets/gear" and not in the "im going to speedclear this boss," Scourge is currently top Tier. The problem is, with Greater Sand Shade from Sand Savant, you arent hitting the entire raid like it advertises.

Once this bug is fixed, any "damage lost" from running a scourge instead of a second druid is absolutely made up for with the improved survivability of your raid encounter. The functional damage added by maintaining scholar buffs and preventing downs or very rapidly reviving downed players is exceptionally useful in "normal" raid runs with players of average to slightly above average skill. Currently, only Keep Construct and Gorseval have any real DPS check requirements. Ever other raid boss can be done with exceptionally average team-wide dps, and the inclusion of a supportive Scourge at the expense of one druid is not going to tank that.

I speak from the experience of someone who manages a raiding discord with over 2,000 members and who runs at least 4 training runs per week personally :)

Ventari Revenant, Tempest, and Druid all do a vastly better job than Scourge on that front.

[MrMouser.6583]

@Swiftwynd.1685 said:Actually, and I know people will hate this, as a "real support keeping people alive in a raid setting using supportive runes/statsets/gear" and not in the "im going to speedclear this boss," Scourge is currently top Tier. The problem is, with Greater Sand Shade from Sand Savant, you arent hitting the entire raid like it advertises.

Once this bug is fixed, any "damage lost" from running a scourge instead of a second druid is absolutely made up for with the improved survivability of your raid encounter. The functional damage added by maintaining scholar buffs and preventing downs or very rapidly reviving downed players is exceptionally useful in "normal" raid runs with players of average to slightly above average skill. Currently, only Keep Construct and Gorseval have any real DPS check requirements. Ever other raid boss can be done with exceptionally average team-wide dps, and the inclusion of a supportive Scourge at the expense of one druid is not going to tank that.

I speak from the experience of someone who manages a raiding discord with over 2,000 members and who runs at least 4 training runs per week personally :)

Unfortunately, GW2 suffers from a very big problem when it comes to its instanced group content, aka Raids, dungeons , fractals, and that is, you can skip way to many mechanics, you should not be allowed in a game such as GW2 to be able to skip mechanics or do a boss in 5 man, specially where there is no concept of gear getting more powerful periodically.

That indeed is one of the issues that ruins the raiding scene, leaves many classes or specs undesirable when in reality you could probably kill most of not all bosses with an average of 10-15k dps and probably even like that i am generous.

But you can't act like the perception of the community or the meta does not exit nor you can't ignore it if you wish to have a happy community, you and i may understand that everyone has a place in the raid, I am also a believer of that but realistically very few people or groups of people think that way and also the vast majority of players will hit on this meta wall and raiding community perception and will never get in a raid because of it.

So when balance is done it needs to take into consideration how the community will use it because living in the dev bubble is not the solution. It does not matter how many boons a necro can convert or how many shades it can place or how bany barriers ir can offer as long as it has zero value in the raiding COMMUNITY.

All of this being said, can I join your raiding discord? as a necro ?

[ovalle.4163]

@Karl McLain.5604 said:Manifest Sand Shade is not expected to activate on each pulse of Desert Shroud, but instead activate on each activation of a shade ability. The previous functionality, while strong, was unintentional. We'll be looking to add some power back into the kit in the next balance iteration (which was not today :P ), but needed to fix this bug as soon as possible. We'll also probably remove the 'spend some of your life force' from the description of MSS.Thanks for the well-worded question!

-Karl

i'm not a very savvy scourge or necro player but what i understood from this is: in order to deal with the bug of shades hitting while stacking together you decided to turn off the shade attack altogether while you find a better solution.my suggestion is (and i don't really know if it would be completely plauseible) why not add an ICD to shade strikes similar to the one added for meteor shower. i see an obvious problem with this and it's that if you for example activate f2 and f3 skills at the same time only one of them would hit so to make it really work you also would have to add a global cooldown on all shade skills (0.5s similar to the cooldown on attunement swap on weaver but shorter of course)

i ask more dedicated necro players if this idea would be acceptable, impractical or just plain terrible and a horrible nerf

[vicious.5683]

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

If these interactions stack together, then we have to assume that the maximum damage potential is with three shades stacked on top of one-another. This is not the intent of the specialization, as the design is for it to 'play the field', where each shade delivers the maximum potential without needing to be stacked. Now that the stacking bug has been fixed, we've got potential to bring the single-shade interaction to a more respectable level. Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go

up

from where it's currently at.

Are you planning to fix Power Reaper abysmal dps too?

[ScarletKyri.9042]

I also fail to understand where this support comes from? The only main support that a scourge can provide is the F3 which, while strong its no more than a agies or an invun (in fact its much worse). A scourge performing a full rotation cannot do anything else in its rotation without suffering reduction to its dps in some shape or form.

I agree that personally, its slightly more tanky and that its dps should maybe be 1-2k lower due to this .... BUT I think this is an issue with how the traits are set up.Remove the (tiny) amount of surivibiliy the scourge is getting and place it in defensive traits. This way it can be left at a respectful 36-38k dps like other meta classes. The rotation for the scourge is much harder than firebrand and yet I can easily see it hitting 3-5k lower due to a simple f3 move?

Moreover, this is forgetting that the f3 will also drain your DS which reduces your dps if under 50% or even worse if it hits 0%, so it has yet another downside.

I'm happy to wait for the balance patch and I truly hope it is put back into a, not only viable but also, strong position in the meta .... 5 years of being trash ... like many others I'm getting tired of seeing the constant "necro's dps needs to be bad guys".

[Zoltar MacRoth.7146]

Thanks Karl, I'm enjoying Scourge in open world and I'm fine with this change. What I wanted to ask, since we're talking about scourge being supportive, is about a change to Oppressive Collapse (torch skill 5) to make it more useable for support.

Currently OC requires an enemy target, even though it gives might to allies around the target. That's not much good if your ally is attacking from outside the 240 range of this skill. Besides, having to lock on a target can be difficult in the middle of an intense fight with many enemies, allies and special effects flying.

I'd like to ask if this skill could be changed to I) also be able to lock on to allies, and/or ii) allow it to be ground cast.

Also, how many allies does it grant might to? The wiki doesn't say. It knocks down one target, but how many allies does it boon?

(Part of me wants to ask if it could actually knock down up to five enemies in the radius, but that's a can of worms.)

[Zetsuei.8942]

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

If these interactions stack together, then we have to assume that the maximum damage potential is with three shades stacked on top of one-another. This is not the intent of the specialization, as the design is for it to 'play the field', where each shade delivers the maximum potential without needing to be stacked. Now that the stacking bug has been fixed, we've got potential to bring the single-shade interaction to a more respectable level. Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go

up

from where it's currently at.

This is the prime example of someone who doesn't play their game. Anyone who thinks Scourge provides "heavy support" is insane. Druid/Chrono/PS are the only classes who provide heavy support. Now Scourge's DPS is on par(or lower) with those while our support is some of the worst(and not needed) in the game.

Can we get new devs on the balance team? The community is so tired of the current team and their inability to understand the professions and what they offer and what they need.

[Subli.8217]

@Asum.4960 said:

Where exactly do you want Necros to stand if we can't have competitive DPS?Because we sure as hell don't have mobility, healing support, mechanical support, boon support or active/scale able defense.

^ THIS.

Also to answer the dev post, no, Scourge doesn't have lots of support. Let's make a quick list:

Support of each class (be it offensive or defensive)

• Warrior: banners, EA, 600 radius might share, accessible blast finishers, fire fields
• Guardian: reflects and projectile defense, aegis/block share, pulsing toughness buff, accessible blast finishers, quickness generation, stability sharing
• Revenant: assassin's presence, accessible blast finishers and fire fields, generating lots of boons, high uptime projectile defense, kalla warband buffs, alacrity, boon duration buff
• Ranger: gotl, spotter, accessible blast finishers and fire field, high fury uptime, moderate amount of might share, glyph of empowerment, smoke field, spirits, major condi removal, reflects and projectile defense, shared soulbeast stances
• Engineer: pinpoint distribution, accessible fire fields, smoke fields, blast finishers, projectile defense, stealth gyro, superspeed sharing
• Thief: smoke fields, blast finishers, shadow refugee, projectile defense
• Elementalist: tons of fire fields, blast finishers, fury output, aura sharing such as magnetic, lots of projectile defense, superspeed sharing, rebound, conjure weapons, might share (can replace PS with the might stack build)
• Mesmer: distortion share, aegis share, quickness, alacrity, long distance portal, stealth capabilities, lots of reflects and projectile defense, stability sharing, boon strip
• Necromancer: 1 projectile defense, boon corrupt, condi removal, barrier, minor might sharing on extremely small radius

ressurection traitlines not included (almost every class has something for this)also some classes have aoe stunbreaks but i dont remember all of them. for sure rev, guard, ele, ranger.

ps. don't even get me started on mobility, active defense and dps of other classes

[Radina.6057]

^Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go up from where it's currently at.^

I just don't get where the Support should come from. There is no provided Buffs, there is nothing except a tiny bit of barrier that gets massively overshadowed by Aegis and Invuln. Condi clear is provided by the Druid and the Chrono, which are, thanks to your balancing, omnipresent. Although the Warrior is allowed to do that amount of damage that the Scourge hits now, and will even do more on bosses that tend to move.He is providing not one, not two, not three, but four (five if you want to count furry) major Group Buffs. Please do not give me the "He is a Support, so he should do Support damage" line. It is just not true.You just removed one class out of the roaster again, and one that had a really nice style to it. I hope you are proud of fixing something in your spaghetti code for once even if it cost Specializations Life. You just can't justify the Scourge in a Raidgroup anymore.

[Ara.4569]

Heavy support. Okay. That's new. In fact, it's refreshing not to have the "but it has shroud, so it has to suck at DPS, mobility, cast time, everything".

How about Power Reaper ? Where do you think it stands from the original idea ?

Its Reaper Shroud is used as an excuse not to give it any decent buff. So can you explain why Reaper has to stay in team fights where his Shroud is the weakest (doesn't scale, can't disengage) and lose to pretty much anything in 1v1, making it one of the worst bruiser ? And no, I'm not a bronze player that needs to "l2p" or "git gud".

[Vrita.7846]

It honestly doesn't make any sense. What exactly is the point of summoning more than one shade in PvE? "Playing the field" is completely irrelevant in PvE, the idea is to pull all trash mobs into a tight stack and nuke them. When fighting a boss, ideally you'd want to keep the boss in 1 spot so people can dps it, if the boss is moving then the dps goes out the window. I get that shade stacking was a big issue in PvP and WvW, but in PvE it makes perfect sense to do it. Currently there's 0 reason to have more than 1 shade out at any time, as the other 2 shades do literally nothing except look spooky.

[dzeRnumbrd.6129]

@"Karl McLain.5604" said:

Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go up from where it's currently at.

You can say we have heavy support but every necro intuitively knows that is not actually correct - because Barrier is not good enough.

Currently the trait lines have themes like this:

• Line 1: barrier (Adept) -> barrier (Master) -> shades (Grandmaster)
• Line 2: damage (Adept) -> damage (Master) -> damage (Grandmaster)
• Line 3: boons (Adept) -> boons (Master) -> boons (Grandmaster)

So Sand Savant being a shade GM trait instead of barrier GM trait stands out as being wrong - it should be a barrier related GM trait.

I really think it would be best if you make Sand Savant baseline across Scourge which would cut back on the target cap and make it easier to balance Scourge (without the worst case scenario of 3 shades).

Once Sand Savant becomes baseline you then create a new Barrier related GM trait (see below) that actually buffs Barrier into being relevant and actually gives us some of this "heavy support".

Barrier related Grandmaster trait:

• Baseline barrier HP increased by 33% (6671 HP on Desert Shroud instead of 5016 HP)
• 100% longer duration before Barrier HP starts decaying (lasts longer before decaying)
• Barrier HP decays 100% slower (decays much slower)

[Radina.6057]

For me it would be enough to get an actual explanation why they do what they do, instead of a "well, we intended for it to be a support class, so just play it as a support class. you will surely find space for it in the balance we created."There is no reason to look at a supporting class and tell it to not deal damage when there is one that is carrying 60% of the damage relevant ones on himself and still deals as much damage as a standard dps. Although, why is the Tempest still one of the better DPS classes, and still the best one on one boss, if he is a supporting class? "Rebound" is one of the most useful defensive Ultimates in the whole game.The Tempest although can blast Fire Fields and help with healing in Invuln phases.Much more defensive value than a Scourge has, much more damage than a Scourge does atm.I wouldn't be as irritated at the whole Scourge thing if they had a real reason why they killed him like that. We just get strange phrases from guys that did not look at their own game, or just do not care if it even makes sense what they are talking about. For me, it is just laziness. They could have just easily gotten rid of the multiple hit bug and just let the Dhuumfire there until they had an Idea on how to not totally diminish the classes Raid value in a single patch.But they did not see a reason to it because it is a "support heavy class". (Can not stop to frown upon such a statement.)

Edit: Just to make my statement clear.Every DPS class has more VALUABLE SUPPORT than the Scourge does!

[drgast.1469]

A lot of salt in this thread, but people are really missing the fact that in the long run this has the potential to make scourge stronger. It means we no longer NEED to stack the shades to get our dps up and we can focus on spreading the shades out to really cover a crap ton of area. 3 shades spread out can really dominate a space and I, for one, am pretty excited about this. Having to feel like I needed to stack my shades one on top of another constantly seemed like a pointless tactic.

[ScarletKyri.9042]

@drgast.1469 said:A lot of salt in this thread, but people are really missing the fact that in the long run this has the potential to make scourge stronger. It means we no longer NEED to stack the shades to get our dps up and we can focus on spreading the shades out to really cover a crap ton of area. 3 shades spread out can really dominate a space and I, for one, am pretty excited about this. Having to feel like I needed to stack my shades one on top of another constantly seemed like a pointless tactic.

I agree with this, I'm just scared by, what I hope was just a offhanded comment by @"Karl McLain.5604" , if they truly think necro has "High Support" with the current start of the support it gives then I'll just fully give up on this class and forget it exists :D ... good bye necro forever sniff you were my first love.

But yes, I agree, we can all wait till the balance ... just hope "heavy support" is buffed and that new raids somehow need it.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

You can stamp my ticket for the WTH train on scourges being support. The only things innately supporty with scourge is the condi cleanse and the barrier. Barrier... isn't that good. If I get a 4k barrier, I don't think "Hey, I can face tank the next big telegraphed attack". I'm still going to shuck and dive. It is not enough to take entire hits, and it doesn't last long enough to be timely or precise. At best it can eat up some chip damage. In PVP I'm sure it does... stuff, but in PVE I have a hard time seeing any effects.

[Aravind.9610]

@drgast.1469 said:A lot of salt in this thread, but people are really missing the fact that in the long run this has the potential to make scourge stronger. It means we no longer NEED to stack the shades to get our dps up and we can focus on spreading the shades out to really cover a crap ton of area. 3 shades spread out can really dominate a space and I, for one, am pretty excited about this. Having to feel like I needed to stack my shades one on top of another constantly seemed like a pointless tactic.

That isn't what most people are upset about. Rather most people are upset they no longer get 7 burn stacks off F5 since that is where a lot of our dps came from.

[The Last Hobbit.6492]

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

If these interactions stack together, then we have to assume that the maximum damage potential is with three shades stacked on top of one-another. This is not the intent of the specialization, as the design is for it to 'play the field', where each shade delivers the maximum potential without needing to be stacked. Now that the stacking bug has been fixed, we've got potential to bring the single-shade interaction to a more respectable level. Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go

up

from where it's currently at.

Thank you for responding. Sometimes we feel like we go unnoticed.

While I appreciate the support and agree that it doesn't belong at the top spot, the support is really clunky. Might uptime depends upon reliable repeatable sources of might and having large numbers of short duration stacks just means that you get bursts of 25 might and then a period of time with 5 or so, this means that Scourge can never really be a reliable stacker of might. It needs might stacks with higher duration, much higher. Even if you reduce the number of stacks.

In addition to this, while the Sand Flare is exactly what I wanted (huge burst of barrier that you can use pre-emptively like prot magic in GW1), Sand Cascade is completely underwhelming and seems to do very little and you just end up casually using it whenever it's up. And shouldn't the F3 (Sand Cascade) and F4 (Garish Pillar) be swapped? Usually the fear is #3 and the #4 should be a supportive skill which is affected by transfusion. It's incredibly unintuitive that the fear triggers transfusion.

[Zefiris.8297]

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@kKagari.6804 said:What I'm saying is:

If the interaction between MSS and DS is fixed, there should be no reason for the striking component on MSS to not stack.

If these interactions stack together, then we have to assume that the maximum damage potential is with three shades stacked on top of one-another. This is not the intent of the specialization, as the design is for it to 'play the field', where each shade delivers the maximum potential without needing to be stacked. Now that the stacking bug has been fixed, we've got potential to bring the single-shade interaction to a more respectable level. Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in), but we do intend for it to go

up

from where it's currently at.

Okay, then let us talk PVE. What is the intent of the specialization?Support?The support needed in PVE can be found in actual support classes, like druid, chrono, or warrior. Scourges do not bring anything even remotely as good as the support a warrior can bring (empower allies, banners, might stacking). Even the might stacking a scourge can do is much worse than what a warrior can do - the range of scorge might stacking is a third of that of a warrior. Compare Torch 5, Dessicate, or Blood is Power to Warrior Might Sharing range. ON TOP of being worse than the warrior equivalents, Torch 5 also needs us to face a target to even use the skill! A Warrior can run out of mechanics and provide their buffs, Scourges cannot.

How about defensive support? Chrono adds blur, a mechanic that makes the entire group immune to damage. It is superior to barrier in every way, and on top of that, Chrono also brings alacrity, an extremely potent buff, AND more boon dispelling than you need, AND quickness.

How about healing? Scourge needs to be comparable to druid then. Scourge can heal much less, however, barrier decays very fast and scourge lacks spotter, frost and sun spirit, and Grace of the Land. Glyphs also bring condition cleansing, as does F5. This makes us less of a healer than Druid, while also lacking spotter, frost spirit, sun spirit, and Grace of the Land.

If we are intended as support, we do not bring PVE support. Can you elaborate on the heavy support we have for PVE?Is there perhaps a bugged mechanic that currently isn't working, but gives a damage buff to anyone affected by barrier? Is barrier, on top of this, also bugged, and not prolonged by concentration as intended? And finally, is there a bugged group buff (such as shades buffing expertise/concentration of the whole party) that is currently not working as intended?

With these things, I could see us as PVE support comparable to the actual support classes. But I don't see them. So where is the "heavy support"?

Keep in mind that the specialization probably won't hit previous DPS potential (as it has heavy support built in)

So, you're saying you are balancing us around being "heavy support", but we cannot actually bring the heavy support that groups actually want, and you still use it to justify us not doing DPS as well as other classes.

What is our purpose in PVE?

Actually, and I know people will hate this, as a "real support keeping people alive in a raid setting using supportive runes/statsets/gear" and not in the "im going to speedclear this boss," Scourge is currently top Tier.I speak from the experience of someone who manages a raiding discord with over 2,000 members and who runs at least 4 training runs per week personally :)

Look. I myself pointed out that for training groups, barriers has its uses.But do you really think it is good that this is a Scourge's only purpose? What if you already learned the fights. Are scourges only supposed to babysit training runs, and sit out of clear runs?

[mygamingid.5816]

Stop trying to argue the raid meta as a balance metric. Raids are a skewed, broken game mode that should not enter the profession balance discussion at all. It's a tiny part of the game and performance is wholly dependent on being able to avoid damage by moving into or out of a colored shape. Simply making raid bosses move out of AOEs - even just move around at all - would wreck the current meta. Changing from dance-or-die to sustaining direct damage would also be a huge improvement and would force players out of glass builds. Those aren't profession balance issues, they're encounter design issues, and it's the encounter design that needs rebalanced.

In open world events, barriers have been great. They help whether the target is at full health or not, unlike heals that can waste a ton of healing power on partially-wounded or fully-healed targets. They're front loaded, allowing you to time them to best effect. Boon corruption matters in PoF, too. Neither matter in the half-kitten raid mode, but that's a half-kitten mode.

[Zefiris.8297]

@mygamingid.5816 said:In open world events, barriers have been great.

Open world events are so easy that you do not NEED barriers in the first place. Balancing around the open world and ignoring raid balance would be insane.