duelist class are now full bunker

[jsp.6912]

with so low damage, seriously it's boring as fuck

[Leonidrex.5649]

lets remove all damage but keep the sustain PepeLaugh, what could go wrong PepeLaugh

[Kuma.1503]

Anet nerfed sustain. You need only look back to the last patch. Rev sustain nerfed. Cele amulet removed. Healbrand nerfed. Well before that, Anet hard nerfed Crev's sustain, hit tempest multiple times, doubled druid's avatar cooldown, deleted symbol monkey, deleted decap scrapper, nefed paladin amulet, deleted cavalier, knights, barbarian... the list goes on.

Safe to say, a lack of attention to sustain is not the issue here.

So why are bunkers so tanky?

Hard hitters like Renegade, Holo, and Prev, condi thief, ect. were keeping bunkers in check. We complained, got them nerfed.Some might Argue that DH is rising in popularity as an answer to said bunkers.

Guess what? We want DH nerfed too.

Does no one consider the long term consequences of the nerfs they ask for?

When you guys complained about these builds doing too much damage, what was you end goal?

Did you want fights against these classes to last longer? If so... well..., fights against these classes last longer. Bunkers can now heal through their dps provided they manage their resources correctly

I'm genuinely not trying to come off as condescending here, I'm curious.

Do you think the damage from builds like Holo/ Renegade was too high? Might it have been better to bring damage up to a similar level as these two classes? Because I must reiterate, sustain has gotten nerfed hard across several patches.

If we lower sustain again. Expect builds similar in power (relative to the meta) as Nade holo become to appear as a result. We're going to have to accept that and not complain when someone posts a screenshot of them being three-shot by a bread-n-butter burst combo.

.

[jsp.6912]

i'm not a dev, it's not to me to find a solution , that now it's so ez to create a class 1v1, just take all possible defensive trait, take all decap skill, gg wp you have ur build 1v1

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Kuma.1503 said:Anet nerfed sustain. You need only look back to the last patch. Rev sustain nerfed. Cele amulet removed. Healbrand nerfed. Well before that, Anet hard nerfed Crev's sustain, hit tempest multiple times, doubled druid's avatar cooldown, deleted symbol monkey, deleted decap scrapper, nefed paladin amulet, deleted cavalier, knights, barbarian... the list goes on.

Safe to say, a lack of attention to sustain is not the issue here.

So why are bunkers so tanky?

Hard hitters like Renegade, Holo, and Prev, condi thief, ect. were keeping bunkers in check. We complained, got them nerfed.Some might Argue that DH is rising in popularity as an answer to said bunkers.

Guess what? We want DH nerfed too.

Does no one consider the long term consequences of the nerfs they ask for?

When you guys complained about these builds doing too much damage, what was you end goal?

Did you want fights against these classes to last longer? If so... well..., fights against these classes last longer. Bunkers can now heal through their dps provided they manage their resources correctly

I'm genuinely not trying to come off as condescending here, I'm curious.

Do you think the damage from builds like Holo/ Renegade was too high? Might it have been better to bring damage up to a similar level as these two classes? Because I must reiterate, sustain has gotten nerfed hard across several patches.

If we lower sustain again. Expect builds similar in power (relative to the meta) as Nade holo become to appear as a result. We're going to have to accept that and not complain when someone posts a screenshot of them being three-shot by a bread-n-butter burst combo.

.

the way people used to day pre-feb wasnt due to sustained damage but due to getting bursted down from 100%-0% or 80%-0%, now its not possible to do it, and people as always have more sustain then damage, Just look at what is possible from rev side, every 30s you can heal for close to 20k health if you really devote this much to healing, and nothing and I mean NOTHING can actually deal that much damage to you in turn, before feb what would happen is someone would drop you to 70% with chip damage, stun you, and kill you in 1,2-1,5s. And now its no longer the case, HARD nerf some of the sustain and MAYBE just MAYBE we will be able to slowly kill people

[Kuma.1503]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@"Kuma.1503" said:Anet nerfed sustain. You need only look back to the last patch. Rev sustain nerfed. Cele amulet removed. Healbrand nerfed. Well before that, Anet hard nerfed Crev's sustain, hit tempest multiple times, doubled druid's avatar cooldown, deleted symbol monkey, deleted decap scrapper, nefed paladin amulet, deleted cavalier, knights, barbarian... the list goes on.

Safe to say, a lack of attention to sustain is not the issue here.

So why are bunkers so tanky?

Hard hitters like Renegade, Holo, and Prev, condi thief, ect. were keeping bunkers in check. We complained, got them nerfed.Some might Argue that DH is rising in popularity as an answer to said bunkers.

Guess what? We want DH nerfed too.

Does no one consider the long term consequences of the nerfs they ask for?

When you guys complained about these builds doing too much damage, what was you end goal?

Did you want fights against these classes to last longer? If so... well..., fights against these classes last longer. Bunkers can now heal through their dps provided they manage their resources correctly

I'm genuinely not trying to come off as condescending here, I'm curious.

Do you think the damage from builds like Holo/ Renegade was too high? Might it have been better to bring damage up to a similar level as these two classes? Because I must reiterate,

sustain has gotten nerfed hard across several patches

.

If we lower sustain again. Expect builds similar in power (relative to the meta) as Nade holo become to appear as a result. We're going to have to accept that and not complain when someone posts a screenshot of them being three-shot by a bread-n-butter burst combo.

.

the way people used to day pre-feb wasnt due to sustained damage but due to getting bursted down from 100%-0% or 80%-0%, now its not possible to do it, and people as always have more sustain then damage, Just look at what is possible from rev side, every 30s you can heal for close to 20k health if you really devote this much to healing, and nothing and I mean NOTHING can actually deal that much damage to you in turn, before feb what would happen is someone would drop you to 70% with chip damage, stun you, and kill you in 1,2-1,5s. And now its no longer the case, HARD nerf some of the sustain and MAYBE just MAYBE we will be able to slowly kill people

Agreed, the typical damage profile changed after the feb patch.

Renegade (sevenshot), Holo (nades), Condi thief, heck go back further in Post feb meta and you had Power ranger. None of these classes would straight 100-0 you in most cases. Some people would face tank an entire combo and die in 4-5 hits, call it a "oneshot" and post a screenshot about it, but they each generally would soften you up before nuking you in a stun or after blowing your dodges.

...Or in ranger's case the Owl would disembowel your insides.

Regardless...

People complained that that was too much.

We can nerf sustain again

But then cases like the ones I just mentioned will happen again.

And people will complain.

My point is that, at some point we will have to accept that dps builds are going to burst you. You will die, and it might not be the easiest thing in the world to prevent that death from happening. Not specifically you, I'm aware that you're a pretty damned good mesmer, so I'm sure you're no stranger to killing players in a well timed burst, but "you" here referring to the community as a whole.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

there was no follow up rebuff to the megapatch, all problems stem from this fact.

[Gwaihir.1745]

Yeah theres a few variations of the rev specs that are pretty big offenders.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Kuma.1503 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Kuma.1503 said:Anet nerfed sustain. You need only look back to the last patch. Rev sustain nerfed. Cele amulet removed. Healbrand nerfed. Well before that, Anet hard nerfed Crev's sustain, hit tempest multiple times, doubled druid's avatar cooldown, deleted symbol monkey, deleted decap scrapper, nefed paladin amulet, deleted cavalier, knights, barbarian... the list goes on.

Safe to say, a lack of attention to sustain is not the issue here.

So why are bunkers so tanky?

Hard hitters like Renegade, Holo, and Prev, condi thief, ect. were keeping bunkers in check. We complained, got them nerfed.Some might Argue that DH is rising in popularity as an answer to said bunkers.

Guess what? We want DH nerfed too.

Does no one consider the long term consequences of the nerfs they ask for?

When you guys complained about these builds doing too much damage, what was you end goal?

Did you want fights against these classes to last longer? If so... well..., fights against these classes last longer. Bunkers can now heal through their dps provided they manage their resources correctly

I'm genuinely not trying to come off as condescending here, I'm curious.

Do you think the damage from builds like Holo/ Renegade was too high? Might it have been better to bring damage up to a similar level as these two classes? Because I must reiterate,

sustain has gotten nerfed hard across several patches

.

If we lower sustain again. Expect builds similar in power (relative to the meta) as Nade holo become to appear as a result. We're going to have to accept that and not complain when someone posts a screenshot of them being three-shot by a bread-n-butter burst combo.

.

the way people used to day pre-feb wasnt due to sustained damage but due to getting bursted down from 100%-0% or 80%-0%, now its not possible to do it, and people as always have more sustain then damage, Just look at what is possible from rev side, every 30s you can heal for close to 20k health if you really devote this much to healing, and nothing and I mean NOTHING can actually deal that much damage to you in turn, before feb what would happen is someone would drop you to 70% with chip damage, stun you, and kill you in 1,2-1,5s. And now its no longer the case, HARD nerf some of the sustain and MAYBE just MAYBE we will be able to slowly kill people

Agreed, the typical damage profile changed after the feb patch.

Renegade (sevenshot), Holo (nades), Condi thief, heck go back further in Post feb meta and you had Power ranger. None of these classes would straight 100-0 you in most cases. Some people would face tank an entire combo and die in 4-5 hits, call it a "oneshot" and post a screenshot about it, but they each generally would soften you up before nuking you in a stun or after blowing your dodges.

...Or in ranger's case the Owl would disembowel your insides.

Regardless...

People complained that that was too much.

We can nerf sustain again

But then cases like the ones I just mentioned

will

happen again.

And people will complain.

My point is that, at some point we will have to accept that dps builds are going to burst you. You will die, and it might not be the easiest thing in the world to prevent that death from happening. Not specifically you, I'm aware that you're a pretty damned good mesmer, so I'm sure you're no stranger to killing players in a well timed burst, but "you" here referring to the community as a whole.

People don't complain about being killed....people complain about the source of the damage, nobody in his right mind would complain about being killed by a glass staff ele, a full trap power dragon hunter ( minus trap runes ), nobody would complain about burst builds if these so called "balanced" build would not come with a plethora of "get out of jail free" cards baked in the profession itself.

Why don't we list all the "burst" professions people ever complained about? - Chances are, they will all have great sustain and mobility in common, thx to which they can recover from any mistake.

The only build in this game that ever got close to true "skilled gameplay" is core fresh air ele : no stealth - no 1200 range teleports - no pets - no clones - no traps - no shroud - no perma boon uptime ....no gimmicks, just limited defensive capabilities, low sustain and the ability of the player to kite and position himself to perfection to avoid certain death ......and that's why core FA ele has never been meta

I don't see why things like : herald, holo, rangers sic'em and similar builds should be rewarded anyhow when these same builds are based on gimmicks and whatsnot, I am sure the OP is playing a build with a plethora of "easy way out" as typical of this game...but still comes here complaing about "too much sustain"

[Kuma.1503]

Instead of nerfing sustain again, we need to bring damage back up a tad and reduce the cooldown of #2 skills. Both of these changes were done to slow down the game, make choices more deliberate, but they went too far in their intended goal.

Lower weapon cooldowns, raise damage across the board. Bring damage back to heavily telegraphed CC skills like Executioner's slap, Prime light poke, drop the squeaker, big ol' fart, and backscratcher.

Each of these tweaks should have followed the feb patch.

We've need to stop trying to solve issues by nerfing what's directly in front of our face and instead ask how it got there in the first place.

[Kuma.1503]

@"Arheundel.6451" said:People don't complain about being killed....people complain about the source of the damage, nobody in his right mind would complain about being killed by a glass staff ele, a full trap power dragon hunter ( minus trap runes ), nobody would complain about burst builds if these so called "balanced" build would not come with a plethora of "get out of jail free" cards baked in the profession itself.

(Snipped to prevent post from getting too long)

Words like "skilless" "gimmick" and "cheese" get thrown around liberally. Each are so ill defined (or poorly used) that most people just slap them onto whatever build they dislike as a label, use it to justify why their death was undeserved, and demand that the build be nerfed.

Fact is, skill is less relevant in these discussions that most lead themselves to believe. Meta builds, by definition are going to offer a greater reward for a smaller amount of effort. Some, like engi, ele, mesmer, or rev, may have a higher barrier to entry due to a need to juggle multiple weapon sets, manage resources, execute fast combos, or attunement swap, but players will minimize these skills at any chance they get.

[Quick disclaimer: I will use holo as an example because it is a spec I am familiar with. What I say can apply to other meta builds. Past, present, or future.]

A good holo may be managing his heat in order to maintain high might stacks, juggling kits, utilizing combo fields, stow baiting, timing his forge deactivation to cleanse important condi, ect.

As the person getting beat by it, you're likely to see none of that, and instead focus on how he bursted you with Corona Burst into Nade barrage, then escaped the +1 with Elixir S and lived. Naturally, this hypothetical person gets frustrated, says it takes "no skill" to press those buttons in that sequence, says using Elixir S in the manner he did is "Cheese", throws around some other vaguely armchair dev-like statements and then posts a thread to complain about it.

Now, this hypothetical person is probably frustrated. His ego is a bit bruised, and ego, being the protective mechanism that it is, tries to shield the person from the loss. It convinces us that, not only was the build cheese, but that there was nothing they could have done. It tells us, "If that Holo plays properly, there is no world where I beat them, therefore the loss isn't my fault".

So he makes his forum post. Since the build in question is meta, therefore strong, people agree. It gets nerfed, People use the fact that it got nerfed to justify any biases they may have, and the cycle continues.

A build isn't unhealthy because it killed you and used it's defensive cooldowns intelligently to avoid death. We can call it "abusing get out of jail free cards", but what does that statement mean? It's loaded with negative conotations, but what does it mean when you strip away emotion, judgement, ego. What's really being described here is a player who executed his burst, got the kill, and managed to survive a +1 through proper use of defensive cooldowns.

[Tycura.1982]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:there was no follow up rebuff to the megapatch, all problems stem from this fact.

Just like returning damage to some CC based on performance the low damage is a baseline remember? This joke and more sponsored by our good buddy anet.

As if Anet could follow through with just about anything

[Jekkt.6045]

buff reactable burst. problem solved.

[Multicolorhipster.9751]

It's like playing with sock 'em boppers, only its way less fun than a pillow fight. :/

But hey, there's this quote by CMC that goes like: "Buffs in 2020 OMEGALUL"Since 2020 is ending, maybe this is no longer valid ?

[Grimjack.8130]

Sidenoders tend to run bunker for many reasons1 is you don't really miss your sidenoder being more impactful in teamfights recently2 if theyre not, they auto die to thief plus or even worse revenant plus3 the path of least resistance, if you cant die to the enemy player even tho theyre better than you, you're making yourself way more relevant4 bunkers recently havent been getting punished for being bad in 2v2s

that being said, alot of DPS sidenoders, typical bruiser ones are much closer to the meta than they were before now, if the balance patches keep coming it wont be long until we see Warrior, Ranger, Ele, and Engi all hopefully on equally footing.

[melandru.3876]

all "bunkers" are fine, just decap druid is bs

immobilizeimmobilizeimmobilizepoint blank shotimmobilizepoint blank shotimmobilize

i just give up the node, and take their close

[Onlyflameone.2136]

Guys im new but, think about what i'll say. Everything and every spec has counters. Like everysingle class has counter vs bunker/burst player/kiter etc. It is just you need to choose the right build vs the outcome. I have so many counters as warrior, now I changed to scourge and I often spec different builds vs different comps. If I find bunkers in my way, which many of you complain, i build with better sustain and MAINLY converting their boons to conditions (like boon is the main thing someone is strong in anyway, focus on removing boons - spec wise - and you are Okay) I've faced like total op builds in 2v2 and when I change to boon removing build - they just melt! So think about it. Players get strong not becouse of the build but for the benefits of the boon. One boon first gives bonus to something, second it makes player even stronger because when you have specific boon you get additional bonuses (2,3,4,5 from talents that benefit from the boon and add something more).

example:HE buffs with Fury (20% crit add), but he has talents where as long as he is having the boon up - he gets 20% dmg increase and has chance to heal on his crits)If you remove the boon you don't just remove the 20% crit chance but all other benefit the player gets from having the boon up (20% dmg increase and the chance to heal on crits)

SO remove a boon is First priority.

It's just i've learned that even tho something is stronger doesn't mean it's OP, just COUNTER it right.

[melandru.3876]

@Onlyflameone.2136 said:Guys im new but, think about what i'll say. Everything and every spec has counters. Like everysingle class has counter vs bunker/burst player/kiter etc. It is just you need to choose the right build vs the outcome. I have so many counters as warrior, now I changed to scourge and I often spec different builds vs different comps. If I find bunkers in my way, which many of you complain, i build with better sustain and MAINLY converting their boons to conditions (like boon is the main thing someone is strong in anyway, focus on removing boons - spec wise - and you are Okay) I've faced like total op builds in 2v2 and when I change to boon removing build - they just melt! So think about it. Players get strong not becouse of the build but for the benefits of the boon. One boon first gives bonus to something, second it makes player even strong because when you have specific boon you get additional bonuses (2,3,4,5 from talents that benefit from the boon and add something more).

SO remove a boon is First priority.

It's just i've learned that even tho something is stronger doesn't mean it's OP, just COUNTER it right.

you do know you're talking to some of the most experienced pvp'ers in here?allright say you face a healbreaker, what boons are you planning to corrupt? i'm most curious

[Onlyflameone.2136]

@melandru.3876 said:

@Onlyflameone.2136 said:Guys im new but, think about what i'll say. Everything and every spec has counters. Like everysingle class has counter vs bunker/burst player/kiter etc. It is just you need to choose the right build vs the outcome. I have so many counters as warrior, now I changed to scourge and I often spec different builds vs different comps. If I find bunkers in my way, which many of you complain, i build with better sustain and MAINLY converting their boons to conditions (like boon is the main thing someone is strong in anyway, focus on removing boons - spec wise - and you are Okay) I've faced like total op builds in 2v2 and when I change to boon removing build - they just melt! So think about it. Players get strong not becouse of the build but for the benefits of the boon. One boon first gives bonus to something, second it makes player even strong because when you have specific boon you get additional bonuses (2,3,4,5 from talents that benefit from the boon and add something more).

SO remove a boon is First priority.

It's just i've learned that even tho something is stronger doesn't mean it's OP, just COUNTER it right.

you do know you're talking to some of the most experienced pvp'ers in here?allright say you face a healbreaker, what boons are you planning to corrupt? i'm most curious

Well, I just share my experience, but if I must answer your question:Since he has many susstain + heal, Ill focus on boons removing build + poisons and chills (for reduced heal and reduced speed of abilities) also will build for more dmg to presure. So ill get more presure from my build and increased presure from chills and poisons (because those things I think I should counter - his heals and his recharge time)

[melandru.3876]

@Onlyflameone.2136 said:

@melandru.3876 said:

@Onlyflameone.2136 said:Guys im new but, think about what i'll say. Everything and every spec has counters. Like everysingle class has counter vs bunker/burst player/kiter etc. It is just you need to choose the right build vs the outcome. I have so many counters as warrior, now I changed to scourge and I often spec different builds vs different comps. If I find bunkers in my way, which many of you complain, i build with better sustain and MAINLY converting their boons to conditions (like boon is the main thing someone is strong in anyway, focus on removing boons - spec wise - and you are Okay) I've faced like total op builds in 2v2 and when I change to boon removing build - they just melt! So think about it. Players get strong not becouse of the build but for the benefits of the boon. One boon first gives bonus to something, second it makes player even strong because when you have specific boon you get additional bonuses (2,3,4,5 from talents that benefit from the boon and add something more).

SO remove a boon is First priority.

It's just i've learned that even tho something is stronger doesn't mean it's OP, just COUNTER it right.

you do know you're talking to some of the most experienced pvp'ers in here?allright say you face a healbreaker, what boons are you planning to corrupt? i'm most curious

Well, I just share my experience, but if I must answer your question:Since he has many susstain + heal, Ill focus on boons removing build + poisons and chills (for reduced heal and reduced speed of abilities) also will build for more dmg to presure. So ill get more presure from my build and increased presure from chills and poisons (because those things I think I should counter - his heals and his recharge time)

and none of this would properly work since the spellbreaker removes condis with about everything it does. and your aplications are more limited then histhere is a reason why scourge isn't really played anymore. even core necro is better then scourge.

[Onlyflameone.2136]

Well, I guess you are right, I am not that experienced here as you are. Hope Devs find a solution.

[Bazsi.2734]

@"Kuma.1503" said:Instead of nerfing sustain again, we need to bring damage back up a tad and reduce the cooldown of #2 skills. Both of these changes were done to slow down the game, make choices more deliberate, but they went too far in their intended goal.

Lower weapon cooldowns, raise damage across the board. Bring damage back to heavily telegraphed CC skills like Executioner's slap, Prime light poke, drop the squeaker, big ol' fart, and backscratcher.

Each of these tweaks should have followed the feb patch.

We've need to stop trying to solve issues by nerfing what's directly in front of our face and instead ask how it got there in the first place.

Both damage and sustain were so high that attrition style gameplay did not exist. You stacked vitality/thoughness (or both) to survive oneshots, not to deal with pressure.Damage was drasticly lowered in february, and then some. Oneshots are gone from competetive PvP, they are banished to unranked meme build status.Which was the purpose of the patch, good on A-net. However sustain bunkers are a thing now. You sit on the node(often with 1 another bunker buddy of yours), and you rotate through your defenses. It almost doesn't matter whats trying to attack you. As long as you move out of the most concentrated AoE-s and avoid getting 5v2-d, you can easily draw any fight out to eternity.Sustain is too high, period. The gamemode is about holding/contesting nodes, if any build can just sit on it, it's bad for the game. There should be an intricate dance of jumping on/off the capture point to hold, avoiding pressure, faking out bursts, coordinating spikes... not this braindead "lets just tank everything while we spam defensive rotation and heals" that most of my matches with plat 2+ players devolve into.

I'd propose to shift supports from raw healing towards damage mitigation. Of course every support could still heal some, but guardians could excel at spamming protection/aegis, necromancers could be the king of condition transfers, druids could mix healing with outgoing buffs/mightstacks etc.

The point would be that once you land damage, it matters. Currently the initial midfight 4v4 can go on for minutes. People dipping below 50%, just to get topped off seconds later. This shouldn't be a thing. Healthbars should generally go downwards.

[Kuma.1503]

@Bazsi.2734 said:

@"Kuma.1503" said:Instead of nerfing sustain again, we need to bring damage back up a tad and reduce the cooldown of #2 skills. Both of these changes were done to slow down the game, make choices more deliberate, but they went too far in their intended goal.

Lower weapon cooldowns, raise damage across the board. Bring damage back to heavily telegraphed CC skills like Executioner's slap, Prime light poke, drop the squeaker, big ol' fart, and backscratcher.

Each of these tweaks should have followed the feb patch.

We've need to stop trying to solve issues by nerfing what's directly in front of our face and instead ask how it got there in the first place.

Both damage and sustain were so high that attrition style gameplay did not exist. You stacked vitality/thoughness (or both) to survive oneshots, not to deal with pressure.Damage was drasticly lowered in february, and then some. Oneshots are gone from competetive PvP, they are banished to unranked meme build status.Which was the purpose of the patch, good on A-net. However sustain bunkers are a thing now. You sit on the node(often with 1 another bunker buddy of yours), and you rotate through your defenses. It almost doesn't matter whats trying to attack you. As long as you move out of the most concentrated AoE-s and avoid getting 5v2-d, you can easily draw any fight out to eternity.Sustain is too high, period. The gamemode is about holding/contesting nodes, if any build can just sit on it, it's bad for the game. There should be an intricate dance of jumping on/off the capture point to hold, avoiding pressure, faking out bursts, coordinating spikes... not this braindead "lets just tank everything while we spam defensive rotation and heals" that most of my matches with plat 2+ players devolve into.

I'd propose to shift supports from raw healing towards damage mitigation. Of course every support could still heal some, but guardians could excel at spamming protection/aegis, necromancers could be the king of condition transfers, druids could mix healing with outgoing buffs/mightstacks etc.

The point would be that once you land damage, it matters. Currently the initial midfight 4v4 can go on for minutes. People dipping below 50%, just to get topped off seconds later. This shouldn't be a thing. Healthbars should generally go downwards.

I acknowledged why the reduction in damage was done in my post. I didn't disagree with that decision. To reiterate what I said, the reduction in damage was done to slow down the pace of combat and make choices more deliberate. Fights pre-feb were generally decided on who landed their 100-0 first. It's good that you're forced to interact more with the class in front of you, outside of stacking evades, invulns and blocks up until the point that one of you runs out of defensive cooldowns and explodes.

But as I said, Anet went too far with reducing damage, increasing cooldowns, and nerfing damage on crowd control. Every time we reach a point where healthbars generally go downwards, people complain about the class(es) doing the damage. If every sustain decrease is met with an equal or greater damage decrease, the problem will never be fixed.

My solution was to awknowledge that, recognize a couple of pain points where damage can reasonably be brought up (Executioner's Scythe, for example, should relevant deal damage to low hp targets), pull back on the damage nerfs, and go from there.

I think Anet were on the right track, but they shot too far, and they need to tune things back up a tad.

[Bazsi.2734]

@Kuma.1503 said:

@Bazsi.2734 said:

@Kuma.1503 said:Instead of nerfing sustain again, we need to bring damage back up a tad and reduce the cooldown of #2 skills. Both of these changes were done to slow down the game, make choices more deliberate, but they went too far in their intended goal.

Lower weapon cooldowns, raise damage across the board. Bring damage back to heavily telegraphed CC skills like Executioner's slap, Prime light poke, drop the squeaker, big ol' fart, and backscratcher.

Each of these tweaks should have followed the feb patch.

We've need to stop trying to solve issues by nerfing what's directly in front of our face and instead ask how it got there in the first place.

Both damage and sustain were so high that attrition style gameplay did not exist. You stacked vitality/thoughness (or both) to survive oneshots, not to deal with pressure.Damage was drasticly lowered in february, and then some. Oneshots are gone from competetive PvP, they are banished to unranked meme build status.Which was the purpose of the patch, good on A-net. However sustain bunkers are a thing now. You sit on the node(often with 1 another bunker buddy of yours), and you rotate through your defenses. It almost doesn't matter whats trying to attack you. As long as you move out of the most concentrated AoE-s and avoid getting 5v2-d, you can easily draw any fight out to eternity.Sustain is too high, period. The gamemode is about holding/contesting nodes, if any build can just sit on it, it's bad for the game. There should be an intricate dance of jumping on/off the capture point to hold, avoiding pressure, faking out bursts, coordinating spikes... not this braindead "lets just tank everything while we spam defensive rotation and heals" that most of my matches with plat 2+ players devolve into.

I'd propose to shift supports from raw healing towards damage mitigation. Of course every support could still heal some, but guardians could excel at spamming protection/aegis, necromancers could be the king of condition transfers, druids could mix healing with outgoing buffs/mightstacks etc.

The point would be that once you land damage, it matters. Currently the initial midfight 4v4 can go on for minutes. People dipping below 50%, just to get topped off seconds later. This shouldn't be a thing. Healthbars should generally go downwards.

snipBut as I said, Anet went too far with reducing damage, increasing cooldowns, and nerfing damage on crowd control. Every time we reach a point where healthbars generally go downwards, people complain about the class(es) doing the damage. If every sustain decrease is met with an equal or greater damage decrease, the problem will never be fixed.

snip

The meta we had before was more like an FPS, it was more about predictions and reaction times. Fun, but not really what an MMO should be. So a-net started shifting it towards a different balance, where fights last longer, and lacking superior reaction times can be made up with good tactical decisions.

You need way lower damage, and even lower sustain to achive fights last a while but end with someone inevitably running or dying. The current sustain is too high for that. Ever time unranked matchmaking decides im the one fill up that last spot in a match with top 50 premades, I often spend the entire match rotating from fight to fight because we cannot kill anything. Sure healthbars go down, but whoever took my burst and went down to 40%-ish, gets covered in boons and healed back up to full in 2 seconds.You do not solve this problem by buffing damage back so I can 100-0 instead of 100-40. Neither will a partial revert achive anything, who cares if my target got healed back from 20% instead of 40%? He's back to full... same outcome.You solve it by not letting a target fully healing back after taking bursts like that. And that requires a radical cut to raw healing. One thing I liked about thief heals a few years back is how they healed almost nothing. You used Withdraw to evade something, not to actually heal yourself back up. Same with Hide in Shadows, it was mainly tool to maintain stealth... now it heals like double what it used to, just look at its version history.

So TL,DR: too much raw healing, too much CC. It would do the game good if we cut both in half.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Kuma.1503 said:Anet nerfed sustain. You need only look back to the last patch. Rev sustain nerfed. Cele amulet removed. Healbrand nerfed. Well before that, Anet hard nerfed Crev's sustain, hit tempest multiple times, doubled druid's avatar cooldown, deleted symbol monkey, deleted decap scrapper, nefed paladin amulet, deleted cavalier, knights, barbarian... the list goes on.

Safe to say, a lack of attention to sustain is not the issue here.

So why are bunkers so tanky?

Hard hitters like Renegade, Holo, and Prev, condi thief, ect. were keeping bunkers in check. We complained, got them nerfed.Some might Argue that DH is rising in popularity as an answer to said bunkers.

Guess what? We want DH nerfed too.

Does no one consider the long term consequences of the nerfs they ask for?

When you guys complained about these builds doing too much damage, what was you end goal?

Did you want fights against these classes to last longer? If so... well..., fights against these classes last longer. Bunkers can now heal through their dps provided they manage their resources correctly

I'm genuinely not trying to come off as condescending here, I'm curious.

Do you think the damage from builds like Holo/ Renegade was too high? Might it have been better to bring damage up to a similar level as these two classes? Because I must reiterate, sustain has gotten nerfed hard across several patches.

If we lower sustain again. Expect builds similar in power (relative to the meta) as Nade holo become to appear as a result. We're going to have to accept that and not complain when someone posts a screenshot of them being three-shot by a bread-n-butter burst combo.

.

SB, guardian, warrior and rev still have plenty of sustain. there's a lot of bots using troll ammys with full bunker builds to just last forever and do nothing. It's annoying. Because I get focused and then they finally die with 2 person pressure.