Balancing

[Andwari.2978]

I am not a class balancing master mind, but i can see how balancing should work and how not.

It cant be that you can only play condi builds in pof raid environment, and including thce fact that it is rly hard to get viper trinkets outside of raids.

But back to the topic. Balancing should provide a pretty similar amount of dps (+/-5%) for all classes AND speccs, so condi soulbeast and power soulbeast should be even, or condi weaver and Power weaver etc, u get what i want to say.To provide build diversity it is necessary to provide equal numbers in the speccs we got.I can see the problems about having a lot of utility and be able to deal good damage. But this is a Job for the balance team, thats what they get payed for.Make utility necessary in pve endcontent. And fix dps gaps between core, hot and pof Specs and between condi an power between all of them.And at least, nerf gotl and druid dps buffs to make other healers viable.

[Dadnir.5038]

Well this is not how anet design the balancing between power and condi.

Anet look for a "burst" amount of dps when it come to power and expect it to be reach fast. As for condi they set up a high damage target which need to be achieved after some ramping up. That's the reason why on large health pool target condition perform better than power while on low health pool target it favor power.

Raids would most likely be better if there was variety in the boss encounters. So that some boss need you to endure for some time (forcing player to wear something else than full dps gear) or/and only had short window for the players to deal them some damage (greatly favouring power damage which are supposed to have no ramp up in damage).

What we need to keep in mind is that:

• power dps are meant to be 100m track athletes which achieve their greatest potential in short fights.
• condi dps are meant to be 3000m track athletes which achieve their greatest potential in long fights.

This mean that we should have neither any "burst" condi spec nor should we have any power spec that deal more dps than a condi spec on a long fight.

In a perfect world in gw2, all power dps spec would quickly achieve 28 to 30k dps while all condi dps spec would slowly ramp up to 33-35k dps. Obviously, all profession should also have support of equal value if it goes along with the dps.

[Andwari.2978]

Good point, hopefully anet ist reading this. Sometimes i feel like they are only playing their own game casualy.

[LeSavage.1359]

1.Its extremely easy to get viper trinkets outside of raids - living story s3. Took me whole 3 days to get 5 of them.2.if u think condi and power dmg should be equal then u have now idea how balance looks like.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Andwari.2978 said:I am not a class balancing master mind, but i can see how balancing should work and how not.

It cant be that you can only play condi builds in pof raid environment, and including thce fact that it is rly hard to get viper trinkets outside of raids.

I stoped reading right here. If you consider getting viper gear from Living World 3 maps hard (or long), you have no room in raids and should definately not be making any balance threads.

If you are going to enlighten people, take the time and at least fact check.

Here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_trinket

You are welcome.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

@Andwari.2978 said:Good point, hopefully anet ist reading this. Sometimes i feel like they are only playing their own game casualy.

I think you've solved the mystery!

But seriously. When Anet does balance, they do it PVP first, and PVE is at most an afterthought. This is because the impacts of balance issues in PVP have a major effect on gameplay, in that players are directly competing against each other and the most minor of advantages can determine victory. Even the hardcore content of PVE is tuned down in such a way that a group of nearly any composition can complete it. The meta group is more for convenience than anything else. Since players are cooperative, you never lose anything when another person shows up. It is a mental trap to put class expectations on teammates, since nobody is obligated to show up at all.

The calls for Anet to balance PVE is really a call for Anet to focus on balancing in the game mode where balance matters the least. Alongside of that, the balance requested focuses on raids, but a lot of players don't even do them. It sucks from the perspective of a PVE player, but from a cost-benefits perspective we're going to lose out.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Dadnir.5038 said:Well this is not how anet design the balancing between power and condi.

Anet look for a "burst" amount of dps when it come to power and expect it to be reach fast. As for condi they set up a high damage target which need to be achieved after some ramping up. That's the reason why on large health pool target condition perform better than power while on low health pool target it favor power.

Raids would most likely be better if there was variety in the boss encounters. So that some boss need you to endure for some time (forcing player to wear something else than full dps gear) or/and only had short window for the players to deal them some damage (greatly favouring power damage which are supposed to have no ramp up in damage).

What we need to keep in mind is that:

• power dps are meant to be 100m track athletes which achieve their greatest potential in short fights.
• condi dps are meant to be 3000m track athletes which achieve their greatest potential in long fights.

This mean that we should have neither any "burst" condi spec nor should we have any power spec that deal more dps than a condi spec on a long fight.

In a perfect world in gw2, all power dps spec would quickly achieve 28 to 30k dps while all condi dps spec would slowly ramp up to 33-35k dps. Obviously, all profession should also have support of equal value if it goes along with the dps.

The problem is that people are only looking at the drawbacks of condition damage and not the benefits. The idea that the balance team is consumed with that condi DPS should always be stronger due to ramp up is misguided and fails to take into account the benefits condi damage has. -

a.) it allows for set up and ticks passively, which is huge in GW2's active combat systemb.) even more importantly, it bypasses armor.

On average, condi damage should be slightly stronger, but it should depend on the target's passive defense to an extent, and power builds should outdamage condi builds vs glass players and low defense targets. That isn't the generally the case currently, and, due to this, condition removal and Resistance mechanics have become overly prolific - both players and mobs are overly reliant on them to deal with incoming condition damage.

It's a very obvious problem stemming from the very obvious conclusion that condi damage is overtuned and needs to be nerfed in numerous places. And that's not even getting into the imbalance in attribute dependencies power builds have compared to condition builds.

[CptAurellian.9537]

@Dadnir.5038 said:In a perfect world in gw2, all power dps spec would quickly achieve 28 to 30k dps while all condi dps spec would slowly ramp up to 33-35k dps. Obviously, all profession should also have support of equal value if it goes along with the dps.Too bad we don't have this perfect world, but a system in which condi ramp up takes 5-10 seconds plusminus a bit. If it took a minute, I'd say your suggestions are fair, but not with the current design.

[Dadnir.5038]

Condi damage is overtune like you say because condi burst exist. That's why I say that it should happen in a perfect world where every professions is well tuned to achieve the same efficiency with different professions "flavor". And it would be normal for condi to achieve greater dps on the long run with a long ramp up. The idea (utopist) is that power acieve it's dps instantly putting him at 30k instantly but it would take 7-8 second for a condi build to reach those 30k and 3 more seconds to reach max efficiency at 35k. Now you add encounter with bosses that are invulnerable and immun to condition for most of the fight except for short damage windows of 15 seconds that the players have to create and the game become balanced (PvE side). From a PvP standpoint, the dps potential is secondary, and a player that allow a 10 second ramp up from a condi build deserve to die as much as a player that stand still taking the beating of a power build.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Dadnir.5038 said:Condi damage is overtune like you say because condi burst exist. That's why I say that it should happen in a perfect world where every professions is well tuned to achieve the same efficiency with different professions "flavor". And it would be normal for condi to achieve greater dps on the long run with a long ramp up. The idea (utopist) is that power acieve it's dps instantly putting him at 30k instantly but it would take 7-8 second for a condi build to reach those 30k and 3 more seconds to reach max efficiency at 35k. Now you add encounter with bosses that are invulnerable and immun to condition for most of the fight except for short damage windows of 15 seconds that the players have to create and the game become balanced (PvE side). From a PvP standpoint, the dps potential is secondary, and a player that allow a 10 second ramp up from a condi build deserve to die as much as a player that stand still taking the beating of a power build.

This whole "condi burst" buzz thing is a red herring and a silly attempt at rationalizing the problem as something other than it what it actually is. Let's just drop this absurdity and call a spade a spade - condi damage is over-tuned and needs a more or less across-the-board nerf. This is plainly demonstrated by the fact that it typically outperforms power damage even against glass builds and low-armor mobs, when the whole purpose of physical damage is to exploit weak passive defense.

It should be about 10-15% stronger vs average defense targets, stronger vs high defense targets, and weaker than power against low defense targets. We don't need to overcomplicate the issue by acting like condi stacks shouldn't be able to be applied in rapid succession under the right circumstances.

[Swagg.9236]

Conditions should fill a role that isn't DPS, and each class' option pools need to be drastically culled (I'm talking like 60%+ skills and traits removed) if you really, truly want there to be any semblance of class balance. Right now, all of gw2's bloat and homogenized emphasis on DPS is preventing all classes from rising to equal footing.