Xeon.5768 Posted May 19, 2021 Author Share Posted May 19, 2021 (edited) 6 hours ago, Armen.1483 said: While I think Sic Em nerf was needed, SLB definitely needs some passive trait to compensate the damage loss. Patch notes said that they are buffing the overall damage, but that compensation buff was so miniscule that it is not even worth mentioning. OWP nerf though was what triggers me the most. In fractals soulbeast is still performing quite well, ofc not broken as before, but still quite strong and funnily enough OWP nerf doesn't feel much in Fractal CMs, because of the phases. So if they wanted to nerf OWP in fractals, they failed, because OWP still does the exact same thing in fractals. Example: I was using OWP on prestack, 1st and 3rd phase on Skorvald before the patch and after the patch, with a good group you weren't able to cast it on phase 2 anyway, so cd nerf didn't affect it. Same goes to some other fractal bosses especially in CMs, you just change the time you use it. However it is quite a different story in raids, in raids you feel the difference quite well. Wasn't the nerf supposed to do the opposite ? I hope devs will find a solution in the next patch. If you don't like the high burst of soulbeast, it's fine, but give him some sustain damage. I agree with all you mentioned. As far as I tested, the 3% dmg increase in furious strength is so minimal that is not even worth mentioning. Similar to what you mentioned about OWP, I pointed out in an earlier reply under this thread, "For speedclear less than 30 sec the CD change of OWP doesn't really matter that much. Also for pug situations such as arts, or siax, either its 60 sec or 80 sec original CD would make OWP ready for phase 3, with no problem. For skorv, it is not an issue at all. And yes restoring the CD of OWP can help restore some dps, in raids or longer fights, but it is minimal to bring it up to other classes' level." During my recent runs, for example, with soulbeast I can still get 95k opener on mama, with one stack of bane signet shared by FB, 243 AR which means crit capped. But thats all you can do, top in the first 10 sec and stay botton during the rest fight. On mama fight especially with a fast group, the phase time is so little that you are not able to wait for another OWP. If your group is slower, you are able to use OWP again, but in this case, due to your low sustained dps, you will with no doubt be beaten by most other classes including but not limited to pwr reaper/pwr holo/pwr berserker/pwr DH/weaver (as long as they all know how to play at the high standard). Regarding skorv, yes as you mentioned, if the group is slow, you can use OWP every phase and you can top dps in that case most likely, as long as the defiance bar is broken fast. A simple example is attached here from a recent upload, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uIRw3WXTuQ, Just ignore the exceedingly strong scourge performance in CM100, but go to the CM98 99 portion and compare the soulbeast performance with the reaper. I know the soulbeast in the video is not performing perfectly well, but it is still a good demonstration. You can see reaper is particularly strong after the patch, both in burst and in sustain dps-wise. Reaper is particularly useful when you happen to have a bad group where boons are lacking, due to its self-capacbility to generate almost 25 might + quickness + crits. Now it is simply a good pick, similar to cFB in fractals. And yeah regarding raids, the nerf is quite obvious, especially in pugs where the phase time is longer than high end groups. The susained dps certainly makes soulbeast one of the bottom dps pick now. Any classes including the previous so-called weak-on-target reaper can outdps soulbeast in raids in a lot of situations. This is disappointing considering it loses all it has as a dps class, which is the burst window. Quite often for a long time pre-patch (when slb has 38k golem bench), many soulbeast players still cannot hit good number in raids because s/he just doesnt know when to time the burst window w.r.t. the specific boss and certain mechanics, leading to a very low overall dps in raids. That being said, in any longer phase, playing soulbeast is particularly difficult to get good numbers than other classes that output high consistent damage such as power holomish/power berserker/most condition classes. Now it loses its burst while the sustained dps is not buffed to the right level, it is just bad in that scenario Edited May 19, 2021 by Xeon.5768 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infusion.7149 Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 8 hours ago, Armen.1483 said: While I think Sic Em nerf was needed, SLB definitely needs some passive trait to compensate the damage loss. Patch notes said that they are buffing the overall damage, but that compensation buff was so miniscule that it is not even worth mentioning. OWP nerf though was what triggers me the most. In fractals soulbeast is still performing quite well, ofc not broken as before, but still quite strong and funnily enough OWP nerf doesn't feel much in Fractal CMs, because of the phases. So if they wanted to nerf OWP in fractals, they failed, because OWP still does the exact same thing in fractals. Example: I was using OWP on prestack, 1st and 3rd phase on Skorvald before the patch and after the patch, with a good group you weren't able to cast it on phase 2 anyway, so cd nerf didn't affect it. Same goes to some other fractal bosses especially in CMs, you just change the time you use it. However it is quite a different story in raids, in raids you feel the difference quite well. Wasn't the nerf supposed to do the opposite ? I hope devs will find a solution in the next patch. If you don't like the high burst of soulbeast, it's fine, but give him some sustain damage. They could increase sustained damage by reducing PvE cooldowns on skills that are already part of the standard power rotation or slightly increasing the damage on skills that have a ramp. Almost all damage skills are already split between modes. That combined with OWP revert (hence un-nerf for OWP) would bring it closer in line with their goal while reducing code complexity as well as helping out with impending Steam release because you would have less skills split between modes in more than just damage. Putting more cooldown on a burst oriented skill doesn't decrease burst it just means you burst less often... In the log for longbow soulbeast posted by LN recently after patch, OWP actually makes less damage than Path of Scars , which is a hard CC skill. Anyone who actually looks at this skill and doesn't say it is overnerfed is a ranger hater... Examples of changes that are possible: A change such as adding a stack of bleeding on dagger auto for example would increase condi soulbeast damage without having to do much else, but it isn't a positive change because it's unconditional. Double arc is a far more likely target along with Instinctive Engage which does not act as part of current condi rotation. None of the above is necessary if Furious Strength affected condis, which is my point above : the simplest change would be the best. For power, frost trap is a likely target because it makes up a significant part of the damage already and is a utility skill (i.e. you need to actually use it which is a tradeoff). Frost trap also happens to not see heavy use in competitive and the power soulbeast guide even states that it sometimes will not be ready. Slapping more modifiers on a class with one of the most modifiers (to the tune of +250 relative to what it is now...) is the most ridiculous suggestion especially when it has been nerfed in the past for that very reason. A merged bonus is even worse as it has no counterplay or real prerequisite unlike Furious Strength. In addition, in a prior patch they made longbow on par or higher than greatsword, which is asinine when you consider they nerf other classes for the specific reason that "melee should do more damage than range" (which is a reason why staff mirage is a shortsighted change and should be hit as well , as it does on par or better than axe while also spitting out boons). If you look at snowcrows' gear optimizer it actually has more damage gain from modifiers than an auto-attack heavy class such as power daredevil. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aymnad.9023 Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 (edited) I wanted to play it in raids before commenting about it but I went for all the strikes a few times last week and can say that the nerf is way too much for power builds. In strikes I expected to be “cheating” my dps with the special action but with food I am trying to catch up to a holosmith not using any. Power ranger is back among the lowest damage builds. I see some suggestions to keep on pushing the bonus to have a more smooth dps curve. I think I would rather have a stronger sicem but I do not expect any big changes. A small note about spotter which has seen a debate in this thread : a lot of professions are fine without spotter or do not need it. People were fine playing without a ranger in fractals before and I can see some comps playing without it in the future. Edited May 19, 2021 by aymnad.9023 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puck.3697 Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 30 minutes ago, aymnad.9023 said: I wanted to play it in raids before commenting about it but I went for all the strikes a few times last week and can say that the nerf is way too much for power builds. In strikes I expected to be “cheating” my dps with the special action but with food I am trying to catch up to a holosmith not using any. Power ranger is back among the lowest damage builds. I see some suggestions to keep on pushing the bonus to have a more smooth dps curve. I think I would rather have a stronger sicem but I do not expect any big changes. A small note about spotter which has seen a debate in this thread : a lot of professions are fine without spotter or do not need it. People were fine playing without a ranger in fractals before and I can see some comps playing without it in the future. tbh i doubt it will be that bad, we are basically on maintaince til EoD at this point.. and with the fact we dont know what EoD will bring Ranger i dont t hink this is a future problem depending on how our elite turns out. all power builds are underperforming to Condi based DPSers currently. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aymnad.9023 Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 38 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said: tbh i doubt it will be that bad, we are basically on maintaince til EoD at this point.. and with the fact we dont know what EoD will bring Ranger i dont t hink this is a future problem depending on how our elite turns out. all power builds are underperforming to Condi based DPSers currently. Well I am not expecting a power upgrade on any profession but I agree that condi will see some change especially professions with torment. I noticed the difference for the first time when I was doing some leg bounty run. Condi is a good choice for open World but the gap ended up being huge between the builds / professions. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puck.3697 Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 18 minutes ago, aymnad.9023 said: Well I am not expecting a power upgrade on any profession but I agree that condi will see some change especially professions with torment. I noticed the difference for the first time when I was doing some leg bounty run. Condi is a good choice for open World but the gap ended up being huge between the builds / professions. yeah as far as i can tell Condi Mirage Condi DE Condi Scourge and stuff is currently doing huge DPS.. im assuming we'll see another balance patch as they said they would prior EoD. i'd like to see all proffessions drop to 30-33k then see us buffed to 50k like the others.. its dangerous knowing the new elites in EoD Will likely be even higher in DPS 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xeon.5768 Posted May 19, 2021 Author Share Posted May 19, 2021 (edited) 2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said: They could increase sustained damage by reducing PvE cooldowns on skills that are already part of the standard power rotation or slightly increasing the damage on skills that have a ramp. Almost all damage skills are already split between modes. That combined with OWP revert (hence un-nerf for OWP) would bring it closer in line with their goal while reducing code complexity as well as helping out with impending Steam release because you would have less skills split between modes in more than just damage. Putting more cooldown on a burst oriented skill doesn't decrease burst it just means you burst less often... In the log for longbow soulbeast posted by LN recently after patch, OWP actually makes less damage than Path of Scars , which is a hard CC skill. Anyone who actually looks at this skill and doesn't say it is overnerfed is a ranger hater... Examples of changes that are possible: A change such as adding a stack of bleeding on dagger auto for example would increase condi soulbeast damage without having to do much else, but it isn't a positive change because it's unconditional. Double arc is a far more likely target along with Instinctive Engage which does not act as part of current condi rotation. None of the above is necessary if Furious Strength affected condis, which is my point above : the simplest change would be the best. For power, frost trap is a likely target because it makes up a significant part of the damage already and is a utility skill (i.e. you need to actually use it which is a tradeoff). Frost trap also happens to not see heavy use in competitive and the power soulbeast guide even states that it sometimes will not be ready. Slapping more modifiers on a class with one of the most modifiers (to the tune of +250 relative to what it is now...) is the most ridiculous suggestion especially when it has been nerfed in the past for that very reason. A merged bonus is even worse as it has no counterplay or real prerequisite unlike Furious Strength. In addition, in a prior patch they made longbow on par or higher than greatsword, which is asinine when you consider they nerf other classes for the specific reason that "melee should do more damage than range" (which is a reason why staff mirage is a shortsighted change and should be hit as well , as it does on par or better than axe while also spitting out boons). If you look at snowcrows' gear optimizer it actually has more damage gain from modifiers than an auto-attack heavy class such as power daredevil. "In the log for longbow soulbeast posted by LN recently after patch, OWP actually makes less damage than Path of Scars , which is a hard CC skill. Anyone who actually looks at this skill and doesn't say it is overnerfed is a ranger hater..." - Glad you are actually looking at the logs. I won't be surprised at this result when it comes to the sustained 4M golem curve. However, as multiple players already discussed, the CD change of the OWP does not affect that much in fractals, due to the phase present or players not pushing fast enough from phase to phase, but on the other hand affect much more in raids as reflected by the golem sustained dps benchmark, which seems very strange considering they strongly focus on reworking the fractal playstyle with the patch note. "Slapping more modifiers on a class with one of the most modifiers (to the tune of +250 relative to what it is now...) is the most ridiculous suggestion especially when it has been nerfed in the past for that very reason. A merged bonus is even worse as it has no counterplay or real prerequisite unlike Furious Strength." - I can't see how ridiculous the suggestion is. Maybe I should clarify it the +250 attribute increase should be limited to pve only (but the whole discussion is about pve so I think that clarification would be redundant). The increase in furious strength trait, or the addition of +250 merged pwr attribute to the soulbeast essentially does the same thing, which does not affect core ranger or any other things, because they are still tied to the soulbeast traitline. You are talking about stacking modifiers, but what is the difference between increase in furious strength (which is a direct damage modifier) and increase in merged power attributes (which is the direct base pwr)? These things will be multiplicative anyway and the key thing is to figure out how much should be added to the base pwr to balance it off (+250 is just a suggested estimate but the concept is obvious). Regarding the historic nerf on the power attribute (e.g. from 200 down to 150 last year), yes it did not weaken the burst potential at all, but at least it did not create any problems in sustained dps, compared to other classes. Again, even at that time with the extreme burst potential, soulbeast was still not top in any good/high end groups for almost all the contents, but more acting like the stance sharing and spirit sharing bot, and in this regard I could even claim that Sic Em should not be nerf-ed, if the sustained dps is not buffed to the right level (although I am okay with Sic Em nerf for the purpose of the patch goal). In response to a couple of your points from an earlier post, "Soulbeast already stacks modifiers heavily which is why the merged bonus was repeatedly nerfed in the first place." - Yes this is true. Stacking modifier feels sick especially when it comes to pew pew Sic Em OWP slb in wvw, more sick with norn transformation. In pve contents, what is the main problem of stacking modifiers if the ultimate sustained damage output is well controlled ? (e.g. pre patch 37k LB benchmark, 38k GS benchmark, comparative to most other bursty classes, such as pwr holosmith, and pwr weaver) Well it may create problems for extremely short fight, but in most situations you will not have a fight that only lasts for less than 10 sec. With the phase design we have in fractals and raids pre patch, soulbeast is not top dps most of the time. You may mention about theif or reaper at that time, which I never denied is underperforming. Then just balance the so-called meta DH/weaver/slb/bs/holo comp to an appropriate level, close to pwr DD and reaper. But the patch failed to do obviously. A follow-up response to your earlier claim on the comparison of soulbeast to banners berserker (instead of full dps berserker): - I think you missed one of the critical aspect which I thought you should've known before insisting on that comparison. The 34k pwr soulbeast post-patch benchmark by Lucky Noobs is done with "Oppressive Superiority" trait, not "LoTP" trait (as reflected by the log). This means when it comes to the real encounters where LoTP is taken, the sustained dps performance of slb will be even worse, making it actually a 32k ish build (Oppressive Superiority: 9.377%, 338559 dmg as shown by the log; OWP without LoTP = 6.572%; And you can do the simple math when LoTP is taken...). Now it is not "ground", but probably the "underground". Comparing the LoTP slb with power banners will only demosntrate the pwr slb is weaker than BS in this case. Your main claim in the earlier post that they still remember to "buff" the pwr slb in its sustained dps by "3%" seems a joke. Edited May 19, 2021 by Xeon.5768 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xeon.5768 Posted May 19, 2021 Author Share Posted May 19, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, aymnad.9023 said: I wanted to play it in raids before commenting about it but I went for all the strikes a few times last week and can say that the nerf is way too much for power builds. In strikes I expected to be “cheating” my dps with the special action but with food I am trying to catch up to a holosmith not using any. Power ranger is back among the lowest damage builds. I see some suggestions to keep on pushing the bonus to have a more smooth dps curve. I think I would rather have a stronger sicem but I do not expect any big changes. A small note about spotter which has seen a debate in this thread : a lot of professions are fine without spotter or do not need it. People were fine playing without a ranger in fractals before and I can see some comps playing without it in the future. "Power ranger is back among the lowest damage builds. I see some suggestions to keep on pushing the bonus to have a more smooth dps curve. I think I would rather have a stronger sicem but I do not expect any big changes." - I made a similar reply to "Follow-up to May 11th patch" thread. If making a flat and steady dps curve for all the classes is their ultimate goal, there is no fun and no stimulus to the pursuit of a speedy clear run, because at the end of the day, there will be no peaks or valleys in DPS curve and all it does is going from zero and plateau at 30-35k ish to the end of the fight. Edited May 19, 2021 by Xeon.5768 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infusion.7149 Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 29 minutes ago, Xeon.5768 said: "In the log for longbow soulbeast posted by LN recently after patch, OWP actually makes less damage than Path of Scars , which is a hard CC skill. Anyone who actually looks at this skill and doesn't say it is overnerfed is a ranger hater..." - Glad you are actually looking at the logs. I won't be surprised at this result when it comes to the sustained 4M golem curve. However, as multiple players already discussed, the CD change of the OWP does not affect that much in fractals, due to the phase present or players not pushing fast enough from phase to phase, but on the other hand affect much more in raids as reflected by the golem sustained dps benchmark, which seems very strange considering they strongly focus on reworking the fractal playstyle with the patch note. "Slapping more modifiers on a class with one of the most modifiers (to the tune of +250 relative to what it is now...) is the most ridiculous suggestion especially when it has been nerfed in the past for that very reason. A merged bonus is even worse as it has no counterplay or real prerequisite unlike Furious Strength." - I can't see how ridiculous the suggestion is. Maybe I should clarify it the +250 attribute increase should be limited to pve only (but the whole discussion is about pve so I think that clarification would be redundant). The increase in furious strength trait, or the addition of +250 merged pwr attribute to the soulbeast essentially does the same thing, which does not affect core ranger or any other things, because they are still tied to the soulbeast traitline. You are talking about stacking modifiers, but what is the difference between increase in furious strength (which is a direct damage modifier) and increase in merged power attributes (which is the direct base pwr)? These things will be multiplicative anyway and the key thing is to figure out how much should be added to the base pwr to balance it off (+250 is just a suggested estimate but the concept is obvious). Regarding the historic nerf on the power attribute (e.g. from 200 down to 150 last year), yes it did not weaken the burst potential at all, but at least it did not create any problems in sustained dps, compared to other classes. Again, even at that time with the extreme burst potential, soulbeast was still not top in any good/high end groups for almost all the contents, but more acting like the stance sharing and spirit sharing bot, and in this regard I could even claim that Sic Em should not be nerf-ed, if the sustained dps is not buffed to the right level (although I am okay with Sic Em nerf for the purpose of the patch goal). In response to a couple of your points from an earlier post, "Soulbeast already stacks modifiers heavily which is why the merged bonus was repeatedly nerfed in the first place." - Yes this is true. Stacking modifier feels sick especially when it comes to pew pew Sic Em OWP slb in wvw, more sick with norn transformation. In pve contents, what is the main problem of stacking modifiers if the ultimate sustained damage output is well controlled ? (e.g. pre patch 37k LB benchmark, 38k GS benchmark, comparative to most other bursty classes, such as pwr holosmith, and pwr weaver) Well it may create problems for extremely short fight, but in most situations you will not have a fight that only lasts for less than 10 sec. With the phase design we have in fractals and raids pre patch, soulbeast is not top dps most of the time. You may mention about theif or reaper at that time, which I never denied is underperforming. Then just balance the so-called meta DH/weaver/slb/bs/holo comp to an appropriate level, close to pwr DD and reaper. But the patch failed to do obviously. A follow-up response to your earlier claim on the comparison of soulbeast to banners berserker (instead of full dps berserker): - I think you missed one of the critical aspect which I thought you should've known before insisting on that comparison. The 34k pwr soulbeast post-patch benchmark by Lucky Noobs is done with "Oppressive Superiority" trait, not "LoTP" trait (as reflected by the log). This means when it comes to the real encounters where LoTP is taken, the sustained dps performance of slb will be even worse, making it actually a 32k ish build (Oppressive Superiority: 9.377%, 338559 dmg as shown by the log; OWP without LoTP = 6.572%; And you can do the simple math when LoTP is taken...). Now it is not "ground", but probably the "underground". Comparing the LoTP slb with power banners will only demosntrate the pwr slb is weaker than BS in this case. Your main claim in the earlier post that they still remember to "buff" the pwr slb in its sustained dps by "3%" seems a joke. It's funny that you say "it's good that I'm reading logs" and "it's good I'm looking at benchmarks". Are you serious? Do you really think I posted my first reply without any knowledge of these things? If you look at the log the burst is reduced from ~ 83K in the snowcrows longbow log to ~66K. What you're proposing would increase the burst again, which is counter to the original goal of the changes in the first place. All those classes you're hating on have less burst on their benchmark logs ; holo was nerfed in this patch (see heat bonus merged between modes) , weaver (the EoR power bonus) , BS (halved banner bonus and axe mastery among other things), and so was DH indirectly (not heavily). If you didn't notice any of this then you obviously skipped all the patchnotes straight to ranger. You should read my post again. I suggested that Furious strength affect condition damage as well as power damage. The rationale there is because they have done the same for renegade and necromancer in the same patch , and it would benefit condi soulbeast (making both hybrid and condi ~39K since they don't have many strong buffs to other classes) and slightly help sustained damage on dagger (which is mostly used in raid and CM fractals). Nowhere did I write "buff Furious strength's modifier" because it is a passive. Passive things in the game are generally not good at all (which is why we have 300s cooldown traits that are "nerfed into the ground" as you would put it) and soulbeast is one of the leading offenders , you literally get a bunch of modifiers that you don't need much to satisfy. Do you even know what the phrase into the ground means? It means dead & unusable. You are using overtuned specs consistently as a baseline which is why your reasoning is so flawed. Even using your own reasoning it is false, 32 instead of 38 = 15% loss not something extreme as say 40-50% , when in actuality because OWP is precast in fractals and speedclears that is meaningless that they use Oppressive Superiority if your balancing ideas are based off that. The logic is the same as the necromancer argument for years but even worse, just because their class has a few thousand less DPS on a golem. An actual positive change to affect sustained DPS would involve improving damage or cooldown on skills already used and not just slapping yet more modifiers onto a modifier heavy class which is the utmost laziest way to balance it. In addition the LN benchmark was with longbow, a ranged weapon. Arenanet has repeatedly stated they do not want ranged weapons to do more than melee weapons , which is also why sword holo wasn't hit as bad as PBM rifle holo in this patch. The +3% improvement to the passive Furious Strength is in line with what was done for holo in Glass Cannon trait, which is conditional on health rather than Fury. The bias is so strong here, almost as bad as the other above person wanting 50K benchmark for rangers (borderline delusional since everything over 45K is historically nerfed). It's blatantly obvious you're highly invested in buffing soulbeast because noone that multi-classes would use the argument "soulbeast is not top" even though most of the fractal speedclears were done with soulbeasts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armen.1483 Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said: If you look at snowcrows' gear optimizer it actually has more damage gain from modifiers than an auto-attack heavy class such as power daredevil. Actually that's a good idea too. If we get some autoattack chain buff on sword and greatsword it will be awesome, sustain damage goes up, burst stays the same, modifiers don't mess up the class and it is fine for the competitive. Greatsword SLB will be back ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infusion.7149 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 36 minutes ago, Armen.1483 said: Actually that's a good idea too. If we get some autoattack chain buff on sword and greatsword it will be awesome, sustain damage goes up, burst stays the same, modifiers don't mess up the class and it is fine for the competitive. Greatsword SLB will be back ! It's much better to reduce cooldowns on key skills in the rotation, buffing auto is similar to the staff mirage change (1 spam gameplay). It already has more added damage from modifiers than any other class. Frost trap recharge reduction for example would be incredibly innocuous due to the lack of use in competitive (also it's soft CC), plus the existing usage is already said not to always be "off cooldown" so it would make the usage cleaner. That's the same type of change that was enacted when people complained about reaper, they dropped cooldown on well of darkness and added damage to it. For fractals specifically the kick skill while merged with the Rock Gazelle could have added damage since there's no CC. If you reference the iDPS chart aka skill priority (https://discretize.eu/builds/ranger/power-soulbeast):Frost trap = ~7K Hunter's call (warhorn anyway) = ~5.2K Barrage = ~3.8K Worldly Impact = ~3.4K Path of Scars = ~3.2K Whirling Defense = ~3.2K Frenzied Attack = ~3.1K Maul = ~2.8K --- the DPS is lower even though the damage is large due to activation time Kick = ~ 2.3K Rapid fire = ~2.2K Most notably as I stated above double arc is extremely underwhelming in a non-condi or non-hybrid build. Greatsword doesn't really need help in any mode since Maul is on extremely low cooldown (plus the damage bonus) and even if you just auto on it the damage is exceeding other classes' auto save for Photon Forge / Reaper Shroud. Sword could use some improvement to make it better for power than dagger because nobody really runs Strider's Defense , though it really isn't bad and benchmarks for raids usually use dagger anyway. The other thing that needs to be considered is both sword and greatsword hit more targets than dagger so they are unlikely to be pushed higher. Damage splits already occur for competitive, that is a non-issue. Cooldowns and other effects being split is generally not good. A key thing to remember in all of this is a large part of the reason why condi is overperforming right now is the exposed changes. There's no guaranteed that won't be looked at and rebalanced which is why everything must be taken without that as a primary factor. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xeon.5768 Posted May 20, 2021 Author Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said: It's funny that you say "it's good that I'm reading logs" and "it's good I'm looking at benchmarks". Are you serious? Do you really think I posted my first reply without any knowledge of these things? If you look at the log the burst is reduced from ~ 83K in the snowcrows longbow log to ~66K. What you're proposing would increase the burst again, which is counter to the original goal of the changes in the first place. All those classes you're hating on have less burst on their benchmark logs ; holo was nerfed in this patch (see heat bonus merged between modes) , weaver (the EoR power bonus) , BS (halved banner bonus and axe mastery among other things), and so was DH indirectly (not heavily). If you didn't notice any of this then you obviously skipped all the patchnotes straight to ranger. You should read my post again. I suggested that Furious strength affect condition damage as well as power damage. The rationale there is because they have done the same for renegade and necromancer in the same patch , and it would benefit condi soulbeast (making both hybrid and condi ~39K since they don't have many strong buffs to other classes) and slightly help sustained damage on dagger (which is mostly used in raid and CM fractals). Nowhere did I write "buff Furious strength's modifier" because it is a passive. Passive things in the game are generally not good at all (which is why we have 300s cooldown traits that are "nerfed into the ground" as you would put it) and soulbeast is one of the leading offenders , you literally get a bunch of modifiers that you don't need much to satisfy. Do you even know what the phrase into the ground means? It means dead & unusable. You are using overtuned specs consistently as a baseline which is why your reasoning is so flawed. Even using your own reasoning it is false, 32 instead of 38 = 15% loss not something extreme as say 40-50% , when in actuality because OWP is precast in fractals and speedclears that is meaningless that they use Oppressive Superiority if your balancing ideas are based off that. The logic is the same as the necromancer argument for years but even worse, just because their class has a few thousand less DPS on a golem. An actual positive change to affect sustained DPS would involve improving damage or cooldown on skills already used and not just slapping yet more modifiers onto a modifier heavy class which is the utmost laziest way to balance it. In addition the LN benchmark was with longbow, a ranged weapon. Arenanet has repeatedly stated they do not want ranged weapons to do more than melee weapons , which is also why sword holo wasn't hit as bad as PBM rifle holo in this patch. The +3% improvement to the passive Furious Strength is in line with what was done for holo in Glass Cannon trait, which is conditional on health rather than Fury. The bias is so strong here, almost as bad as the other above person wanting 50K benchmark for rangers (borderline delusional since everything over 45K is historically nerfed). It's blatantly obvious you're highly invested in buffing soulbeast because noone that multi-classes would use the argument "soulbeast is not top" even though most of the fractal speedclears were done with soulbeasts. Well if you have the full knowledge of these logs and benchmarks, then you should've just pull all them out straight from your second post to support your points. I think now we can have some serious in-depth discussion regarding these numbers. -Holosmith is only nerfed from Laser’s Edge from 25% to 15%, "Laser Edge" While Photon Forge is active, your outgoing strike damage is increased based on your current heat. First bear in mind this is the dynamic range because the heat is changing. Second, there is a photon forge downtime if you are not running ECSU trait, which is the build most popular in raids and fractals. That being said, the nerf here is not quite significant because is only affects the active period of photon forge. During my test it certainly did not get affected as significant as soulbeast in KC, VG, or even in fractals like skorv and mama in terms of their opener. Needless to mention there is Bell version which can even make it more immune to a lot of changes regarding heat when it comes to sustained dmg, and yes this bug has not been fixed for years. -Weaver - "Elements of Rage: Strike damage bonus reduced from 10% to 5%. Increases condition damage by 5%." Do you mean the 5% dmg is massive or something? For example, I have tested this class on bosses like skorv, the only dps reduction as far as I found is mainly sourced from the nerf of the exposed state, not quite from the class specific trait nerf. -BS - The only two major things here are the Peak Performance and Axe Mastery nerf when it comes to the personal dps output in the burst window. And yeah sadly BS is also in my critics list, when it comes to fractals, which is just not listed here because this is under ranger thread. And yes you may argue the banners are nerf-ed, but that is the nerf to the party wide buff, while the sustained dps output is still maintained at the right level, as reflected by the post-patch golem benchmark. In comparison to the soulbeast dps nerf, this nerf is still considered incomparable. -DH - as you indicated, this class does not even receive a major nerf... some claim the scepter DH is dead, which I dont think is a major issue, given that it is the class that almost top dps in all the fractal CM bosses. If you argue on DH being bad in fractals, I can simply list a lot of videos here, either it is pug or high end groups. Some ppl are making jokes on "guardian wars 2" and there is a reason behind it... let alone the cfb has been busted for years... All of your comments in the 2nd paragraph still reflects your thoughts on me being biased on soulbeast. I think it would make you happier if Anet nerf another class listed above much harder in this patch and seeing me complain under another profession's thread. I never denied your suggestions on furious strength change regarding the condition bonus and I actually said it is good in my previous post. The only thing I am saying here is there is not much difference between increase the direct pwr attributes tied to soulbeast only, and the dmg increase by furious strength (instead of 10%, buff it to 15% so that class can pull 36.5k dps, close to other classes). Does this sound ridiculous? Your claim is that that 10% is fine and it is fine to keep the sustained dps for pwr slb at 34k, and 32k with LoTP, which I completed disagree. I have already explained over 5 times regarding that "ground". “Ground” does not mean unplayable, it means the bottom among all the dps classes. Secondly, why is the "37k LB" or "38k GS" benchmark overtuned prepatch? It is close to most of the other classes, only except reaper and thief... I would only call it at the good level, but certainly not overtuned, considering there are only quite a few bosses in raids that pwr slb can actually do good dps on. In fractals, it is never top as aforementioned. On the other hand, I am simply comparing soulbeast with other professions, post-patch, and it is clear that this class is now underperforming in its sustained dps. Can you read others reply and look at the actual benchmark if you don't agree the dip in soulbeast sustained dps is much higher than any other pwr builds after the patch note? "when in actuality because OWP is precast in fractals and speedclears that is meaningless that they use Oppressive Superiority if your balancing ideas are based off that." Do you actually know what is happening in a good/high end groups? Not all the soulbeast is selfish as you thought in that way... LoTP is taken most of the time because it is one of the biggest pwr buff ever in this game to your allies.... Same thing applies to the bane signet sharing of guards. 1st Edits: I would call one of the exception here is using corner strat at arts when you need soulbeast to reflect through whirle defense, you should run OS, instead of LoTP. However, a lot of good/high end groups run center strat which means no reflect and LoTP should still be taken. For other bosses, LoTP all the time. "The bias is so strong here, almost as bad as the other above person wanting 50K benchmark for rangers (borderline delusional since everything over 45K is historically nerfed). It's blatantly obvious you're highly invested in buffing soulbeast because noone that multi-classes would use the argument "soulbeast is not top" even though most of the fractal speedclears were done with soulbeasts." Again, I am calling them to increase the sustained dps to about 36.5 ish, or whatever value that is close to other professions. What made you reach the conclusion above? Can you please be specific? Do you mean the +250 pwr attributes or +5% furious strength would buff the current soulbeast benchmark from 34k to 45/50k? Well I am sure I don't need to instruct you maths here. 2nd edits, stolen from my post under other threads In response to "It's blatantly obvious you're highly invested in buffing soulbeast because noone that multi-classes would use the argument "soulbeast is not top" even though most of the fractal speedclears were done with soulbeasts." Looking into deeper, pwr slb is a meta class in fractals, similar to pwr Ren, is almost always used in every speed clear benchmarked by SC/DT members inside fractals. This is not only because slb has great personal burst potential with sic em and one wolf pack, but what’s really busted is the stance sharing through Leader of the Pack. Many of the speed kills are simply impossible if you decide to disable or reduce the effects of stance sharing (e.g. increasing the follow-up attack interval from 0.25 sec to 1 sec for allies), while still keeping sic em and one wolf pack for slb player as is. That being said, as Lizardguard suggested, it would make more sense to me to have a LIGHT touch on soulbeast's PERSONAL burst potential, while applying the nerf to stance sharing which slb grants to allies. This is the most effective way to prevent speed clear like 30 sec mama or 17 sec siax So did you get it? Yes nerf stance sharing and OWP strike interval or dmg, and the problems are solved... If they can do it to soulcleave by the patch, they can also do it to OWP lmao. It can not only reduce dmg bonus to allies, but also reduce slb's personal burst. Meanwhile, the high induvial burst potential prepatch is not unique to slb, but also to weaver, DH, holosmith, which can all get over 100k+ opener on skorv for example with some precasting. Sure, they nerf Sic Em, but the thing is the problem is not solved... There will still be speed clears like that and its just now soulbeast dps will be truly ground, losing to the ren potentially. Edited May 20, 2021 by Xeon.5768 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xeon.5768 Posted May 20, 2021 Author Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 41 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said: It's much better to reduce cooldowns on key skills in the rotation, buffing auto is similar to the staff mirage change (1 spam gameplay). It already has more added damage from modifiers than any other class. Frost trap recharge reduction for example would be incredibly innocuous due to the lack of use in competitive (also it's soft CC), plus the existing usage is already said not to always be "off cooldown" so it would make the usage cleaner. That's the same type of change that was enacted when people complained about reaper, they dropped cooldown on well of darkness and added damage to it. For fractals specifically the kick skill while merged with the Rock Gazelle could have added damage since there's no CC. If you reference the iDPS chart aka skill priority (https://discretize.eu/builds/ranger/power-soulbeast):Frost trap = ~7K Hunter's call (warhorn anyway) = ~5.2K Barrage = ~3.8K Worldly Impact = ~3.4K Path of Scars = ~3.2K Whirling Defense = ~3.2K Frenzied Attack = ~3.1K Maul = ~2.8K --- the DPS is lower even though the damage is large due to activation time Kick = ~ 2.3K Rapid fire = ~2.2K Most notably as I stated above double arc is extremely underwhelming in a non-condi or non-hybrid build. Greatsword doesn't really need help in any mode since Maul is on extremely low cooldown (plus the damage bonus) and even if you just auto on it the damage is exceeding other classes' auto save for Photon Forge / Reaper Shroud. Sword could use some improvement to make it better for power than dagger because nobody really runs Strider's Defense , though it really isn't bad and benchmarks for raids usually use dagger anyway. The other thing that needs to be considered is both sword and greatsword hit more targets than dagger so they are unlikely to be pushed higher. Damage splits already occur for competitive, that is a non-issue. Cooldowns and other effects being split is generally not good. A key thing to remember in all of this is a large part of the reason why condi is overperforming right now is the exposed changes. There's no guaranteed that won't be looked at and rebalanced which is why everything must be taken without that as a primary factor. I gotta admit I havent done maths regarding the impacts of reducing CD on its overall dps performance. Intuitively I just thought changing the CD of skills would affect the ultimate dmg output indirectly, and it requires more thinking in patch balancing, while applying a passive trait compensation seems ez to do, as long as it does not lead to an OP output. The list of this skill was provided by Elu, who has left this game last December, if I remember it correctly. I do agree reworking the CD of these skills will have an impact, but will have to wait to comment until they actually come up with something. Exposed changes are indeed the big factor, but the benchmark also shows most condition classes get buffed, except condi soulbeast. I am rly surprised about the fact that the goal of this patch is to favor condition based classes, then why did they leave condition soulbeast completely out of the box, given that this class was already underperforming pre-patch? You may once again say the change is due to the torment, which is true to some extent, until if you are looking at condi firebrand that relies on burning, it is also buffed. You may once again argue it is buffed because of the use of the new traitline virtue replacing the old zeal traitline. Well if Anet wants to encourge virtue traitline, why didn't they nerf zeal, instead of buffing virtue to make it 40k benchmark, irrespective of torment changes even? Another showcase of guardian wars 2? Idk... I think you can help Anet explain something here that soulbeast does not need a love 🙂 Edited May 20, 2021 by Xeon.5768 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinclair.3407 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 17 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said: That's exactly what I mean by bias. Lucky noobs' difficulty rating: condi scourge = 2/5 (2/5 on snowcrows) boon herald = 2/5 (1/5 on snowcrows) power reaper = 2/5 , in actuality with incoming damage life force is a problem (2/5 on snowcrows) pBS / power berserker = 2/5 (decapitate spam) yet you consider it harder cQB /cFB / HB = 2/5 ... should be even lower with mantra changes (2/5 on snowcrows) power DH = 2/5 (2/5 on snowcrows) power scrapper = 2/5 condi soulbeast = 2/5 <--- 2/5 on snowcrows too power soulbeast = 2/5 <--- 3/5 on snowcrows power alac = 2/5 (3/5 on snowcrows) power daredevil = 3/5 (3/5 on snowcrows) condi renegade = 3/5 (3/5 on snowcrows) power holo = 3/5 (2/5 on snowcrows) condi chrono = 3/5 (2/5 on snowcrows) cBS = 4/5 (2/5 on snowcrows) ... snowcrows is biased against cBS difficulty although there is a warning about alacrity condi axe mirage = 4/5 (3/5 on snowcrows) condi RR = 4/5 power chrono = 4/5 (2/5 on snowcrows) ... snowcrows is biased against chrono difficulty power weaver = 4/5 (3/5 on snowcrows with a warning label) power tempest = 4/5 (3/5 on snowcrows) condi holo = 5/5 condi weaver = 5/5 (4/5 on snowcrows with a warning label) condi StM chrono = 5/5 (2/5 on snowcrows lol) ... snowcrows is biased against chrono difficulty StM chrono = 5/5 (2/5 with boon duration warning label) Considering I play every class (including holo and power soulbeast) I don't see the point in defending necros. I only point out obvious anomalies. Even the site used by elementalist players to claim their class is weak shows a similar story. For your specific mentioned bosses, none of which I have ever seen class discrimination against soulbeasts for:https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/raid/kc KC median soulbeast = 16.6K , max 27K , upper quartile 20.7K ; with pre-patch median 22.7K and upper quartile = 25.8Khttps://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/raid/adina Adina median soulbeast = 10.67K , upper quartile = 12.2K , max 13K ; pre-patch median = 12.2K , upper quartile =14K , max = 18.88K https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/raid/dei Deimos doesn't seem to favor soulbeast in their dataset even with burst into unnatural signet, the dataset probably includes hand kite so I don't think it counts DPS right (2K for a DPS seems too low for non handkite). Excluding supports it shows 14K median Pre-patch soulbeast ~8K median , 17K upper quartile including supports while excluding supports it yields ~16.5K median and 21.6K upper quartile. Speaking of which, hand kite soulbeast is a non DPS role besides druid that is used in that fight which means 2 of 10 spots. --- There's a difference between asking for straight stat boost just for being alive versus skill cooldown reductions. While Furious Strength affecting condi makes sense since the patch's goal was to promote condi and it was done for both rev and necro traits, making it a larger stat boost is ill-advised because it just requires fury. Soulbeast already stacks modifiers heavily which is why the merged bonus was repeatedly nerfed in the first place. If current bench ungrinded is 35.9K , making the trait affect condi could push it to 39K (the log says 30K is condi). Because condi soulbeast doesn't provide spotter and only vulture stance + OWP that's a far more reasonable expectation. If you mean power soulbeast , the same drawback as banner warrior should exist where utilities need to do or add damage , which is why I think a slight adjustment to frost trap would be the best way to set apart one running full DPS versus bringing spirits or other utilities. Giving it free stats isn't the way to go , especially when OWP has far more usefulness in power oriented scenarios. ----------- @ Sinclair I meant that the stance sharing applies to Bear stance if you run into a condi instability , along with moa stance if you precast and the Vulture Stance you be running regardless. Stance sharing for bear stance is not that important especially the cfb has tome 2 skill 5. Having 4 firebrands should make sure you have no problems in cleanse, which is more true if one firebrand is willing to take opening passage in the presence of the condi instab. Moa stance is great as it allows dps classes to negate the usage of concentration equipment, making one c rr renegade able to maintain perma alacrity in sunqua CM, for example. I do wish they could buff soulbeast somehow, given all these unique buff it can bring to the party. Unless its dps really drag behind the party, I would personally not be interested in seeing a 4-5 firebrand comp blowing up in daily fractals, in contrast to the old meta comp which is much more diversified. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infusion.7149 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Xeon.5768 said: I gotta admit I havent done maths regarding the impacts of reducing CD on its overall dps performance. Intuitively I just thought changing the CD of skills would affect the ultimate dmg output indirectly, and it requires more thinking in patch balancing, while applying a passive trait compensation seems ez to do, as long as it does not lead to an OP output. The list of this skill was provided by Elu, who has left this game last December, if I remember it correctly. I do agree reworking the CD of these skills will have an impact, but will have to wait to comment until they actually come up with something. Exposed changes are indeed the big factor, but the benchmark also shows most condition classes get buffed, except condi soulbeast. I am rly surprised about the fact that the goal of this patch is to favor condition based classes, then why did they leave condition soulbeast completely out of the box, given that this class was already underperforming pre-patch? You may once again say the change is due to the torment, which is true to some extent, until if you are looking at condi firebrand that relies on burning, it is also buffed. You may once again argue it is buffed because of the use of the new traitline virtue replacing the old zeal traitline. Well if Anet wants to encourge virtue traitline, why didn't they nerf zeal, instead of buffing virtue to make it 40k benchmark, irrespective of torment changes even? Another showcase of guardian wars 2? Idk... I think you can help Anet explain something here that soulbeast does not need a love 🙂 Exactly my point, the 40K benchmark is from overbuffing virtues. You can't compare to an overbuffed class. In WvW and PvP permeating wrath was already very strong because you can consistently hit 3 targets and it has no ICD (internal cooldown). Eternal Armory and the Zeal line was hit for that exact reason, the symbols were proccing burning 2x faster. I expect an ICD (similar to the one on Ashes of the Just) or nerf incoming May 25 or sometime. CFB is busted because it bursts as hard as most power classes which is extremely bad for the game when you consider exposed change and it has aegis on mantra of solace which is on 12s untraited cooldown while it gives up nothing to take tomes in PVE. It also only needs to stat into burning duration so it has one less drawback compared to other condi classes. The reason why I know about the DPS of classes besides playing all classes is I reverse engineered Discretize and snowcrows' calculator a few years ago. I also maintain the skills update for the wiki for the past few years after people started slowing down on speed of updating it. Part of the reason why newer players do less DPS is because of stacking modifiers with conditionals. If you want to buff the average player and not top end abusing mechanics like precast OWP / Bane Signet / Ashes of the Just, you can cut cooldowns and increase damage on skills. One of the frequent posters here actually proposed capping the damage modifiers actually, it's that much of a problem. As far as the classes you highlighted: Holo is pretty much only taken for DPS (and some CC), so unless you want to nerf it for burst in terms of grenade barrage (people complain about in competitive too) specifically I don't see this getting hit further at all but it could happen. Nerfing this potentially introduces a new problem in that the DPS spec needs to outperform scrapper. Power weaver is highly dependent on others' boons and dies if you sneeze on it plus damage drops if small hitbox due to the AoEs. The elementalist forum is already full of complaints about weaver being weak, as such I doubt it will be adjusted. BS was ~33K prepatch per LN. Not sure how that is problematic? If you run banners you don't have utilities to burst with unless you consider Headbutt a burst skill? I wouldn't be surprised if it is cut but is it really as overpowering as you make it out to be? DH is far less of a problem than you make it. It is 33-35K unless you run virtues (which is contingent on not getting hit to keep up aegis) , surely you know that. In fractals because with Perfect Inscriptions you give up 25% crit chance : you need to make up for it with gear + potion. It used to be people stacked "Feel My Wrath", which is as bad as chrono stack with Time Warp if not worse. I suspect the reason why Sic Em was nerfed and not OWP internal cooldown is because of soulbeast stacking. As I stated in a Soulcleave Summit thread, reducing the number of times skills hit would have been better. P.S. The reason why both suggestions are not positive ones is the whole point of the patch is about nerfing burst. Putting more modifiers (which increases burst obviously) instead of using other methods (cooldowns or the skills themselves) to increase overall DPS is ill-advised. Edited May 20, 2021 by Infusion.7149 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinclair.3407 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 6 hours ago, aymnad.9023 said: I wanted to play it in raids before commenting about it but I went for all the strikes a few times last week and can say that the nerf is way too much for power builds. In strikes I expected to be “cheating” my dps with the special action but with food I am trying to catch up to a holosmith not using any. Power ranger is back among the lowest damage builds. I see some suggestions to keep on pushing the bonus to have a more smooth dps curve. I think I would rather have a stronger sicem but I do not expect any big changes. A small note about spotter which has seen a debate in this thread : a lot of professions are fine without spotter or do not need it. People were fine playing without a ranger in fractals before and I can see some comps playing without it in the future. Classes like power holosmith/reaper/DH do not need spotter. In fractals, crit chance can be increased by AR which means you can spend tons of gold getting +16 or even higher infusions to stack it to 100%. This is also why discretize recommends 200+ AR for most of the meta classes. Before the patch in fractals, soulbeast needed to run marksmanship, not skirmishing, because it cannot flank boss most of the time, unlike in raids. however, the negative change of the exposed buff makes it have less synergy with the trait "predator's onslaught", which may revert to the use of skirmishing which grants extra bonus to critical damage and extra ferocity (which are permanent buff and irrespective of exposed state, unlike "predator's onslaught" trait). Back to the point, fractal groups just don't need spotter, as long as they are willing to invest gold on infusions. Banners are still welcome because not only do they increase the power/condition damage attributes, but also the ferocity even though the precision may not be needed. Looking at ranger utilities and elite skill in terms of their benefits to the group, OWP stance sharing is the strongest with no doubt in a small burst window. Frost spirit is still quite strong to power-based class (5% is actually quite a lot that some players may not even realize). Sun sprit also has some extra bonus to condition-based class. Taking all these into account, it is just a matter of whether soulbeast will be nerfed to the point that its buff to the party will not be worth over having another dps class that drastically outshines soulbeast in dmg. In short, as long as the stance sharing is not nerfed (which is the case in these patch notes), soulbeast still has a spot in fractals. It is just not good in its personal dps output anymore. Edited May 20, 2021 by Sinclair.3407 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xeon.5768 Posted May 20, 2021 Author Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said: Exactly my point, the 40K benchmark is from overbuffing virtues. You can't compare to an overbuffed class. In WvW and PvP permeating wrath was already very strong because you can consistently hit 3 targets and it has no ICD (internal cooldown). Eternal Armory and the Zeal line was hit for that exact reason, the symbols were proccing burning 2x faster. I expect an ICD (similar to the one on Ashes of the Just) or nerf incoming May 25 or sometime. CFB is busted because it bursts as hard as most power classes which is extremely bad for the game when you consider exposed change and it has aegis on mantra of solace which is on 12s untraited cooldown while it gives up nothing to take tomes in PVE. It also only needs to stat into burning duration so it has one less drawback compared to other condi classes. The reason why I know about the DPS of classes besides playing all classes is I reverse engineered Discretize and snowcrows' calculator a few years ago. I also maintain the skills update for the wiki for the past few years after people started slowing down on speed of updating it. Part of the reason why newer players do less DPS is because of stacking modifiers with conditionals. If you want to buff the average player and not top end abusing mechanics like precast OWP / Bane Signet / Ashes of the Just, you can cut cooldowns and increase damage on skills. One of the frequent posters here actually proposed capping the damage modifiers actually, it's that much of a problem. As far as the classes you highlighted: Holo is pretty much only taken for DPS (and some CC), so unless you want to nerf it for burst in terms of grenade barrage (people complain about in competitive too) specifically I don't see this getting hit further at all but it could happen. Nerfing this potentially introduces a new problem in that the DPS spec needs to outperform scrapper. Power weaver is highly dependent on others' boons and dies if you sneeze on it plus damage drops if small hitbox due to the AoEs. The elementalist forum is already full of complaints about weaver being weak, as such I doubt it will be adjusted. DH is far less of a problem than you make it. It is 33-35K unless you run virtues (which is contingent on not getting hit to keep up aegis) , surely you know that. In fractals because with Perfect Inscriptions you give up 25% crit chance you need to make up for it with gear + potion. It used to be people stacked "Feel My Wrath", which is as bad as chrono stack with Time Warp if not worse. I suspect the reason why Sic Em was nerfed and not OWP internal cooldown is because of soulbeast stacking. As I stated in a Soulcleave Summit thread, reducing the number of times skills hit would have been better. Regarding the 1st paragraph, I understand all these facts you mentioned, similar to what I posted on "Follow-up to May 11th patch note" when they decided to rework the ashes of just ICD. If they eventually tone down fb, then we can have a further discussion in the near future. Damage modifier capping... I dont have comments on this until I can actually test it, but intuitively I dislike it because then you have a bottleneck that cannot be overcome. Regarding weaver, I think everyone who is playing weaver knows how dependent it is on the boons, and how squashy it can be in an actual encounters. In fractals, while these are indeed the problems in relatively bad pugs, they should not be big problems for any groups that have enough knowledge of the fight, (e.g. knowing how to upkeep boons, or when to grant aegis to block lethal one-shot attack, or stab for no skill interruption etc.). In raids, pwr weaver definitely deserves more love. And the patch certainly fails to address this. I never said DH is a big problem. I am just saying its performance on the actual encounter is quite surprising compared to its golem benchmark. Given its top performance in real fights, it is fine to me if it receives a 5-10% nerf, considering that this is a power-nerf-in-general patch note. With the nerf, DH's position in fractals will still be top tier, but will comply better with the overall patch balance goals (they even do it to weaver.... while still almost no touching guardians). You may argue in raids DH is not viable enough. Well, this is true, but you have an option to switch to cFB and some other traitline variants such as virtue for specific encounters. Second, not all the dps classes are acting like holosmith/chronomancer in raids, making there no need to switch toons at all as a dps class. There are so many other classes that are only good (not even meta) for only certain bosses. "In fractals because with Perfect Inscriptions you give up 25% crit chance you need to make up for it with gear + potion", This is true. As indicated by @Sinclair.3407, it is possible to achieve 100% crit chance with gold investment. I think this is not a big problem, considering firstly many other classes also need high AR for crit cap such as weaver/slb/bs, and secondly it can encourage the player engagement in this contents for longer time to ultimately reach optimized gears (like fractal title investments giving both dmg + loot bonus). P2W? maybe but general casual players may not even care about that 5-10% extra crit chance by the expensive infusions. Also it doesnt affect pve or wvw. Everyone agrees maintaining aegis is hard for most fights and running virtue is much stronger. However, it doesnt mean radiance is very bad. One simple example by Ryan just before the patch note, they are running radiance as shown by the log. Regarding the last paragraph, you are absolutely right that they worry about the modifiers stacking. But the thing is there are many ways to bring it down. Either way, it should address those burning-it-out speed clears according to their high-level goals, but the changes they made to soulbeast certainly failed to address it, with no touch on stance sharing, but instead made this class completely useless in its own dmg output. All these are facts I am talking about. Edited May 20, 2021 by Xeon.5768 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xeon.5768 Posted May 20, 2021 Author Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Sinclair.3407 said: Classes like power holosmith/reaper/DH do not need spotter. In fractals, crit chance can be increased by AR which means you can spend tons of gold getting +16 or even higher infusions to stack it to 100%. This is also why discretize recommends 200+ AR for most of the meta classes. Before the patch in fractals, soulbeast needed to run marksmanship, not skirmishing, because it cannot flank boss most of the time, unlike in raids. however, the negative change of the exposed buff makes it have less synergy with the trait "predator's onslaught", which may revert to the use of skirmishing which grants extra bonus to critical damage and extra ferocity (which are permanent buff and irrespective of exposed state, unlike "predator's onslaught" trait). Back to the point, fractal groups just don't need spotter, as long as they are willing to invest gold on infusions. Banners are still welcome because not only do they increase the power/condition damage attributes, but also the ferocity even though the precision may not be needed. Looking at ranger utilities and elite skill in terms of their benefits to the group, OWP stance sharing is the strongest with no doubt in a small burst window. Frost spirit is still quite strong to power-based class (5% is actually quite a lot that some players may not even realize). Sun sprit also has some extra bonus to condition-based class. Taking all these into account, it is just a matter of whether soulbeast will be nerfed to the point that its buff to the party will not be worth over having another dps class that drastically outshines soulbeast in dmg. In short, as long as the stance sharing is not nerfed (which is the case in these patch notes), soulbeast still has a spot in fractals. It is just not good in its personal dps output anymore. Regarding the 2nd paragraph, you raised a good point regarding the selection of skirmishing over marksmanship. Will have to test it out in some runs (previously marksmanship by default for most bosses in fractals). In response to "Taking all these into account, it is just a matter of whether soulbeast will be nerfed to the point that its buff to the party will not be worth over having another dps class that drastically outshines soulbeast in dmg. In short, as long as the stance sharing is not nerfed (which is the case in these patch notes), soulbeast still has a spot in fractals. It is just not good in its personal dps output anymore." - If it is nerf-ed close to that point but not reached, the position of pwr soulbeast will be the alacRen at the current state, providing stance sharing and sprit, while no longer being a dps-er. Edited May 20, 2021 by Xeon.5768 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infusion.7149 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) If outliers are nerfed , doesn't need much other than OWP revert and maybe frost trap cooldown cut at best. Here's a more recent bench with greatsword (35K.3) :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXmDbIdzvlI Peak burst is a bit less than longbow with higher sustained DPS. Compare that to less than two years ago when it was 33K.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YOclJpPas Edited May 20, 2021 by Infusion.7149 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinclair.3407 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said: If outliers are nerfed , doesn't need much other than OWP revert and maybe frost trap cooldown cut at best. Here's a more recent bench with greatsword (35K.3) :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXmDbIdzvlI Peak burst is a bit less than longbow with higher sustained DPS. Compare that to less than two years ago when it was 33K.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YOclJpPas What do you think are outliers in this case? For me it is hard to say, because for example if one says holosmith is an outlier (the class that has one of the highest burst potential now, while still having high sustained dmg), then should it get nerf-ed? Personally I think maybe but surely not significantly, because it will create other problems, like the one you yourself mentioned in an early post. What else? DH? No way. It will never get nerf-ed because it is 33k benchmark (although it does almost highest in many encounters). Pwr chrono? Certainly no, due to the nature of its dependence on multiple factors to hit high number, and its almost no use in fractals (btw, this is also very disappointing considering ppl not taking it for its low dps, but it actually has insane skip capability in many fractals...). Weaver? well big NOO! it only has about 50k peak (non-precasting case) on golem curve even pre-ptach. And the only way to play it in fractals to hit high burst number is by serious efforts in precasting and organization with your party. This is the prime example of a class that I kept calling being rewarding proportional to the efforts by the players. Also in fractals weaver outshined soulbeast most of the time mainly due to its high consistent dmg (and high consistent is what Anet like to see if I get it right). Idk what you mean by outliers? Not trying to be offensive, but I just don't know what it an obvious outlier to be nerfed in this case. The outlier on the opposite side is the soulbeast, the class being nerfed by a larger portion than other classes, by this patch. I checked this 35k GS benchmark late last night, from the log it has the highest peak of around 52k burst, which is certainly not on par with any other bursty classes such as DH or holosmith, while it has less sustained dps performance than most other classes still. That's why I kept saying it is in a bad position now, because it cannot compete with any bursty classes, nor can its sustained dps be on par with the classes that used to output steady dps (just talking about pwr classes, not any condi classes because we all know they are busted atm). Regarding the last paragraph, I wouldn't deny it got buffed in some historic patches, so did many other classes, depending on multiple factors. Just taking Sic Em and Twice as Vicious as an example, Sic Em May 08, 2018 Reduced the cooldown of this skill from 40 seconds to 35 seconds. April 30, 2013 Reduced cooldown from 60 seconds to 40 seconds Twice as Vicious February 25, 2020 Competitive content update: Increased the damage and condition damage bonuses granted by this trait from 5% to 10% in PvE only These buff are exactly on the opposite side of discouraging stack of modifiers, the way you like to call them, but at least I did not see a big problem of these in pve contents (in pvp or wvw they are problematic sometimes but they can totally separate the modifier among these modes, as they did for Sic Em for example, 25% for pvp wvw, 40% for pve, prepatch, although the stacking modifier problem still exists there in wvw), if the final dmg output is within a reasonable range in pve contents (e.g. pre-ptach soulbeast was popular in fractals for its stance sharing and spirit, but it was not top in almost anything in terms of its personal dps; in raids pre-patch soulbeast can be good for certain burst oriented bosses, but certainly not as viable as classes such as holosmith or dps warrior from a global perspective). I am sure you know that my main complaints are only associated with the May 11th patch, by which they created an unacceptable gap in dps between soulbeast and the other common dps classes, either burst wise (big gap w.r.t bursty classes) or sustained wise (medium gap w.r.t. high sustain classes). As a result, the class becomes a bottom dps pick for almost all encounters. You may argue it can still be used for stance sharing or spirit provider, well yeah but that still demonstrates its dps position being ruined. Edited May 20, 2021 by Sinclair.3407 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infusion.7149 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 47 minutes ago, Sinclair.3407 said: What do you think are outliers in this case? For me it is hard to say, because for example if one says holosmith is an outlier (the class that has one of the highest burst potential now, while still having high sustained dmg), then should it get nerf-ed? Personally I think maybe but surely not significantly, because it will create other problems, like the one you yourself mentioned in an early post. What else? DH? No way. It will never get nerf-ed because it is 33k benchmark (although it does almost highest in many encounters). Pwr chrono? Certainly no, due to the nature of its dependence on multiple factors to hit high number, and its almost no use in fractals (btw, this is also very disappointing considering ppl not taking it for its low dps, but it actually has insane skip capability in many fractals...). Weaver? well big NOO! it only has about 50k peak (non-precasting case) on golem curve even pre-ptach. And the only way to play it in fractals to hit high burst number is by serious efforts in precasting and organization with your party. This is the prime example of a class that I kept calling being rewarding proportional to the efforts by the players. Also in fractals weaver outshined soulbeast most of the time mainly due to its high consistent dmg (and high consistent is what Anet like to see if I get it right). Idk what you mean by outliers? Not trying to be offensive, but I just don't lnow what it an obvious outlier to be nerfed in this case. I checked this 35k GS benchmark late last night, from the log it has the highest peak of around 52k burst, which is certainly not on par with any other bursty classes such as DH or holosmith, while it has less sustained dps performance than most other classes still. That's why I kept saying it is in a bad position now, because it cannot compete with any bursty classes, nor can its sustained dps be on par with the classes that used to output steady dps (just talking about pwr classes, not any condi classes because we all know they are busted atm). Regarding the last paragraph, personally I never denied it got buffed in some historic patches, so did many other classes, depending on multiple factors. Just taking Sic Em and Twice as Vicious as an example, Sic Em May 08, 2018 Reduced the cooldown of this skill from 40 seconds to 35 seconds. April 30, 2013 Reduced cooldown from 60 seconds to 40 seconds Twice as Vicious February 25, 2020 Competitive content update: Increased the damage and condition damage bonuses granted by this trait from 5% to 10% in PvE only These buff are exactly on the opposite side of discouraging stack of modifiers, the way you like to call them, but at least I did not see a big problem of these in pve contents (in pvp or wvw they are problematic sometimes but they can totally separate the modifier among these modes, as they did for Sic Em for example, 25% for pvp wvw, 40% for pve, prepatch, although I know the stacking modifier problem still exists there in wvw for example), as long as the ultimate dmg output is within a reasonable range in pve contents (e.g. pre-ptach soulbeast was popular in fractals for its stance sharing and spirit, but it was not top in almost anything in terms of its personal dps; in raids pre-patch soulbeast can be good for certain burst oriented bosses, but certainly not as viable as classes such as holosmith or dps warrior from a global perspective). I am sure you know that my main complaints are only associated with the May 11th patch, by which they created an unacceptable gap in dps between soulbeast and the other common dps classes, either burst wise (big gap w.r.t bursty classes) or sustained wise (medium gap w.r.t. high sustain classes). As a result, the class becomes a bottom dps pick for almost all encounters. You may argue it can still be used for stance sharing or spirit provider, well yeah but that still demonstrates its dps position being ruined. They added that along with a holo buff in the 2020 competitive patch to make it go from 33K to 38K in 2020 , July 2020 was the last PVE change before the May 11 patch. The only thing that bursts harder than power longbow soulbeast that is power as well might be holosmith right now *, but it's really only one skill (grenade barrage) which is also claimed to be hard hitting by people in PVP as well. The same competitive patch buffed mesmer via Vicious Expression and it became so broken that it was nerfed the very next day (25% to 15% in PvE) ; for DH they lowered Big Game Hunter from 20% to 15%. Your point about Sic Em is contrary to what I was writing earlier. It isn't a passive and does nothing on its own , you need to use it to create an attack burst window , much like using spear of justice on DH , solar focusing lens on holo , or EoR on weaver. With the change to danger time chrono doesn't have much of a window anymore other than using shatter.* That is assuming the target already has the standard 10 conditions on it due to Modified Ammunition. Without that bonus you lose up to 20% (2% per condition) and without 25 vulnerability on the target you also lose up to 12.5% from Shaped Charge (similar to chrono's Fragility). Edited May 20, 2021 by Infusion.7149 add note on holo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinclair.3407 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said: Your point about Sic Em is contrary to what I was writing earlier. It isn't a passive and does nothing on its own , you need to use it to create an attack burst window , much like using spear of justice on DH , solar focusing lens on holo , or EoR on weaver. With the change to danger time chrono doesn't have much of a window anymore other than using shatter. Well yea this is true. I just meant the Sic Em is a big modifier, although not being passive. They nerf the non-passive modifier, while most problems are not yet solved that are created by stance sharing... while on the other side hitting this class very hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinclair.3407 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said: They added that along with a holo buff in the 2020 competitive patch to make it go from 33K to 38K in 2020 , July 2020 was the last PVE change before the May 11 patch. The only thing that bursts harder than power longbow soulbeast that is power as well might be holosmith right now, but it only one skill (grenade barrage) which is also claimed to be hard hitting by people in PVP as well. Speaking about pve only, personally I think that balance was necessary for holosmith. Before that patch, I just barely saw the usage of holosmith in fractals, especially with the famous meta comp discovered by discretize being weaver/slb/bs/fb/ren, being widely used in fractal clears (i.e. ppl constantly LF hb/dps/alac, sometimes with preference on slb/weaver/DH). I still remember I had one pug experience before that balance patch where a DH player was complaining about the holosmith player doing low dps, while I was speaking for the holosmith player who was actually doing what he could with what he had... While I do think 2020 patch may overbuff holosmith a bit, but it certainly helped holosmith's position in fractals as a dps class. In raids, holosmith is just a bit hard for me to describe its position. Its dps is very good on many encounters, it has much less dependence on other things to hit a good number, unlike virtue DH/pwr chrono/slb. However, at the same time, it is almost not top one for anything it does in organized groups (only except quite a few such as VG, as tested by Lucky Noobs). It is a definition of viable, but not best, in raids. However, in less organized pugs it can still be top one in many situations. If the nerf is to favor the general public groups, I think pwr holosmith deserves a nerf. It is just by how much. The condition variant of it is even harder to describe. It is good for multiple condi-oriented encounters, but the steep learning curve makes it not worth over taking other condi classes that can do similar or even better.... By steep I mean not only its long rotation, but also its connection with the heat management in the real encounters making fully mastering this build really hard. Lastly this may sound biased to you, but holosmith is not a simple DPS class from my view so personally I think it deserves high dmg (might not be highest) in PVE competitive contents given the efforts needed. Again, just my thoughts. Edit: Rifle holosmith benchmark after May 11th path is 36.4k, which if eventually found out to be pushed to the limit, would be appropriate to me Edited May 20, 2021 by Sinclair.3407 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinclair.3407 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said: They added that along with a holo buff in the 2020 competitive patch to make it go from 33K to 38K in 2020 , July 2020 was the last PVE change before the May 11 patch. The only thing that bursts harder than power longbow soulbeast that is power as well might be holosmith right now *, * That is assuming the target already has the standard 10 conditions on it due to Modified Ammunition. Without that bonus you lose up to 20% (2% per condition) and without 25 vulnerability on the target you also lose up to 12.5% from Shaped Charge (similar to chrono's Fragility). Yeah I understand that. This is also why holosmith is quite good in dmg sustain, because these dmg modifiers on conditions will be more effective to its overall dmg than the burst window if the phase is longer, as long as all the conditions are active. The converse is also true that if no or partial conditions are active, the performance of this class will be more negatively affected. Edit: In most 10 man raid encounters, maintaining a full set of conditions is not hard, including 25 vulnerability, even in less organized groups. In 5-man fractals, it depends on the classes in the party but I would say more than half of the time upkeeping these conditions is not an issue. Sometimes the vulnerability may not be at the full stacks, leading to a 5-10% ish dps loss, which is not a big issue to me given the high dmg sustainability this class has. Edited May 20, 2021 by Sinclair.3407 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infusion.7149 Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Sinclair.3407 said: Speaking about pve only, personally I think that balance was necessary for holosmith. Before that patch, I just barely saw the usage of holosmith in fractals, especially with the famous meta comp discovered by discretize being weaver/slb/bs/fb/ren, being widely used in fractal clears (i.e. ppl constantly LF hb/dps/alac, sometimes with preference on slb/weaver/DH). I still remember I had one pug experience before that balance patch where a DH player was complaining about the holosmith player doing low dps, while I was speaking for the holosmith player who was actually doing what he could with what he had... While I do think 2020 patch may overbuff holosmith a bit, but it certainly helped holosmith's position in fractals as a dps class. In raids, holosmith is just a bit hard for me to describe its position. Its dps is very good on many encounters, it has much less dependence on other things to hit a good number, unlike virtue DH/pwr chrono/slb. However, at the same time, it is almost not top one for anything it does in organized groups (only except quite a few such as VG, as tested by Lucky Noobs). It is a definition of viable, but not best, in raids. However, in less organized pugs it can still be top one in many situations. If the nerf is to favor the general public groups, I think pwr holosmith deserves a nerf. It is just by how much. The condition variant of it is even harder to describe. It is good for multiple condi-oriented encounters, but the steep learning curve makes it not worth over taking other condi classes that can do similar or even better.... By steep I mean not only its long rotation, but also its connection with the heat management in the real encounters making fully mastering this build really hard. Lastly this may sound biased to you, but holosmith is not a simple DPS class from my view so personally I think it deserves high dmg (might not be highest) in PVE competitive contents given the efforts needed. Again, just my thoughts. Edit: Rifle holosmith benchmark after May 11th path is 36.4k, which if eventually found out to be pushed to the limit, would be appropriate to me Well for one, grenade barrage is split 3 ways in the code base and on top of that people complain about it in every mode that isn't PVE (including grenade scrapper lol). It has 0.6 per grenade in PVE = 3.6 coefficient if you hit with all them, 0.5 in WvW while being 0.3 in PVP. If they merged WvW + PvE coefficient it would be better for their codebase and would only be a really minor nerf of 15% to a skill that only accounts for roughly 5% of the total damage but a great part of burst. That accounts for less than 300 DPS. Having a skill split 3 ways is incredibly bad if they intend to launch on Steam, it adds complexity for no reason at all. The Unscathed Contender gimmick on Virtues power guardians could be cut from 20 to 10-15% and it would drop it to ~37-38K as well, with no other changes, if deemed excessive. Touching other things that are not really the problem creates new issues. That's what I mean by adjusting outliers , since sustained DPS isn't anything amazing for holo in a real scenario which is why it was buffed last year (~33K to nearly 38K grinded but more like 37K-ish). This also applies to chronos, pre-patch I suggested only removing the 10% modifier on Danger Time or removing it because it benefits only people stacking them but doesn't really benefit solo chronos that much. Removing Danger Time + cutting Time Warp would have been enough. The average power DPS class before Feb 2020 patch was ~15K autoattacking in PVE (i.e. just damage modifiers) plus or minus 1K (~7%), with staff daredevil about 22K (nerfing this is pointless since no cooldowns only initiative plus it's a 35K DPS class pre May 11 patch). Power soulbeast was already ~19K before the Furious Strength boosts (+3%) in this last patch and the one in Feb 2020 that made the Twice as Vicious trait go up (+5%) as well. As far as this topic: Putting even more mods onto it (soulbeast) would make it an autoattack class like daredevil. If anyone is serious about buffing power soulbeast specifically, the suggestion should make the buff be about using skills (i.e. Frost Trap as I mentioned earlier). Arenanet has stated in the past they can only split things numerically (numbers such as cooldown, duration, radius, and damage coefficient) so as long as it is a damage modifier I am truly afraid of what is going to happen to competitive since it will be either so low that it is useless, have a 300 cooldown in competitive, or be broken beyond belief. Given the 37K hybrid benchmark and 35K power benchmark, I think it's safe to say a OWP revert and maybe Frost trap cooldown reduction so you can use it more often is a safer balancing method that also encourages people to do more than autoattack. Assuming the same combo is used as before, the net effect of reverting OWP alone is ~800 DPS if you use the new benchmark and ~1K-1.5K if you use old logs. Dropping Frost Trap from 30s to 25s base cooldown which is basically negligible for competitive would be easily ~500 DPS so you wouldn't need a skill split. If you played long enough you would know sometimes they put these huge changes in when small changes would be much better. Classes ping pong between overpowered and really weak and it becomes incredibly frustrating. It's literally the reason why I made some legendaries years ago. Edited May 20, 2021 by Infusion.7149 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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