the meta rn

[hmmz.4186]

I mean what can you do?

Edited May 20, 2021 by hmmz.4186

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

What kills me is that scourge being op will probably be justification for overnerfing it and leaving it to be trash for another couple of years. Necro always seems to have this problem where a bunch of reworks get pushed out infrequently, it buffs necro to a ridiculous degree then the reworks get reverted and leave necro as bad or worse off as it was before. It almost exclusively happens to necro. We were here with the reaper changes that left deathly chill grandmaster giving you a single bleed stack on chill, then again with spectrals, then again with wells, then again with signets.

 

Can we change our approach to balancing? Can we go class by class on suggested changes, have a discussion on them and have developers listen to the people who play with and against these classes before pushing the changes live? (And then, if they aren't good, can we have them removed?). 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

18 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

What kills me is that scourge being op will probably be justification for overnerfing it and leaving it to be trash for another couple of years. Necro always seems to have this problem where a bunch of reworks get pushed out infrequently, it buffs necro to a ridiculous degree then the reworks get reverted and leave necro as bad or worse off as it was before. It almost exclusively happens to necro. We were here with the reaper changes that left deathly chill grandmaster giving you a single bleed stack on chill, then again with spectrals, then again with wells, then again with signets.

 

Can we change our approach to balancing? Can we go class by class on suggested changes, have a discussion on them and have developers listen to the people who play with and against these classes before pushing the changes live? (And then, if they aren't good, can we have them removed?). 

 

Pff, No.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

I remember when the argument was that Healing Amulets was the issue, so we had that removed.

 

Quote

Can we change our approach to balancing? Can we go class by class on suggested changes, have a discussion on them and have developers listen to the people who play with and against these classes before pushing the changes live? (And then, if they aren't good, can we have them removed?). 

 

That's the thing thought right. that's what they've been doing...is listening to people who play these classes...esports level players, that believe they know what balance is when they have NO IDEA how it works in actuality.

 

Anyway, what is supposed to happen, is that as necromancers rise into the meta, you should start seeing teams of Deadeye Thieves in response that silence them...But well that's gonna depend on how good thief is and whether it has any builds to play that aren't suicide builds. Thief has been nerfed so hard, that most of the thief's ACTUALLY play necromancer now so...there's that. 

Edited May 20, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[aaron.7850]

making a necro right now, any easy build to try?

[Dahkeus.8243]

42 minutes ago, aaron.7850 said:

making a necro right now, any easy build to try?

Use the one on meta battle.  The blood support.  It’s tanks and just about everything is AoE with a short cd, so feel free to face roll.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

1 hour ago, aaron.7850 said:

making a necro right now, any easy build to try?

 

Right now you can actually use any option on Necro/Reaper/Scourge and not only will it be functional, but it will be strong.

[Virdo.1540]

13 hours ago, hmmz.4186 said:

I mean what can you do?

Hey, that enemy team looks like straight out of WvW (Zerg, groups, roaming)

[Guirssane.7082]

Lmao the nightmare comp

[Shao.7236]

On 5/20/2021 at 3:11 PM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

I remember when the argument was that Healing Amulets was the issue, so we had that removed.

 

 

That's the thing thought right. that's what they've been doing...is listening to people who play these classes...esports level players, that believe they know what balance is when they have NO IDEA how it works in actuality.

 

Anyway, what is supposed to happen, is that as necromancers rise into the meta, you should start seeing teams of Deadeye Thieves in response that silence them...But well that's gonna depend on how good thief is and whether it has any builds to play that aren't suicide builds. Thief has been nerfed so hard, that most of the thief's ACTUALLY play necromancer now so...there's that. 

Afaik all supports but Scourges are actually killable now.

 

Meanwhile they still get easy 2k and 5k barrier on demand "base" without any stats. The issue being that Life Force is normally consumed in Shroud and Shroud is not able to use any utility, there's compromises. Scourge can and have almost no compromises outside constant consumption of Life Force as sustain.

 

Just like Holosmith which should be locked out of something while in Forge to slow down the benefits a bit. Tools or Utility, preferably Tools. Stuff like Revenant and Elementalist often have to work their mind around casting things prior to switching utility to be efficient, even Engineer. Notice that Holosmith and Scourge just completely solves that at quite what seems like 0 cost in performance.

 

With the values so high, it puts no emphasis on picking in between sustain or damage because the starting numbers are already too high with all the damage reduction. Desert Shroud 5k barrier is something a support stats should earn, not berserker stats. Same goes for Sand Cascade, high amounts of Barrier from the very start. They should lower the values and if that's too much restore the old cooldowns to improve gameplay reactively rather than fat cheesing that isn't relative to the game state in damage.

 

I know for a fact that Barrier is also extremely strong with Weakness because that's how Jalis can tank optimally, if let alone with an average of 2k Barrier at risk while I can take quite a bit of punishment on Berserker Stats, just imagine what constant 2k every 12 seconds and 5k every 30 seconds on demand can do without any improvements do.

 

Scourge is in a position where most of it's stuff neglect the current reasoning the game is working with right now because most of it's value (while I can appreciate Anet for leaving it as is to see if it'll be bad or not.) are unchanged and shown to be too strong for the current output of damage, action should be taken by now.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

3 hours ago, Shao.7236 said:

Afaik all supports but Scourges are actually killable now.

 

There are no supports. Scourge in it's current form isn't a support...it never really was either...it took the removal of 10 amulets for people to figure this out though?

 

Edit: Sorry, Let me give you a better, less emotional response. Scourge has been nerfed over and over and over and over again and it still "overperforms."  But what most fail to realize is that overperformance is relative to the performance of all other builds that exist, that the "power level" is not static...in fact power level is itself not even real it's an illusion because it's relative.

 

So you can nerf scourge into obscurity...in fact it will probably happen eventually. But that doesn't mean the game will be balanced...just like how it hasn't been balanced for the past 6 years. There will always be some other build that scourge suppressed, which it no longer suppresses with it's removal that will become dominant. Removing options and nerfing things into obscurity do one thing...they remove the fun and diversity of the game and nothing more then that. Mathematically speaking it also makes the game less balanced.

 

Think of it this way. You have a Rock Paper Scissors game. remove Rock from this game, if you were to quantitatively give this game a rating for how unbalanced it now is, you would say it's 33% unbalanced. Now think of a Rock Paper Scissors game that has 100 elements (rocks, paper, scissors, hammer, nails etc...) Remove 1 element in this game and how unbalanced is it? 1% unbalanced. So the less elements there are, the removal of some element makes the game proportionally more unbalanced. So again the logic is that...removing builds and options don't make the game easier to balance, it makes it HARDER to balance. 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

47 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

There are no supports. Scourge in it's current form isn't a support...it never really was either...it took the removal of 10 amulets for people to figure this out though?

 

Edit: Sorry, Let me give you a better, less emotional response. Scourge has been nerfed over and over and over and over again and it still "overperforms."  But what most fail to realize is that overperformance is relative to the performance of all other builds that exist, that the "power level" is not static...in fact power level is itself not even real it's an illusion because it's relative.

 

So you can nerf scourge into obscurity...in fact it will probably happen eventually. But that doesn't mean the game will be balanced...just like how it hasn't been balanced for the past 6 years. There will always be some other build that scourge suppressed, which it no longer suppresses with it's removal that will become dominant. Removing options and nerfing things into obscurity do one thing...they remove the fun and diversity of the game and nothing more then that. Mathematically speaking it also makes the game less balanced.

 

Think of it this way. You have a Rock Paper Scissors game. remove Rock from this game, if you were to quantitatively give this game a rating for how unbalanced it now is, you would say it's 33% unbalanced. Now think of a Rock Paper Scissors game that has 100 elements (rocks, paper, scissors, hammer, nails etc...) Remove 1 element in this game and how unbalanced is it? 1% unbalanced. So the less elements there are, the removal of some element makes the game proportionally more unbalanced. So again the logic is that...removing builds and options don't make the game easier to balance, it makes it HARDER to balance. 

 

 

Except that scourge ie rock, it not only beats scissors and paper but it beats lizzard and Spock as well X)

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 minute ago, Crystal Paladin.3871 said:

Except that scourge ie rock, it not only beats scissors and paper but it beats lizzard and Spock as well X)

And it beats Lizard and Spock because Lizard and Spock don't do enough damage....and once you remove Rock, Scissors takes his place.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

On 5/21/2021 at 2:32 AM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

 

Right now you can actually use any option on Necro/Reaper/Scourge and not only will it be functional, but it will be strong.

Nerf Vampiric Aura.

[Shao.7236]

9 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

There are no supports. Scourge in it's current form isn't a support...it never really was either...it took the removal of 10 amulets for people to figure this out though?

 

Edit: Sorry, Let me give you a better, less emotional response. Scourge has been nerfed over and over and over and over again and it still "overperforms."  But what most fail to realize is that overperformance is relative to the performance of all other builds that exist, that the "power level" is not static...in fact power level is itself not even real it's an illusion because it's relative.

 

So you can nerf scourge into obscurity...in fact it will probably happen eventually. But that doesn't mean the game will be balanced...just like how it hasn't been balanced for the past 6 years. There will always be some other build that scourge suppressed, which it no longer suppresses with it's removal that will become dominant. Removing options and nerfing things into obscurity do one thing...they remove the fun and diversity of the game and nothing more then that. Mathematically speaking it also makes the game less balanced.

 

Think of it this way. You have a Rock Paper Scissors game. remove Rock from this game, if you were to quantitatively give this game a rating for how unbalanced it now is, you would say it's 33% unbalanced. Now think of a Rock Paper Scissors game that has 100 elements (rocks, paper, scissors, hammer, nails etc...) Remove 1 element in this game and how unbalanced is it? 1% unbalanced. So the less elements there are, the removal of some element makes the game proportionally more unbalanced. So again the logic is that...removing builds and options don't make the game easier to balance, it makes it HARDER to balance. 

 

 

Gonna cut it short, my suggestions have no intend to cut builds out of the game. The issues are glaring and obvious, the removal of amulets has had no impact other than making the game fun and bearable, comprehensible with options that in a structured environment make sense.

 

It's already hard to argue with anyone here since if anything that's op is brought down to a normal level, it's considered useless.

 

Support means giving teammates survivability. That's what anything called support does.

 

Scourge giving allies the ability to take more damage than usual is supportive. Giving the ability to survive dangerous scenarios is supportive.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 hours ago, Shao.7236 said:

Gonna cut it short, my suggestions have no intend to cut builds out of the game.

 

I mean i get you. It's, for the most part, never anyone's intent to remove builds from the game. The problem is that, this is exactly what happens when following certain balance philosophies (the one currently in operation by arenanet), and the reason it happens is strictly mathematical in nature. It has nothing to do with anyone's desires or personal beliefs, and that's the hard part for most people to wrap their head around.

 

Quote

The issues are glaring and obvious, the removal of amulets has had no impact other than making the game fun and bearable, comprehensible with options that in a structured environment make sense.

 

 A have a good -personal- example of showing that the case is completely opposite. I had a lot of necro boon-based builds called "Boon-mancing builds" that relied on boon amulets to work...well those amulets were removed once upon a time, and the rune durations cut so severely, that all those builds were essentially hard nerfed out of existence. That to me is not fun, nor did it make the game bearable, it made it less bearable, because i now had less off meta builds to use to counter meta-builds. 

 

Quote

It's already hard to argue with anyone here since if anything that's op is brought down to a normal level, it's considered useless.

 

The reason this is a hard argument is because this is a strawman, and trying to mount an attack with a strawman just derails the subject. It's not really the argument at all, at least with people like me. The argument is much much deeper and goes beyond individual changes, and is more about the fundamental balance philosophy and it's global effect over all the classes.

Edited May 23, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 hours ago, Shao.7236 said:

 

The best way to at least present the argument is using simple logic exercises.

 

Let's just say that for example, we continue to follow the philosophy of removing amulets as a way to solve balance problems. We can in practice follow this philosophy to the very end, in order to show a definitive logical conclusion about the consequences of the current balance philosophy.

 

The current meta has nothing but power builds...so let's just say that we want to introduce condition builds into the meta...how do we do that? Well it seems our only options in this logic experiment is to remove power amulets. So we can do that, and maybe we will get a healthy balance of condition builds into the meta.

 

So this is our list.

https://i.imgur.com/FFZ4ULu.png

 

Let's start with the most obvious, removing the Berserker builds.

https://i.imgur.com/Wtw7APV.png

 

Okay, most builds that were formerly berserkers will probably roll marauders and demolishers now...so let's remove those next.

https://i.imgur.com/pXmTZPD.png

 

So, we don't really have to go much further then this to see where this is heading,  but in removing essentially all the power amulets, we eliminated 3 of the 5 meta builds, while at the same time, we removed 16 good/great builds. So with good intentions, We eliminated more off meta builds then meta builds. On top of that, the ONLY builds that are left here are actually all condition builds, and so what do you think will become the meta? Well condition of course, but because we eliminated SO many off-meta builds by proxy of our logical operation, that's all the meta will be are these condition builds.

 

 

Extrapolate the logic here, and extend that logic to every single choice, and every single element in the game. By removing or nerfing  these elements, we are by proxy removing elements from off-meta builds too, without even realizing we are doing so, and inadvertently causing a shift of the meta into a new meta...a new dominance structure, rather then actually FIXING the balance, we just made it worse. 

 

 

[Shao.7236]

6 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

The reason this is a hard argument is because this is a strawman, and trying to mount an attack with a strawman just derails the subject. It's not really the argument at all, at least with people like me. The argument is much much deeper and goes beyond individual changes, and is more about the fundamental balance philosophy and it's global effect over all the classes.

It's not as hard or deep as it seems if the community is willing to accept that not everything can be "that" good in PvP because of the design alone, that's the quirk of GW2 anyway because smart plays can still make something laughably bad still good enough if not stupidly effective in unexpected situations. Because I say this doesn't mean it "can't" be good either.

 

Metabattle also is a bad example, not because it's metabattle, the curators have stated themselves that they want the least builds as possible on their site for the sake of what the name entails, meta. You can't have multiple meta solutions when one is supposed to dominate them all which we have clear tell sights with Scourge.

 

There could be several different builds in there, the popularity of their use defines if they'll be shown on the site or not and being in mAT is also another contributing factor to their display which just isolates the issue further with the mentality surrounding the game further.

 

I will never agree that removing Amulets is bad when the alternative solution is destroying a profession traits and skills that just have better scaling than others where as using a lesser solution evens out the odds for both. Minus Scourge glaring issues once again.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

5 hours ago, Shao.7236 said:

Metabattle also is a bad example, 

 

It doesn't matter whether I use meta-battle, Snowcrows...or whatever website you decide to choose. The consequence of the logic is mathematical in nature...it applies everywhere, without bias, which means the logic exercise isn't bound to me...you can do the logic exercise too, to confirm or refute the same conclusion, which if the logic is true, it will hold up.

 

The whole point of the exercise is to show how the power level is an illusion, that balance and diversity isn't attainable by simply removing or nerfing things from the system, because as you change one thing in this system, you are changing other things in the system by proxy. Because the system is hierarchical, you are always statistically removing more things from the lower rungs of the system then you are at peeling the top.

 

Here's another, more simple logic exercise...to illustrate the math that is going on here so you can get a better grasp at the reason why what you want to do, even with good intentions is impossible to do without it being detrimental.

 

You draw an upside-down tree like this, with forks in between branches, and you label each fork in this tree with a number.

https://i.imgur.com/40Cf6tU.png

 

This tree can represent just about anything that has hierarchical structure (a set of meta traits among a pool of traits, a set of meta skills among a pool of skills, a set of meta builds among a pool of builds....) but for now lets just think about it in terms of numbers. Take the numbers from this tree, and throw it into a hat, mix it up, and start pulling out numbers from the hat. Every time you pull out a number from the hat means you've changed/eliminated that number from the tree. so what is the probability that you will pick the number of the trunk, over one of the numbers at the leaves of the tree?

 

Statistically, you have a much higher chance of not picking the trunk, then picking the trunk.

 

Another example, try to remove one of the forks in this tree. You can see that removing (or changing) a branch effects all the branches below it. There is basically no operation you could do that gives you anything that isn't overall more detrimental then the intended operation. In other words, you are always going to kill more things by accident... and the only way to kill less things by accident, is to kill the lowest rungs of the tree....which is the opposite of what we want to do (we want to nerf the meta's not the off meta's!)

 

What you have to come to terms with, is that this is how this works on a mathematical level... that it's not something you can avoid, deny or reject...it just happens, and we have to come to terms with it, and develop different kinds of solutions to these problems now that we know more information about how they work. 

Edited May 23, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Kuma.1503]

Removing amulets was just about the worst way they could've done balance. The thing that kills me is that Anet knew what the end result would be. They knew removing them would kill off future builds and even some weaker existing builds before they had a chance to rise to relevance. This was by design. 

 

To give a recent example, they removed Marshal amulet because "something something 1000 healing power bad". Sure that might have helped prevent current day scourge from being as oppressive as it could have been, but it also killed off a lot of off-meta builds. 

 

For example, I had a water/arcane weaver build that ran double smouldering sigil, weaver amulet, and the barrier trait with a marshal amulet. It was extremely squishy due to it's inherently low hp pool, but it could compensate for that with massive barriers. It's low hp pool also meant that whatever sustain you had (and there was a lot of it) ended up going a long way. You could heal from 10% to 100% pretty easily. The pressure was also higher than you'd expect since you were rocking ~65% burn duration. You could still find kills if you landed gale > pyro vortex or if you could catch them with lava skin and primordial stance. 

 

What limited the build's effectiveness was how easy it was to burst down once you forced out its stunbreaks. It was an excellent counter some obnoxious condi builds on side nodes like crev and burn DH, and it could easily survive +1s from condi thief and condi mirage. 

 

That build was removed when they removed Marshal amulet. 

 

I don't understand how people can say "we have more diversity now that ever before" or "More builds can compete now than before". As someone who is constantly theroycrafting new builds for both myself and my friends, options have never been more limited than they are now. 

Edited May 23, 2021 by Kuma.1503

[Shao.7236]

1 hour ago, Kuma.1503 said:

That build was removed when they removed Marshal amulet. 

 

I don't understand how people can say "we have more diversity now that ever before" or "More builds can compete now than before". As someone who is constantly theroycrafting new builds for both myself and my friends, options have never been more limited than they are now. 

Yeah but you have Sage that can do the same except less obnoxious to fight which was the intend behind the removal. Less everything at once and more specializing to tip balance in favor of certain aspect to exhibit trade offs.

 

Your sustain isn't meant to be an eternal rotation thus vitality pool is increased to speed up the game in incentivizing less gonna heal back everything and be more I have this much left, what should I risk. Damage is more focused on because we want you to fight and not spin evades 24/7 while doing less damage, you'd argue that one build was lost because of this but the same playstyle can be achieved while it's not annoyingly toxic.

 

You ever fought a Diviner Renegade before the amulet was removed? Near permanent every boon with almost constant immunity to condition damage, even if that looks fun to me and you, that was extremely unfun to play against.

 

Making Damage matter more over Sustain is easier to balance and will allow Anet to spot what needs buffs or nerfs in traits/skill in the later days.

 

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684  Every positive actions have a negative reaction. It's basic stuff, still irrelevant to the situation when;

 

Constantly bringing us back at the surface level of things rather than properly argue the situation at hand in details is useless. The issues are obvious and easy to spot by simply visualizing player effort and access in the situation comparatively to others.

 

You haven't put causality in perspective either. From the very start devs can create flaws without you or them knowing, because of those flaws that you view as an ideal starting point are already broken and require attention, we live off a greater point of failure that will only make everything after it worst if we don't address that issue first.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 hour ago, Shao.7236 said:

 

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684  Every positive actions have a negative reaction. It's basic stuff, still irrelevant to the situation when;

 

This isn't wrong, but it's a huge oversimplification and it's a common mistake most people make... not everything can be so easily parsed into having perfectly balanced positive and negative symmetry. There are all kinds of symmetries, and some of those symmetries are one way processes. The logic exercises above are showcases of one way processes.

 

Quote

You haven't put causality in perspective either.

Causality (time) is funnily enough also a statistical one way process...and in fact it has to be a one way process in order to create a symmetry (the symmetry of conservation of the speed of light).

 

The trees above also have symmetry...a much more beautiful symmetry, something more common in the world...which is fractal symmetry, "scale invariance," In which every branch looks like a smaller version of the bigger tree... It has a bunch of other symmetries too that I won't mention, but one key property that it does have is that it is a one way process. 

Edited May 23, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Ragnar.4257]

1 hour ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

This isn't wrong, but it's a huge oversimplification and it's a common mistake most people make... not everything can be so easily parsed into having perfectly balanced positive and negative symmetry. There are all kinds of symmetries, and some of those symmetries are one way processes. The logic exercises above are showcases of one way processes.

 

Causality (time) is funnily enough also a statistical one way process...and in fact it has to be a one way process in order to create a symmetry (the symmetry of conservation of the speed of light).

 

The trees above also have symmetry...a much more beautiful symmetry, something more common in the world...which is fractal symmetry, "scale invariance," In which every branch looks like a smaller version of the bigger tree... It has a bunch of other symmetries too that I won't mention, but one key property that it does have is that it is a one way process. 

Here is an article that may help with conveying your point: Link

[Kuma.1503]

1 hour ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

This isn't wrong, but it's a huge oversimplification and it's a common mistake most people make... not everything can be so easily parsed into having perfectly balanced positive and negative symmetry. There are all kinds of symmetries, and some of those symmetries are one way processes. The logic exercises above are showcases of one way processes.

 

Causality (time) is funnily enough also a statistical one way process...and in fact it has to be a one way process in order to create a symmetry (the symmetry of conservation of the speed of light).

 

The trees above also have symmetry...a much more beautiful symmetry, something more common in the world...which is fractal symmetry, "scale invariance," In which every branch looks like a smaller version of the bigger tree... It has a bunch of other symmetries too that I won't mention, but one key property that it does have is that it is a one way process. 

Usually I'm able to follow along with your posts, and I generally agree with the points you make... but you lost me here. 

 

Perhaps you could reiterate in a way us smooth brains can understand?

[Kanto.2485]

2 hours ago, Shao.7236 said:

Yeah but you have Sage that can do the same except less obnoxious to fight which was the intend behind the removal. Less everything at once and more specializing to tip balance in favor of certain aspect to exhibit trade offs.

 

Your sustain isn't meant to be an eternal rotation thus vitality pool is increased to speed up the game in incentivizing less gonna heal back everything and be more I have this much left, what should I risk. Damage is more focused on because we want you to fight and not spin evades 24/7 while doing less damage, you'd argue that one build was lost because of this but the same playstyle can be achieved while it's not annoyingly toxic.

 

You ever fought a Diviner Renegade before the amulet was removed? Near permanent every boon with almost constant immunity to condition damage, even if that looks fun to me and you, that was extremely unfun to play against.

 

Making Damage matter more over Sustain is easier to balance and will allow Anet to spot what needs buffs or nerfs in traits/skill in the later days.

 

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684  Every positive actions have a negative reaction. It's basic stuff, still irrelevant to the situation when;

 

Constantly bringing us back at the surface level of things rather than properly argue the situation at hand in details is useless. The issues are obvious and easy to spot by simply visualizing player effort and access in the situation comparatively to others.

 

You haven't put causality in perspective either. From the very start devs can create flaws without you or them knowing, because of those flaws that you view as an ideal starting point are already broken and require attention, we live off a greater point of failure that will only make everything after it worst if we don't address that issue first.

The effect of removing mender (which was barely a support stat already given it had ++ power + precision) has been making scourge the only meta "support" as it hurt other support builds while having little to no impact on scourge (the extra pressure from avatar/sage might even be worth the loss in healing power, especially with the other supports' cleanses absent due to low usage). If anything i'd argue that a support build should be able to not die in 1v1 against MOST classes (with some exceptions to prevent bunkering, like, for example, condi rev which can kill a support guard overtime) and NOT be able to get solokills or dealing like 75% of the dmg of a dps while also supporting.

I did not see the game getting more fun, nor faster with the removal of amulets over the years, as of course amulets are but a complementary tool, especially now with such low scalings, but overperforming BUILDS have always been the problem (for example bunker mesmer in core, reaper and tempest in early HoT, then dardevil+portal chrono in every high level game in late HoT, SpB, firebrand and scourge in early PoF, then every thinkable rev build with scourge nerfed out of existance with the shade rework,  and now scourge again). This does not mean that the builds should be "removed" instead, but that it is traits and utilities that are overperforming that should be MODERATELY toned down, in order to preserve diversity. I do not mean that every single spec should be meta either, but what we are seeing these last years is discouraging to say the least, especially at high levels. the last two 2v2 games i played i had 4 scourges against me, and my teammates have been a core necro and a reaper (top 50-100 games), on top of that double scourge has been very common in 5v5 already.