Guild Wars 2

I recognize that the title may attract a number of people calling for buffs or nerfs, but that is not what I am going to discuss. What I perceive as a problem is the fact that there are two metrics that skills and traits are balanced around: optimal use and normal use. The problem is that so many traits and skills in this game are balanced solely around one, and not the other.

For example: of the new healing skills, Litany of Wrath and Defiant Stance were both balanced around average use. Under normal circumstances, these act as decent heals (perhaps a bit below average). However, under optimal conditions, they can fill the user’s health bar multiple times over.

Compare that to Signet of Vampirism. The Signet’s active is balanced around a minimum of five players (including the necro) all hitting the same target with no interruptions for 5 seconds, which is the optimal circumstance. Consequently, for anything less than that, it’s flat-out subpar to any other option (even antitoxin spray). Such a circumstance never arises in PvP or WvW where the signet even makes a difference; anybody goes down when being focused by 5 players for 5 seconds without avoiding attacks. In PvE, either the signet is worthless (solo roaming can never make full use of it) or it’s functioning under optimal circumstances (stack & smack bosses).

Now, I do come at this from primarily a necro standpoint, but even within the class, the philosophies are applied differently to different skills and traits. For example, Locust Swarm has the potential to completely fill a necro’s life force pool from 0 all on its own with no traits (2% per hit, up to kittens per pulse, 10 pulses). That’s a pretty potent effect, but the skill is balanced around average use (where it will fill 15-30%, depending on enemies present).

At the same time, however, we have traits such as Weakening Shroud, which was reworked in the Dec 10, 2013 patch. The Weakness duration on that trait was set based on +100% weakness duration and flashing Death Shroud with the Near to Death trait (as stated by John Chapman). It’s a potential circumstance, but this balance decision was made without regard to what flashing death shroud actually means, as it denies a necro their primary defense. In general, if you’re beating someone with flashing death shroud at every opportunity, you don’t need death shroud or any of the related traits to beat them. This balance decision was made by considering the optimal situation solely for the trait and not the implications of such a situation. This is another problem that crops up.

I have many more examples, and I am certain that the community has some of their own.

TLDR: If you are going to balance around average use, balance everything around average use. If you are going to balance around optimal use, balance everything around optimal use.

I’ve had this same beef with the balance changes for a long time. It’s the number one reason why Venom thiefs will never, ever work.

Sure some of the changes could be powerful in a very specific situation. But the fact of the matter is many of those situations rarely appear. And when they do, it’s with so little consistency that balancing around it is just downright silly.

I understand the Devs’ fear of players manipulating a particular set of parameters to achieve cheesy builds.

But I would argue the wiser choice would be either 1) implement a flippin’ public test server, or 2) make the change and watch it closely—allowing for the possibility that, should it become consistently OP, they’ll deal with it.

As much as I would like to see improved consistency with scenario considerations for balance changes, I’m not sure a strict methodology would work either. The potential problem I see is that different skills will have their optimal scenario occur more or less often than other skills. Additionally, I don’t think that all skills can be balanced only around the average or most typical scenario, because the other scenarios can and will happen sometimes.

Because of these issues, I think that balance considerations, if the methodology is to be consistent, would need to simultaneously consider all of the following: the normal/average usage scenario, the optimal/ideal usage scenario, the minimal/weakest usage scenario, and the likelihood of each scenario type relative to the others, and then to allow for exceptions in extreme cases where such a breakdown is less than useful. It might also not be a bad idea to try and balance around the normal/average usage as much as possible, and then implement floors and caps for skill effectiveness if it turns out that a skill is too powerful in optimal scenarios and/or too weak in minimal scenarios when it has been balanced around the average/normal usage.

So going back to your example of Locust Swarm for how this could potentially work… Right now the skill grants 2% Life Force per hit, strikes up to 5 targets per pulse, and lasts for 10 pulses, for up to 50 total strikes, and therefore up to 100% total Life Force gain. If the intended/balanced Life Force gain is based on a more average/normal/typical usage that results in closer to 30% Life Force gain (I’m just throwing out a number here for the purpose of making an example), then they could rework the skill so that the damage still works on the additional targets up to the maximum of 50 total strikes, but they could add a hard cap to the Life Force gain so that it cannot exceed, say, 50% (better than the average that it is balanced around, but not necessarily OP).

I also agree with Phenn that they need to be more willing to revert changes or make further changes when it turns out that what they have changed has worked out, in practice, to be either OP or UP. And one way to better know that, as Phenn again pointed out, would be to use a public test server so they can get a feel for how players will actually use something post-change and how that modified usage will affect the landscape.

You have a strong point with the likelihood of minimal and maximal situations. Hundred Blades is a good example, there. Its optimal situation is when your opponent is standing still so you can land the full channel. While it requires no skill in PvE to do that (most enemies just stand in place), in PvP scenarios, it is harder to pull off. Still, this optimal situation comes up much more often than people like to admit, with skills such as Throw Bolas, a mace or hammer stun, or even using Fear Me when you positioned yourself on the opposite side of your target from a wall. Because the optimal situation is easier to create, it needs to play a higher role in balancing the skill.

The issue is that so many skills and traits are balanced around solely their optimal circumstances with little regard to how common or simple those circumstances are to set up. For traits, I could mention all of a necro’s life siphoning traits. In a build with Vampiric Precision, Bloodthirst, and Vampiric Rituals, 50% crit chance, and Banshee’s Wail packing 4 wells, a single skill rotation (all 4 wells, plus Locust Swarm) can siphon up to 19,437 health on average. This is a ton of health, but outside of PvE, it will never work as it requires 5 enemies simply standing there in melee range, not blocking, dodging, blinding, or going invulnerable for 13 seconds. In realistic situations, the necro gets about 70 health per second from a dedicated siphon build, which is downright pitiful. Going for this also requires the necro to be in a very dangerous spot, as getting that kind of siphoning means he has 5 enemies breathing down his neck. The 1.5k health/second from that siphon burst cannot compare to the DPS of five melee enemies. This is an example of balancing purely around the optimal situation.