Guild Wars 2

sinject.4607:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

sinject.4607:

that being said, perplexity is a rune set that has been in the game for a long time now, so the usual reason you see gear not available in sPvP just doesn’t apply. in fact, I believe the devs have even publicly rejected the idea of including perplexity runes in sPvP when it was suggested.

Wrong. The Devs did want to add Perplexity to PvP. They felt it was balanced for the game mode.

However, the announcement drew tons of hate from players, and they decided against it. Keep in mind that they were to be added in the same patch that all of the runes got revamped, so players made that decision without context or experience.

without context or experience? what about what they did to wvw? or are you one of those people who try to completely separate wvw and pvp as if they’re separate games entirely?

however perplexity’s rejection happened, it happened. the runes are not in spvp and you will not find a single spvp player wishing otherwise.

the dev’s are not infallible, and obviously they themselves recognize this.

They didn’t have context because the players had no idea what most of the runes were going to be at the time. Perplexity was one of only 2 or 3 runes that had been spoiled at that point. The rest, we learned about on patch day.

Likewise, no players had experience with how the new Perplexity Runes would actually work out. How could they, when they hadn’t played with them?

The original time that Perplexity was going to be introduced to PvP was the same exact patch that completely overhauled runes and sigils as well as balance changes to the professions. If they were going to be introduced to PvP, say, two months later, then yes, there would be experience via WvW and context via knowing other runes that could have been used for better decisions. But we didn’t have that.

The decision to keep Perplexity out of PvP was made by the players’ kneejerk reactions. Whether this was a good or bad decision, we can debate all you like, but the reason why is a documented fact.

And you will find sPvP players wishing for Perplexity. They may be the minority (vocally), but they exist.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

sinject.4607:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

sinject.4607:

that being said, perplexity is a rune set that has been in the game for a long time now, so the usual reason you see gear not available in sPvP just doesn’t apply. in fact, I believe the devs have even publicly rejected the idea of including perplexity runes in sPvP when it was suggested.

Wrong. The Devs did want to add Perplexity to PvP. They felt it was balanced for the game mode.

However, the announcement drew tons of hate from players, and they decided against it. Keep in mind that they were to be added in the same patch that all of the runes got revamped, so players made that decision without context or experience.

without context or experience? what about what they did to wvw? or are you one of those people who try to completely separate wvw and pvp as if they’re separate games entirely?

however perplexity’s rejection happened, it happened. the runes are not in spvp and you will not find a single spvp player wishing otherwise.

the dev’s are not infallible, and obviously they themselves recognize this.

They didn’t have context because the players had no idea what most of the runes were going to be at the time. Perplexity was one of only 2 or 3 runes that had been spoiled at that point. The rest, we learned about on patch day.

Likewise, no players had experience with how the new Perplexity Runes would actually work out. How could they, when they hadn’t played with them?

The original time that Perplexity was going to be introduced to PvP was the same exact patch that completely overhauled runes and sigils as well as balance changes to the professions. If they were going to be introduced to PvP, say, two months later, then yes, there would be experience via WvW and context via knowing other runes that could have been used for better decisions. But we didn’t have that.

The decision to keep Perplexity out of PvP was made by the player’s kneejerk reactions. Whether this was a good or bad decision, we can debate all you like, but the reason why is a documented fact.

And you will find sPvP players wishing for Perplexity. They may be the minority, but they exist.

This is all 100% correct

My condi necro and his 900 fears which now interrupt would like perplexity runes

sinject.4607:

without context or experience? what about what they did to wvw? or are you one of those people who try to completely separate wvw and pvp as if they’re separate games entirely?

Well they are. There are specific forms of combat in both which are comparable (2v2 fights for example), but neither has similar victory conditions, hence neither has a similar overall strategy to it, and hence neither puts the same value on the same things.

Yes, they seem similar. Considering them equivalent for balancing purposes would be a huge fallacy OTOH, see Portal.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

sinject.4607:

that being said, perplexity is a rune set that has been in the game for a long time now, so the usual reason you see gear not available in sPvP just doesn’t apply. in fact, I believe the devs have even publicly rejected the idea of including perplexity runes in sPvP when it was suggested.

Wrong. The Devs did want to add Perplexity to PvP. They felt it was balanced for the game mode.

However, the announcement drew tons of hate from players, and they decided against it. Keep in mind that they were to be added in the same patch that all of the runes got revamped, so players made that decision without context or experience.

Yes, because it’s quite clear that the devs know so much more about balance in this game than the people who have experience playing through it.

Narkodx.1472:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

sinject.4607:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

sinject.4607:

that being said, perplexity is a rune set that has been in the game for a long time now, so the usual reason you see gear not available in sPvP just doesn’t apply. in fact, I believe the devs have even publicly rejected the idea of including perplexity runes in sPvP when it was suggested.

Wrong. The Devs did want to add Perplexity to PvP. They felt it was balanced for the game mode.

However, the announcement drew tons of hate from players, and they decided against it. Keep in mind that they were to be added in the same patch that all of the runes got revamped, so players made that decision without context or experience.

without context or experience? what about what they did to wvw? or are you one of those people who try to completely separate wvw and pvp as if they’re separate games entirely?

however perplexity’s rejection happened, it happened. the runes are not in spvp and you will not find a single spvp player wishing otherwise.

the dev’s are not infallible, and obviously they themselves recognize this.

They didn’t have context because the players had no idea what most of the runes were going to be at the time. Perplexity was one of only 2 or 3 runes that had been spoiled at that point. The rest, we learned about on patch day.

Likewise, no players had experience with how the new Perplexity Runes would actually work out. How could they, when they hadn’t played with them?

The original time that Perplexity was going to be introduced to PvP was the same exact patch that completely overhauled runes and sigils as well as balance changes to the professions. If they were going to be introduced to PvP, say, two months later, then yes, there would be experience via WvW and context via knowing other runes that could have been used for better decisions. But we didn’t have that.

The decision to keep Perplexity out of PvP was made by the player’s kneejerk reactions. Whether this was a good or bad decision, we can debate all you like, but the reason why is a documented fact.

And you will find sPvP players wishing for Perplexity. They may be the minority, but they exist.

This is all 100% correct

My condi necro and his 900 fears which now interrupt would like perplexity runes

Indeed I wouldn’t mind it in sPvP.

Got to love when folks think they are so special, that they can presume to speak for me, you, and the rest of the community. Particularly when they speak so incorrectly.

Black Box.9312:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

sinject.4607:

that being said, perplexity is a rune set that has been in the game for a long time now, so the usual reason you see gear not available in sPvP just doesn’t apply. in fact, I believe the devs have even publicly rejected the idea of including perplexity runes in sPvP when it was suggested.

Wrong. The Devs did want to add Perplexity to PvP. They felt it was balanced for the game mode.

However, the announcement drew tons of hate from players, and they decided against it. Keep in mind that they were to be added in the same patch that all of the runes got revamped, so players made that decision without context or experience.

Yes, because it’s quite clear that the devs know so much more about balance in this game than the people who have experience playing through it.

They do. They play it to.

Which people are we talking about? the same people who have made a thread for nearly every weapon skill, heal, utility, and elite, in which at some point or another, have deemed, and demanded, everything in this game “ridiculously OP” at some point or another?

No thanks. I will take the current team over the community for balance any day of the week.

coglin.1867:

They do. They play it to.

Which people are we talking about? the same people who have made a thread for nearly every weapon skill, heal, utility, and elite, in which at some point or another, have deemed, and demanded, everything in this game “ridiculously OP” at some point or another?

No thanks. I will take the current team over the community for balance any day of the week.

Obviously you don’t balance around the bad players that don’t know the game. You balance based on the knowledge of the interaction between classes during fights. The easiest way to obtain this knowledge in practical form is to observe high-skill play and listen to feedback from these players who know the game.

From what I’ve seen of Anet, they have not played their game enough to know it. Otherwise we would not be seeing condi mesmers in dungeon livestreams.

I would disagree. Without income, the game goes under. It would seem to me that the logical thing to do is balance to the largest demographic of player skill level. Unless they have evidence that the higher skill level players bring in the most money. To my knowledge, that is not the case, but I can only speculate as to what level of player brings in the most money.

Black Box.9312:

Obviously you don’t balance around the bad players that don’t know the game.

Yeah, this assumption is popular among players. It has a few key upsides, as it allows the following observations when you start from this assumption:

• “It’s no wonder the balance is so bad, the devs aren’t focusing on the highest-end players enough.”
• “I’m really good at this game. The game should be balanced for me, and balance should be made for the best, hence I am one of the best.”
• “Balance is easy to judge. As the highest-end players only play game mode X, and only in format Y, there’s no variance and all can be judged easily.”
• “You just have to look at the team compositions of the last tournament, was painfully obvious who is OP and who is UP.”

Only problem is: That’s how you get your company bankrupt, not how you balance your game.

What you actually want to do (speaking from work experience here, sorry :P ) is balance the game for your target audience.
If you make a game for a pro-gamer audience (say you’re making SC2 or DotA2), then you want to be in constant contact with your pro-gaming audience (since they’re small) and keep making adjustments based on their input.
On the other hand, if you’re making a game for a very broad-spectrum audience like Call of Duty or well, Guild Wars 2, then you need to actively develop for the non-perfect knowledge and skill of your target playerbase.

After all, a game not optimized for its intended user is bad either way. And no, “baddies” can’t just become “pros” randomly. Well they might, but long after you closed down the company after they all left out of frustration.

It also adds in GW2 terms that the people who play a lot and who optimize a lot are the ones who buy their gems for gold. Good to balance the ingame economy, but not as lucrative as the active but average players who more readily pay in cash. In a game like GW2 whales are of limited use (due to the offerings of the AH), so you need to keep your paying majority happy.

I guess Anet not putting Perplexity into sPvP is balancing for their target audience then.

Too bad WvW players are not the target audience.

Cygnus.6903:

I guess Anet not putting Perplexity into sPvP is balancing for their target audience then.

Too bad WvW players are not the target audience.

Yes, that’s something I never quite understood.
They have this weird obsession with balancing their game for a minority game mode that is often mechanically opposed to their majority game modes.

Causes all kinds of balance problems.

Perplex runes are actually pretty balanced at the moment imo.
What makes stuff unbalanced is the ********* +-40% condi duration food (which should not exist)

Tseikk.9032:

Perplex runes are actually pretty balanced at the moment imo.
What makes stuff unbalanced is the ********* +-40% condi duration food (which should not exist)

The food shouldn’t exist? Prove it? I see no justification for removing its existance or how it makes these runes OP in any way.

Carighan.6758:

Cygnus.6903:

I guess Anet not putting Perplexity into sPvP is balancing for their target audience then.

Too bad WvW players are not the target audience.

Yes, that’s something I never quite understood.
They have this weird obsession with balancing their game for a minority game mode that is often mechanically opposed to their majority game modes.

Causes all kinds of balance problems.

Seems to me like they balanced it correctly, any other configuration would screw up pvp way too much. By balancing it on pvp and giving pvers and wvwers more options the balance overall of wvw,pvp,pve isn’t horrible. Maybe for certain classes but not overall.

Carighan.6758:

Black Box.9312:

Obviously you don’t balance around the bad players that don’t know the game.

Yeah, this assumption is popular among players. It has a few key upsides, as it allows the following observations when you start from this assumption:

• “It’s no wonder the balance is so bad, the devs aren’t focusing on the highest-end players enough.”
• “I’m really good at this game. The game should be balanced for me, and balance should be made for the best, hence I am one of the best.”
• “Balance is easy to judge. As the highest-end players only play game mode X, and only in format Y, there’s no variance and all can be judged easily.”
• “You just have to look at the team compositions of the last tournament, was painfully obvious who is OP and who is UP.”

Only problem is: That’s how you get your company bankrupt, not how you balance your game.

What you actually want to do (speaking from work experience here, sorry :P ) is balance the game for your target audience.
If you make a game for a pro-gamer audience (say you’re making SC2 or DotA2), then you want to be in constant contact with your pro-gaming audience (since they’re small) and keep making adjustments based on their input.
On the other hand, if you’re making a game for a very broad-spectrum audience like Call of Duty or well, Guild Wars 2, then you need to actively develop for the non-perfect knowledge and skill of your target playerbase.

After all, a game not optimized for its intended user is bad either way. And no, “baddies” can’t just become “pros” randomly. Well they might, but long after you closed down the company after they all left out of frustration.

It also adds in GW2 terms that the people who play a lot and who optimize a lot are the ones who buy their gems for gold. Good to balance the ingame economy, but not as lucrative as the active but average players who more readily pay in cash. In a game like GW2 whales are of limited use (due to the offerings of the AH), so you need to keep your paying majority happy.

It really shouldn’t be asking too much to assume that a player will take the time to learn the game to be successful at it. If your game is balanced so that a low skill player can be just as successful as a high skill player, then there is no incentive to improve and people will resort to the easiest methods possible, because learning more difficult builds won’t be worthwhile when you can do just as well with much less effort.

Just take a look at small-scale WvW roaming battles. Condi PU mesmer and dire p/d thief builds are rampant because they can be incredibly successful with minimal effort. There’s just no reason to get invested into a game enough to work towards getting good at it when the skill ceiling is 6 inches from the floor.

Since before release it was always implied that WvW was not intended to be balanced.

Virtually everything is left in the game in one form or another mostly to either create a “jedi curve” or to just keep multiple options open to the players. (or if you wanna get cynical about it the “Illusion of choice” for those super meta savy)

Black Box.9312:

It really shouldn’t be asking too much to assume that a player will take the time to learn the game to be successful at it.

Most do.
Then they move from -10 to the -9 to 0 territory. They’re still far far far away from the top end. And for virtually all of them, they’ll never get there. For various reasons, lack of time, lack of physical ability, lack of mental acuity and most importantly, lack of drive. They don’t play these games to be a superb sPvPer at pro-gaming level.

That’s the playerbase you’re making the game for. You’re not creating a game for the 4 tPvP teams meeting in some event, you’re creating it for the average couple who gets home from work, hops on, gets on a voicecomm server and does Tequatl, maybe a dungeon, maybe some open world, maybe some WvW, maybe some sPvP, while chatting with guildies. Or doing it in chat, actually (part of why a too fast-paced game is bad for your sales, too).

Carighan.6758:

Black Box.9312:

It really shouldn’t be asking too much to assume that a player will take the time to learn the game to be successful at it.

Most do.
Then they move from -10 to the -9 to 0 territory. They’re still far far far away from the top end. And for virtually all of them, they’ll never get there. For various reasons, lack of time, lack of physical ability, lack of mental acuity and most importantly, lack of drive. They don’t play these games to be a superb sPvPer at pro-gaming level.

That’s the playerbase you’re making the game for. You’re not creating a game for the 4 tPvP teams meeting in some event, you’re creating it for the average couple who gets home from work, hops on, gets on a voicecomm server and does Tequatl, maybe a dungeon, maybe some open world, maybe some WvW, maybe some sPvP, while chatting with guildies. Or doing it in chat, actually (part of why a too fast-paced game is bad for your sales, too).

The two aren’t mutually exclusive. As a Dota 2 player, I find the game to be pretty nicely balanced as a whole, even though I have no chance of ever playing it at a professional level. Yeah, there are pub stomp heroes, but they only do well if they’re fed, which all comes down to players making mistakes, and not a fault in the game. A pub stomper will always lose to a team that knows how to play against one.

With this game, since things are balanced around the casual player, there’s no reason to play a difficult build if you can be just as successful with much less effort while running an easy build. The idea behind balancing around the competitive scene isn’t to make things too difficult for a casual player to be able to pick up; it’s about rewarding skill, strategy, and practice so that time spent improving yourself can pay off. It’s definitely possible to achieve this with a game that can be easy to learn, but difficult to master.

The MOBA comparison is an interesting one. MOBAs are not balanced on a freeform level.
They are balanced well (at least the bigger ones), but they have popular and unpopular characters for a reason and – most importantly – you are very much restricted in which team layouts make sense.

Expecting lots or all builds to be sensible in GW2 is akin to asking that all randomly picked combinations in of skill-ups in DotA2 should be competitive. Not going to happen, and, not actually intended to happen.
Likewise expecting all team setups to be balanced is aking to asking that all (108 5) combinations of characters in DotA2 should be competitive.

I’ll accept your nerf on perplexity runes the day my necromancer becomes wanted in PvE dungeon groups =)

Carighan.6758:

I assume you’re talking WvW?
Conditions are nigh-useless in WvW. Unlike sPvP where frequently people rely on their own condition cleansing, WvW allows to freely stack group cleansing together, allowing for very rapid and very reliable removal of any condition.

You can only use them against skirmishers, but then, what’s the point? You’re not going to make a large difference that way and any Warr/Engi able to utilize them well is needed on the frontline.

And if you roam, as always, you should instead start playing to win, not playing to lose. Roaming is equivalent to intentionally losing as someone else can just bring superior numbers, kill you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Doesn’t matter how classes, runes, skills or sigils are balanced, if you play roaming you shouldn’t care. That’s not what decides your fights.

1.) Large-scale cleansing is used in WvW on the basis that AOE condi bombs are too problematic to deal with as a zerg without taking those precautions. The reason why condition builds are “weak” in WvW zergs is not that the damage source is weak, but because it’s totally on the contrary; it’s so strong and the effects also posed by conditions can be so damaging that hard counters are necessary for large groups to succeed and sustain through fights. In fact, this has been the rationale behind nerfing a variety of AOE condition skills, such as Choking Gas, since one or two AOE condi placements could render a massive number of foes at a huge disadvantage.

2.) I’m sorry, but are you saying that roaming and havoc squads have no purpose in WvW? If that’ what you’re trying to imply, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Organized havoc and roaming squads focused on PPT/alternate objectives (and not kills like many are, however), can be argued as the most significant part of PPT gain/denial strategies on high tiers. A group of five can reliably flip any objective on a given map if it’s utilizing the main zerg as an attention-grabber for the opposition to prevent alternate-objetive capture. Tower maintenance significantly holds back pugs and makes re-caps on more difficult enemy objectives easier, and camp maintenance and flipping/yakslapping acts as one of the best long-term stalling tactics while narrowing disadvantages in PPT or making advantages even larger and contributing to the defense of larger objectives held by one’s server.

Good roaming actually defines a server’s success while the blobs are busy duking it out over main objectives. Usually these battles are extensive and slow-moving, making alternate-objective play the more significant source of PPT.

3.) Runes actually can decide fights. 10% damage on scholar runes on a burst build can either cause the target to live or die. Removing all conditions when using an elite can turn the tables entirely. Might-based runes allow for the incredible viability of tankier builds which need little offense to shell out huge numbers. In the case of perplexity runes, not all condition cleanses are treated equal, and not all classes have equal access to good cleansing while retaining the integrity of their desired build. Perplex runes are a cool idea and open doors, but this set in particular also shuts many as well, and makes certain classes and builds function overly-well. Granted, this has a lot to do with +/- condition food (both food types should be removed and then conditions as a whole could get looked into again), but it doesn’t necessarily justify the extensive power discrepancies between sets and the allowance of entire builds to be based upon them/be viable because of them.

I’ll say that the runes need some adjustments. Removal? I don’t think so. But I think the effects need some additional work to make them more suitable for all classes, or for those playing dedicated interrupt builds, but first I believe it necessary as mentioned to first remove condition duration food, rework some cleansing abilities, and then re-evaluate conditions in general in a sort-of-vacuum (with a change in mind to perplexity runes and some additional ones/effects) and create a healthier condition environment game-wide.

Sadly, none of that will likely happen, since gameplay overhauls and systems design for the sake of balancing seems to be something ANet prides themselves in avoiding.

They need to be removed. The end. Confusion is an extremely potent condition when used with a heavy condition damage build. Fighting a Perplexity Mesmer or Thief leaves you three options; 1) Fight back and kill yourself because of Confusion, 2) don’t fight back and get killed by your opponent or 3) run like hell. Yes there are other powerful conditions and yes there are cleanses. But being able to passively apply a condition that kills you if you fight back seems a bit ridiculous to me. That’s basically saying “hey, if you hit me you kill yourself and if you don’t I kill you. What’s it gonna be?” Cheesy builds, runes, sigils, what ever don’t bother me. I can deal with things that carry players but these runes are in a category of their own and seriously need to go…

I don’t see how Runes of perplexity are so OP in WvW when thieves can do 8-9k with autoattacks, rangers hitting 2k AA from 1500 range, warriors being able to hit for 12k every 7s, mesmers that can melt enemies with 12 stacks of torment and confusion, or nearly instakill them with a power shatter combo, engis that can reapply all conditions every few seconds, eles with perma 20 stacks of might…

WvW roaming is a strange game mode: You find very unbalanced builds, but a lot of people that think that anything that can deal damage is viable. In reality, very few builds are fully viable for roaming.
You need everything: damage, defense, condi cleansing, speed, ways to chase, ways to disengage… Don’t expect to be succesful if you don’t bring ACTIVE defenses to deals with both direct damage and condis (active condi cleansing).

Yes, it is a strong rune set, but I find it extremely easy to counter. Confusion is applied after interrupted no? So actively clean confusion and the rune set is shut down.
Engis mostly interrupt with the pull, thieves with pistol and venom and warriors with mace and shield. All of these are very intuitive interrupts, and someone with a bit of experience should always look his condis after these situations.
Necros and mesmers are more tricky, but firsts rely more on constant multi condi pressure rather than high stacks, 5-6 stacks of confusion is nothing when having burning, poison, weakness, bleedings, chill all together. For mesmers, Perplexity is only for troll builds who run slower than turtles, but overall, perplexity in mesmer is outperformed by a lot of other runes.

A whole different thing is those players who only know to mindlessly spam skills without thinking about if that could kill you.
It has been the problem with confusion since start. Hell they nerfed confusion damage at half, too much noob skill spammer that couldn’t understand how to counter incoming confusion. It seems a lot of people will never know how to play having confusion without letting enemies to put more pressure on you.

DeceiverX.8361:

1.) Large-scale cleansing is used in WvW on the basis that AOE condi bombs are too problematic to deal with as a zerg without taking those precautions. The reason why condition builds are “weak” in WvW zergs is not that the damage source is weak, but because it’s totally on the contrary; it’s so strong and the effects also posed by conditions can be so damaging that hard counters are necessary for large groups to succeed and sustain through fights. In fact, this has been the rationale behind nerfing a variety of AOE condition skills, such as Choking Gas, since one or two AOE condi placements could render a massive number of foes at a huge disadvantage.

That “Without countering it it’s so strong” is equivalent to saying that power damage kills you if you don’t block / dodge / evade it. Well, that’s a given.
If you’re not using counters, stuff is strong. Would be kinda wrong if it weren’t.

The problem is how the counters to conditions scale. Individually they’re weak, when combined they’re strong. That’s good in that it promotes MMO play, but it’s bad in that it is one half of the equation.
If everything else also stacked multiplicative to a similar degree, then fair enough. But then I don’t even want to imagine the cryfest on the forums if they’d do that.

DeceiverX.8361:

2.) I’m sorry, but are you saying that roaming and havoc squads have no purpose in WvW? If that’ what you’re trying to imply, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Organized havoc and roaming squads focused on PPT/alternate objectives (and not kills like many are, however), can be argued as the most significant part of PPT gain/denial strategies on high tiers. A group of five can reliably flip any objective on a given map if it’s utilizing the main zerg as an attention-grabber for the opposition to prevent alternate-objetive capture.

Organized groups are exactly how you roam2win, basically.
Single roamers are the free fodder which cause a short bump and then cry on the forums that whatever killed them is overpowered (even when the game is clearly not meant to be balanced in 1v1 combat, see: combo effects).

The question with that “groups are roamers”-attribution is this: When does sand become a pile? If you got a zerg of players, and you remove one, is it still a zerg? What if you remove one more? And one more?

Groups try to keep protection up because of rampant direct damage just as much as they worry about cleansing. Does that mean power/crit/ferocity runes and runes with direct damage modifiers need to be nerfed or removed? Based on the odd reasoning above, they should.

Can’t have your cake and eat it too.

@Carighan:
Mass cleanses are taken because there are hard counters in both the form of stats and healing effects and no negative status effects tied directly to physical damage, while there also remain boons for damage mitigation like protection and aegis.

Single players can be fodder, but they can also do great things. The number of keeps/towers/camps I’ve personally flipped alone has gotten me a lot of credit on my server as an individual playing for PPT. I’m not justifying solo-roaming, but it is not always meaningless and detrimental. Players who can take camps in 9 seconds are just as effective as some smaller groups, and can take more territory overall in a shorter period of time while not giving a trail towards the enemy zerg or allowing for a RI-removal chain throughout territory for the enemy to take advantage of.

@coglin:
Thing is, prot reduces incoming damage of every incoming attack, which usually conditions are tied to. Protection always negates damage over a long period of time no matter how little the hits are for.

With cleansing and conditions, it’s the opposite; long-duration effects are negated by only quick bursts of cleanses which need to be cleansed only by mass cleansing due to their potency/spammability. It’s the effects such as weakness/vuln/cripple/immob that make conditions particularly deadly in zergs and why they’re taken to begin with.

Perplex doesn’t synergize, though, like say, Scholar runes. It simply defines builds.

DeceiverX.8361:

Perplex doesn’t synergize, though, like say, Scholar runes. It simply defines builds.

Does it? Necros, Engies, Rangers, and Mesmers can swap out Perplexity runes for pretty much any other condition rune set and not change a thing otherwise (not even playstyle). Thieves take a pistol offhand on a weapon set, but otherwise don’t change anything. Only on Warriors does it actually change the build entirely, and Perplexity Warriors have drastically fallen out of favor because, frankly, they have only the runes and nothing else. Perplexity runes are not strong enough to carry a build on their own.

Eles I don’t really know what their condition builds are like and Guardians never use Perplexity anyway due to lousy condition builds and very few interrupts.

No. The runes do not define builds, in my opinion. The problem as I see it, is that some folks state it as if it were fact over and ever, they seem to think they can convert their opinion into fact in others perception. I do not feel the runes are particularly strong compared to some of the other options.

Necrotize.2974:

OP isn’t exactly providing hard arguments either. These runes aren’t in SPvP so obviously they’re broken and should be removed. I guess that should be said for literally every rune that is not found in SPvP. Condition runes not being useful in PvE is an entirely different problem that is caused by conditions themselves and the PvE meta of everyone going berserker. Does that mean berserker is OP because it is used in all game modes to great effect? With runes specifically though, Scholar runes and Strength runes are used in SPvP, WvW and PvE, so they must be much more OP than Perplexity runes because those are useless in PvE and only good in WvW.

Berserker and strength runes both got nerfed because they were OP, do you even play this game?

Hey hey hey, revolutionary thought:
Is it perhaps the professions USING the runes that is broken?

Lets see… what enemies usually use Perplexity runes? Oh i know, DP thief. What does DP thief have that makes perplexity runes work so well? An incredibly spammable daze skill (Pistol 4, Head Shot). Then there is mesmers, who also have a few sources of interrupts, alongside their own confusion (they mostly use the runes for the duration bonus). Then there is warriors, they use it for interrupts and to boost a trait called “Distracting Strikes”. Engineers use it due to several interrupts in a single build, in addition to having 2-3 sources of confusion themselves.
Necromancers use it because well, their king of condi and fear is now an interrupt.

So, the reason it is being used is more because classes have SEVERAL sources of triggering the #6 bonus.

So what makes the #6 bonus so easy to trigger? YOUR PLAYSTYLE, or should i say, the playstyle of most players out there. Many people (usually the ones who come here to complain, but there are others too), just use every skill they got on their skill-bar and hope the enemy goes down when they finish “their rotation of epicness”.
Now, a lot of people also happen to use weapons with longer wind-ups like hammers, longbows, maces, staffs and scepters. This further causes them to be easy targets.

So how do i counter perplexity? I bring condition cleanses, and most critically, i do not panic. If i notice i have 5-10 stacks of confusion, i simply do not take out my shortbow and spam 111111. Because that will hurt me. Instead, i stay in a more defensive set and changes my pace. That’s right, i use slower attacks, and spend more time griding my enemy down carefully rather then going head first and hacking away as fast as i can. However, i also play a ranger, so i can let my pet deal with the enemy while i am somewhat reduced in offensive capability.

People that complain about conditions also need to get it out of their head that they MUST BE free of conditions at any given time. Ive seen people blow 20-40 second cooldowns over 4-5 bleed stacks that hardly tick for 400 damage. These bleed stacks (in my builds case) only last 5 second. So they will not instantly murder you. It will take a small chunk of your HP, but not flat out kill you. Many also spend cleanses on conditions that originate from power builds.
For the longest of time, i played a cleric regen ranger. My pet deals some bleeds every now and then. Bleeds last 10 seconds, but they do less then 70 damage/stack per second. Therefore, even if pet’s CD’s all line up and pet manages to stack 8 stacks, it still will not kill you. It will barely dent you. Yet people use cleansing skills that is also stunbreakers, because of low damage bleeds.

YET, when i load em up with poison for over a minute in duration, that has been amplified by Poison Master, ticking for 350+/second, they dun do jack about it, cuz poison is NP.

Cygnus.6903:

Koroshi made a few vids where he tried the perplexity runes and explained why they are so incredibly broken.

But the same condition lovers always hijack these threads saying how small scale WvW is not important and there should be no balance to this part of the game. Apparently, those who claim that others try to make arguments by saying they represent a wider group of people, represent a wider group of people themselves on the basis of which they know that small scale roaming is done by so few that it should not deserve balance.

/end sarcasm

I would actually go further then this and estimate that small scale WvW is done more frequently then large scale. Especially by those who favor WvW over the other game modes.

The ‘get imbalanced or die’ attitude is pathetic.

Two fun arguments used by defenders of plex:
- small scale roaming doesn’t matter
- conditions are utterly useless in big groups

So why try to justify use of a condition-based spec? Obviously it can’t be used for zerging, and there’s no point in running it for the pointless and unimportant small-scale roaming!

If it gets nerfed or completely reworked, it shouldn’t affect those who ran it previously – they should obviously be able to just shrug their shoulders and get on with the game, safe in the knowledge that their non-zerg build has exactly the same effect on their world’s WvW performance as it used to.

cheese.4739:

Two fun arguments used by defenders of plex:
- small scale roaming doesn’t matter
- conditions are utterly useless in big groups

Do you have evidence otherwise?

cheese.4739:

So why try to justify use of a condition-based spec? Obviously it can’t be used for zerging, and there’s no point in running it for the pointless and unimportant small-scale roaming!

I can only speak for myself, but I am not “justifying” anything. Even in battles in which conditions matter, perplexity runes are not over powered. In my opinion, they are average. The only ones complaining about them, in my opinion, are those who are going to die to a condition build, regardless of the ruins i use.

Personally, I am not much of a fan of these runes. When I fighting them, I do not find them much of a problem. Personally I rarely use them. The fact that I have no more trouble fighting players who use them, then I do with players who do not, is why I speak out against players who “cry nerf”. My personal experience suggest to me that weaker players use this as an excuse. I get told I am cheap for using them all of the time after winning a fight. Funny thing is I am almost never using them in such cases.

cheese.4739:

If it gets nerfed or completely reworked, it shouldn’t affect those who ran it previously – they should obviously be able to just shrug their shoulders and get on with the game, safe in the knowledge that their non-zerg build has exactly the same effect on their world’s WvW performance as it used to.

I agree. The thing is, if your aware that players will be capable of doing so, then your obviously aware that the runes are fine, and all you are arguing for, is a limitation in diversity, simply because you find confusion annoying, not because you actually feel it is too strong. Otherwise, you would never have said such a thing.

Prysin.8542:

Hey hey hey, revolutionary thought:
Is it perhaps the professions USING the runes that is broken?

Lets see… what enemies usually use Perplexity runes? Oh i know, DP thief. What does DP thief have that makes perplexity runes work so well? An incredibly spammable daze skill (Pistol 4, Head Shot). Then there is mesmers, who also have a few sources of interrupts, alongside their own confusion (they mostly use the runes for the duration bonus). Then there is warriors, they use it for interrupts and to boost a trait called “Distracting Strikes”. Engineers use it due to several interrupts in a single build, in addition to having 2-3 sources of confusion themselves.
Necromancers use it because well, their king of condi and fear is now an interrupt.

So, the reason it is being used is more because classes have SEVERAL sources of triggering the #6 bonus.

So what makes the #6 bonus so easy to trigger? YOUR PLAYSTYLE, or should i say, the playstyle of most players out there. Many people (usually the ones who come here to complain, but there are others too), just use every skill they got on their skill-bar and hope the enemy goes down when they finish “their rotation of epicness”.
Now, a lot of people also happen to use weapons with longer wind-ups like hammers, longbows, maces, staffs and scepters. This further causes them to be easy targets.

So how do i counter perplexity? I bring condition cleanses, and most critically, i do not panic. If i notice i have 5-10 stacks of confusion, i simply do not take out my shortbow and spam 111111. Because that will hurt me. Instead, i stay in a more defensive set and changes my pace. That’s right, i use slower attacks, and spend more time griding my enemy down carefully rather then going head first and hacking away as fast as i can. However, i also play a ranger, so i can let my pet deal with the enemy while i am somewhat reduced in offensive capability.

People that complain about conditions also need to get it out of their head that they MUST BE free of conditions at any given time. Ive seen people blow 20-40 second cooldowns over 4-5 bleed stacks that hardly tick for 400 damage. These bleed stacks (in my builds case) only last 5 second. So they will not instantly murder you. It will take a small chunk of your HP, but not flat out kill you. Many also spend cleanses on conditions that originate from power builds.
For the longest of time, i played a cleric regen ranger. My pet deals some bleeds every now and then. Bleeds last 10 seconds, but they do less then 70 damage/stack per second. Therefore, even if pet’s CD’s all line up and pet manages to stack 8 stacks, it still will not kill you. It will barely dent you. Yet people use cleansing skills that is also stunbreakers, because of low damage bleeds.

YET, when i load em up with poison for over a minute in duration, that has been amplified by Poison Master, ticking for 350+/second, they dun do jack about it, cuz poison is NP.

I don’t recall D/P thief running perplex, unless I’m missing some kind of crazy new meta build that relies on spamming 4 as its only source of damage while bringing no other utility or damage to the table.

Otherwise it’s P/D, which has huge condition access and plenty of interrupts within utilities as well as applying the effects on steal.

The problem with perplexity is that it’s not so much that the builds which benefit the most from them are already OP as it is that the builds which use them apply a lot of condition pressure otherwise. I recently had the pleasure of creating a mesmer build which by itself would be able to cap 25 torment and about fifteen stacks of confusion permanently on a given target. Upon testing, my friend playing a guard i normally can’t even come close to beating on damage-based builds lost every single duel just because of the sheer overload of high-damaging conditions and the incapability of retaliating.

Interrupt-based builds are cool and all, but this isn’t the right way to make them viable.

coglin.1867:

cheese.4739:

Two fun arguments used by defenders of plex:
- small scale roaming doesn’t matter
- conditions are utterly useless in big groups

Do you have evidence otherwise?

I roam on a small scale. Thus it matters.

They are not useless in big groups either, but they tend to overload on condition clears to make them invisible. Drop the clears, and conditions would completely take over. The problem here is that condition clears tend to extend to allies, which is why they are currently a non-issue in large scale battles.

coglin.1867:

cheese.4739:

So why try to justify use of a condition-based spec? Obviously it can’t be used for zerging, and there’s no point in running it for the pointless and unimportant small-scale roaming!

I can only speak for myself, but I am not “justifying” anything. Even in battles in which conditions matter, perplexity runes are not over powered. In my opinion, they are average. The only ones complaining about them, in my opinion, are those who are going to die to a condition build, regardless of the ruins i use.

Try me.

coglin.1867:

cheese.4739:

If it gets nerfed or completely reworked, it shouldn’t affect those who ran it previously – they should obviously be able to just shrug their shoulders and get on with the game, safe in the knowledge that their non-zerg build has exactly the same effect on their world’s WvW performance as it used to.

I agree. The thing is, if your aware that players will be capable of doing so, then your obviously aware that the runes are fine, and all you are arguing for, is a limitation in diversity, simply because you find confusion annoying, not because you actually feel it is too strong. Otherwise, you would never have said such a thing.

The thing is, that capable condi players will be able to shrug it off, while perplexity spamming cheese lovers won’t.

Actually, capable condi players already don’t play perplexity due to how simple and unchallenging things become.

Again, how is it a rune-balance issue if classes have unbalanced access to interrupts and confusion?

Yes, we know Engineers can go wild with these runes. Weird how Rangers don’t, isn’kitten

(edit)
And ofc, why nerf an already weak runeset (for anything but small-scale) further? Seems rather unjustified, what makes your smallscale roaming so much more important than largescale balance or PvE?

Carighan.6758:

Again, how is it a rune-balance issue if classes have unbalanced access to interrupts and confusion?

Yes, we know Engineers can go wild with these runes. Weird how Rangers don’t, isn’kitten

(edit)
And ofc, why nerf an already weak runeset (for anything but small-scale) further? Seems rather unjustified, what makes your smallscale roaming so much more important than largescale balance or PvE?

Would you rather nerf the professions that can abuse these runes, hurting other builds of theirs in the process?

Never said small-scale roaming is more important then anything. But, as it is in that part of the game where these runes cause imbalance, it is used in this argument.

You could make Perplexity twice as strong as it is now and it still wouldn’t matter in largescale. Entirely different issue.

Perplexity is definitely not weak, but the truth is in the eye of the beholder. Many runesets work in certain situations, and don’t in others. That’s no reason at all to call the runeset weak. Yet, if the runeset works too well in it’s intended use, it should get nerfed.

Ofc I’d rather nerf the professions. If it’s an imbalance in how the professions work, fix it on a profession-level. Or nerf the runeset so that the nerf only affects the classes in question, for example a very thorough yet highly unbalanced fix would be “Can only be equipped by Mesmers”, and then balancing it around their loadout.

Alright, that’s assuming one specific thing: Runes are meant to be balanced compared to clkittenouts. Currently they’re not (some runes are roughly useless for entire classes, others nearly the default). If that is intentional – which could make sense – then instead the issue becomes one of general rune-balance. “How much of a character’s power should the rune be?” Compare Might-affecting runes in PvE.

The rune is not to be blamed,the condi meta should be blamed.

Cygnus.6903:

Perplexity is definitely not weak, but the truth is in the eye of the beholder. Many runesets work in certain situations, and don’t in others. That’s no reason at all to call the runeset weak. Yet, if the runeset works too well in it’s intended use, it should get nerfed.

Look, I can state my opinion as if it were fact as easy as you.

The rune set is not particularly strong. It has a reasonable ICD, and there is no reason to nerf it.

By the way what are you claiming is its intended use?

Perplexity runes exist so that I could craft and sell them for profit.

Sandrox.9524:

The rune is not to be blamed,the condi meta should be blamed.

there’s no such thing as a condi meta, at least not on EU servers.

Maskaganda.2043:

Sandrox.9524:

The rune is not to be blamed,the condi meta should be blamed.

there’s no such thing as a condi meta, at least not on EU servers.

Yea,my bad.I ment condi mechanic.As it is too strong in general.(The way you can spam conds like nothing)

Sandrox.9524:

Yea,my bad.I ment condi mechanic.As it is too strong in general.(The way you can spam conds like nothing)

Not really too strong, rather not controlled enough. But then, the same goes for any power based attack including auto-attacks (which such attacks are needed as a delivery mechanism for conditions in virtually all cases).

coglin.1867:

Cygnus.6903:

Perplexity is definitely not weak, but the truth is in the eye of the beholder. Many runesets work in certain situations, and don’t in others. That’s no reason at all to call the runeset weak. Yet, if the runeset works too well in it’s intended use, it should get nerfed.

Look, I can state my opinion as if it were fact as easy as you.

The rune set is not particularly strong. It has a reasonable ICD, and there is no reason to nerf it.

By the way what are you claiming is its intended use?

And I can follow up every one of my sentences with the phrase ‘in my opinion’, but I can also assume that others on this forum know that it is solely my opinion I am stating here. No need to go nitpicking to make a point. I’ll adjust my sig to make sure this awful misunderstanding does not happen again.

We can simply agree to disagree, I base my opinion solely on what I experienced while playing with these runes myself, as well as fighting others who use it, and the experiences of others.

The intended use of these runes is obviously not PvE, as confusion is a bad condi for PvE. It is obviously not PvP, as the runes are not available there. Thus, they are probably suited for WvW. And as I have said before, they are not very useful in large scale battle. The logical conclusion here is that they are best used, or ‘intended’ if you will (nitpick incoming) for small scale WvW.

In my opinion.

Cygnus.6903:

The logical conclusion here is that they are best used, or ‘intended’ if you will (nitpick incoming) for small scale WvW.

In my opinion.

Doubtful. I would suspect the scale of players in a fight was never drought into the design of these runes. I would think they were simply designed to be used to offer an additional benefit to condition builds.

I see no reason to try to claim they were created for roaming specifically, as you appear to be stating. Seems a bit fishy to me that a roamer projects something to have been designed to be used for or against roamers. You appear to make a vast amount of claims, and statements, with no actual facts or evidence to support it.

I just want to share a quote with you, that seems so relevant here.

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” – Harlan Ellison

Why is this thread still here?

Deniara Devious.3948:

Carighan.6758:

I assume you’re talking WvW?
Conditions are nigh-useless in WvW. Unlike sPvP where frequently people rely on their own condition cleansing, WvW allows to freely stack group cleansing together, allowing for very rapid and very reliable removal of any condition.

You can only use them against skirmishers, but then, what’s the point? You’re not going to make a large difference that way and any Warr/Engi able to utilize them well is needed on the frontline.

And if you roam, as always, you should instead start playing to win, not playing to lose. Roaming is equivalent to intentionally losing as someone else can just bring superior numbers, kill you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Doesn’t matter how classes, runes, skills or sigils are balanced, if you play roaming you shouldn’t care. That’s not what decides your fights.

This is a typical moot argument. You are right that conditions aren’t very effective in a typical zerg fight, but the rest of your message is misinformation.

I play on EU tier 1 server and solo roam a lot and do a lot of other small scale. It matters a LOT even during the busy prime time. In fact sometimes all the objectives we held on the map are solo capped by me. Outside the prime time, the objectives are often undefended or defended only by very small group, then the small scale matters even more.

Adding more and more imbalance just makes the competitive players want to leave WvWvW. A really good player doesn’t get much any pleasure winning the fight knowing she had an advantage because of the build or imbalanced circumstances. I know solo roaming is often 1 vs many, but adding brain dead runes to the games will not encourage more people to solo roam, but does the opposite. I pledge for more diversity instead of pushing everybody to be a zergling or troll using the latest gimmick build in roaming. Developers, please listen to the core WvWvW players, reduce the amount of imbalance there is in WvWvW and shake the WvWvW meta.

Several sigils and runes need to be toned down. This list includes Strength, Hoelbrak, Pack and Perplexity runes. And sigils of battle, air, fire, doom and energy. Yes, I know they are probably the most used sigils in the game and they should also be toned down for pvp.

I love this post so much it hurts.