Balance Changes That Would Improve Raids
Condi Necro: The damage is there, but inaccessible. Farbstoff showed us condi necro can hit 30k realistic buffs, which is competitive (for comparison condi engi/ranger bench marks are around 33k). But the entire build depends on combo fields. What is that garbage? This is literally the only class I know of that has to depend on the combo field system to do its damage. Its stupid. Remove the whirl finishers, and just put chill directly on the skills. Or, fix the minion nerf. Rather than a huge stupid overreaction that literally removes the purpose of half the traits in death magic, and all synergy in blood magic, actually put in the effort to tune the class correctly.
No dont remove it i really like the playstyle and creativity it has(very unique aproach). The bet fix is to rework the combo fields so your own fields get priority when you use finishers on top of them.
This won’t always be the most useful thing though.
why?
then nerf its dmg simple enough
That hurts build and class diversity substantially and adds nothing to the game. ANet should never just gut a class because it’s naturally easier to play due to class mechanics than another class.
I don’t think the idea of making all classes a little more interesting to play is bad. Some rotations, like Power Thief and Power Revenant, are really disappointing. Generally speaking I think players should always be encouraged to weapon swap and there should be enough weapon diversity that you want to swap to different weapons, which is something condition classes do well enough thanks to Geomancy sigils and general damage kit dispersal. They could add a power-based sigil that does something similar to Geomancy if they wanted to encourage more rotation complexity for power classes.
Sigil of Empowerment
+10% damage for 7 seconds on weapon swap. (9 second ICD)This doesn’t solve all problems, but certainly pushes things in the right direction. This would also need to be coupled with damage buffs to skills on non-meta weapon sets to bring them into the limelight. Some examples would be PvE damage buffs to Revenant Hammer/Staff, Engineer Rifle, etc.
Nerfing a class to be on par with what other classes that require similar skill do is not hurting class diversity its quite the opposite actually it promotes it even further.
Nerfing a class to be on par with what other classes that require similar skill do is not hurting class diversity its quite the opposite actually it promotes it even further.
Errrr… Maybe you haven’t checked the benchmarks lately? A lot of classes are sitting at the 31-33k level, and they’re all equally viable right now. Nerfing a class to not be in that range would be objectively classified as reducing class diversity.
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Just dropping this by, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_x4wIO_IA8&t=42s
There is a condi ranger level difficulty Engi rotation and it gives about condi ranger level results… we good?
Nerfing a class to be on par with what other classes that require similar skill do is not hurting class diversity its quite the opposite actually it promotes it even further.
Errrr… Maybe you haven’t checked the benchmarks lately? A lot of classes are sitting at the 31-33k level, and they’re all equally viable right now. Nerfing a class to not be in that range would be objectively classified as reducing class diversity.
No, they aren’t equally viable. Because in practice some builds lose more than others, due to a number of factors, aggregated in the term “difficulty”. Meaning in practice your average player on the easy build X outperforms your average player on the hard build Y by a fair margin. Meaning build Y is by no means “equally viable”. It is at best an acceptable pick if you’re pretty good at playing it. Or if your group has enough players on easy builds to carry you. Class diversity? Yeah, right.
As always these types of threads revolve around how to “fix” the game by improving the dps of the various builds. It’s always sad when I read that, all you can think about to make some build viable is to increase their dps or make their rotation easier. Right now we have multiple roles in a Raid, we have a tank that is very useful on lots of fights, a healer and buffers.
I’ve always said that focusing on opening up the tanking, healing and buffing roles is far more important than increasing the dps. Chronomancers, Druids and PS Warriors should be the targets, and not by nerfing them, but by allowing different builds to do what they do.
As for your suggestions:
Revenant can be switched to be a buffer compared to either PS Warrior (Might) or Chronomancer (Alacrity/Quickness). Make Rev an alternative to one of the two, we DON’T need another dps build.
Necro: Can’t viably heal, isn’t a buffer class, so the only roles we can look at for necro to fill are dps slots.
Why can’t they give a Necromancer the ability to heal and/or buff then? Rangers couldn’t heal either and their buffing was only one skill (Frost Spirit), now they are the kings of healing and buffing.
This has been my stance since the first post on Raid balance ever appeared on these forums and will always be. Chronos, Druids and PS Warriors are in every team leading to 6 professions “fighting” for the last slots as the dps roles. Say no to this. Say no to “looking for Druid” or “looking for Chrono”. Say YES to “looking for Healer” or “looking for Might stacker”. That’s in my opinion how they can make the game better, more balanced, and open up all professions for Raids.
Would love to see combo finishers preferring your own fields. This will help Reaper a lot, especially if they get more frequent access to Chill fields somehow- I’m partial to putting it on the AA-3.
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No, they aren’t equally viable. Because in practice some builds lose more than others, due to a number of factors, aggregated in the term “difficulty”. Meaning in practice your average player on the easy build X outperforms your average player on the hard build Y by a fair margin. Meaning build Y is by no means “equally viable”. It is at best an acceptable pick if you’re pretty good at playing it. Or if your group has enough players on easy builds to carry you. Class diversity? Yeah, right.
You might be convinced that seems legit, but in reality even the condition engineer with an easy rotation can break 30k realistic dps. In practice, all of these builds are going to have problems that reduce dps slightly, but all builds are affected relatively equally. This could be the boss moving a lot, fight mechanics, or whatever. Even the condition necromancer build has an easy time landing inside its own chill fields if you place them offcenter on the boss, and it doesn’t even lose appreciable damage if you ‘miss’ and hit a fire (2k dps loss, 29k total) or ethereal (1k dps loss, 30k total) field every time.
Now there may be circumstantial strategies that favor certain classes over others in pub groups (ie. sure is nice to be able to camp range at Deimos in super-safe runs), but fundamentally the classes are fine. The only class that has serious problems and needs serious work is Revenant, not that I’d mind circumstantial buffs to Necromancer or whatever. No class should be nerfed just because it’s “easy”, especially when it’s not really as easy as everyone thinks.
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Chronomancers, Druids and PS Warriors should be the targets, and not by nerfing them, but by allowing different builds to do what they do.
I just pointed out the problem of this idea in another thread – here
No, they aren’t equally viable. Because in practice some builds lose more than others, due to a number of factors, aggregated in the term “difficulty”. Meaning in practice your average player on the easy build X outperforms your average player on the hard build Y by a fair margin. Meaning build Y is by no means “equally viable”. It is at best an acceptable pick if you’re pretty good at playing it. Or if your group has enough players on easy builds to carry you. Class diversity? Yeah, right.
You might be convinced that seems legit, but in reality even the condition engineer with an easy rotation can break 30k realistic dps. In practice, all of these builds are going to have problems that reduce dps slightly, but all builds are affected relatively equally. This could be the boss moving a lot, fight mechanics, or whatever. Even the condition necromancer build has an easy time landing inside its own chill fields if you place them offcenter on the boss, and it doesn’t even lose appreciable damage if you ‘miss’ and hit a fire (2k dps loss, 29k total) or ethereal (1k dps loss, 30k total) field every time.
Simply not true. Condi engi might have an easy rotation, but Sc/Wh ele doesn’t. Moreover, damage loss isn’t equal either, especially in a “power vs condi” comparison. Condi doesn’t lose 10% below 90% hp. It doesn’t lose 10% when you stop moving. It doesn’t lose efficiency when the target has more toughness.
There are other ways to lose damage, too. You play guard? Well, you need the target inside your symbols, tethered by your F1 and having retal on yourself. You play ele? Well, you need to be as close as possible for your Wildfire, but then you want to step back considerably for your Lightning Orb. On top of conjuring weapons and picking them up losing as little time as possible. And if that gets you out of your chrono’s wells, well, tough luck, you can only choose how to lose dps, not “if”.
In comparison, what does a ranger need to do? Stay in melee and flank. And you’re saying they all lose relatively equally? Yeah, right.
I just pointed out the problem of this idea in another thread – here
If the problem is that there will always be an optimal composition then how exactly are other games doing it?
its overperforming its only natural to have it nerfed and no i dont believe it require the same skill in terms of rotations as engi or ele and tbh… ppl still pick necro only because of epidemic you dont call a class viable simply because it can cheese a few encounters like you dont say rev is viable simply its usefull as kiter on deimos.
Are you saying that because you’ve actually run with Necros in real raids and observed bad numbers or simply because the benchmarks look bad? In our experience, Necros are reasonably competitive in actual raids even without the use of epidemic. Sure they could use some buffs to push them in the right direction, but things aren’t nearly as bad as many people seem to think.
As for condi-ranger overperforming, I’m not sure I agree. Engis can be ~3k behind a condi-ranger and still be worth taking simply for Pinpoint distribution. Furthermore, a condi-Daredevil pulls way ahead of a condi-ranger in a mirror comp. Ele is still fantastic against large hitboxes (Samarog is a good example), and isn’t particularly difficult in the right hands. Overall the only time I’d argue we need condi rangers, is for weird comps like 8-1-1, where you don’t want to risk overwriting venoms.
If the problem is that there will always be an optimal composition then how exactly are other games doing it?
By reducing or eliminating the unique features every profession has to offer.
As for condi-ranger overperforming, I’m not sure I agree. Engis can be ~3k behind a condi-ranger and still be worth taking simply for Pinpoint distribution. Furthermore, a condi-Daredevil pulls way ahead of a condi-ranger in a mirror comp. Ele is still fantastic against large hitboxes (Samarog is a good example), and isn’t particularly difficult in the right hands. Overall the only time I’d argue we need condi rangers, is for weird comps like 8-1-1, where you don’t want to risk overwriting venoms.
Condi ranger is overperforming because it’s much more reliable, especially compared to power builds. Eles can still be great in the right hands, but on average they are far behind a condi ranger, even on large hitboxes. Ranger is just way easier to play. Now, condi thief and simplified engi rotations might be close to that, I don’t really have experience with either. But the extra you get from the optimal engi rotation is ridiculously small for the extra effort required.
If the problem is that there will always be an optimal composition then how exactly are other games doing it?
By reducing or eliminating the unique features every profession has to offer.
Is it better to keep a unique feature to one class, so it’s essential in Raids, instead of spreading it to more classes to offer more choice?
Giving Engineers the trait that gives condition damage to the group was a good thing.
Allowing Revenants to use Alacrity was another good change.
Baby first steps towards better game balance.
Condi ranger is overperforming because it’s much more reliable, especially compared to power builds. Eles can still be great in the right hands, but on average they are far behind a condi ranger, even on large hitboxes. Ranger is just way easier to play. Now, condi thief and simplified engi rotations might be close to that, I don’t really have experience with either. But the extra you get from the optimal engi rotation is ridiculously small for the extra effort required.
The problem then is that you’d be balancing around pugs, who simply pick classes with a low-skill floor to get what they want with the least resistance (Condi-ranger in this case). If you nerf condi-ranger then they will just flock to the next easiest thing for DPS, probably condi-DD/Mesmer/Necro/Dh or Ele. From there it’s a slippery slope of nerfs until we’re left with the only difficult to play spec in the game, condi-engi.
I don’t consider myself to play at a particularly high level, just regular guild groups. But for me it genuinely feels like anyone who spends more than a couple of hours learning a class is able to pull very respectable DPS with it, with the exception of Revenant. Things change for each encounter, but overall the balance feels pretty good right now.
My point is that nearly every class has a reasonably high skill-ceiling. Many players just can’t be bothered to reach it.
I don’t consider myself to play at a particularly high level, just regular guild groups. But for me it genuinely feels like anyone who spends more than a couple of hours learning a class is able to pull very respectable DPS with it, with the exception of Revenant. Things change for each encounter, but overall the balance feels pretty good right now.
I don’t have that feeling. I’ve been ele main since the game launched. And it feels genuinely disheartening to see myself perform on comparable (if not better) level on my condi ranger, despite the fact I have much less experience with it and despite putting a lot more effort when playing my ele. There’s just no reward for all this extra effort, except on KC. I imagine a lot of ele and engi mains feel the same way.
I don’t consider myself to play at a particularly high level, just regular guild groups. But for me it genuinely feels like anyone who spends more than a couple of hours learning a class is able to pull very respectable DPS with it, with the exception of Revenant. Things change for each encounter, but overall the balance feels pretty good right now.
I don’t have that feeling. I’ve been ele main since the game launched. And it feels genuinely disheartening to see myself perform on comparable (if not better) level on my condi ranger, despite the fact I have much less experience with it and despite putting a lot more effort when playing my ele. There’s just no reward for all this extra effort, except on KC. I imagine a lot of ele and engi mains feel the same way.
Do you not feel that depends a lot on the encounter though? Not just at KC, but VG, Samarog, Xera and often even Gorse I consistently see Ele’s placing close to or at the top of our logs. I can understand that it’s disheartening that your DPS doesn’t reflect the amount of effort that you’re putting in, but that’s an inherent problem with the game as a whole. I dropped Ele months ago, yet I can still maintain 90% of a good ele’s DPS just using an extremely basic rotation. Engineer and Condi-ranger have very similar problems, you can faceroll the keyboard and get good DPS. But to squeeze out the last 10% or so you need to put in a ton of effort, simply put; that feeling is not exclusive to elementalist.
It’s not exclusive to ele and I never said it was. But there’s a significant difference in the difficulty of different builds in the game. There are really easy ones and really complicated ones, as well as builds in between these. ALL of them produce pretty much the same numbers. And that’s a problem, because the harder a build is, the more likely you are to make mistakes and the more you lose from your damage potential. In the end, you’re not getting rewarded for picking and mastering something difficult. You’re punished.
I’m not convinced at all there is this huge skill gap required to beat ele benchmark dps vs engie vs ranger vs thief.
As I’ve always said, regardless of the role or class you’re playing the first 90 to 95% of benchmark numbers are easy for almost any player to get. It’s that last bit that takes work and its true for every class except maybe hammer guardian. And I do mean work, you have yo out in a lot of practice for that last bit and it does t matter if it’s an ele or a ranger.
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I’m not convinced at all there is this huge skill gap required to beat ele benchmark dps vs engie vs ranger vs thief.
As I’ve always said, regardless of the role or class you’re playing the first 90 to 95% of benchmark numbers are easy for almost any player to get. It’s that last bit that takes work and its true for every class except maybe hammer guardian. And I do mean work, you have yo out in a lot of practice for that last bit and it does t matter if it’s an ele or a ranger.
This is absolutely true; it is also true that in most cases the mechanical differences between classes are smaller than the variation in DPS caused by player error.
This is why the most reasonable advice is “if you need to ask, play what you know best — because what you know best is where you will screw up the least.”
Sadly, this doesn’t help with the popular perception that you need the same composition as groups that consist predominantly of players good enough that they do notice mechanical differences — like qtfy and their low-player kills, top of the ladder pvp players — or they cannot succeed.
As always these types of threads revolve around how to “fix” the game by improving the dps of the various builds. It’s always sad when I read that, all you can think about to make some build viable is to increase their dps or make their rotation easier. Right now we have multiple roles in a Raid, we have a tank that is very useful on lots of fights, a healer and buffers.
I’ve always said that focusing on opening up the tanking, healing and buffing roles is far more important than increasing the dps. Chronomancers, Druids and PS Warriors should be the targets, and not by nerfing them, but by allowing different builds to do what they do.
As for your suggestions:
Revenant can be switched to be a buffer compared to either PS Warrior (Might) or Chronomancer (Alacrity/Quickness). Make Rev an alternative to one of the two, we DON’T need another dps build.Necro: Can’t viably heal, isn’t a buffer class, so the only roles we can look at for necro to fill are dps slots.
Why can’t they give a Necromancer the ability to heal and/or buff then? Rangers couldn’t heal either and their buffing was only one skill (Frost Spirit), now they are the kings of healing and buffing.
This has been my stance since the first post on Raid balance ever appeared on these forums and will always be. Chronos, Druids and PS Warriors are in every team leading to 6 professions “fighting” for the last slots as the dps roles. Say no to this. Say no to “looking for Druid” or “looking for Chrono”. Say YES to “looking for Healer” or “looking for Might stacker”. That’s in my opinion how they can make the game better, more balanced, and open up all professions for Raids.
I am focusing on the dps roles because many classes are only small changes away from being fully competitive, and I can actually give helpful feedback about that. But trying to give (per your example) rev the ability to share quickness in a way competitive with chrono is such a large change I wouldn’t even know how to begin suggesting those changes. They are probably changes so large that only a new elite spec would make sense to introduce them.
But I do agree, more classes that can tank and provide quickness would be good, more healers that can provide equivalent group buffs would be good. It would be nice to have more options.
Giving Rev large quickness uptime on top of their alacrity generation (I’m assuming he meant allow them to generate both, not one or the other) would be nothing but a slap in the face to chronos and wouldn’t change much unless Rev was way better at it. And its because SoI is an integral part of the chrono duration, it helps to share all boons with all members if for any reason they didn’t get it from the original source.
I like the current balance even if I am not necessarily a fan of the recent changes to tempest, which nerfed their performance even further. Honestly though, we could have seen this coming. They seem to be a little behind with their balance changes more often than not. We did not really require any further nerfs as far as I am concerned. The changed stance on the usuage of DPS meters did much more to make tempests unpopular than any of the nerfs.
Those who had trouble to perform well on tempest, wether they jumped on it because of the monthly flavour or other reasons, will continue to do so on ranger now. It was usually the lack of mechanical skills, the inability to perform a good rotation, the lack of anticipation of boss movement and many other factors that made people screw up. It might be slightly easier to play a condi ranger but not by the degree everyone seems to think.
However, if there is one thing I’d like to see then that’s more bosses like KC and, even if unintentionally, Gorseval that require burst over DPS. They allow power builds to shine without the need to nerf condition DPS.
I’m not convinced at all there is this huge skill gap required to beat ele benchmark dps vs engie vs ranger vs thief.
As I’ve always said, regardless of the role or class you’re playing the first 90 to 95% of benchmark numbers are easy for almost any player to get. It’s that last bit that takes work and its true for every class except maybe hammer guardian. And I do mean work, you have yo out in a lot of practice for that last bit and it does t matter if it’s an ele or a ranger.
If the easy part of the ranger potential is the first 90%, then the easy part of a tempest one is the first 70%. The difference is huge, unless you’re looking at D/W build, which is the only one having a simple rotation. I don’t have statistically significant amounts of data, but every player in my group performs better on a condi ranger than on ele. I seriously doubt anyone has “worked” more on the ranger. I certainly haven’t. The build is simply much, much easier. You can’t talk your way around this fact.
I don’t have statistically significant amounts of data, but every player in my group performs better on a condi ranger than on ele.
Even at encounters that favour elementalist, such as the aforementioned KC, VG, Samarog and Xera (Even Gorse and Sloth to some extent)? If so then I’d seriously start to doubt whether they’ve even looked at the basic Ele rotations, you don’t need double tick wildfires, 12-hit pheonix’s and max-range lightning orbs to top the benchmarks at those encounters. With condi-players picking up your second ice-bow, the rotation becomes almost as simple as the D/Wh one.
Of course we’re in different groups with different players, but my anecdotal evidence is showing much the opposite of yours. Players switching to condi-ranger are really struggling to keep up DPS with some of the other classes (Engi/Condi-DD/Ele mainly), especially without take-root.
Except on KC, obviously. Everywhere else, the dps numbers from condi rangers are higher.
Aand, no, people have looked at the rotations and have practice on them. But the sheer number of factors you need to have in play for the ele makes it so much harder. Constant movement, above 90% hp, proper targeting of Wildfire, Lightning Orb and Phoenix, while staying in the wells, while picking up conjures (because if someone steals your conjure your dps gets hurt again), while minimizing your time outside of Air (because then you don’t cap your crit chance and your dps gets hurt again)…
On the other hand, the ranger simply has to flank in melee, follow a simple rotation and press F2 off cooldown.
(edited by Feanor.2358)
I’m not convinced at all there is this huge skill gap required to beat ele benchmark dps vs engie vs ranger vs thief.
As I’ve always said, regardless of the role or class you’re playing the first 90 to 95% of benchmark numbers are easy for almost any player to get. It’s that last bit that takes work and its true for every class except maybe hammer guardian. And I do mean work, you have yo out in a lot of practice for that last bit and it does t matter if it’s an ele or a ranger.
If the easy part of the ranger potential is the first 90%, then the easy part of a tempest one is the first 70%. The difference is huge, unless you’re looking at D/W build, which is the only one having a simple rotation. I don’t have statistically significant amounts of data, but every player in my group performs better on a condi ranger than on ele. I seriously doubt anyone has “worked” more on the ranger. I certainly haven’t. The build is simply much, much easier. You can’t talk your way around this fact.
Things aren’t facts just because you declare them to be based on the huge data sample of “my friends are bad at ele compared to ranger.”
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Yeah, but fractal LFG asking for condi rangers is a fact. And condi builds aren’t even good in fractals. Raid groups in which the dps is composed entirely of condi rangers are a fact.
Deny all you want, these are realities. It’s not just me, the community is shifting toward condi ranger, because condi ranger is more efficient. And the reason it is more efficient isn’t better potential, it’s better reliability.
You can still argue this isn’t a statistically valid data sample, but hey, give it a few months and you’ll see for yourself.
Yeah, but fractal LFG asking for condi rangers is a fact. And condi builds aren’t even good in fractals. Raid groups in which the dps is composed entirely of condi rangers are a fact.
Deny all you want, these are realities. It’s not just me, the community is shifting toward condi ranger, because condi ranger is more efficient. And the reason it is more efficient isn’t better potential, it’s better reliability.You can still argue this isn’t a statistically valid data sample, but hey, give it a few months and you’ll see for yourself.
Fractal LFG’s were asking for 4/5 Necros a while ago (some still are), Raid groups running 4 Rangers are sub-optimal.
If your friends are out-DPSed by a Ranger on EVERY encounter but KC, then I have some bad news for you.
The game cannot and should not be balanced around bad players and groups that don’t understand basic compositions and roles.
Fractal lfg asking for rangers are just idiots considering that ele burst damage will kill every fractal boss faster than ranger.
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Fractal lfg asking for rangers are just idiots considering that ele burst damage will kill every fractal boss faster than ranger.
You don’t need to convince me, I know that. Just pointing it out as an indication of change.
Yeah, but fractal LFG asking for condi rangers is a fact. And condi builds aren’t even good in fractals. Raid groups in which the dps is composed entirely of condi rangers are a fact.
Deny all you want, these are realities. It’s not just me, the community is shifting toward condi ranger, because condi ranger is more efficient. And the reason it is more efficient isn’t better potential, it’s better reliability.You can still argue this isn’t a statistically valid data sample, but hey, give it a few months and you’ll see for yourself.
Fractal LFG’s were asking for 4/5 Necros a while ago (some still are), Raid groups running 4 Rangers are sub-optimal.
If your friends are out-DPSed by a Ranger on EVERY encounter but KC, then I have some bad news for you.The game cannot and should not be balanced around bad players and groups that don’t understand basic compositions and roles.
I clear all raid bosses with these bad players who don’t understand basic composition and roles every week. So it seems to me the game is already balanced around this level. It is just poorly done, as it encourages playing simple builds rather than mastering difficult ones.
Fractal lfg asking for rangers are just idiots considering that ele burst damage will kill every fractal boss faster than ranger.
You don’t need to convince me, I know that. Just pointing it out as an indication of change.
Yeah, but fractal LFG asking for condi rangers is a fact. And condi builds aren’t even good in fractals. Raid groups in which the dps is composed entirely of condi rangers are a fact.
Deny all you want, these are realities. It’s not just me, the community is shifting toward condi ranger, because condi ranger is more efficient. And the reason it is more efficient isn’t better potential, it’s better reliability.You can still argue this isn’t a statistically valid data sample, but hey, give it a few months and you’ll see for yourself.
Fractal LFG’s were asking for 4/5 Necros a while ago (some still are), Raid groups running 4 Rangers are sub-optimal.
If your friends are out-DPSed by a Ranger on EVERY encounter but KC, then I have some bad news for you.The game cannot and should not be balanced around bad players and groups that don’t understand basic compositions and roles.
I clear all raid bosses with these bad players who don’t understand basic composition and roles every week. So it seems to me the game is already balanced around this level. It is just poorly done, as it encourages playing simple builds rather than mastering difficult ones.
Yes, all encounters can be cleared easily with various builds. But, there’s a difference between encounter difficulty/forgiveness and class balance.
The game does not encourage you to do that, the more “simple” build may give you a safer kill but not necessarily the fastest one.
If the problem is that there will always be an optimal composition then how exactly are other games doing it?
By reducing or eliminating the unique features every profession has to offer.
Erm, not really. Wildstar class diversity in raids was fine while all classes brought unique buffs/debuffs. I know that WoW went the other route, but reducing/eliminating unique features is not necessary. However, it’s actually quite important that the buffs hit the entire raid, and that’s where GW2 fails. If a single warrior/mesmer/druid could provide the raid with their respective buffs, we’d still see at least one of each class per raid, but that seems reasonable with 9 classes and 10 spots. With a bit of proper balancing for the non-support dps builds, that would greatly enhance raid diversity.
Giving relevant buffs to multiple classes would also do the trick, but will probably require a lot more balancing.
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Giving Rev large quickness uptime on top of their alacrity generation (I’m assuming he meant allow them to generate both, not one or the other) would be nothing but a slap in the face to chronos and wouldn’t change much unless Rev was way better at it. And its because SoI is an integral part of the chrono duration, it helps to share all boons with all members if for any reason they didn’t get it from the original source.
soi isnt such a huge part now its simply another quickness stack. Rev needs weapons skills energy removed and some buffs to s2 and 3 and an AA buff to stuff. Oh and remove the mem that is alacrity on ventari and give it grace of the land on healing.
If the problem is that there will always be an optimal composition then how exactly are other games doing it?
By reducing or eliminating the unique features every profession has to offer.
Erm, not really. Wildstar class diversity in raids was fine while all classes brought unique buffs/debuffs. I know that WoW went the other route, but reducing/eliminating unique features is not necessary. However, it’s actually quite important that the buffs hit the entire raid, and that’s where GW2 fails. If a single warrior/mesmer/druid could provide the raid with their respective buffs, we’d still see at least one of each class per raid, but that seems reasonable with 9 classes and 10 spots. With a bit of proper balancing for the non-support dps builds, that would greatly enhance raid diversity.
Giving relevant buffs to multiple classes would also do the trick, but will probably require a lot more balancing.
Agreed, I’m all for buffs affecting the whole 10-man squad. The need to double up on buffer roles is killing the diversity hard. In this scenario unique buffs would serve to actually increase the comp diversity, as you’d want as many of those as possible. The only downside I see to this is powercreeping the raid squad as a whole, so they might need to rebalance the raids.
The game does not encourage you to do that, the more “simple” build may give you a safer kill but not necessarily the fastest one.
The people who care about speed clears are so very few. The average raider is concerned with getting the kills. I don’t argue the meta works well for the top players. I argue it doesn’t for the much larger part of the players who aren’t top.
(edited by Feanor.2358)
The game does not encourage you to do that, the more “simple” build may give you a safer kill but not necessarily the fastest one.
The people who care about speed clears are so very few. The average raider is concerned with getting the kills. I don’t argue the meta works well for the top players. I argue it doesn’t for the much larger part of the players who aren’t top.
Fact is that the average player will mimic whatever “the people that care about speed clears” do, no matter how stupid that might be.
The average player has no idea what he is doing. Thats why the game cannot be balanced around the average player, because doing so will create major imbalance on the other ends of the spectrum with potential exploits, new cheese tactics and so on.
What you are asking for is balancing the game around an L2P issue, instead of around the real class imbalance.
That’s not a L2P issue. L2P is when it is realistic to expect people to learn this. The level you’re talking about is never going to be achieved by the majority of players. What I’m saying is the current balance gives the top-end players an irrelevant choice when it could have given a much larger number of players a meaningful one.
Yes, it used to limit choices for everyone. This changed with the introduction of dps meters. Yes, it would limit choices for the top players. Assuming they actually care about that. Which they don’t always, otherwise low-man kills wouldn’t exist. But the benefits seem to outweigh the negatives.
That’s not a L2P issue. L2P is when it is realistic to expect people to learn this. The level you’re talking about is never going to be achieved by the majority of players. What I’m saying is the current balance gives the top-end players an irrelevant choice when it could have given a much larger number of players a meaningful one.
Yes, it used to limit choices for everyone. This changed with the introduction of dps meters. Yes, it would limit choices for the top players. Assuming they actually care about that. Which they don’t always, otherwise low-man kills wouldn’t exist. But the benefits seem to outweigh the negatives.
What level are we talking about exactly? What is not realistic to achieve??
Is it not realistic to ask players to put MINIMAL EFFORT in their classes, to actually READ what their skills/traits do, and watch some existing videos/guides to learn the rotation?
Do you really think that top players don’t care about build diversity? The choice of playing certain classes comes for different reasons.
What do low-mans have to do with anything here? Most of them have non-traditional “meta” builds.
What level are we talking about exactly? What is not realistic to achieve??
Is it not realistic to ask players to put MINIMAL EFFORT in their classes, to actually READ what their skills/traits do, and watch some existing videos/guides to learn the rotation?
Doing this is realistic, and is enough for the easy builds. And it gets you to maybe 70% of the potential of the hard ones. And you end up outdps-ed by the already mentioned easy builds. That’s the level we’re talking about.
I used low-mans as an example to show top players not always go for the most efficient/fastest way. I was trying to point out – perhaps too subtly – they can play just about anything, either for fun or to seek challenge, and still succeed. Balancing for these players is irrelevant, really. They can pick comps that aren’t the most optimal and still face a very little chance of failure. This is not the case for the average raiding group, much less the average pug.
What level are we talking about exactly? What is not realistic to achieve??
Is it not realistic to ask players to put MINIMAL EFFORT in their classes, to actually READ what their skills/traits do, and watch some existing videos/guides to learn the rotation?Doing this is realistic, and is enough for the easy builds. And it gets you to maybe 70% of the potential of the hard ones. And you end up outdps-ed by the already mentioned easy builds. That’s the level we’re talking about.
I used low-mans as an example to show top players not always go for the most efficient/fastest way. I was trying to point out – perhaps too subtly – they can play just about anything, either for fun or to seek challenge, and still succeed. Balancing for these players is irrelevant, really. They can pick comps that aren’t the most optimal and still face a very little chance of failure. This is not the case for the average raiding group, much less the average pug.
Doing this is also enough for the “harder” builds.
If the average player did even 70% of the potential DPS on Tempest, PuGing would look much better.
Improving the damage of some classes is the very least thing they could do and actually the correct thing to do. Cause what the kitten does support have to do with Legends on Revenant like Shiro and Mallyx? kitten off with Ventari “buffs” cause now it might just become an excuse to not help the offensive legends.
Stella Truth Seeker
Really? Learning to flank is just the same as learning to maximize Phoenix or Lightning Orb hits, double-hit with Wildfire, keep constantly moving while remaining inside wells, picking up icebows and not getting hit?
Thanks for acknowledging the average ele level though.
The people who care about speed clears are so very few. The average raider is concerned with getting the kills. I don’t argue the meta works well for the top players. I argue it doesn’t for the much larger part of the players who aren’t top.
It works fine for average players:
A mediocre Elementalist will easily beat a very good Ranger at VG/Sloth/KC/Samarog etc.
A mediocre Ranger will easily beat a very good Elementalist at Sabetha/Matthias/MO/Deimos.
If pugs insist on stacking 4x condi ranger at VG then that’s their problem, but please don’t balance the game around that stupidity.
Really? Learning to flank is just the same as learning to maximize Phoenix or Lightning Orb hits, double-hit with Wildfire, keep constantly moving while remaining inside wells, picking up icebows and not getting hit?
Thanks for acknowledging the average ele level though.
Having classes harder to play and easier to play is not nothing new at all’ in this game.
Take a look at pvp, where everyone Can actually pick a Warrior or a DH, Smash the keyboard and be effective.
Btw if I have to be honest maximize Phoenix and lighting orb is not difficult at all, seaweedsalad moviment is something that for any user will be come automatic.
Wildfire positioning is an harder thing (on small hitboxes) but even if you do it perfectly some bosses will walk away anyway.
Also if you do only 70% of the dps potential of Tempest IT IS a l2p issue. I mean 70% means more or less 21k on small hitboxe and more or less 24k in bighitboxes.
Or you don’t get proper buffed or you do something wrong.
Yes, I agree that S/W and staff are still harder than play condi ranger. But ele always been, since the launch of the game One of the harder classes to play, to have more or less the same reaward of other classes. It always been like that.
But even then, you Can play D/W that is nothing more difficult than play a condi ranger and you Can have both more dps on large hitboxes or a very competitive one on small hitboxes.
In the end Just think, you could have been a necro or revenant main. Even dh are not even that desiderable.
So if arenanet have to focus at balancing something THAT SHOULD BE in First place to make necro and revenant more desiderable.
Also if you don’t care about Speed clears or low man kills, you Can Just play your class, enjoy It and go on.
Parabrezza
What I have to complain is that arenanet should remove racial skills from raid, or Nerf take root.
I mean wtf, why should a racial skill give you a dps boost? Appearance should have nothing to do with effectiveness.
IMO is unfair
Parabrezza
Alright. I’m gonna put out some ideas here, mostly for elegance of playstyle here.
1. Change Grace of the Land
Have it give stacks of might instead of a flat damage buff. Why? Because otherwise other healing builds will NEVER be viable or considered. Sometimes Tempest gets to Off Heal. One instance where Ventari Healer is okay for one moment in a boss fight. It’s also a pretty huge “reward” for doing the basic task of bringing heals to the raid when they could use it.
2. Seaweed Salad. No.
Sorry, call me a whiny casual, but constantly jittering around in one spot for massive damage boosts is silly.
3. Ventari Healer…
It was a nice thought, but the Alacrity boon on a high-energy skill is just not feasible for their play-style. It also doesn’t help that Glint is the only thing that keeps the profession held together, and why are you buffing Jalis’ damage when Shiro appears to be the one you’d pick for damage?
PROFESSION SUGGESTIONS:
Engineer:
1. Profession Mechanic: Weapon Kits
Tool Belt Skills: GONE
Insane I know, but both meta Engineer builds have almost exclusive Weapon kits. Power Engie, winds up ONLY USING BOMB KIT 1, THEN TOOLBELTS. Condi Engie has to learn to play the piano in order to do the same thing Condi Warrior and Ranger can do with virtually half the effort.
The Change to Weapon Kits would function like a secondary weapon to compliment your weapon choices. Perhaps 2 weapon kits at a time, to allow for similarly complex rotations and combinations without causing the Engineer to develop Carpal Tunnel syndrome to be decent in raiding.
2. Change Weapon Kit Functionalities.
They should be more clear-cut like you’d see in an Elementalist’s abilities:
Bomb: Damage + Control
Grenade: Damage + Condition
Elixir Gun (Yeah, Bet you forgot this existed): Boons/Support
Med Kit: Healing (Which the Mediblaster skill could use a buff perhaps?)
Tool Kit: Turret Maintenance + Damage
Flamethrower: Condition + Control
Not sure about the Mortar Kit, my initial thought was to roll Orbital Strike into it, and give it some flexibility in combat. Or perhaps change it to somehow empower your other kits with Orbital Strikes?
3. Replace Weapon Kits with… Weapon Mods.
I think weapon mods can work similarly to Signets, passive buffs that modify your attacks, and actives that grant temporary effects to help the engineer.
4. Turret Auto Attacks
They need to happen more frequently, and need to be slightly stronger. Ranger Pets are in a better place, as are Necromancer Minions and Mesmer Phantasms, so I don’t see why we can’t do the same for Turrets. Their targeting should prioritize the engineer’s target first, or the closest target second.
Revenant:
1. Shiro
Enchanted Daggers: Change it to be an upkeep skill akin to Jalis Hammers, have them do more damage than hammers, and focus on the first target the revenant attacks. Maybe reduce the healing throughput if it’s too much.
Phase Traversal: Grant a positional damage bonus akin to the Infiltrator Runes. Side or Behind causes your next few attacks to do additional damage.
Impossible Odds: Not really necessary, but the original got rid of hexes and such right? Maybe it could be traited to give resistance?
2. Sword (Main)
Unrelenting Assault: Animation needs to play faster or be changed a bit. It looks cool, but I can’t help but feel it’s not swinging fast enough for what it is.
3. Devastation
Assassin’s Annihilation is pretty much the thing that could be changed in regards to the Enchanted Daggers change above. Perhaps have it spawn additional daggers that strike once, and buff the damage they deal a little.
4. Corruption
Venom Enhancement: Maybe have it apply 2 stacks of poison, or an equal number of Poison stacks you do for torment stacks?
Yearning Empowerment: Torment is a tricky thing, great for mobile fights, but useless everywhere else. Perhaps have it give Torment the ability to do its full damage regardless of movement under certain conditions? Like maybe if it’s also affected by a movement hindering condition?
Bolstered Anguish: This really feels like a skill belonging to Necromancers using Corruption skills. I guess it’s okay for WvW/SPVP, but I think there needs to be something more to it.
5. Ventari/Salvation
If you want to give Ventari as another source of Alacrity, then Natural Harmony is too expensive to do that reasonably as a Chronomancer can for Raiding. They need something more to compete with Druids. Perhaps move it to the healing orbs on Staff? 1 Second per orb?
Guardian:
1. Honor
Grandmaster Traits: They all seem really attractive in their own rights, but I feel like there’s a conflict of interests with the Writ of Persistence and the Force of Will traits. Both are effective for support. Yet Writ of Persistence is also useful for damage.
Force of Will to me should be a decent go-to choice for healing, and Writ of Persistence could perhaps grant increased boon duration while standing in symbols, moving it off of the Staff cooldown, freeing up weapon usage for staff.
2. Spirit Weapons
Some QoL improvements are needed, same as necro minions. They could be an excellent supplement to a possible condition Guardian.
3. Staff
Needs love. Badly.
Staff 2 recharge reduced, Staff 1 could add healing if traited perhaps (Altering Honorable Staff). Staff 3 is fine too.
4. “Receive the Light”
Reduce the recharge to 20s?
Thief
1. Venom Share…
At first glance I see why Venom share was only a small blip of a thing. Then sharing venoms became baseline for venoms, but the output isn’t enough amongst 5 people. Somewhat bursty, but not enough.
I think it would be interesting to make Venoms permanent/maintainable buffs for the individual Thief. Not sure how, but keeping your own venoms maintained while granting some extra conditions to allies would make for some interesting gameplay for Condition thieves.
Necromancer
Hard to say, but I’d like to see some changes to the Blood Specialization to help them actually heal raid members easier. Otherwise I’d give the ability to heal and/or grant Aegis and such to allies in an elite spec.
Not sure how to change them without making their condi damage late fight ridiculous (like Sabetha).
Not covering all of the professions, but I will say that the current state of raiding while not horrific, we can always do better.
But even then, you Can play D/W that is nothing more difficult than play a condi ranger and you Can have both more dps on large hitboxes or a very competitive one on small hitboxes.
This is exactly the same issue, it just concerns the elementalist class only. Simple builds being very competitive (or even outclassing, in the case of small hitboxes) complex ones. This is poor balance. It doesn’t create any incentive to master the complex build. If anything, it creates the opposite. The game should NEVER punish you for trying to master it. It should reward you. It doesn’t.
2. Seaweed Salad. No.
Sorry, call me a whiny casual, but constantly jittering around in one spot for massive damage boosts is silly.
You are a whiny casual. Constant movement is another layer of difficulty applied to the combat and the reward is worth it for making you focus more on hand movements
2. Seaweed Salad. No.
Sorry, call me a whiny casual, but constantly jittering around in one spot for massive damage boosts is silly.You are a whiny casual. Constant movement is another layer of difficulty applied to the combat and the reward is worth it for making you focus more on hand movements
Does it really? Rapidly dancing from side to side is only a layer of complexity that only occurs in a couple of phases of Matthias. Otherwise it’s almost 0 effort and honestly a hassle for players.
I don’t like it, and from the initial design I can only safely imagine this being useful for mobile fights. If you don’t get rid of it then implement an internal cooldown or something that prevents the buff from being active. Or perhaps change it to +10% damage against moving targets. I would find that more situationally interesting.