Balance Changes That Would Improve Raids
I agree on the profession buffs affecting 10 people. Anet has said that they want to avoid doing this because its taxing on the server in larger zergs (WvW and world bosses), but couldn’t they just have it apply in Raid maps? This would really open up class diversity by reducing the amount of players needed for buffing.
As for guards elite, I think 10 seconds is way too much considering that its only a 36sec CD when traited. 55% uptime (assuming no alacrity) on quickness from a single skill is absolutely huge! 8 sec of quickness is still a huge amount, especially for the low cooldown of this skill, and provides much more fair quickness uptime. I mean seriously, if you want to run without a chrono but still have good quickness uptime, it should be much harder than just using 1 skill and getting over 50% uptime. Maybe if the CD in PvE was increased a bit 10sec of quickness would be fine, but if the CD stays the same as it is now, 10sec quickness is way too much for FmW
I think it’s quite fair. Both chrono and guard provide quickness for 5 ppl. One has to work his magic, but gets 100% uptime on quickness (with ethereal combo fields + putting them where party is side effects).
Other would get simple, effective, no strings attached 66% uptime solution. Chrono still has his invulnies and alacrity to boot. But at least chronopoly on quickness (after alacrity) would go away and allow off meta comps to get their faces outta dirt. No chrono? No problem, let’s get a boon guard and healer rev!
Exactly…. Chrono has to work hard to provide quickness uptime. Guard would literally have to cast his elite off CD, and 2 guards could provide more than 100% quickness uptime.
10 seconds on a 36sec CD is way too kittening much for a single skill. I mean look at TW. Its on a 180 kittening second CD and provides 24 seconds of quickness max, and to get that it limits where you can move. I mean even using it during CS and use CS off CD, it still only has around 30% uptime on quickness, and you are proposing giving guards a 600 radius skill (that’s 60% bigger than TW btw) that would literally hand out ~60% uptime on quickness, without limiting the area people can move around in. If you can’t see why that’s too much then I don’t know what else to tell you. Because that’s not at all balanced, not even close.
TLDR: Don’t take my chrono’s OPness away.
I agree on the profession buffs affecting 10 people. Anet has said that they want to avoid doing this because its taxing on the server in larger zergs (WvW and world bosses), but couldn’t they just have it apply in Raid maps? This would really open up class diversity by reducing the amount of players needed for buffing.
As for guards elite, I think 10 seconds is way too much considering that its only a 36sec CD when traited. 55% uptime (assuming no alacrity) on quickness from a single skill is absolutely huge! 8 sec of quickness is still a huge amount, especially for the low cooldown of this skill, and provides much more fair quickness uptime. I mean seriously, if you want to run without a chrono but still have good quickness uptime, it should be much harder than just using 1 skill and getting over 50% uptime. Maybe if the CD in PvE was increased a bit 10sec of quickness would be fine, but if the CD stays the same as it is now, 10sec quickness is way too much for FmW
I think it’s quite fair. Both chrono and guard provide quickness for 5 ppl. One has to work his magic, but gets 100% uptime on quickness (with ethereal combo fields + putting them where party is side effects).
Other would get simple, effective, no strings attached 66% uptime solution. Chrono still has his invulnies and alacrity to boot. But at least chronopoly on quickness (after alacrity) would go away and allow off meta comps to get their faces outta dirt. No chrono? No problem, let’s get a boon guard and healer rev!
Exactly…. Chrono has to work hard to provide quickness uptime. Guard would literally have to cast his elite off CD, and 2 guards could provide more than 100% quickness uptime.
10 seconds on a 36sec CD is way too kittening much for a single skill. I mean look at TW. Its on a 180 kittening second CD and provides 24 seconds of quickness max, and to get that it limits where you can move. I mean even using it during CS and use CS off CD, it still only has around 30% uptime on quickness, and you are proposing giving guards a 600 radius skill (that’s 60% bigger than TW btw) that would literally hand out ~60% uptime on quickness, without limiting the area people can move around in. If you can’t see why that’s too much then I don’t know what else to tell you. Because that’s not at all balanced, not even close.
TLDR: Don’t take my chrono’s OPness away.
If you make guard overlap bonus with chrono, chrono will be dumped because a guardian does 2x if not more of the chrono’s DPS.
Chrono is not ranger or warrior. It doesn’t bring DPS/healing on top of support. Support is all it offers, and if a class can bring support and DPS, why bring a chrono then.
Just fix boons/auras to apply squad wide and you’ll increase class diversity without making classes obsolete.
No need to then take a second chrono, no need for second warrior. 2 more class slots open.
Make AP for revenant aura not only increase ferocity but condition duration as well (so those at cap can just swap consumables, etc).
Swap the guardian group toughness aura to one of the DPS lines minors, and make it also increase incoming healing by 10%.
Necro just needs a buff to vampiric aura to be a % of health per attack and be leech damage. 2-3% per attack aura suddenly adds up really well.
Voila suddenly you might want to stop stacking ele, condi ranger, and thieves as well.
I’d much rather Might and Fury be the go-to damage increasing boons, and things that give +10% damage and similar abilities removed completely.
Again though this isn’t needed. You only have to cap how high damage modifiers can go.
If its 10% from food and 10% from any other status/non-boon source, then it doesn’t matter if every class has 10% damage modifiers. People will take whatever works best for them/their group.
A cap like this is bad design. It’s counter-intuitive and obscure – it says X gives you 10% more damage but it actually doesn’t because Y already gave it to you. Not to mention introducing such modifier pooling would require rebalancing pretty much the whole game.
Really it is now is it ?
So our entire boon system is somehow counter-intuitive ? Because guess what, its the same stuff different name working the same way.
If you’re thinking that making a BOON that just gives +% damage you are an idiot. Might is the flat power increase. We don’t need a second one that does the same thing.
….and if you could read, you’d notice that’s not at all what i said. We currently have status’ that give +% damage(GoTL). All you have to do is make those ubiquitous and make them function the exact same way boons do now. Does it matter who gives you might, prot or quickness ? No. They are all capped. Guess what you do when you add a new % damage modifying status. You do the smart thing and put them all into a status category called damage amplification that caps at whatever number you want to assign (likely 10% given the state of GoTL).
Novel concept….
That’s not intuitive for the player at all though. You’re just telling people that “oh this is a massive power boost, but in secret, either through the tooltip on the buff itself or in the trait, it doesn’t stack with any other increases like it. Or there’s a hard cap.” At that point you might as well just make it into a new boon for the sake of clarity. Effectively Might 2.0 when the game doesn’t need it.
Just Nerf Grace of the Land, and make it stack might, competing with Phalanx Strength. If a new “healing” profession comes out people are still going to bring druid for the most part because of the simple fact their druids are already geared appropriately.
How can you even remotely call this not intuitive ?
How is might from guardian different from warrior or ele or any other class ?
Now then when we get to the point where there’s more global damage amplification status’ they should be treated exactly like we treat boons. It doesn’t matter who applies it they have a cap of whatever the developers decide it goes to. You know what else happens with boons when you apply more than the max stacks right ? If you don’t please refer to the wiki as i’m really tired trying to explain the obvious to the oblivious.
People know when might stacks reach the top. 25.
People would have far more difficulty understanding if you put a hard cap on buffs that grant %Damage that aren’t those simplified boons.
Druid: Grace of the Land, Frost Spirit Aura, Glyph of Empowerment
Tempest: Harmonious Conduit
Daredevil: Bounding Dodger
Dragon Hunter: Big Game Hunter
Berzerker: Always Angry, Bloody Roar
Superior Rune of the Scholar (6)
Seaweed Salad
I’m sure I’m missing quite a few of those %Damage boosts.
Let’s say we add a healing profession, or another elite specialization that provides a buff similar to grace of the land. If left alone as is: raids would take both the druid, and the new buff, creating power creep.
If changed to what you’re suggesting: only one buff at a time, or a % cap on that, then how would the game communicate that fact to the player? A tooltip on the buff/trait? It would not be elegant. Would it be reclassified as a boon? Also a terrible idea. It would effectively be Might 2.0, a completely redundant and unnecessary concept. It would also cause bloat on tooltips, not necessarily a huge problem, but something I’d rather not see all things considered.
Which is why nerfing Grace of the Land into a might-stacking mechanic would both ratchet down the power creep and provide alternatives for raid compositions.
Exactly…. Chrono has to work hard to provide quickness uptime. Guard would literally have to cast his elite off CD, and 2 guards could provide more than 100% quickness uptime.
10 seconds on a 36sec CD is way too kittening much for a single skill. I mean look at TW. Its on a 180 kittening second CD and provides 24 seconds of quickness max, and to get that it limits where you can move. I mean even using it during CS and use CS off CD, it still only has around 30% uptime on quickness, and you are proposing giving guards a 600 radius skill (that’s 60% bigger than TW btw) that would literally hand out ~60% uptime on quickness, without limiting the area people can move around in. If you can’t see why that’s too much then I don’t know what else to tell you. Because that’s not at all balanced, not even close.
You must be a chrono, cause you sure like to warp reality around you….but that’s actually for the better, you made me see some things about your elite.
So starting up:
1. Guard’s elite affects 5 people, mesmer’s 10. You want 5s quickness on guard’s elite, ok, make it affect 10 ppl too. That way no matter which way the ball rolls, it’ll be 66% quickness uptime with 2 boon duration guards (and alacrity revs) in a squad.
2. Time Warp cooldown is 76.5s because continuum split. It also pulses slow and has some resistance and superspeed if traited. With full boon duration it’s 24s quickness on 76.5 cooldown for full raid squad (10 ppl). Two chronos = around 62% quickness uptime just on elite alone. And they got more ways to apply it, guardians don’t.
What i’m proposing is a way to break chronopoly on raid tanking. And in more ways then one. A boon duration guard (especially with revenant around) doesn’t have to be the tank. Commander’s gear does add toughness but not that much of it while giving plentiful power and precision. With that being the case maybe another profession could take up the tank mantle, reaper for one. You’d have let’s say 22k damage full toughness reaper as tank, 20k+ commander boon spam guard as the dps support and rev as healer. It’s a start ;] More personal damage, less quickness uptime, more job freedom in terms of healers (rev) and tanks (guard himself or another).
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
I’d much rather Might and Fury be the go-to damage increasing boons, and things that give +10% damage and similar abilities removed completely.
Again though this isn’t needed. You only have to cap how high damage modifiers can go.
If its 10% from food and 10% from any other status/non-boon source, then it doesn’t matter if every class has 10% damage modifiers. People will take whatever works best for them/their group.
A cap like this is bad design. It’s counter-intuitive and obscure – it says X gives you 10% more damage but it actually doesn’t because Y already gave it to you. Not to mention introducing such modifier pooling would require rebalancing pretty much the whole game.
Really it is now is it ?
So our entire boon system is somehow counter-intuitive ? Because guess what, its the same stuff different name working the same way.
Boons have a visualization. Partially to help players with the exact same problem.
You also ignored the part about rebalancing the whole game. Rest assured the devs would look at every possible other solution before resorting to this.
Which is why nerfing Grace of the Land into a might-stacking mechanic would both ratchet down the power creep and provide alternatives for raid compositions.
Agreed, this would be an elegant solution. Though it might still not be enough to warrant a different healer, because: Spotter, spirits. However, if spirits get the banners treatment, and even more so if Empower Allies and Spotter do, that could actually do the trick.
(edited by Feanor.2358)
Exactly…. Chrono has to work hard to provide quickness uptime. Guard would literally have to cast his elite off CD, and 2 guards could provide more than 100% quickness uptime.
10 seconds on a 36sec CD is way too kittening much for a single skill. I mean look at TW. Its on a 180 kittening second CD and provides 24 seconds of quickness max, and to get that it limits where you can move. I mean even using it during CS and use CS off CD, it still only has around 30% uptime on quickness, and you are proposing giving guards a 600 radius skill (that’s 60% bigger than TW btw) that would literally hand out ~60% uptime on quickness, without limiting the area people can move around in. If you can’t see why that’s too much then I don’t know what else to tell you. Because that’s not at all balanced, not even close.
You must be a chrono, cause you sure like to warp reality around you….but that’s actually for the better, you made me see some things about your elite.
So starting up:
1. Guard’s elite affects 5 people, mesmer’s 10. You want 5s quickness on guard’s elite, ok, make it affect 10 ppl too. That way no matter which way the ball rolls, it’ll be 66% quickness uptime with 2 boon duration guards (and alacrity revs) in a squad.2. Time Warp cooldown is 76.5s because continuum split. It also pulses slow and has some resistance and superspeed if traited. With full boon duration it’s 24s quickness on 76.5 cooldown for full raid squad (10 ppl). Two chronos = around 62% quickness uptime just on elite alone. And they got more ways to apply it, guardians don’t.
What i’m proposing is a way to break chronopoly on raid tanking. And in more ways then one. A boon duration guard (especially with revenant around) doesn’t have to be the tank. Commander’s gear does add toughness but not that much of it while giving plentiful power and precision. With that being the case maybe another profession could take up the tank mantle, reaper for one. You’d have let’s say 22k damage full toughness reaper as tank, 20k+ commander boon spam guard as the dps support and rev as healer. It’s a start ;] More personal damage, less quickness uptime, more job freedom in terms of healers (rev) and tanks (guard himself or another).
Just so you don’t get the wrong idea from the rest of my post I want you to know that I do think chrono being the only class to provide permanent quickness and decent alacrity uptime is poor design.
However a chrono has to invest in boon duration quite heavily to get this but more importantly does sweet FA in damage, even the full tryhard damage chronos are barely breaking 10k (most do 5-7k) while warriors and condi druids can be 20-25k and 14k respectively? and buff the group considerably more.
Then there is the problem you and everyone else is missing, they have next to no DPS build that is viable due to the phantasm mechanic. Sure they do have a condi build that works on Matthias, Cairn and any fight with 1 boss, no adds and mechanics that prevent players keeping damage up but it is extremely niche. They are messed over by invuln phases, bosses disappearing, teleports, smaller boss events like trio and have extremely poor cleave which makes mesmer incapable of having a proper DPS build.
You’d have to buff mainhand sword by 100% in PvE and it might just make a power build viable but it would be mostly auto and summon phantasms as and when, hardly an engaging fight.
I agree on the profession buffs affecting 10 people. Anet has said that they want to avoid doing this because its taxing on the server in larger zergs (WvW and world bosses), but couldn’t they just have it apply in Raid maps? This would really open up class diversity by reducing the amount of players needed for buffing.
As for guards elite, I think 10 seconds is way too much considering that its only a 36sec CD when traited. 55% uptime (assuming no alacrity) on quickness from a single skill is absolutely huge! 8 sec of quickness is still a huge amount, especially for the low cooldown of this skill, and provides much more fair quickness uptime. I mean seriously, if you want to run without a chrono but still have good quickness uptime, it should be much harder than just using 1 skill and getting over 50% uptime. Maybe if the CD in PvE was increased a bit 10sec of quickness would be fine, but if the CD stays the same as it is now, 10sec quickness is way too much for FmW
I think it’s quite fair. Both chrono and guard provide quickness for 5 ppl. One has to work his magic, but gets 100% uptime on quickness (with ethereal combo fields + putting them where party is side effects).
Other would get simple, effective, no strings attached 66% uptime solution. Chrono still has his invulnies and alacrity to boot. But at least chronopoly on quickness (after alacrity) would go away and allow off meta comps to get their faces outta dirt. No chrono? No problem, let’s get a boon guard and healer rev!
Exactly…. Chrono has to work hard to provide quickness uptime. Guard would literally have to cast his elite off CD, and 2 guards could provide more than 100% quickness uptime.
10 seconds on a 36sec CD is way too kittening much for a single skill. I mean look at TW. Its on a 180 kittening second CD and provides 24 seconds of quickness max, and to get that it limits where you can move. I mean even using it during CS and use CS off CD, it still only has around 30% uptime on quickness, and you are proposing giving guards a 600 radius skill (that’s 60% bigger than TW btw) that would literally hand out ~60% uptime on quickness, without limiting the area people can move around in. If you can’t see why that’s too much then I don’t know what else to tell you. Because that’s not at all balanced, not even close.
Even if feel my wrath was to give 10 sec of quickness having 2 guards would still not be enough to have 100% quickness up time until they back off cd. having 1 chrono on 1 group using timewarp and a guard on the other with maybe some food and a rev for the 30 boon durr casting feel my wrath will be enough. The chrono stil remains the main quickness generator the guard just gives that little boost to make it to 100 for the whole group. And no tw is on what ever cd csplit is.
(edited by zealex.9410)
My proposition to the druid healer conundrum is to give each healer a very different dps option.
druid – current top dog in party wide dps buffs (Gotl, frost, solar, spotter, glyph of empowerement). No need to fix anything, if nerf is needed one could start with slight nerf to GotL duration, to reduce it’s power via it’s uptime.
guardian – high personal damage for healing builds is what I’d recommend – a trait that adds ferocity based on healing power is a good start. It ought to be strong (like 14-20%). Perfect for zealot guards, though as i’m no guard myself some more steps to make dps healer a reality (and not out of line in terms of other guard builds) may need to be taken.
revenant – basically i’m in a spot here. Ventari is pretty amazing healer. Heal away from yourself, heal when cc’d, heal when low on energy (#6) just HEAL!!
Also assassin’s presence, alacrity and soothing bastion for those who opt for them.
I would say maybe something like this:
Monsters in range of energy explusion’s knockback effect receive debuff increasing damage done to them. Debuff formula:
(Outgoing healing effectiveness/10).
So if you stack up on healing effectiveness with traits and runes you can get around 7% extra damage on enemies hit by energy expulsion.
Duration: 8s.
So if you got 70% outgoing healing effectiveness, energy expulsion will inflict 7% extra damage on affected monsters debuff.
elementalist – i know little of this guy. Except that he has to switch attunements and water attunement is rock bottom dps if i recall right. I’ll let you guys throw some ideas here, I’m not qualified for ele balancing here.
@apharma – i personally don’t play mesmer, let alone chronobunker so sadly i can’t throw suggestions how to balance their dps issue. Though know i’m all hands on deck to give chronos damage. Because like many more i want them to move outta raid tank spot. There are tons of others who are just as good as tanks -jalis revs, minstrel druids, any-way-you-wanna-build-them reapers, guards, bunker eles, who knows if even not engies. But never see light of the day because of chrono’s insane utility and usefulness only as a tank because of horrid damage you mentioned.
I don’t mind chrono being an option for a raid tank. I hate it being the only option!
@Zealex – good news bro, near 100% guard quickness duration is possible after all. With help from a rev mind you. In that regard i would suggest to keep 5s and even cooldown, but up the target limit to 10.
Here’s how it works:
100% boon duration on guard = 10s quickness.
Trait lowering cd = 36s cd.
Alacrity on top of that (let’s say 66% alacrity uptime) – 30s
two guards casting it = 20s outta 30s you get quickness.
In comes the rev with soothing bastion, adding 4s to first stack of quickness and maybe 2s or 4s to the next..and you get around 26~28s quickness on 30s cooldowns if everyone does their job right.
It won’t be that easy in rl scenario – rev has to struggle with energy costs and careful management of all his skills. But done right it is possible.
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
Ele is a pretty strong healer. Very high sustain, lacks spike heals which druid has. Can also apply permanent regen and protection. But. No party dps buffs, so it’s only used when you absolutely have to, mostly in novice groups.
Frankly, nothing can replace the druid unless they provide the same party buffs. You forgot Spotter btw.
Spotter is your general 150 stat buff. Rev has assassin’s presence as his counter to spotter.
Guardian has 150 tough…ok point taken. I’ll add spotter.
Exactly…. Chrono has to work hard to provide quickness uptime. Guard would literally have to cast his elite off CD, and 2 guards could provide more than 100% quickness uptime.
10 seconds on a 36sec CD is way too kittening much for a single skill. I mean look at TW. Its on a 180 kittening second CD and provides 24 seconds of quickness max, and to get that it limits where you can move. I mean even using it during CS and use CS off CD, it still only has around 30% uptime on quickness, and you are proposing giving guards a 600 radius skill (that’s 60% bigger than TW btw) that would literally hand out ~60% uptime on quickness, without limiting the area people can move around in. If you can’t see why that’s too much then I don’t know what else to tell you. Because that’s not at all balanced, not even close.
You must be a chrono, cause you sure like to warp reality around you….but that’s actually for the better, you made me see some things about your elite.
So starting up:
1. Guard’s elite affects 5 people, mesmer’s 10. You want 5s quickness on guard’s elite, ok, make it affect 10 ppl too. That way no matter which way the ball rolls, it’ll be 66% quickness uptime with 2 boon duration guards (and alacrity revs) in a squad.2. Time Warp cooldown is 76.5s because continuum split. It also pulses slow and has some resistance and superspeed if traited. With full boon duration it’s 24s quickness on 76.5 cooldown for full raid squad (10 ppl). Two chronos = around 62% quickness uptime just on elite alone. And they got more ways to apply it, guardians don’t.
What i’m proposing is a way to break chronopoly on raid tanking. And in more ways then one. A boon duration guard (especially with revenant around) doesn’t have to be the tank. Commander’s gear does add toughness but not that much of it while giving plentiful power and precision. With that being the case maybe another profession could take up the tank mantle, reaper for one. You’d have let’s say 22k damage full toughness reaper as tank, 20k+ commander boon spam guard as the dps support and rev as healer. It’s a start ;] More personal damage, less quickness uptime, more job freedom in terms of healers (rev) and tanks (guard himself or another).
I didn’t make anything up, and I even said that 8 seconds quickness would be ok (even though thats still a bit high considering the short CD). I said, when traited and exclusively using TW inside of CS, you only get around 30% uptime on quickness. 24 seconds every ~76 seconds is about 30% uptime on quickness. And that is exactly what I said, so thanks for confirming my math for me man. And again, 2 chronos would only provide about 60% uptime on quickness by blowing both the longest CD elite spec mechanic in the game and their elite skills. And they would still only be able to equal the %uptime on quickness that a single guard could put out for an entire subgroup. And this doesn’t even take into account that a guard can apply this quickness in a radius that is larger than anything the chronomancer can do. So not only does a chronomancer have to work far harder to get high quickness uptime, they have a much more limited area of application.
10 sec quickness on a 36 sec CD is way too kittening much. Way too much. You can have 8 seconds, or you can get the CD reduced back to 30 seconds (which is still over 40% uptime on quickness, again in a radius that is almost twice as large as TW is………, so its still kittening ridiculous uptime for almost no investment). This is not how you achieve role diversity. Not even close.
And about chrono not being the go to tank. That’s on the community, not on class balance. It goes to tank so often because on top of being good at it, it doesn’t lose anything to do so. It can still get off its quickness and alacrity rotation while tanking, and its DPS is so small that you don’t notice it losing any. So, adding another class that can output quickness won’t begin to touch that problem, because it won’t change chronomancer at all. So chrono would still be the go to tank.
TLDR: Don’t take my chrono’s OPness away.
That’s not at all what I said. Its not at all balanced that chrono has to invest in and work hard on their quickness rotation to get high uptime, if guards were able to handout ~60% uptime from a single kitten skill. I have no problem with other classes getting high quickness output, if they have to invest in it like chronomancer does. But as it stands, a guard doesn’t have to sacrifice much from their DPS to slot in FmW and get ridiculously easy quickness uptime compared to a chrono that has to devote their entire build to it.
I’d much rather Might and Fury be the go-to damage increasing boons, and things that give +10% damage and similar abilities removed completely.
Again though this isn’t needed. You only have to cap how high damage modifiers can go.
If its 10% from food and 10% from any other status/non-boon source, then it doesn’t matter if every class has 10% damage modifiers. People will take whatever works best for them/their group.
A cap like this is bad design. It’s counter-intuitive and obscure – it says X gives you 10% more damage but it actually doesn’t because Y already gave it to you. Not to mention introducing such modifier pooling would require rebalancing pretty much the whole game.
Really it is now is it ?
So our entire boon system is somehow counter-intuitive ? Because guess what, its the same stuff different name working the same way.
If you’re thinking that making a BOON that just gives +% damage you are an idiot. Might is the flat power increase. We don’t need a second one that does the same thing.
….and if you could read, you’d notice that’s not at all what i said. We currently have status’ that give +% damage(GoTL). All you have to do is make those ubiquitous and make them function the exact same way boons do now. Does it matter who gives you might, prot or quickness ? No. They are all capped. Guess what you do when you add a new % damage modifying status. You do the smart thing and put them all into a status category called damage amplification that caps at whatever number you want to assign (likely 10% given the state of GoTL).
Novel concept….
That’s not intuitive for the player at all though. You’re just telling people that “oh this is a massive power boost, but in secret, either through the tooltip on the buff itself or in the trait, it doesn’t stack with any other increases like it. Or there’s a hard cap.” At that point you might as well just make it into a new boon for the sake of clarity. Effectively Might 2.0 when the game doesn’t need it.
Just Nerf Grace of the Land, and make it stack might, competing with Phalanx Strength. If a new “healing” profession comes out people are still going to bring druid for the most part because of the simple fact their druids are already geared appropriately.
How can you even remotely call this not intuitive ?
How is might from guardian different from warrior or ele or any other class ?
Now then when we get to the point where there’s more global damage amplification status’ they should be treated exactly like we treat boons. It doesn’t matter who applies it they have a cap of whatever the developers decide it goes to. You know what else happens with boons when you apply more than the max stacks right ? If you don’t please refer to the wiki as i’m really tired trying to explain the obvious to the oblivious.
People know when might stacks reach the top. 25.
People would have far more difficulty understanding if you put a hard cap on buffs that grant %Damage that aren’t those simplified boons.
Druid: Grace of the Land, Frost Spirit Aura, Glyph of Empowerment
Tempest: Harmonious Conduit
Daredevil: Bounding Dodger
Dragon Hunter: Big Game Hunter
Berzerker: Always Angry, Bloody RoarSuperior Rune of the Scholar (6)
Seaweed SaladI’m sure I’m missing quite a few of those %Damage boosts.
Let’s say we add a healing profession, or another elite specialization that provides a buff similar to grace of the land. If left alone as is: raids would take both the druid, and the new buff, creating power creep.
If changed to what you’re suggesting: only one buff at a time, or a % cap on that, then how would the game communicate that fact to the player? A tooltip on the buff/trait? It would not be elegant. Would it be reclassified as a boon? Also a terrible idea. It would effectively be Might 2.0, a completely redundant and unnecessary concept. It would also cause bloat on tooltips, not necessarily a huge problem, but something I’d rather not see all things considered.
Which is why nerfing Grace of the Land into a might-stacking mechanic would both ratchet down the power creep and provide alternatives for raid compositions.
You’re also missing the important part of them being applied via other classes. Only one class in the game can currently do that and it. I also already stated from status effects only. Please keep up.
I didn’t make anything up, and I even said that 8 seconds quickness would be ok (even though thats still a bit high considering the short CD). I said, when traited and exclusively using TW inside of CS, you only get around 30% uptime on quickness. 24 seconds every ~76 seconds is about 30% uptime on quickness. And that is exactly what I said, so thanks for confirming my math for me man. And again, 2 chronos would only provide about 60% uptime on quickness by blowing both the longest CD elite spec mechanic in the game and their elite skills. And they would still only be able to equal the %uptime on quickness that a single guard could put out for an entire subgroup. And this doesn’t even take into account that a guard can apply this quickness in a radius that is larger than anything the chronomancer can do. So not only does a chronomancer have to work far harder to get high quickness uptime, they have a much more limited area of application.
10 sec quickness on a 36 sec CD is way too kittening much. Way too much. You can have 8 seconds, or you can get the CD reduced back to 30 seconds (which is still over 40% uptime on quickness, again in a radius that is almost twice as large as TW is………, so its still kittening ridiculous uptime for almost no investment). This is not how you achieve role diversity. Not even close.
And about chrono not being the go to tank. That’s on the community, not on class balance. It goes to tank so often because on top of being good at it, it doesn’t lose anything to do so. It can still get off its quickness and alacrity rotation while tanking, and its DPS is so small that you don’t notice it losing any. So, adding another class that can output quickness won’t begin to touch that problem, because it won’t change chronomancer at all. So chrono would still be the go to tank.
TLDR: Don’t take my chrono’s OPness away.
That’s not at all what I said. Its not at all balanced that chrono has to invest in and work hard on their quickness rotation to get high uptime, if guards were able to handout ~60% uptime from a single kitten skill. I have no problem with other classes getting high quickness output, if they have to invest in it like chronomancer does. But as it stands, a guard doesn’t have to sacrifice much from their DPS to slot in FmW and get ridiculously easy quickness uptime compared to a chrono that has to devote their entire build to it.
I’ll make it as short as possible since you refuse to accept logic that is served in too long form.
Chrono elite = 10 people affected.
Guardian elite = 5ppl affected.
Two guardians = 100% quickness uptime for raid? Only with:
a) two revs (alacrity + soothing bastion extra duration)
b) doubling the potency of their elite – either via number of targets (10) or base duration.
And even then it’s close, but not perfect 100% uptime.
It’s already bad enough that it takes 2 professions to team up (and with major boost to elite needed) to replace a single chrono. Don’t gimme me that OP sob story, that’s like crying you ain’t got a pistol at home, when you got a kitten cannon sitting on your lawn.
I’ll make it as short as possible since you refuse to accept logic that is served in too long form.
Chrono elite = 10 people affected.
Guardian elite = 5ppl affected.Two guardians = 100% quickness uptime for raid? Only with:
a) two revs (alacrity + soothing bastion extra duration)
b) doubling the potency of their elite – either via number of targets (10) or base duration.And even then it’s close, but not perfect 100% uptime.
It’s already bad enough that it takes 2 professions to team up (and with major boost to elite needed) to replace a single chrono. Don’t gimme me that OP sob story, that’s like crying you ain’t got a pistol at home, when you got a kitten cannon sitting on your lawn.
But guardian dps is way higher. And people can’t accidentally step out of your wells. It is true that giving an alternative to chrono would make it utterly useless. See revenant’s state for reference.
Then post chrono dps increase ideas. I have absolutely 0 problems with mesmers/chronos becoming a viable dps profession. As long as it’s viable and not only option as it is now with tanking if you need your raid dps to be serious (like KC or Gorse).
Also guard + reve also ain’t the dps wombo-combo. Guard can (and should) have high dps with boon duration build. That’s ok. But rev on the other hand has to sit on ventari, so most likely a healer. Expect bad dps here as well.
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
My proposition to the druid healer conundrum is to give each healer a very different dps option.
druid – current top dog in party wide dps buffs (Gotl, frost, solar, spotter, glyph of empowerement). No need to fix anything, if nerf is needed one could start with slight nerf to GotL duration, to reduce it’s power via it’s uptime.
guardian – high personal damage for healing builds is what I’d recommend – a trait that adds ferocity based on healing power is a good start. It ought to be strong (like 14-20%). Perfect for zealot guards, though as i’m no guard myself some more steps to make dps healer a reality (and not out of line in terms of other guard builds) may need to be taken.
revenant – basically i’m in a spot here. Ventari is pretty amazing healer. Heal away from yourself, heal when cc’d, heal when low on energy (#6) just HEAL!!
Also assassin’s presence, alacrity and soothing bastion for those who opt for them.I would say maybe something like this:
Monsters in range of energy explusion’s knockback effect receive debuff increasing damage done to them. Debuff formula:
(Outgoing healing effectiveness/10).So if you stack up on healing effectiveness with traits and runes you can get around 7% extra damage on enemies hit by energy expulsion.
Duration: 8s.
So if you got 70% outgoing healing effectiveness, energy expulsion will inflict 7% extra damage on affected monsters debuff.
elementalist – i know little of this guy. Except that he has to switch attunements and water attunement is rock bottom dps if i recall right. I’ll let you guys throw some ideas here, I’m not qualified for ele balancing here.
@apharma – i personally don’t play mesmer, let alone chronobunker so sadly i can’t throw suggestions how to balance their dps issue. Though know i’m all hands on deck to give chronos damage. Because like many more i want them to move outta raid tank spot. There are tons of others who are just as good as tanks -jalis revs, minstrel druids, any-way-you-wanna-build-them reapers, guards, bunker eles, who knows if even not engies. But never see light of the day because of chrono’s insane utility and usefulness only as a tank because of horrid damage you mentioned.
I don’t mind chrono being an option for a raid tank. I hate it being the only option!
@Zealex – good news bro, near 100% guard quickness duration is possible after all. With help from a rev mind you. In that regard i would suggest to keep 5s and even cooldown, but up the target limit to 10.
Here’s how it works:
100% boon duration on guard = 10s quickness.
Trait lowering cd = 36s cd.
Alacrity on top of that (let’s say 66% alacrity uptime) – 30stwo guards casting it = 20s outta 30s you get quickness.
In comes the rev with soothing bastion, adding 4s to first stack of quickness and maybe 2s or 4s to the next..and you get around 26~28s quickness on 30s cooldowns if everyone does their job right.
It won’t be that easy in rl scenario – rev has to struggle with energy costs and careful management of all his skills. But done right it is possible.
so basically 2 guard 1 rev and 1 mesmer by default? It sounds bad man ;-;
I’ll make it as short as possible since you refuse to accept logic that is served in too long form.
Chrono elite = 10 people affected.
Guardian elite = 5ppl affected.Two guardians = 100% quickness uptime for raid? Only with:
a) two revs (alacrity + soothing bastion extra duration)
b) doubling the potency of their elite – either via number of targets (10) or base duration.And even then it’s close, but not perfect 100% uptime.
It’s already bad enough that it takes 2 professions to team up (and with major boost to elite needed) to replace a single chrono. Don’t gimme me that OP sob story, that’s like crying you ain’t got a pistol at home, when you got a kitten cannon sitting on your lawn.But guardian dps is way higher. And people can’t accidentally step out of your wells. It is true that giving an alternative to chrono would make it utterly useless. See revenant’s state for reference.
It wouldnt. having a class with the same quockness outpit but higher dmg and no alacrity is the same with having chrono it all comes to the numbers of dmg that class can pull of ao it will balance out woth the dmg ppl get from alacrity. Theres also such thing as futire classes or specs not benefiting much from alacrity (re or teef) so for comps woth such classes a quickness generator with higher personal dmg to cover the alck of alacrity is just as good
I didn’t make anything up, and I even said that 8 seconds quickness would be ok (even though thats still a bit high considering the short CD). I said, when traited and exclusively using TW inside of CS, you only get around 30% uptime on quickness. 24 seconds every ~76 seconds is about 30% uptime on quickness. And that is exactly what I said, so thanks for confirming my math for me man. And again, 2 chronos would only provide about 60% uptime on quickness by blowing both the longest CD elite spec mechanic in the game and their elite skills. And they would still only be able to equal the %uptime on quickness that a single guard could put out for an entire subgroup. And this doesn’t even take into account that a guard can apply this quickness in a radius that is larger than anything the chronomancer can do. So not only does a chronomancer have to work far harder to get high quickness uptime, they have a much more limited area of application.
10 sec quickness on a 36 sec CD is way too kittening much. Way too much. You can have 8 seconds, or you can get the CD reduced back to 30 seconds (which is still over 40% uptime on quickness, again in a radius that is almost twice as large as TW is………, so its still kittening ridiculous uptime for almost no investment). This is not how you achieve role diversity. Not even close.
And about chrono not being the go to tank. That’s on the community, not on class balance. It goes to tank so often because on top of being good at it, it doesn’t lose anything to do so. It can still get off its quickness and alacrity rotation while tanking, and its DPS is so small that you don’t notice it losing any. So, adding another class that can output quickness won’t begin to touch that problem, because it won’t change chronomancer at all. So chrono would still be the go to tank.
TLDR: Don’t take my chrono’s OPness away.
That’s not at all what I said. Its not at all balanced that chrono has to invest in and work hard on their quickness rotation to get high uptime, if guards were able to handout ~60% uptime from a single kitten skill. I have no problem with other classes getting high quickness output, if they have to invest in it like chronomancer does. But as it stands, a guard doesn’t have to sacrifice much from their DPS to slot in FmW and get ridiculously easy quickness uptime compared to a chrono that has to devote their entire build to it.
I’ll make it as short as possible since you refuse to accept logic that is served in too long form.
Chrono elite = 10 people affected.
Guardian elite = 5ppl affected.Two guardians = 100% quickness uptime for raid? Only with:
a) two revs (alacrity + soothing bastion extra duration)
b) doubling the potency of their elite – either via number of targets (10) or base duration.And even then it’s close, but not perfect 100% uptime.
It’s already bad enough that it takes 2 professions to team up (and with major boost to elite needed) to replace a single chrono. Don’t gimme me that OP sob story, that’s like crying you ain’t got a pistol at home, when you got a kitten cannon sitting on your lawn.
if we only with current gaurd no it doesnt need to change maybe add a few seconds of quickness. So basically you have the main mesmer giving quickness with timewarp to 10 and toping his 5 man group. While the guard compliments the tw quickness with feelmy wrath and achieves 100 boon on the other 5 man group. That would require tho more quickness on feel my wrath.
Then post chrono dps increase ideas. I have absolutely 0 problems with mesmers/chronos becoming a viable dps profession. As long as it’s viable and not only option as it is now with tanking if you need your raid dps to be serious (like KC or Gorse).
Also guard + reve also ain’t the dps wombo-combo. Guard can (and should) have high dps with boon duration build. That’s ok. But rev on the other hand has to sit on ventari, so most likely a healer. Expect bad dps here as well.
The point is, this kind of changes are unlikely to come before an expansion. Way too much balance changes, and you’d need to do the balance anyway for the new specializations. Might as well just do it once.
Then post chrono dps increase ideas. I have absolutely 0 problems with mesmers/chronos becoming a viable dps profession. As long as it’s viable and not only option as it is now with tanking if you need your raid dps to be serious (like KC or Gorse).
Also guard + reve also ain’t the dps wombo-combo. Guard can (and should) have high dps with boon duration build. That’s ok. But rev on the other hand has to sit on ventari, so most likely a healer. Expect bad dps here as well.
To do that you would need to completely rework mesmer phantasms, read: remove phantasms from the game and rebalance every single phantasm skill again and essentially remake it.
I put up my idea on the mesmer forum, so has OriOri and many others if I have time to search I’ll grab the link but I have to command raids this evening.
As far as personal dps is concerned, the balance seems fine right now. Most of the balance issues are with the buffs different classes provide:
Warrior – Currently too strong. Has some of the best offensive buffs (banners and EA), while also being the only might stacker that is currently use (the alternatives are guard and rev, both of which have issues). Condi PS damage should be lowered, condi dps build should be kept as is until another class becomes viable for stacking might (then the dps build can be nerfed too – you shouldn’t have both dps and strong buffs).
Guardian – Good dps, good healing, but no useful offensive buffs. That is a tough one. Unless you buff the dps to silly levels, they will never be the optimal pick for the dps slot.
However, like someone said in this thread, having them as dps/healer hybrid might be the way to go.
Maybe adjust virtues/radiance to be better suited for that role?
That will also make burning aspect of guardian actually useful for something. Merging battle presence with absolute resolution would be a good place to start, allowing them to be taken at the same time as permeating wrath.
Revenant – Tries too do too many things at once – and fails at all of them. This one needs an extensive rework – there is no one change that will fix them.
Having them be able to make more specialized builds would be nice – focusing on either dps or buffing, not trying to do both at the same time.
Thief – Probably the most simple of all classes. They just do dps – and that is what they should do. Having them as one of the higher dps classes is completely fine.
Engineer – Another simple case – dps and a minor buff. Harder to play than other pure dps options, but also rewards the players that master it with higher dps potential. Fairly balanced.
Ranger – Strong dps with easy rotation with damage build, stupidly OP buffs with the healer build. When a single class takes half of the raid squad slots, you know there is a problem.
For the dps build – a slight reduction in damage would be enough.
Druid on the other hand is probably the most overpowered build in raids right now. A druid can use full dps gear and do a decent chunk of damage, provide some of the strongest damage buffs to the team and heal, all at the same time.
At least some of these aspect should be nerfed. I think spotter should be moved somewhere where it is more accessible to cranger while being out of reach of druid and the base healing of druid should be reduced so they would actually have to use healing gear. Guards would get personal dps and healing, druids would get healing and damage buffs. Balance.
Elementalist – More damage on big hitboxes, less damage on small hitboxes. Whether that is a good thing is debatable, but at least that is some sort of balance.
Mesmer – I think chrono is in a fine spot. Currently it is the only quickness stacker, but in the future, if another quickness stacking build becomes a thing, it can be balanced against chrono by having higher personal dps (to compensate for lack of alacrity).
DPS mesmer could be better, but that is something that should probably be addressed with the next elite spec – that way it won’t affect chrono damage.
Necromancer – Power necro is bad. Blood magic is bad. Condi necro relies on dysfunctional combo system.
The easiest fix for condi necro would be changing combo field priorty. That would make them reach their potential dps much more reliably, and would put them in a good spot, especially in fights where epidemic is used.
Power necro – where is the damage? Axe, dagger, GS, all of the weapons are bad. Shroud skills are worse than auto attacking with your weapon. Damage modifiers? What damage modifiers? Power necro needs some big buffs, and shroud needs to be made useful for power builds.
Blood Magic – the support trait line that does absolutely nothing. Life Siphoning should scale better. The damage with power, the healing with healing power. That way a power necro would be able to take it to increase group dps, while a healer necro would be able to provide meaningful group sustain (or maybe even both?). Staff should be reworked to be a better support weapon if healer necro is ever to become a thing.
Chrono is hardly at a good spot. It’s stupidly OP in the tank role, while being really bad in a dps role.
Condi chrono needs a buff (least raid – wise), while tank chrono needs an alternative.
Quickness + Alacrity is already the party dps wombo-combo all on one character.
But if that wasn’t enogh in comes party-wide distortion saving whole groups from wipes, something no other profession can do so easily (ele’s rebound has it’s cooldown, jalis rev can mitigate but not completely shut down damage to party)..
Chrono is part of the problem along with PS warr and Druid. Because the problem mentioned above is not as much dps, but monopoly on raid spots. And so far it’s mandatory 2 chrono, 2 ps warrs, 2 druids, and then 4 mere slots for other 2/3 of profession roster…
…and thats dps slots only to add insult to injury, at best one kiter. No tanks, no healers, no support.
There is no “dps chrono” and “tank chrono”. The difference between tank chrono and non-tank chrono is 1 trinket that you use to grab aggro. Lack of dps is just part of being chrono – and the alacrity is there to compensate for that. So no, chrono doesn’t need damage buffs of any sort – it is not supposed to do damage.
Being the only class that can stack quickness is a different issue, one that can be easily fixed with future elite specs. Having 6 slots taken by support roles isn’t a problem, as long as there is variety within the supports.
Ozzrel, not sure we are on the same page but guardian is really strong on dps and the rotation isn’t super complex either. Engy for condi is a fairly complex rotation but the power build can hit 25k pressing 2 or 3 buttons and leaving auto attack on, if you want to weave in higher damage abilities it’s not a lot more complex and is competitive with other damage builds.
@Topic
What about the idea of standardising unique buffs? Currently we have a ton of unique buffs all doing something the same or being a stat increase. What if we instead had only 1-3 offensive buffs (non boon buff that is) which was instead granted by multiple classes?
So for example instead of GotL we would change to invigorating damage, stacks up to 5 giving 2% damage per stack and basically is given mostly whenever you heal someone. You slot it into different traits to do with healing and now the playing field is more level on healers.
You could then have 2 generic non stacking damage buffs, one which gives 10% more power and condition damage and another that gives more 10% more crit Chan e and critical damage. Replace banner and spirit buffs with these and generally try to cut down on the amount of unique buffs running around to increase variety eventually.
(edited by apharma.3741)
What variety?!
8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed the tank spot in runs. Chrono or get lost.
8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed to be the healer, cause druid or go home.
8 outta 9 professions are flipped off if they wanna be the might stacker. PS warr or hit the road.
Above “variety” takes up 6/10 slots. Remaining 4 can only be dps (or kiter) and even there some prejudice runs rampant (too many want ele, cranger). And i’m cranger main myself when it comes to raids, so it’s not like i feel jeleaous or wanna cry out my “they didn’t want me” frustrations. It’s just the current, quite rotten state of affairs when it comes to “play your way” in raids…
“play your way” in raids…
Were raids ever announced to be like that?
In addition, we are talking about pugging here because in many static groups the diversity is high and not every guild group is running 2/2/2+ 4. And also here: Raids were never meant to be pugged.
Took me 3 runs of the dungeon to get the bug.
Ozzrel, not sure we are on the same page but guardian is really strong on dps and the rotation isn’t super complex either. Engy for condi is a fairly complex rotation but the power build can hit 25k pressing 2 or 3 buttons and leaving auto attack on, if you want to weave in higher damage abilities it’s not a lot more complex and is competitive with other damage builds.
I’m not saying that their dps is bad – I’m saying that it is worse than other options. Other classes either get more dps or have a unique buff. Guardians just do ok dps – and nothing else.
@Topic
What about the idea of standardising unique buffs?
That would just be more flavors of boons. Boring and pointless. Having unique buffs is fine – as long as the dps balance takes that into account.
What variety?!
8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed the tank spot in runs. Chrono or get lost.
8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed to be the healer, cause druid or go home.
8 outta 9 professions are flipped off if they wanna be the might stacker. PS warr or hit the road.Above “variety” takes up 6/10 slots. Remaining 4 can only be dps (or kiter) and even there some prejudice runs rampant (too many want ele, cranger). And i’m cranger main myself when it comes to raids, so it’s not like i feel jeleaous or wanna cry out my “they didn’t want me” frustrations. It’s just the current, quite rotten state of affairs when it comes to “play your way” in raids…
Which is why I suggested creating another quickness stacking option… and druid nerfs…
PS could also be nerfed, so warriors would have to invest more into boon duration, which can make guard a viable alternative. Rev would still need a buff, because waiting for 24 seconds to stack up might is just terrible.
What variety?!
8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed the tank spot in runs. Chrono or get lost.
8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed to be the healer, cause druid or go home.
8 outta 9 professions are flipped off if they wanna be the might stacker. PS warr or hit the road.Above “variety” takes up 6/10 slots. Remaining 4 can only be dps (or kiter) and even there some prejudice runs rampant (too many want ele, cranger). And i’m cranger main myself when it comes to raids, so it’s not like i feel jeleaous or wanna cry out my “they didn’t want me” frustrations. It’s just the current, quite rotten state of affairs when it comes to “play your way” in raids…
But it’s how it always is.
If you change something with the intention of making everyone equal, they will just calculate the new best composition, and everyone has to adhere to that. You can’t get out of it in a society where only the max results matter. I don’t like it, but I man up and just make what people want, so I can raid. And honestly, I don’t really care anymore, I have a PS, I have a druid, I have an FA-ele and condi-necro. If anet tries to fix this, you’ll just end up with a different composition that EVERYONE MUST PLAY. When I raid with friends I am free to pick and do whatever I want, because we know even bad builds can clear raids. but pugs don’t want good raids, they want the best raids. 100% or nothing, 95% won’t do, if you want 95% you gotta play with friends or make your own pugs.
It’s just the current, quite rotten state of affairs when it comes to “play your way” in raids…
Come, now…
You can play whatever you want in raids. People beat bosses with half the players, surely you can afford to run something that’s not the absolute optimal. The only difference is, the more suboptimal you are, the less mistakes you’ll be allowed before causing the encounter to fail.
But let me ask you this – what exactly do you want? The possibility to play your way in the raids? Or to be able to play your way in the raids and keep them as easy as they are with the optimal compositions?
As far as personal dps is concerned, the balance seems fine right now. Most of the balance issues are with the buffs different classes provide:
Warrior – Currently too strong. Has some of the best offensive buffs (banners and EA), while also being the only might stacker that is currently use (the alternatives are guard and rev, both of which have issues). Condi PS damage should be lowered, condi dps build should be kept as is until another class becomes viable for stacking might (then the dps build can be nerfed too – you shouldn’t have both dps and strong buffs).
Guardian – Good dps, good healing, but no useful offensive buffs. That is a tough one. Unless you buff the dps to silly levels, they will never be the optimal pick for the dps slot.
However, like someone said in this thread, having them as dps/healer hybrid might be the way to go.
Maybe adjust virtues/radiance to be better suited for that role?
That will also make burning aspect of guardian actually useful for something. Merging battle presence with absolute resolution would be a good place to start, allowing them to be taken at the same time as permeating wrath.Revenant – Tries too do too many things at once – and fails at all of them. This one needs an extensive rework – there is no one change that will fix them.
Having them be able to make more specialized builds would be nice – focusing on either dps or buffing, not trying to do both at the same time.Thief – Probably the most simple of all classes. They just do dps – and that is what they should do. Having them as one of the higher dps classes is completely fine.
Engineer – Another simple case – dps and a minor buff. Harder to play than other pure dps options, but also rewards the players that master it with higher dps potential. Fairly balanced.
Ranger – Strong dps with easy rotation with damage build, stupidly OP buffs with the healer build. When a single class takes half of the raid squad slots, you know there is a problem.
For the dps build – a slight reduction in damage would be enough.
Druid on the other hand is probably the most overpowered build in raids right now. A druid can use full dps gear and do a decent chunk of damage, provide some of the strongest damage buffs to the team and heal, all at the same time.
At least some of these aspect should be nerfed. I think spotter should be moved somewhere where it is more accessible to cranger while being out of reach of druid and the base healing of druid should be reduced so they would actually have to use healing gear. Guards would get personal dps and healing, druids would get healing and damage buffs. Balance.Elementalist – More damage on big hitboxes, less damage on small hitboxes. Whether that is a good thing is debatable, but at least that is some sort of balance.
Mesmer – I think chrono is in a fine spot. Currently it is the only quickness stacker, but in the future, if another quickness stacking build becomes a thing, it can be balanced against chrono by having higher personal dps (to compensate for lack of alacrity).
DPS mesmer could be better, but that is something that should probably be addressed with the next elite spec – that way it won’t affect chrono damage.Necromancer – Power necro is bad. Blood magic is bad. Condi necro relies on dysfunctional combo system.
The easiest fix for condi necro would be changing combo field priorty. That would make them reach their potential dps much more reliably, and would put them in a good spot, especially in fights where epidemic is used.
Power necro – where is the damage? Axe, dagger, GS, all of the weapons are bad. Shroud skills are worse than auto attacking with your weapon. Damage modifiers? What damage modifiers? Power necro needs some big buffs, and shroud needs to be made useful for power builds.
Blood Magic – the support trait line that does absolutely nothing. Life Siphoning should scale better. The damage with power, the healing with healing power. That way a power necro would be able to take it to increase group dps, while a healer necro would be able to provide meaningful group sustain (or maybe even both?). Staff should be reworked to be a better support weapon if healer necro is ever to become a thing.
Why would you nerf the warrior dps condi build? It has lower dps than all the other dps builds and if you want extra utility from it you have to lower the dps further. If anything the damage should be buffed so it’s a viable.alternative to other pure dps builds.
[DnT]::Nike::
www.twitch.tv/nike_dnt
www.twitch.tv/nike_dnt
Why would you nerf the warrior dps condi build? It has lower dps than all the other dps builds and if you want extra utility from it you have to lower the dps further. If anything the damage should be buffed so it’s a viable.alternative to other pure dps builds.
Riiight, because the warriors aren’t mandatory already. Please be realistic.
I’m not saying that their dps is bad – I’m saying that it is worse than other options. Other classes either get more dps or have a unique buff. Guardians just do ok dps – and nothing else.
@Topic
What about the idea of standardising unique buffs?
That would just be more flavors of boons. Boring and pointless. Having unique buffs is fine – as long as the dps balance takes that into account.
Firstly every single class except rev and possibly necro has DPS within 4k of each other, or rather the difference is 10% if played optimally, excluding condi engy. If your team wipes it isn’t because you brought 3 guards instead of 3 condi rangers, it’s because the players sucked. Unless you are going for a world record the DPS of all classes and their viability within that role has never been better or more balanced.
Secondly, no, exclusive unique buffs is not fine, it mandates bringing specific classes especially when they are overloaded with those buffs like current druid and warrior. Additionally as we add more and more unique buffs to classes to make them competitive we risk continuous power creep which this game cannot afford to keep doing. If you standardise them to 3-4 non stacking damage buffs and regulate uptime and access from there you allow greater trade offs and build variety.
Say you don’t have or don’t want to run a druid? At the moment you lose a massive amount of damage but if those same buffs could be provided by a combination of heal ele (having to trait into water and heal) and one of 3 other classes by swapping a utility all of a sudden variety has gone up. Druid can still remain one of the best sources but no longer is the only way and the difference between having and not having druid goes down substantially.
Secondly, no, exclusive unique buffs is not fine, it mandates bringing specific classes especially when they are overloaded with those buffs like current druid and warrior.
And this is exactly why personal dps should be adjusted according to the buffs the class provides. Did you even read what I said?
Why would you nerf the warrior dps condi build? It has lower dps than all the other dps builds and if you want extra utility from it you have to lower the dps further. If anything the damage should be buffed so it’s a viable.alternative to other pure dps builds.
Since right now PS warrior is pretty much mandatory in every subgroup, the dps and banners don’t really matter, but if another class is ever able to stack might as good as warrior, the banners and personal dps will be a factor in deciding whether you take a PS warrior or that other build, or whether you take a warrior in the dps slot or not. Although having 1 spot in a 10 man squad reserved for warrior isn’t really a big issue, so whatever.
Having 1 spot in a 10 man squad reserved for warrior is called good balance. That should be the eventual goal for every class.
@Feanor.2358 I’m not sure your point. I wasn’t talking about condi ps. Pure dps condi warrior has bad dps relative to other pure dps builds so asking for it to be nerfed is weird.
Also, what most people miss here is that the current balance is excellent except for Revenant and necro to a far lesser extent. A lot of the ideas people are posting would not improve the current balance and in fact make it worse. Im happy people discuss these topics but most people don’t even understand the problems so the solutions they offer are pretty bad.
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Why would you nerf the warrior dps condi build? It has lower dps than all the other dps builds and if you want extra utility from it you have to lower the dps further. If anything the damage should be buffed so it’s a viable.alternative to other pure dps builds.
Riiight, because the warriors aren’t mandatory already. Please be realistic.
The way I see it, classes with top notch support capabilities should not be rivaling classes that basically only bring DPS even with their pure DPS builds. I think at a minimum the goal for a balancing is that no class should have multiple distinct builds that generally out class the best build of another class. Right now it is quite disheartening as a rev main that classes like ranger and warrior basically do everything better. Their support builds are far superior to any support rev can give, and they have better DPS options. Where is the balance in this? What is the purpose of revenant when they are out classed in every relevant way?
So to extend off of this warrior has no business doing more damage than any classes other than ranger and Mesmers, which means ranger DPS also needs to go down dramatically otherwise you just maintain the situations like right now where warrior and ranger completely out class revenant. However likewise revenant has no business out dpsing thief since rev does bring a bit more support/utility. Classes with great support shouldn’t necessarily be far behind more pure DPS classes should they build for it, but they definitely should be less.
14 Dungeon paths soloed
Lupi solos on 9/9 professions
Wost Engi NA
Lupi solos on 9/9 professions
Wost Engi NA
Having 1 spot in a 10 man squad reserved for warrior is called good balance. That should be the eventual goal for every class.
You could have one spot guaranteed for every class, if you gave each of them a unique buff. Would that be good though?
Also, what most people miss here is that the current balance is excellent except for Revenant and necro to a far lesser extent. A lot of the ideas people are posting would not improve the current balance and in fact make it worse. Im happy people discuss these topics but most people don’t even understand the problems so the solutions they offer are pretty bad.
Sure, the balance is fine in the sense that most classes see play right now. The problem is that raid teams are locked into 2 warrior, 2 chrono, 2 druid setup, which leaves only 4 slots open for the other 6 classes. And then you have crangers that are likely to take some of those as well. The dps options for those 4 slots are actually fairly balanced, and you sometimes even see a necro in there. Revs need to decide what they want to be, though.
Why would you nerf the warrior dps condi build? It has lower dps than all the other dps builds and if you want extra utility from it you have to lower the dps further. If anything the damage should be buffed so it’s a viable.alternative to other pure dps builds.
Riiight, because the warriors aren’t mandatory already. Please be realistic.
Because warrior damage is not high enough to bring him into dps slot instead of traditional dps, and his raid spot is given to him not because of his dps at all, and nerfing his dps will not change anything in raid composition. So, basically you are asking “this guy is too good at chess, so we need to reduce his ability to play football”.
Kiijna, Xast, Satis Ironwail, Sekhaina, Shira Forgesparkle, Sfeno, Nasibi, Tegeira, Rhonwe…
25 charracters
25 charracters
What variety?!
8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed the tank spot in runs. Chrono or get lost.
8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed to be the healer, cause druid or go home.
8 outta 9 professions are flipped off if they wanna be the might stacker. PS warr or hit the road.Above “variety” takes up 6/10 slots. Remaining 4 can only be dps (or kiter) and even there some prejudice runs rampant (too many want ele, cranger). And i’m cranger main myself when it comes to raids, so it’s not like i feel jeleaous or wanna cry out my “they didn’t want me” frustrations. It’s just the current, quite rotten state of affairs when it comes to “play your way” in raids…
Said meta is also player imposed, not Anet imposed. Like it or not, if they change something another meta will spring up with “locked spots” for classes. There’s nothign ANet can do to force players to run more variety in classes. Likewise, there’s nothing forcing chrono to be a tank, or forcing druid to be a healer. Its just optimal composition, and there will always be an optimal composition.
One thing Anet can do to help is to make all class specific effects hit 10 people in raid maps. This would mean you could go down to 1 warrior, 1 druid for the unique buffs, opening up 2 more slots for other people. But your suggestions won’t actually open up the diversity at all.
Why would you nerf the warrior dps condi build? It has lower dps than all the other dps builds and if you want extra utility from it you have to lower the dps further. If anything the damage should be buffed so it’s a viable.alternative to other pure dps builds.
Riiight, because the warriors aren’t mandatory already. Please be realistic.
Because warrior damage is not high enough to bring him into dps slot instead of traditional dps, and his raid spot is given to him not because of his dps at all, and nerfing his dps will not change anything in raid composition. So, basically you are asking “this guy is too good at chess, so we need to reduce his ability to play football”.
If you nerf warrior dps enough, at some point you would consider bringing a guardian to stack might. The problem with that is that, considering the amount of group dps banners bring, that nerf would have to be massive. But then playing a warrior wouldn’t be very exciting, because your gameplay consists of using damage skills in your rotation, which then will hit like a wet noodle. Anet’s current solution to that seems to be making the stronger buffs 10 man, so that they only guarantee you 1 spot instead of 2, and that way they can ignore them when balancing the dps.
The idea that a class cannot fill a “support” role and a DPS role with different builds is absolutely ridiculous. (i.e. condi PS versus condi DPS warrior). In this case, the condi DPS warrior gives up 100% of his support (EA/Banners/might/fury) in order to achieve somewhat acceptable DPS for a DPS role.
What do you expect with future elite specializations? Balance in my mind in the long term is the following:
1. Fill the raid with classes/roles that meet the buffing needs of the group.
2. If you are short on step #1, I hope there are multiple options in the future to meet it. AKA, if you need quickness in a subgroup, maybe something other than chrono can provide that in the future.
3. Fill in DPS roles that meet the needs of the encounter. That could be condi for some, ranged damage for others, etc. More importantly, fill the DPS classes with people who are skilled at playing that class. A dead/bad ele does little to no DPS.
For support classes their personal dps plus the support they bring has to be of value in excess of a pure dps class or else the concept of support classes are meaningless.
If we reckon that dps classes benchmark on average 32k dps we can take that as our baseline.
A condi druid benchmarks at 20k and brings about 20k more in buffs.
A berserker chrono benchmarks at 9k dps and bring around 25k for quickness and 12k for alacrity.
Condi PS makes 26k dps and brings 3k for ea and 11k if he brings both banners.
These are valuable contributions for sure but the gaps aren’t lightyears apart. With condi druid and warrior at 40k and chrono at 45k the premium for playing support is justified.
The only issue really is that there aren’t any other support options in the ball park until the expac. Asking for nerfs now is misguided wait to see how new alternatives work.
[DnT]::Nike::
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For support classes their personal dps plus the support they bring has to be of value in excess of a pure dps class or else the concept of support classes are meaningless.
That is absolutely true, however the problem with warrior is that banners aren’t exclusive to PS build. If there ever is another might stacking build, you would still bring banners on dps warrior which would do 30k dps (or whatever it will be without signets) and still have the 11k from banners, basically replacing one of the dps classes with a 4th support.
inb4 next balance patch “spirits now affect 10 ppl”
In raids, simply everything should affect 10 people. That would solve quite some issues.
Warning! This post may contain traces of irony, sarcasm and peanuts.
There is no loyalty without betrayal. -Ann Smiley
There is no loyalty without betrayal. -Ann Smiley
In raids, simply everything should affect 10 people. That would solve quite some issues.
While true, it would also trivialize all old raid encounters even more.
No matter what happens (or not), there’s a price to be paid. Right now, it’s the poor class diversity, which is imho worse than the consequences of a 10 people buff cap. Besides, I think a flat HP boost for all raid stuff should be able to compensate for quite a lot.
Warning! This post may contain traces of irony, sarcasm and peanuts.
There is no loyalty without betrayal. -Ann Smiley
There is no loyalty without betrayal. -Ann Smiley
In raids, simply everything should affect 10 people. That would solve quite some issues.
While true, it would also trivialize all old raid encounters even more.
I’d argue that the length of time they’ve been out, with hundreds or even thousands of videos showing you how to clear each boss, trivialize the encounters far more than this change could possibly do.
And then you would have to get one of every class when making your team. Sure, there will be different classes used, but there will be no diversity in the team composition, you would just take one of each every time.
No, it would be amazing because there would be place for everyone