Balance suggestions

Balance suggestions

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Ain.5124

Ain.5124

Let’s face it, right now in groups it’s very clear that the most efficient way to run kitten near anything is 4 warriors and 1 mesmer; 1 guardian, 3 warriors and 1 mesmer; or 2 guardians, 2 warriors and 1 mesmer. This is just due to the fact that these classes bring everything.

2 Guardians can stack Might to 24 stacks. Two Warriors can instantly give 20 stacks of Vulnerability to any boss. Mesmer can double the duration on Might and Fury, give time warp, has Focus pull, etc etc.

I’m all for classes being good at some things, but the amount of synergy warriors have with themselves is ridiculous. It’s so good that I regularly see “4 Warrior 1 mesmer group for CoF1” or “Lfm Fotm, WARRIOR GUARDIAN MESMER ONLY” etc. Now, I leveled my warrior just because it’s the most efficient way to run it and I’ve come to a few realizations on the issues.

Warriors bring some very odd things. With three warriors you have: Banner of Might, a Unique Power buff that you can’t receive from anywhere else, Banner of Discipline, a Unique Crit damage and Precision buff you cannot receive from anywhere else, 96% up time on Fury without any outside sources from “For Great Justice” alone; Battle Standard bringing Fury up time to nearly 100%; on top of 10 stacks of might with 100% up-time and 30 stacks of vulnerability(5 beyond cap) with a ~40% up-time.

I believe that Fury and Banners are the problem here. They simply add too much power to the group. 100% up time on Fury should really be impossible on Warrior. This change ALONE would do a lot to balance the class. Currently Warrior is simply better in melee than everyone else. They bring unique buffs, high levels of the traditional buffs and debuffs, along with incredibly high base damage. Every group is made better by having a warrior, and I think this is a problem in the current meta.

However, no one enjoys a nerf, so I put forth to you: Why not buff the clearly under powered classes?

Necromancer is either viewed as a “Support” or a really bad damage dealer, currently. It’s best damage is entirely based around bleed damage, which it appears Anet has no wish to fix, and continues to be capped. So, With the introduction of a new debuff, I believe something that could make Necromancers useful is a flat increased damage of group. This could be done by decreasing targets toughness, or giving an inverse Protection debuff, on top of vulnerability. Increasing the base damage of Dagger by a lot and axe by a little bit would be a nice change. Well of Suffering should have its vulnerability stacks duration increased by at least double, bringing it to 10 seconds.

Thief & Elementalist doesn’t currently fit in most groups, but honestly I think that’s because of the players – I really don’t think elementalist & thief have that many problems.

Ranger – Fix the pet AI, and increase the survivability of Spirits. There’s currently a bug on Frost Spirit, and it’s keeping rangers viable. If this is unintended, ranger will need a very large power increase. Reducing the CD on Sic’em to 25 seconds would bring Ranger on par with Warriors damage, while still not bringing as much utility. Why is quickening zephyr so painful, even after the quickness nerf?

Overall I think people overestimate warriors damage – but it’s their group utility that’s too good. It’d be nice if other classes could be brought up on par with them.

Also, A more blanket thing: I think Cleaving should deal reduced damage after the first target. This would do A LOT to bring power levels closer between classes who can cleave and those who cannot.

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Posted by: runeblade.7514

runeblade.7514

Professions do not need buffs or nerfs for Dungeon balancing.

The problem is the dungeon design itself. You don’t need the control role at all. When dungeons are reworked where control role is valuable, then each and every profession will be valuable.

5x Warrior, 5x Ranger, 4x Elementalist, 4x Engineer,
4x Necromancer, 3x Mesmer, 4x Guardian, 4x Thief, 4 Revenant

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Posted by: Ain.5124

Ain.5124

I disagree, Groups do still use a control – it’s just best set to Guardian. Anchor Guardian is the prime example of this.

It’s irrelevant, because the classes I listed have flaws regardless of the meta. They simply are weaker versions of others.

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Posted by: runeblade.7514

runeblade.7514

I disagree, Groups do still use a control – it’s just best set to Guardian. Anchor Guardian is the prime example of this.

It’s irrelevant, because the classes I listed have flaws regardless of the meta. They simply are weaker versions of others.

Instead, you could just kick the guardian and put in another dps build. I have not heard of anchor guardian before and it is probably not useful.

5x Warrior, 5x Ranger, 4x Elementalist, 4x Engineer,
4x Necromancer, 3x Mesmer, 4x Guardian, 4x Thief, 4 Revenant

(edited by runeblade.7514)

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Posted by: Ain.5124

Ain.5124

I disagree, Groups do still use a control – it’s just best set to Guardian. Anchor Guardian is the prime example of this.

It’s irrelevant, because the classes I listed have flaws regardless of the meta. They simply are weaker versions of others.

Instead, you could just kick the guardian and put in another dps build. I have not heard of anchor guardian before and it is probably not useful.

Is Fotm not a dungeon? Apologies if it’s not, but after fotm 30 or so, It’s rare to see a single group without at least one anchor of some type, usually guardian.

Their purpose is to have the highest armor/toughness in the group so that every mob focuses them first over others usually running PPT gear. They are essentially the enablers in a Guardian Warriorx3 Mesmer group.

Here’s a guide on Anchor Guardian.

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Posted by: LordByron.8369

LordByron.8369

forgive me but i run fotm 3X and 4X daily…
You can t survive any trash mob with “armor” and frankly you don t even care who get aggro…

Trash mobs and boss simply have unreasonable stats…

The only way to deal with them is through SKILLS…anti projectile skills, control skills and invulnerability skills.

So a DPS guardian is as effective as a tank guardian in the end.

Just dps kills thing faster.

GW2 balance:
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.

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Posted by: JohnDied.3476

JohnDied.3476

I kind of find it funny that engineer didn’t even make the list for viability in dungeons. Does that mean that no one in their right mind would choose an engineer, or that they’re fine when it comes to dungeon balance?

Honestly, I find that the engineer is really fun to run in any encounter so I do so. The problem I have with this is that even though I run glass cannon dps with grenades and kite my kitten off to rez warriors and guards that just won’t dodge, those same guards or warrs still tell me that I bring no dps or support if the run goes awry. What I mean is this, either there’s a problem with the class balance in pve (which there is) or there’s a problem with dungeon content. Otherwise the playerbase wouldn’t universally recognize that most content was easier on a warr or guard than on a necro.

If no one wants nerfs (which for the sake of balance some classes need in pve) then how about Anet introduces some new mechanics to dungeon content, like melee reflect. There’s projectile reflect, why not add melee into the mix. Just for fun, make the effigy in CoF path 1 have it up 50% of the time. I’d laugh my kitten off the day I see “CoF p1 no warr or guard” in map chat.

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Posted by: Dub.1273

Dub.1273

Get the base damage of all professions to an almost equal level. Problem almost solved. 3 Warriors would still be very important because they are the only ones bringing might, fury and banners, but taking a necromancer instead of a warrior wouldnt end up in an incredible damage loss anymore. And i think that is balance, because unless all professions are not made 100% the same there will always be favourites.

Dub | [rT]
#LoveArrows2013, never forget.

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Posted by: spoj.9672

spoj.9672

Get the base damage of all professions to an almost equal level. Problem almost solved. 3 Warriors would still be very important because they are the only ones bringing might, fury and banners, but taking a necromancer instead of a warrior wouldnt end up in an incredible damage loss anymore. And i think that is balance, because unless all professions are not made 100% the same there will always be favourites.

This. Also buffing condition damage scaling atleast on pve might be worth looking into. If condition damage did more when you stacked the condition damage stat then maybe it would be able to keep up with raw damage. Especially on low hp high armour bosses. The devs have said that they are no longer going to keep things the same in pve and pvp because it makes balancing far too difficult. So they could definately buff base damage on all classes except warrior in pve and change condition damage without effecting the spvp.

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Posted by: Hoyvin.3241

Hoyvin.3241

Making a condition build viable, not for any specific class, just in general, would change the landscape entirely, I think. But I dunno how you accomplish that.

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Posted by: Phoenix.7845

Phoenix.7845

There is also another thing – melee was considered to be high risk – high reward. But if you have 3 guardian, 1 war, 1 mes group it is a no risk – high efficiency run. When I started playing with friends we run 2 eles, 1 war, 1 guardian and 1 mes. But when eles rolled guardians most problems were suddenly gone. Most mobs balled by themselves, casting AoE party buffs was extremely easy (no targeting required, just cast it under your feet) and there were so much party buffs from guardians that people rarely died. Right now melee is the best way to go (even on rangers), there should be a buff to ranged damage to make it as viable as melee. To even things up mobs should get extra powers like leaping to ranged targets so being a ranged character would be risky too.

With condition damage:
- quickness doesn’t speed up ticking of condi dmg which makes it inferior to direct damage
- 2 persons with condi damage builds can max the stacks while direct damage will always be succesfull

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Posted by: LordByron.8369

LordByron.8369

well ele has his problems that are worst.

You can t really turn an ele into a full DPS….your Attacks are completely unreliable and miss too often…
That paired with long CD.

Unless you run D/D but its really really hard to play D/D in full zerker..and even then you are a bad DPS. (excluding conjured weapons glitches and stuff).

GW2 balance:
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.

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Posted by: Phoenix.7845

Phoenix.7845

well ele has his problems that are worst.

Engineers aren’t a lot better. There is too much RNG in their skills. Thrown elixirs do random effects on hit that have one thing in common: when you want one of them you absolutely don’t need the other one. Getting Stability when you need stealth gives nothing and vice versa. Same goes with Wall of Reflection/Smoke Screen. Engineer would have really nice utility option if he would be able to choose the effect instead of praying to get the right one every time he throws an elixir.