Guild Wars 2

CptAurellian.9537:

Joxer.6024:

“When developers balance an entire game mode almost exclusively around the meta, this is the situation that results – where math, rather than flavor, fun and build diversity, rule the day.”

Now that’s something I wasn’t aware and shines a whole new light on things. Thanks for that and yea, sadly if that’s the case then it wont be changing any time soon.

It’s pretty obvious that the content of the quote is utter nonsense.

Apart from that, it’s what Tex already wrote: There will always be a meta that many pugs want to enforce for dumb reasons. We saw that in dungeons, we saw/see it in fractals, why should raids be any different.

Yea, I get it. Don’t like it and its sad but its there. Ah well….someday.

Someday? As long as class balance is as bad as it is now, that day won’t come.

Rednik.3809:

TexZero.7910:

It’s actually why a one difficulty mode works. It makes balancing infinitely easier as there’s not 256k variables to work through to point to as the source of the problem.

But that’s neither here nor there, and you really should stop pushing the easy mode agenda.

Saying that balance must be done around one fragment of one game mode with only small minority of overall players playing it – is very funny indeed.
How about being sane developers and doing other way around?

You are very funny indeed for disregarding developers as insane because they refuse to follow the bidding of a minority for something that was never planned in the first place.

Rednik.3809:

TexZero.7910:

It’s actually why a one difficulty mode works. It makes balancing infinitely easier as there’s not 256k variables to work through to point to as the source of the problem.

But that’s neither here nor there, and you really should stop pushing the easy mode agenda.

Saying that balance must be done around one fragment of one game mode with only small minority of overall players playing it – is very funny indeed.
How about being sane developers and doing other way around?

How about being reasonable, informed players and seeing what is really achievable within the scope of developing an MMO game? What you are implying that should happen hasn’t in any game I’ve ever played. There is a reason for that and I don’t think it’s due to all game devs trained to be bad at creating balanced class situations.

My only complaint is how weak necromancer is because its dps is miles behind every other dps. I mean having no offensive support, but the dps of a support class is kind of dumb.

Rednik.3809:

TexZero.7910:

It’s actually why a one difficulty mode works. It makes balancing infinitely easier as there’s not 256k variables to work through to point to as the source of the problem.

But that’s neither here nor there, and you really should stop pushing the easy mode agenda.

Saying that balance must be done around one fragment of one game mode with only small minority of overall players playing it – is very funny indeed.
How about being sane developers and doing other way around?

Unfortunately, you can’t have a challenging raiding experience without balancing around the numbers associated with those professions/builds/stats that perform the best, especially when you choose to include enrage timers as part of that experience.

The result is a system where a small subset of professions and builds will always be at the top, especially in a game like GW2 that put such a heavy emphasis on freedom of choice and making the professions feel unique from one another for the first 3+ years.

ArenaNet has created a catch-22 situation. To achieve more diversity and realistic choices for raiders in challenging content, they must either water down the diversity to the point where all professions play pretty much the same or water down the challenge to the point where those playing the top end professions no longer have a real challenge.

This is something they should have foreseen from the beginning – in fact, it is something people were concerned about and brought up in the original raiding focused CDI with Chris Whitesides 2 years ago.

Obtena.7952:

Therefore, the argument that AndyS was making where the changes are bad because of how they affect exceptional raid conditions is still nonsense.

Having 10 skilled people is also an exceptional raid condition. Most common skill level actually requires specific compositions. So we return to the point that the changes are bad, because they affect the most common raid conditions.

Anyways, it doesn’t matter what was intended by design. What matters is how people can have fun while playing the game (which is the reason they buy and play it in the first place). Every player that didn’t get into a raid (be it 10-man “intended” or 6-man “unintended”) matters.

Making what customers like is much more commercially viable than making what designers like. That’s why Amancio Ortega is one of the richest people in the world. So no, generally designers do not know better.

Tbh every “competitive” game out there has the same “issues”. There is always a meta that is usually decided by the balance changes, the guilds at the top just figure it out with trial and error.It’s mostly like solving an equation.

Being free to play with whatever class u want and what build u want never yielded any results in competitive games. I wouldn’t really call gw2 competitive apart from pvp/raids but in both those modes meta is and always will be predominant.

The only way to be able to play whatever u want is for either Anet to make all classes super OP, to be able to do anything consistently….or dumb down the boss fights to the point where class/build doesnt matter anymore.

In the end raids are what they are and composition/class changes were always part of that in any game, not just GW2.

Take a boss like Matthias for example; his mechanics enforce certain aspects (most notably reflects) that are simply not available to some professions. So, if you have a Chrono, you know you’ll be in for Matt because you have the definitive reflect skill (Feedback), to the point people might even overlook your lazy everything else. If you have a Revenant however, you have no reflect skills whatsoever, and the group needs to count only on your damage, if even (same with Necro that doesn’t even have damage). So there you have it, a meta enforced purely mechanically with no ways of being fixed by balances, because every Necro and Rev has 9 out of 10 spots to fill while a Chrono will definitely fill that last 1 spot every single time (or does anyone use dagger storm or wall of reflection for this?). Not trying to dwell into whether this is right or wrong, but it is there, and it is a depart from the whole rest of the game, even fractals.

maxwelgm.4315:

Take a boss like Matthias for example; his mechanics enforce certain aspects (most notably reflects) that are simply not available to some professions. So, if you have a Chrono, you know you’ll be in for Matt because you have the definitive reflect skill (Feedback), to the point people might even overlook your lazy everything else. If you have a Revenant however, you have no reflect skills whatsoever, and the group needs to count only on your damage, if even (same with Necro that doesn’t even have damage). So there you have it, a meta enforced purely mechanically with no ways of being fixed by balances, because every Necro and Rev has 9 out of 10 spots to fill while a Chrono will definitely fill that last 1 spot every single time (or does anyone use dagger storm or wall of reflection for this?). Not trying to dwell into whether this is right or wrong, but it is there, and it is a depart from the whole rest of the game, even fractals.

If the group doing Matt takes the Chrono only for Feedback, they are doing it wrong. Even if Chronos didn’t have Feedback they’d be in every single team anyway.

The main problem with diversity is that we don’t have clear roles. For example, in many other games you can go and make a team and ask for a Tank, a Healer or a DPS, but the specific build that will fit the spot is rather open in most cases. In Guild Wars 2 you are not asking for a tank, you are asking for a Chrono tank, you are not asking for a Healer, you are asking for a Druid healer, you are not asking for Offensive Support, you are asking for a PS Warrior, you are not asking for DPS, you are asking for a DPS Tempest, you are not asking for Condi DPS, you are asking for condi Rangers and so on.

And that’s the main problem with the diversity in the game. I think the best option for the game would be to open up roles to multiple builds.

Currently we have the following Healers: Tempest, Druid and Herald, why not making sure all 3 of them are excellent and can compete with each other?

Currently we have the following condi DPS: Reaper, Ranger, Engineer, Berserker, why not making sure all 3 of them are excellent and can compete with each other?

I know Warriors and Mesmers won’t like this, but why not give more builds the ability to get 25 stacks of might so a PS Warrior isn’t a must have in Raids? Why not give to at least one more build the ability to give Alacrity and a good Quickness uptime? Not to everyone, but at least TWO different builds should give the same buffs, keeps them unique enough, and opens up role slots for more diversity.

I don’t want to see “LF Druid” or “LF Chrono”, I want to see “LF Healer” and “LF for Quickness/Alacrity buffer”. It will be a huge step towards diversity.

Ask for a ROLE and not a specific BUILD

Rednik.3809:

TexZero.7910:

It’s actually why a one difficulty mode works. It makes balancing infinitely easier as there’s not 256k variables to work through to point to as the source of the problem.

But that’s neither here nor there, and you really should stop pushing the easy mode agenda.

Saying that balance must be done around one fragment of one game mode with only small minority of overall players playing it – is very funny indeed.
How about being sane developers and doing other way around?

If the devs balanced around what the majority of players did ice bow and fiery great sword would be in their prenerf states and bear bow ranger, rifle warrior and staff guardian would have been repeatedly nerfed.

So you can see why your guideline is a very poor position for the developers to base their design around, right?

maddoctor.2738:

The main problem with diversity is that we don’t have clear roles. For example, in many other games you can go and make a team and ask for a Tank, a Healer or a DPS, but the specific build that will fit the spot is rather open in most cases. In Guild Wars 2 you are not asking for a tank, you are asking for a Chrono tank, you are not asking for a Healer, you are asking for a Druid healer, you are not asking for Offensive Support, you are asking for a PS Warrior, you are not asking for DPS, you are asking for a DPS Tempest, you are not asking for Condi DPS, you are asking for condi Rangers and so on.
[…]

Problem is, there are no roles in this game by design.

You don’t have a tank that stacks additional armor, higher chance to block/parry/whatever, damagereduction and additional aggro-generating skills to be the designated guy to take the hits. We got bad scaling defensive stats and active defense (endurance/dodge) instead… and no real aggro system either.
All it takes to tank in raids is a more thoughness than the others and if it weren’t for that minor +400 thoughness while rezzing trait every ps warrior has to take, you would tank with a single piece of equipment with only a few points of thoughness.

You don’t have a real healer either, who’s job it is to keep everybody alive (and rezz dead people), because every class has a selfheal and can help get up downed players instead (and most classes have additional traits/skills to heal, themselves or others too).

This game is just not designed that way. Unavoidable damage is low (even in raids), everyone can keep himself alive and there’s no aggro system to manage.
It’s all about damage, either the damage you do or more importantly the damage buffs you give your group/subgroup while doing reasonable amounts of damage yourself.

And while human’s are creatures of habit and you can really find “lfg chronotank or heal druid” posts, they are not needed at all…

You don’t need a “chronotank”. You need some random guy to tank the boss (read: have some thoughness equipment to change to). I have tanked all (tankable) raidbosses with my daredevil (and most of them with a couple of other classes too^^).
What you need is a chrono for the damage groupbuffs unique to the class (quickness/alacrity)

You don’t need a “healdruid”. Druids are just the class that can do the job while bringing superior group buffs (spotter, frost/sun spirit, glyph of empowerment, grace of the land). You don’t bring a second druid, because you need more healing but because you want to buff the other half of the raid too. And in an optimized group these druids play full berserker (or condi) anyway.
And all pugs really looking for a druidhealer (or 2 of them^^), because they fail to avoid avoidable damage and need someone who covers their mistakes, should better bring a healtempest (which is by far the better healer). Why aren’t they doing it? Because druid brings the offensive buffs and even with 0 healing output they would still be needed to optimize damage.

Then you mentioned PS Warriors. Guess what… Before the introduction of phalanx strength groups found other ways to stack group might. Was the warrior not useful then? Sure it was. 1 in each group to bring their unique offensive buffs (banners). Remove phalanx strength from the game and groups will adapt, use other builds to stack might and still play 1 warrior per group of 5.

The meta isn’t about the chrono being the superior tank or the druid being the best healer.
Because there are no roles (in a classical mmorpg sense), it’s about stacking as much offensive buffs (and some needed utility) as possible and most of them are unique to a class.
Warrior/druid/chrono have fixed slots in a group because they provide that. If they can do some additional job, like tanking or providing some groupheal that’s even better, but completely secondary.

Which leaves other 2 out of 5 slots to be just randomly filled with some people doing damage (or -rarely- bringing some encounter-specific utility). Yes, that’s 4 slots in a whole raid for 6 remaining classes… And even tempest aren’t anything special here. What keeps them in the meta is their ridiculous overpowered damage against big static targets. Without that you wouldn’t see more “lfg tempest” posts then as you see “lfg daredevil” posts now.

tldr: You may think that clearly defined roles would be better for the game. Maybe most of the players agree. But it’s just not designed that way. And realisticly (and keeping with your “roles”) every raid lfg should read “lfg 2×5 (unique) offensive supporters/dps”.

Ooops.8694:

Problem is, there are no roles in this game by design.

You’re missing the point. There may be no overly relevant roles in the very classic sense (tank with fat armor, healer who’s the only one keeping everyone alive, etc), but we still have all the different support roles, which are unique and limited to a few classes. Combined with the current target limit of the buff systems, that leads to all diversity problems.

maddoctor is on the right track when he wants to open all those roles. For that, we’d need to give all unique buffs to at least two classes. For example, give revs something that is equivalent to (and mutually exclusive with) warrior banners and suddenly you have the choice which class to take. Give eles something comparable to GotL/spotter on their heal skills and tempest healers are a thing. And so on.

Of course, some proper balance would be required to make such a system work. With the current balance, we’d just see which alternative has more DPS, e.g. mesmers would get screwed over if someone else had quickness and alacrity. I don’t know whether such a bold step would ever be feasible. Given ANet’s balance history, I doubt it. Maybe raising the buff cap to 10 targets would be the easier fix to PvE.

CptAurellian.9537:

…

For that, we’d need to give all unique buffs to at least two classes. For example, give revs something that is equivalent to (and mutually exclusive with) warrior banners and suddenly you have the choice which class to take. Give eles something comparable to GotL/spotter on their heal skills and tempest healers are a thing. And so on.

While I agree in spirit – and we should definitely strive to make sure more professions and builds have a realistic place in raids – how do you do this without starting to make every profession feel the same?

I do agree that a 10 person cap on boons in raids is a must have to start, but beyond that, it’s hard to come up with anything that doesn’t start the class watering down cycle we’ve seen in so many other games.

A valid concern. No matter what you do, I think that it would be a herculean task to get class balance right, given its current, rather dire state. Giving each class a desirable (i.e. offensive), unique group buff in combination with a general increase of the buff limit might also help a lot. With regard to this stuff, I always like to think of Wildstar. They have six absolutely unique classes, each one brings a few unique group buffs, and apart from a few major fails they’ve done a pretty admirable job at keeping the balance. At least I’ve never seen some massive stacking there, even when the race for proper world firsts was still open.

Blaeys.3102:

CptAurellian.9537:

…

For that, we’d need to give all unique buffs to at least two classes. For example, give revs something that is equivalent to (and mutually exclusive with) warrior banners and suddenly you have the choice which class to take. Give eles something comparable to GotL/spotter on their heal skills and tempest healers are a thing. And so on.

While I agree in spirit – and we should definitely strive to make sure more professions and builds have a realistic place in raids – how do you do this without starting to make every profession feel the same?

I do agree that a 10 person cap on boons in raids is a must have to start, but beyond that, it’s hard to come up with anything that doesn’t start the class watering down cycle we’ve seen in so many other games.

In related to the 10 person cap, I think in theory this could work…but it definitely cannot be done without making the current scaling even harder. Allowing the same buff/boon output of warrior, chrono, and druid to apply to 10 people instead of 5 allows you to take 3 more DPS classes as a replacement. That is a HUGE group DPS increase. In its current format, the 4 DPS classes do WAY more than 40% of the total group DPS. I would guess its closer to 60-70%. If you were to add in 3 more eles on KC, KC you probably wouldn’t need to use any rifts at all.

I don’t think this should be a reason for them not to explore the possibility of increase the buff cap, but it definitely cannot be done alone. It would have a huge impact on raid power creep and it would likely require them to increase raid boss health at a minimum.

Although removing the 5 person cap would open up some diversity it might also create another problem: 1 Mesmer, 1 Warrior, 1 Ranger, 7 Elementalists or something similar. That is, get all damage buffs and fill the rest of the spots with the highest dps possible.

Before any removal of the cap can happen we need to allow more builds to offer similar buffs that do not stack. Adding damage modifiers that stack is part of the reason we are having this problem in the first place, and instead of fixing this, they added so many new damage modifiers in the game, like Druid GotL and glyph, Mesmer Alacrity. Reduce modifiers or give them to more builds is the way to go.

As for making professions look the same: this is unavoidable in many ways but if 2 professions are good at one thing, another 2 are good at another thing and so on, it won’t be a problem. I’m not saying to make all professions good on all roles.

AndyS.5630:

Obtena.7952:

Therefore, the argument that AndyS was making where the changes are bad because of how they affect exceptional raid conditions is still nonsense.

Having 10 skilled people is also an exceptional raid condition.

Maybe … but I’m not making any argument dependent on the raid condition at all, you are … so I don’t see the relevance of that statement, or anything else you said as a response to my post. To me, it’s almost like an acknowledgement … you know what exceptional raid conditions are because you claim to know of such a condition … so you should easily be able to conclude why you said makes no sense with respect to how raids are designed on and changes to things affect those extreme conditions.

maddoctor.2738:

Although removing the 5 person cap would open up some diversity it might also create another problem: 1 Mesmer, 1 Warrior, 1 Ranger, 7 Elementalists or something similar. That is, get all damage buffs and fill the rest of the spots with the highest dps possible.

Before any removal of the cap can happen we need to allow more builds to offer similar buffs that do not stack. Adding damage modifiers that stack is part of the reason we are having this problem in the first place, and instead of fixing this, they added so many new damage modifiers in the game, like Druid GotL and glyph, Mesmer Alacrity. Reduce modifiers or give them to more builds is the way to go.

As for making professions look the same: this is unavoidable in many ways but if 2 professions are good at one thing, another 2 are good at another thing and so on, it won’t be a problem. I’m not saying to make all professions good on all roles.

Except it is not unavoidable. The game existed for 3+ years without the need to make this kind of compromise to profession design.

I want the developers creating professions and specializations around what is fun to play – and what makes practical sense (or as much as you can in a fantasy setting) for those professions (is that something we would actually expect an engineer to be able to do?). Once they stop doing that, the game loses something, imo.

Now, to be realistic, there is obviously a middle ground here. There is some room to do this. However, I think the developers have to tread lightly. If the litmus test in PVE suddenly becomes “let’s do it because of raids” and nothing more, they have gone too far.

Just remove the 1 second cool down on Empowering Might for Guardian and BAM! you have another might stacker.

Azoqu.8917:

Just remove the 1 second cool down on Empowering Might for Guardian and BAM! you have another might stacker.

Guardians should get a trait that grants Might to people standing in their symbols. Probably in Zeal.

It is only like every content of the game. first it is new noone know how to play it. Then someone find the “meta” for it… and after it the “CommanderTagComplex” CTC for exp appears… the players base starts to think that only with that build you can play… no wrong word… you can do your job and only with that. The only hope to really enjoy a content is when it is new and the CTC had not still took place. Don’t blame Anet blame the heretics \o

I don’t want to waste space quoting them all but Maddoctor,Blaeys and many others have very valid points and hopefully they are looked at by ANET. Great input guys!!

Blaeys.3102:

Except it is not unavoidable. The game existed for 3+ years without the need to make this kind of compromise to profession design.

Ask any old ranger, engineer or necromancer and you will find they’ve been excluded in the past from playing content on their profession of choice. The broken diversity isn’t something new and it’s not something exclusive to raids, in fact it’s as old as the game itself. The first “meta” I remember was back in 2012 and was called “4 Warriors + 1 Mesmer” meta comp, and everyone else wasn’t needed. Or during the fiery greatsword era, go Elementalist and forget anything else.

That’s about exclusion. Now about giving abilities from one profession to the other:

For example, Rangers have Spotter which increases the Precision of allies, it would definitely fit the theme of the Thief to have a similar ability, call it Reveal Weakness.

Warriors have banners which inspire and boost the abilities of allies, why not give the Revenant an ability to summon a visage of a legend, that is stationary and provides similar benefits to a Warrior banner.

Engineers are masters of alchemy. We’ve seen powerful Hylek alchemy, for example take a look at the Hylek turrets. They can provide might and quickness for a group. An Engineer could get a potion mastery that he drops aoe fields on the ground and create similar effects to those turrets.

Removing the 1-sec cooldown from Empowering Might and the Guardian competes with a Phalanx Strength Warrior for the spot of Might Stacking.

All I’m saying is that giving the same stacking abilities to different professions doesn’t make them one of the same and it doesn’t hurt the lore or the theme, if done right.

maddoctor.2738:

I know Warriors and Mesmers won’t like this, but why not give more builds the ability to get 25 stacks of might so a PS Warrior isn’t a must have in Raids? Why not give to at least one more build the ability to give Alacrity and a good Quickness uptime? Not to everyone, but at least TWO different builds should give the same buffs, keeps them unique enough, and opens up role slots for more diversity.

No one should be able to cap stacks of might on the whole group. Ever. Under any circumstances. Because it disables any personal might sources that is brought to the balance table outside of raids. Fury and Quickness should also be changed to stack intensity just like Might.

My suggestion is splitting single Might cap into 3 caps of different levels (not necessarily appropriate solution for Fury and Quickness):

• 10 stacks — per one source except yourself
• 20 stacks — everyone else put together
• 30 stacks — everyone including yourself put together

So one good old PS Warrior will only apply 10 stacks to group mates (since excess should go to other group, it will affect 9 other people, even though individual applications are still capped at 5 people), but up to 30 to himself.

Many classes bring some group Might. While it’s possible to add a 2nd PS for group wide 20 stacks, other people should generally be able to contribute 10 stacks by themselves.

Lastly, there are always at least 10 free spots for any personal Might you can bring. Some classes are able to fill those spots, while some are not. So different people will end up with different amount of Might (usually in the 20 to 30 interval), but most importantly your personal Might is never disabled completely by the other people.

As for unique buffs, they all should be eventually changed to general boons. Boon duration cap needs to be lower: lower benefit from Concentration, lower cap (+50% extra instead of +100%), lower effect from foods and skills. No need to give unique buffs to more professions, they shouldn’t have been in the game in the first place.

Obtena.7952:

Maybe … but I’m not making any argument dependent on the raid condition at all, you are … so I don’t see the relevance of that statement, or anything else you said as a response to my post.

Yes you do. Because you said that players should get more skill. It is creating an exceptional raid condition which is not different from any other exceptional raid condition.

maddoctor.2738:

Blaeys.3102:

Except it is not unavoidable. The game existed for 3+ years without the need to make this kind of compromise to profession design.

Ask any old ranger, engineer or necromancer and you will find they’ve been excluded in the past from playing content on their profession of choice. The broken diversity isn’t something new and it’s not something exclusive to raids, in fact it’s as old as the game itself. The first “meta” I remember was back in 2012 and was called “4 Warriors + 1 Mesmer” meta comp, and everyone else wasn’t needed. Or during the fiery greatsword era, go Elementalist and forget anything else.

That’s about exclusion. Now about giving abilities from one profession to the other:

For example, Rangers have Spotter which increases the Precision of allies, it would definitely fit the theme of the Thief to have a similar ability, call it Reveal Weakness.

Warriors have banners which inspire and boost the abilities of allies, why not give the Revenant an ability to summon a visage of a legend, that is stationary and provides similar benefits to a Warrior banner.

Engineers are masters of alchemy. We’ve seen powerful Hylek alchemy, for example take a look at the Hylek turrets. They can provide might and quickness for a group. An Engineer could get a potion mastery that he drops aoe fields on the ground and create similar effects to those turrets.

Removing the 1-sec cooldown from Empowering Might and the Guardian competes with a Phalanx Strength Warrior for the spot of Might Stacking.

All I’m saying is that giving the same stacking abilities to different professions doesn’t make them one of the same and it doesn’t hurt the lore or the theme, if done right.

BINGO!!! You nailed it my friend! Those suggestions (hell, AWESOME IDEAS!) are exactly what would fix the issue, period. ANET doesn’t need to make raids easier, or training modes or any of that junk. Simply (?) implement what has been mentioned right here along with some others and we rocking! Everyone can go back to posting pics of their toons and builds and FUN things.
So come on ANET……pick it and run with it! Again, well done with this post mate!!

AndyS.5630:

No need to give unique buffs to more professions, they shouldn’t have been in the game in the first place.

I agree but the problem is something must be done with existing skills that provide such unique buffs. Warrior Banners, Ranger Spirits and so on. Do we remove all those skills? Wouldn’t that also hurt diversity? If we change them to non-stacking boons then there might be another problem right there.

There is a choice between reducing the amount of unique buffs, or adding more similar unique buffs to other professions, both are acceptable solutions to me, and both can help with diversity. The first would require messing up with existing skills, the second can be added through their next elite specializations without upsetting the current skills. That’s why I prefer the second option, but the first option can be great too.

maddoctor.2738:

AndyS.5630:

No need to give unique buffs to more professions, they shouldn’t have been in the game in the first place.

I agree but the problem is something must be done with existing skills that provide such unique buffs. Warrior Banners, Ranger Spirits and so on. Do we remove all those skills? Wouldn’t that also hurt diversity? If we change them to non-stacking boons then there might be another problem right there.

There is a choice between reducing the amount of unique buffs, or adding more similar unique buffs to other professions, both are acceptable solutions to me, and both can help with diversity. The first would require messing up with existing skills, the second can be added through their next elite specializations without upsetting the current skills. That’s why I prefer the second option, but the first option can be great too.

I think this is the discussion we should be focusing on. Boons and boon sharing is probably the area easiest to fix.

For me, the other side of the coin is pure damage potential. Which profession/weapon combos are currently not performing up to standards, and – in those cases – do the boons/support they provide justify the lesser dps. As a few examples to consider – staff Mesmer, rifle engineer, sword revenant, staff necro, mace warrior. And would bringing their ability damage up to the point of other professions fix this issue.

Of course, this raises what I feel is still one of the biggest issues here – they absolutely HAVE TO split profession balance between PVE, PVP and WVW. With the introduction of raids, where these numbers actually matter in PVE, I think that is a must if we hope to ever resolve anything.

Blaeys.3102:

Joxer.6024:

Blaeys.3102:

With their current raid model, it will always be about a handful of professions (currently Mesmer, warrior, ele, druid, sometimes necros), to the detriment of all others. It is just the nature of a limited raiding model.

To which I blame the “meta” for, as that’s what most look at for raid comp. Lose that and bring in people that can do the job needed in spite of class and we have a win.

That’s very true, but – unfortunately – there is no way to lose it in the current model.

When developers balance an entire game mode almost exclusively around the meta, this is the situation that results – where math, rather than flavor, fun and build diversity, rule the day.

In the current model, raiding will (realistically) always cater to a tiny number of professions and builds. There is just no way around that without either completely destroying build diversity or nerfing the content to the point that the meta builds actually make it too easy.

It’s a broken system imo, and needs to be rethought.

I play ele/mesmer/ranger. These are the viable builds I can play in raids and in certain boss fights help the party alot more than the regular set ups. Now for some classes its worse and balance could definitely be better. However stating diversity is dead is not true judging from these builds:

- dps staff ele
- fresh air staff ele
- d/w fresh air
- d/f fresh air
- staff healer
- d/f auramancer
- minstrel staff tank

For mesmer:

-condi mesmer
- dps chrono
- tank chrono
- healer chrono
- minstrel chrono tank

For ranger:

-condi ranger
- Power druid
- condi druid
- healer druid
- tank healer

DutchRiders.2871:

Blaeys.3102:

Joxer.6024:

Blaeys.3102:

With their current raid model, it will always be about a handful of professions (currently Mesmer, warrior, ele, druid, sometimes necros), to the detriment of all others. It is just the nature of a limited raiding model.

To which I blame the “meta” for, as that’s what most look at for raid comp. Lose that and bring in people that can do the job needed in spite of class and we have a win.

That’s very true, but – unfortunately – there is no way to lose it in the current model.

When developers balance an entire game mode almost exclusively around the meta, this is the situation that results – where math, rather than flavor, fun and build diversity, rule the day.

In the current model, raiding will (realistically) always cater to a tiny number of professions and builds. There is just no way around that without either completely destroying build diversity or nerfing the content to the point that the meta builds actually make it too easy.

It’s a broken system imo, and needs to be rethought.

I play ele/mesmer/ranger. These are the viable builds I can play in raids and in certain boss fights help the party alot more than the regular set ups. Now for some classes its worse and balance could definitely be better. However stating diversity is dead is not true judging from these builds:

- dps staff ele
- fresh air staff ele
- d/w fresh air
- d/f fresh air
- staff healer
- d/f auramancer
- minstrel staff tank

For mesmer:

-condi mesmer
- dps chrono
- tank chrono
- healer chrono
- minstrel chrono tank

For ranger:

-condi ranger
- Power druid
- condi druid
- healer druid
- tank healer

I do think the title of this thread is extremist, misleading and fatalistic. Diversity isn’t dead, but it is something that needs attention right now. The differences between the top performing and the bottom performing playstyles is far wider than it should be or needs to be, imo.

maddoctor.2738:

There is a choice between reducing the amount of unique buffs, or adding more similar unique buffs to other professions, both are acceptable solutions to me, and both can help with diversity. The first would require messing up with existing skills, the second can be added through their next elite specializations without upsetting the current skills. That’s why I prefer the second option, but the first option can be great too.

If we went that way, not all of the stuff should be put into the next elite specs. That would just mean that engi, guard, necro, thief and ele just get pidgeonholed into those specs. I’d really prefer to put those things somewhere into the vanilla trait lines.

CptAurellian.9537:

maddoctor.2738:

There is a choice between reducing the amount of unique buffs, or adding more similar unique buffs to other professions, both are acceptable solutions to me, and both can help with diversity. The first would require messing up with existing skills, the second can be added through their next elite specializations without upsetting the current skills. That’s why I prefer the second option, but the first option can be great too.

If we went that way, not all of the stuff should be put into the next elite specs. That would just mean that engi, guard, necro, thief and ele just get pidgeonholed into those specs. I’d really prefer to put those things somewhere into the vanilla trait lines.

Yes that’s another thing to consider we don’t want them to go the Chrono route but instead be like Druid.

I mean although Chrono is needed in Raids and is an excellent addition to any team, who takes a non-Chrono Mesmer in a Raid? Of course it’s not only Chrono but really most Elite specs are like that.

On the other hand, Druid was a good elite spec for Diversity, it provides a new unique role for Rangers, while the non-Druid Ranger is still viable as a condition damage dealer.

AndyS.5630:

Obtena.7952:

Maybe … but I’m not making any argument dependent on the raid condition at all, you are … so I don’t see the relevance of that statement, or anything else you said as a response to my post.

Yes you do. Because you said that players should get more skill. It is creating an exceptional raid condition which is not different from any other exceptional raid condition.

This makes no sense. IF I said players should get more skill, that doesn’t mean much without some context don’t you think? Just because I may have made a statement that players should get more skill, that doesn’t mean I’m making an argument about raid composition or scenarios with that statement. However you made that connection, I don’t know, but at this point, it doesn’t surprise me as you don’t even seem to have a coherent argument anyways. YOu just seem to think that ‘being opposite’ is how this works. Let me bring you back around as you seem astray.

The argument here is raid diversity and you know its just nonsense to claim changes are bad and lead to less diversity because of how it affects some extremely difficult and risky approach to self-imposed restrictions on making a raid comp that the game wasn’t designed around in the first place. The fact is that any extreme difficult scenario you can present as an argument is so precarious in the first place, that even a butterfly’s wing flapping could affect it For example, even the randomness of weapon direct damage could make that scenario fail, it’s such an extreme. It makes more sense to argue that weapon damage range should be removed based on these extreme scenarios that it does to argue against the changes that were made in the last patch.

I suggest you find a more sensible argument and try again because that one just makes no sense whatsoever.

CptAurellian.9537:

I’d really prefer to put those things somewhere into the vanilla trait lines.

Again….nailed it!

maddoctor.2738:

Yes that’s another thing to consider we don’t want them to go the Chrono route but instead be like Druid.

I mean although Chrono is needed in Raids and is an excellent addition to any team, who takes a non-Chrono Mesmer in a Raid? Of course it’s not only Chrono but really most Elite specs are like that.

On the other hand, Druid was a good elite spec for Diversity, it provides a new unique role for Rangers, while the non-Druid Ranger is still viable as a condition damage dealer.

I think all classes except ranger and thief currently are pidgeonholed into their elites. But then, we only have one elite spec per class. We’ll hopefully see more diversity once the second elite becomes available, but that will require some careful consideration. If all offensive group support of a class is put into one elite, it will probably force everyone into that one. That cannot be the aim.

CptAurellian.9537:

maddoctor.2738:

Yes that’s another thing to consider we don’t want them to go the Chrono route but instead be like Druid.

I mean although Chrono is needed in Raids and is an excellent addition to any team, who takes a non-Chrono Mesmer in a Raid? Of course it’s not only Chrono but really most Elite specs are like that.

On the other hand, Druid was a good elite spec for Diversity, it provides a new unique role for Rangers, while the non-Druid Ranger is still viable as a condition damage dealer.

I think all classes except ranger and thief currently are pidgeonholed into their elites. But then, we only have one elite spec per class. We’ll hopefully see more diversity once the second elite becomes available, but that will require some careful consideration. If all offensive group support of a class is put into one elite, it will probably force everyone into that one. That cannot be the aim.

Daily reminder engineer still exist and that other reminder what’s a scrapper anyway ?

Thanks for the reminder. I’ve seen this species far to rarely and don’t have my own one

There is one extra thing to add, if you go to the training golem you can select the option to add profession buffs. Every single profession is listed there, even those who do not have any kind of buff. I still believe they should either reduce/remove party buffs or spread them more around, one of these two choices.

Elementalist, Thief, Engineer, Necromancer and Guardian have no buffs to offer (Necro has one buff but it’s not noticeable/powerful enough) I think the list should contain all professions. But the key going forward is to make sure the new abilities do not stack with the old ones but rather provide alternatives.

While more Classes should be able to give out these Class Buffs. Anet should prevent the Players from Overkilling with the Buffs and having like 20 unique Damage Buffs.

So they should either give other Classes the same Buffs we have now, or making some Buffs excluding each other ( Just for an Example. You’d either take Empower Allies or Assasins Presence because only one could give the Buff and the other one would do nothing so you take either one of them but not both. I know bad Example but I had to take something for this )

Right now the PvE Balance, has quite a few Problems like:

- A huge difference in DPS between the Classes ( something that a Skill Split would help with making the Gap smaller )

- 5 Man Boon Cap

- No Competition in giving out Boons ( Chrono is the only one giving out so much Quickness. Alacrity is Chrono only. PS has no real competition in Might Buffing )

- Either too many Damage Buffs, or not enough Classes with Damage Buffs

These Problems are Part of why we have crappy Balance in PvE now. ( Not saying that PvE Balance was good before the Balance Patch, but it was better and the best we had in PvE Balance. Its more that the last Changes got rid of the Paint that made a Car full of Rust look better now the PRoblems are much easier to see )

Walhalla.5473:

While more Classes should be able to give out these Class Buffs. Anet should prevent the Players from Overkilling with the Buffs and having like 20 unique Damage Buffs.

That’s why I say they should give either the exact same buffs or buffs that DO NOT STACK with what we already have.

maddoctor.2738:

Walhalla.5473:

While more Classes should be able to give out these Class Buffs. Anet should prevent the Players from Overkilling with the Buffs and having like 20 unique Damage Buffs.

That’s why I say they should give either the exact same buffs or buffs that DO NOT STACK with what we already have.

Whoops, didn’t see that. My bad.

maddoctor.2738:

Walhalla.5473:

While more Classes should be able to give out these Class Buffs. Anet should prevent the Players from Overkilling with the Buffs and having like 20 unique Damage Buffs.

That’s why I say they should give either the exact same buffs or buffs that DO NOT STACK with what we already have.

Yea, how hard would it be to have turrets be something of use? We have a trait that does give might/fury etc depending on the turret but cd on the trait is crap so its useless.
Little less of this and more having traits that are actually useful? That way our turrets would perhaps behave the same as banners while even doing some dps as well?
The “fix” is out there, and its close. Just a matter of whether ANET cares to make the fix so in the meantime we go afk in LA.

maddoctor.2738:

I agree but the problem is something must be done with existing skills that provide such unique buffs. Warrior Banners, Ranger Spirits and so on. Do we remove all those skills? Wouldn’t that also hurt diversity? If we change them to non-stacking boons then there might be another problem right there.

No, there should be no unique buffs altogether as in “changed to boons”, not “deleted from game”. Banner of Strength, for example, should just pulse Might because that’s basically its current effect. Changing Fury to intensity stacking boon will open it for Banner of Discipline, Fury can also become Precision+Ferocity boon. New boons can be introduced if necessary, boon caps can be adjusted.

Obtena.7952:

This makes no sense. IF I said players should get more skill, that doesn’t mean much without some context don’t you think? Just because I may have made a statement that players should get more skill, that doesn’t mean I’m making an argument about raid composition or scenarios with that statement. However you made that connection, I don’t know, but at this point, it doesn’t surprise me as you don’t even seem to have a coherent argument anyways. YOu just seem to think that ‘being opposite’ is how this works. Let me bring you back around as you seem astray.

The argument here is raid diversity and you know its just nonsense to claim changes are bad and lead to less diversity because of how it affects some extremely difficult and risky approach to self-imposed restrictions on making a raid comp that the game wasn’t designed around in the first place. The fact is that any extreme difficult scenario you can present as an argument is so precarious in the first place, that even a butterfly’s wing flapping could affect it For example, even the randomness of weapon direct damage could make that scenario fail, it’s such an extreme. It makes more sense to argue that weapon damage range should be removed based on these extreme scenarios that it does to argue against the changes that were made in the last patch.

I suggest you find a more sensible argument and try again because that one just makes no sense whatsoever.

You suggest the extremely difficult scenario of dropping chronos as well and present it as diversity. Can raid designers themselves do that and succeed?

Did I not mention raid diversity in terms of probability theory? Expected value of classes per spot should be exactly 1/9. In all raids. Low-mans can be included or not, but they show the same imbalances and problems as 10-mans (that was a reason to mention them, and anyway they are too rare to affect the statistics). Variance must be as high as possible. That’s the diversity. The diversity is lowered simply because more classes now average way more than 1/9 per spot, more classes now average way less than 1/9 and the variance is close to 0. Pre-patch statistics were healthier.

And once again any player-imposed restrictions are controlled by Anet-made balance. There is correlation. They are supposed to understand that.

maddoctor.2738:

maxwelgm.4315:

Take a boss like Matthias for example; his mechanics enforce certain aspects (most notably reflects) that are simply not available to some professions. So, if you have a Chrono, you know you’ll be in for Matt because you have the definitive reflect skill (Feedback), to the point people might even overlook your lazy everything else. If you have a Revenant however, you have no reflect skills whatsoever, and the group needs to count only on your damage, if even (same with Necro that doesn’t even have damage). So there you have it, a meta enforced purely mechanically with no ways of being fixed by balances, because every Necro and Rev has 9 out of 10 spots to fill while a Chrono will definitely fill that last 1 spot every single time (or does anyone use dagger storm or wall of reflection for this?). Not trying to dwell into whether this is right or wrong, but it is there, and it is a depart from the whole rest of the game, even fractals.

If the group doing Matt takes the Chrono only for Feedback, they are doing it wrong. Even if Chronos didn’t have Feedback they’d be in every single team anyway.

The main problem with diversity is that we don’t have clear roles. For example, in many other games you can go and make a team and ask for a Tank, a Healer or a DPS, but the specific build that will fit the spot is rather open in most cases. In Guild Wars 2 you are not asking for a tank, you are asking for a Chrono tank, you are not asking for a Healer, you are asking for a Druid healer, you are not asking for Offensive Support, you are asking for a PS Warrior, you are not asking for DPS, you are asking for a DPS Tempest, you are not asking for Condi DPS, you are asking for condi Rangers and so on.

And that’s the main problem with the diversity in the game. I think the best option for the game would be to open up roles to multiple builds.

Currently we have the following Healers: Tempest, Druid and Herald, why not making sure all 3 of them are excellent and can compete with each other?

Currently we have the following condi DPS: Reaper, Ranger, Engineer, Berserker, why not making sure all 3 of them are excellent and can compete with each other?

I know Warriors and Mesmers won’t like this, but why not give more builds the ability to get 25 stacks of might so a PS Warrior isn’t a must have in Raids? Why not give to at least one more build the ability to give Alacrity and a good Quickness uptime? Not to everyone, but at least TWO different builds should give the same buffs, keeps them unique enough, and opens up role slots for more diversity.

I don’t want to see “LF Druid” or “LF Chrono”, I want to see “LF Healer” and “LF for Quickness/Alacrity buffer”. It will be a huge step towards diversity.

Ask for a ROLE and not a specific BUILD

as a berzerker main i dont think any of us will care if you nerf our might stacking and give other classes that ability. just make us competitive with our DPS. thats all i care about. being competitive. i dont want my warrior to be treated like my necro and rev. complete cancer that wont be brought.

AndyS.5630:

Obtena.7952:

This makes no sense. IF I said players should get more skill, that doesn’t mean much without some context don’t you think? Just because I may have made a statement that players should get more skill, that doesn’t mean I’m making an argument about raid composition or scenarios with that statement. However you made that connection, I don’t know, but at this point, it doesn’t surprise me as you don’t even seem to have a coherent argument anyways. YOu just seem to think that ‘being opposite’ is how this works. Let me bring you back around as you seem astray.

The argument here is raid diversity and you know its just nonsense to claim changes are bad and lead to less diversity because of how it affects some extremely difficult and risky approach to self-imposed restrictions on making a raid comp that the game wasn’t designed around in the first place. The fact is that any extreme difficult scenario you can present as an argument is so precarious in the first place, that even a butterfly’s wing flapping could affect it For example, even the randomness of weapon direct damage could make that scenario fail, it’s such an extreme. It makes more sense to argue that weapon damage range should be removed based on these extreme scenarios that it does to argue against the changes that were made in the last patch.

I suggest you find a more sensible argument and try again because that one just makes no sense whatsoever.

You suggest the extremely difficult scenario of dropping chronos as well and present it as diversity. Can raid designers themselves do that and succeed?

Are we on the same planet? Let me try this again … I’m talking about raid diversity, the topic of the thread and I’m saying it makes no sense for you to claim that the changes are bad based on extreme scenarios you present. It is YOU making these claims, not me.

AndyS.5630:

And once again any player-imposed restrictions are controlled by Anet-made balance. There is correlation. They are supposed to understand that.

No, that’s false because there is absolutely NO Anet-made balance effect that makes a group of players decide to impose upon themselves, by choice, specific raid comps; the number of combinations of comps to ‘solve’ raids is sufficiently sized to ensure that. I know this because EVERY time a group deviates from the meta and wins, it makes that true. Anet does understand how their changes affect how players ‘solve’ raids … that’s why they make those changes.

If you aren’t willing to acknowledge the simple concept that there is a difference between players deciding to choose higher risk compositions and making raid compositions that are forced on you because of skill/game changes, then I can only conclude you are being purposefully obtuse to just be argumentative. I’m done with you.

Obtena.7952:

Anet does understand how their changes affect how players ‘solve’ raids … that’s why they make those changes.

Now that’s something I seriously doubt when I think of the consequences the last round of balancing had.

CptAurellian.9537:

Obtena.7952:

Anet does understand how their changes affect how players ‘solve’ raids … that’s why they make those changes.

Now that’s something I seriously doubt when I think of the consequences the last round of balancing had.

Really? Do you care to explain why? Let me start: Here is why I think it’s true:

Primarily, because raids were too easy with excessive boon durations and sharing.
Secondly, because the compositions were biased too much against unfavoured classes

So basically, if Anet is advertising an inclusive and challenging raiding environment, everything that got nerfed moves them in that direction.

Obtena.7952:

AndyS.5630:

And once again any player-imposed restrictions are controlled by Anet-made balance. There is correlation. They are supposed to understand that.

No, that’s false because there is absolutely NO Anet-made balance effect that makes a group of players decide to impose upon themselves, by choice, specific raid comps; the number of combinations of comps to ‘solve’ raids is sufficiently sized to ensure that. I know this because EVERY time a group deviates from the meta and wins, it makes that true.

I think you need to check what “correlation” is because what he’s saying isn’t an opinion, it is a fact. It is factually correct to state that player imposed restrictions are influenced by the relative abilities of the classes. When anet nerfed the crap out of necromancer in the last patch, it went from being a desirable class to an undesirable one. This has nothing to do with necromancer being able to “solve” raids or not – it is a simple fact that anet made necromancer deal less damage and now players are less inclined to use it.

Obtena.7952:

Anet does understand how their changes affect how players ‘solve’ raids … that’s why they make those changes.

You may be surprised how untrue this is. Remember the wing 3 bug thread on reddit a while back was a bit of an eye opener.

Obtena.7952:

CptAurellian.9537:

Obtena.7952:

Anet does understand how their changes affect how players ‘solve’ raids … that’s why they make those changes.

Now that’s something I seriously doubt when I think of the consequences the last round of balancing had.

Really? Do you care to explain why? Let me start: Here is why I think it’s true:

Primarily, because raids were too easy with excessive boon durations and sharing.
Secondly, because the compositions were biased too much against unfavoured classes

So basically, if Anet is advertising an inclusive and challenging raiding environment, everything that got nerfed moves them in that direction.

The boon sharing was nerfed more for wvw than raids. I won’t claim that they were unaware of the impact it would have on raids, but there are a huge number of issues with certain skills that affects raids but not other game modes that went completely ignored.

Then there was the fact that the necro changes were billed as a “minor bug fix” – which is true in every game mode besides raids, where it completely devastated the entire class.

So yeah I’d say it’s fair to say they don’t always think about the impact of changes for raids.