The Hitpoint System is Outdated.
Speaking only from a PVE point of view… the ferocity stat is the real culprit.
It’s too late to do anything much about it, though.
I wouldn’t mind if the added condi duration to its function, though; make it useful for condi builds
I think the problem is rewarding healing is like rewarding people to play bad.
I always found this point of view to be rather myopic.
There was never not supposed to be any healers or tanks, but it was supposed to be that ANY class could play any role. But exactly this is why we have the mind-numbing DPS meta which the devs are trying to sort out with the expac
+1
@OP, it’s an interesting idea. Not sure it’s the solution we need, but it’s definitely interesting.
I think the problem is rewarding healing is like rewarding people to play bad.
I always found this point of view to be rather myopic.
It’s not entirely wrong in a game where you can actually avoid taking damage though. Healing is reactive, which means you need to be hurt before healing can be effective. The reason why healing isn’t a sign of playing badly in standard MMOs is because you can’t avoid damage in them. In GW2 you can however.
That’s one of the main reasons why I think in order to make healing really fit with GW2s sensibilities throwing healing at people needs to be a positive thing even if they aren’t taking damage.
I think the problem is rewarding healing is like rewarding people to play bad.
I always found this point of view to be rather myopic.
It’s not entirely wrong in a game where you can actually avoid taking damage though. Healing is reactive, which means you need to be hurt before healing can be effective. The reason why healing isn’t a sign of playing badly in standard MMOs is because you can’t avoid damage in them. In GW2 you can however.
That’s one of the main reasons why I think in order to make healing really fit with GW2s sensibilities throwing healing at people needs to be a positive thing even if they aren’t taking damage.
That makes no sense. You don’t go to the doctor’s and ask for antibiotics when you aren’t sick. You don’t put your arms in casts when they aren’t broken. You don’t go for healing when you have nothing to be healed.
If no one needs healing, why should people waste heals?
That’s one of the main reasons why I think in order to make healing really fit with GW2s sensibilities throwing healing at people needs to be a positive thing even if they aren’t taking damage.
It does feel too much like a win-win situation for heal stat. Either you boost DPS, or you save the life of your team. There’s no risk to that play really so it should NOT be as rewarding as full blown DPS by a long shot.
It does feel too much like a win-win situation for heal stat. Either you boost DPS, or you save the life of your team. There’s no risk to that play really so it should NOT be as rewarding as full blown DPS by a long shot.
You can’t have it both ways though where people insist that defense and healing should never be a factor in completing content but at the same time then say that if your party was able to muster high damage while having healing or defense they would somehow be overpowered. That’s simply a double standard at that point.
That makes no sense. You don’t go to the doctor’s and ask for antibiotics when you aren’t sick. You don’t put your arms in casts when they aren’t broken. You don’t go for healing when you have nothing to be healed.
It only makes no sense because you insist on thinking of hitpoints as broken arms and serious illnesses. Maybe it’s more like your character’s resolve or stress level. Giving a pep talk before a big game makes just as much sense as talking your team back up after a defeat.
For that matter, are we seriously having a realism discussion in a game where you venture into an ever shifting maze of quantum realities when you need new magic pants?
(edited by Aetrion.8295)
It does feel too much like a win-win situation for heal stat. Either you boost DPS, or you save the life of your team. There’s no risk to that play really so it should NOT be as rewarding as full blown DPS by a long shot.
You can’t have it both ways though where people insist that defense and healing should never be a factor in completing content but at the same time then say that if your party was able to muster high damage while having healing or defense they would somehow be overpowered. That’s simply a double standard at that point.
That makes no sense. You don’t go to the doctor’s and ask for antibiotics when you aren’t sick. You don’t put your arms in casts when they aren’t broken. You don’t go for healing when you have nothing to be healed.
It only makes no sense because you insist on thinking of hitpoints as broken arms and serious illnesses. Maybe it’s more like your character’s resolve or stress level. Giving a pep talk before a big game makes just as much sense as talking your team back up after a defeat.
For that matter, are we seriously having a realism discussion in a game where you venture into an ever shifting maze of quantum realities when you need new magic pants?
Pep talks are buffs not heals. And there are plenty of DPS oriented buffs that currently exist out there without adding in yet another one that makes no sense and makes other problems worse. Or can you not see the forest for the trees?
You’re only seeing the benefit you perceive your solution to have. You’re not looking at the consequences of the solution.
It does feel too much like a win-win situation for heal stat. Either you boost DPS, or you save the life of your team. There’s no risk to that play really so it should NOT be as rewarding as full blown DPS by a long shot.
You can’t have it both ways though where people insist that defense and healing should never be a factor in completing content but at the same time then say that if your party was able to muster high damage while having healing or defense they would somehow be overpowered. That’s simply a double standard at that point.
That makes no sense. You don’t go to the doctor’s and ask for antibiotics when you aren’t sick. You don’t put your arms in casts when they aren’t broken. You don’t go for healing when you have nothing to be healed.
It only makes no sense because you insist on thinking of hitpoints as broken arms and serious illnesses. Maybe it’s more like your character’s resolve or stress level. Giving a pep talk before a big game makes just as much sense as talking your team back up after a defeat.
For that matter, are we seriously having a realism discussion in a game where you venture into an ever shifting maze of quantum realities when you need new magic pants?
Pep talks are buffs not heals. And there are plenty of DPS oriented buffs that currently exist out there without adding in yet another one that makes no sense and makes other problems worse. Or can you not see the forest for the trees?
You’re only seeing the benefit you perceive your solution to have. You’re not looking at the consequences of the solution.
The three year old debate of PHIWs claiming ‘I want my passive/reactive/useless build to be more beneficial b/c ’reasons from past experiences’, hasn’t detered the most rabid of Trinity indoctrinated players, and it, most likely, never will. It’s a fruitless argument to explain that good players/teams are self-sufficient by being ACTIVE and that the ‘redbar hero’ is a thing of the past in this game. The ‘best’ part is, in that pug dungeon run, the ‘healer Ele’ (who still believes this is the same as ‘support’), gives himself a big Pat on the back afterwards, not even capable of conceiving the thought that it was actually the zerker Guardian and might/fury stacker that actually carried the entire run. O.O
As for the OP, ‘hitpoints’, [ie, ‘life/hearts/health/etc (even in Mario)] are a staple of nearly every ’win/lose’, non-strategy game that has ever been conceived and is hardly just an outdated idea. It’s more like a fundamental concept/mechanic.
1. I find it amusing how you come in here after playing for 1 month and demand the game be changed to better fit your vision and suit your tastes better and still somehow we’re the entitled and self important ones – not you.
2. It’s not about some people not being “not allowed” to have fun – their fun ruins my fun. And they came to the wrong place to have fun in the first place if they wanted to have “fun” in the traditional MMO way.
1. I’m dismissing any viewpoints out of hand. You’re the one trying to tell people whether or not they are allowed to have an opinion based on how long they have been here or how they like to play the game.
2. If you cannot enjoy yourself if people with other play styles have as much opportunity to get into groups as you, you’re the problem, not those people.
Also stop acting as though you’re speaking on ANet’s behalf when you’re telling people whether or not they are “in the right game”.
I’m not trying to tell anyone what they’re allowed to do or not – I’m simply expressing a huge amount of doubt regarding your capacity to produce an insightful and correct analysis of the game after having spend just a month on it.
For example : I doubt you’ve done ANY FOTM 50 runs.
So – having been unable to experience the full range of instanced content in GW2 you still pass judgement on the entirety of instanced content in GW2. You don’t see a problem there?
You’re allowed to have and express any opinions you feel right – and I’m allowed to wonder if you’re capable of suggesting improvements to a game that’s worked well for 3 years after having spend one month on it.
2. I cannot enjoy myself if the game is made even easier. The game is very easy as it is – your proposed solution will only make it easier.
I can’t care less about what other people do in their groups and a lot of people now play with whatever builds they want and that doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the game in any way. I’m simply against changing the game to fix a non-issue.
I’m speaking on behalf of evidence – the game was intended and designed in a certain way.
How do I know this?
1. I’ve followed every post and every bit of information about it ever since it was announced and after.
2. I can deduce from the current implementation of systems what the developers intended.
This game is what it is – if you want it to be different then maybe you’re not in the right place – is that such an absurd assumption?
I came to GW2 KNOWING what GW2 will be and because I wanted that in a game. If GW2 doesn’t offer what you want in a game then why stick with it?
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I play an Elementalist in full berzerker gear, have reached fractal level 19, got my first 30 AR squared away and a full set of ascended acessories. I think that’s a pretty solid accomplishment for just around a month and a half into the game. In fact it’s probably indicative of spending a little too much time in the game.
I’m not ignorant to what’s going on in the game. I play with people who are deep into the meta and don’t really see any significant hickups in plodding on all the way to PRL50. 30AR is a bit of a hurdle you have to get over, but it’s going to happen eventually. The road to doing the hardest content in this game isn’t awfully long or difficult. Give me another month and I’ll be there, no problem. All the content in this game that actually takes years of playing to get to is just stuff like building a legendary or putting together super rare collections, and that’s not because you have to be super knowledgeable but simply because they are behind a crapload of grinding and time-gated progress.
So, sorry to say, but there really isn’t all that much deep mystery in the game for me. I’ve charted my course to fotm50, it just takes a while to get there. I know I’ll get there because I’m taking my journey there with a great guild of willing guides who have taken the same path there.
It’s because I’m perfectly willing to play the game the way it currently works, and have no problem appreciating that side of it that I don’t particularly care for all these people insinuating all sorts of things about how I’m just some idiot in clerics gear who’s mad because nobody is ever hurting for a healer. Sorry, nope, my main is a full zerker Ele and when it comes to fractals the only reason I haven’t done a 50 yet is that it takes time to build up the gear for it.
It’s precisely because I learned all the meta that I’m convinced the game is a bit one note at the top of the stack. I abandoned my idea of playing healing support for the time being because it wasn’t compatible with high level play, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hope that it won’t be part of challenging content and gameplay in the future.
It’s not about plodding to 50 – it’s about playing 50 and seeing that support roles do matter there. In the very high-end of PvE – so your arguments don’t really hold much water since support – even healy/tanky support have a role they can serve and can make runs easier.
You can try to convince me that you’re some sort of really good player that knows what’s up but honestly – you can’t. You lost me at the point where you want to make the game even easier by making tanks and healers deal comparable dps to full dps specs.
Good luck with your hopes – let’s see if HoT is really what you think it is.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Well then let’s do a few fractals together. If you really have such a hard time believing someone could understand and enjoy playing the game the way it is right now and still hope to see it expanded to include more play styles in the future, maybe seeing is believing.
In my Opinion the scaling has a big flaw.
Look at the Damage Calculation without modifiers:
Damage = Strength / Armor
You Start with 1000 Strength and 1000 Toughness thats okay BUT Defense from Items cost you Nothing. The real start Values are 1000 Strength and ~2000Armor.
Was that mean?
Every Point Toughness is less effective until Strength reach your Armor rating then its even.
When we make it a simple game aka you die anyways but your Mission is maximum Damage. Strength give you Damage and Armor give you time. The maximum value comes when the two values are even.
When a warrior has over 2200 Armor at the start you must have 1200 Points in Strength for a “balanced” Character because all Character starts very defensive.
Another Point is that Armor is only effective when you receive a Hit. In a game with Taunts its okay but nothing is more useless than being Tanky and the zerker near you have the Aggro.
Tweaks:
A) Change Ferocity from +critdamage to +condition Duration Disharm the Stacking from % Damage and give Condition Builds a Second Damage Attrbut
B) Remove Defense Rating from Items which means Toughness has more value.
C) Let Regeneration stack in Intensity. Every Member can Support 1 stack because many classes have no Helaing Weapon.
Like its been said, there are bonus effects for staying above a threshold and there are also bonus effects for getting your target below a threshold so the constant flow of healing is helpful. I think the issue is more so that some classes fill this role far better than others and in some cases don’t even have to specialize for it and their allies can feel the benefits.
Support in general is wacked up, its mostly just dps your target faster than they do and controlling them.
“I’m waiting for the staff to get off their lunch
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
break. I feel like they should be back by now..”
Not in general but the problem is that Support Skills are 90% bound to Utility and Elite Skills and not at attributes. You can run in berserker gear and can support your whole team, the only help is boon duration and this attrbute scales horrible on equip.
The absurd top is phalanx strength and greatsword. Might support for damaging your opponent sounds nice for a warrior and team friendly but for seomone who wants a tradeoff and play more “Support” and dont do the damage self its a kick in the face.
CC support in this game is not good enough and unstable. In my opinion Unshakable must be a “personal” buff. 5 Players hit a champion = 5 Defiance stacks from unshakable. But every Teammember has its own Stack so you can use Chain CC at a specific time or use the “bigger” CC effects when defiance reach zero.
Well then let’s do a few fractals together. If you really have such a hard time believing someone could understand and enjoy playing the game the way it is right now and still hope to see it expanded to include more play styles in the future, maybe seeing is believing.
Why not – i’ll add you later today.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
Not in general but the problem is that Support Skills are 90% bound to Utility and Elite Skills and not at attributes. You can run in berserker gear and can support your whole team, the only help is boon duration and this attrbute scales horrible on equip.
This is an apt description of the problem I think. It’s not that there is no supporting in the game, it’s that if you invested the hours and days necessary to get a set of gear that should in theory make you a support specialist all you get is the cold shoulder from any team that doesn’t want to take an hour to clear a fractal or dungeon.
The amount of damage you have to give up to have healing and defensive stats is obscenely huge because of how damage stats multiply on top of each other, so the damage scale itself is way out of whack.
I think the problem is rewarding healing is like rewarding people to play bad.
I always found this point of view to be rather myopic.
It’s not entirely wrong in a game where you can actually avoid taking damage though. Healing is reactive, which means you need to be hurt before healing can be effective. The reason why healing isn’t a sign of playing badly in standard MMOs is because you can’t avoid damage in them. In GW2 you can however.
That’s one of the main reasons why I think in order to make healing really fit with GW2s sensibilities throwing healing at people needs to be a positive thing even if they aren’t taking damage.
That makes no sense. You don’t go to the doctor’s and ask for antibiotics when you aren’t sick. You don’t put your arms in casts when they aren’t broken. You don’t go for healing when you have nothing to be healed.
If no one needs healing, why should people waste heals?
It’s a kittening video game, even pets are are regarded as classes…and you’re comparing it with real life.
In my Opinion the scaling has a big flaw.
Look at the Damage Calculation without modifiers:
Damage = Strength / Armor
You Start with 1000 Strength and 1000 Toughness thats okay BUT Defense from Items cost you Nothing. The real start Values are 1000 Strength and ~2000Armor.
Was that mean?
Every Point Toughness is less effective until Strength reach your Armor rating then its even.
Tweaks:
B) Remove Defense Rating from Items which means Toughness has more value.
You might want to revise your calculation. The damage equation is actually:
Power * Weapon Strength * Skill Coefficient / Defense + Toughness.
Looking at it “without modifiers” is ignoring the way it works. Both offense and defense are benefiting from a gear-only stat.
The amount of damage you have to give up to have healing and defensive stats is obscenely huge because of how damage stats multiply on top of each other, so the damage scale itself is way out of whack.
As someone who has done calculations on the game’s mechanics, and who has checked those submitted by others which show that defensive and healing stats effectively balance v. offensive stats, I’d be interested in seeing the calculations that led to your conclusion. I’m not willing to accept “conventional wisdom” as a substitute for facts.
First of all, don’t tell people to do math to disprove your math if you haven’t actually shown your math. That’s just silly.
Secondly, how the stats balance out on paper is largelyirrelevant, because it’s ultimately not how good each individual stat is that causes the biggest issue, but what the demand for that stats contribution to the party is. How much healing a group needs is ultimately more important than how much healing gear can provide, because there is no benefit to having more than that.
The one thing that does have an infinite demand is damage, and because of that any character that doesn’t inflict enough damage isn’t welcome in performance oriented groups.
Thirdly, if you’ve done calculations you should have no problem understanding that because of the multiplicative nature of the three main damage stats, the ratio of damage stats vs. defensive stats on your gear doesn’t actually reflect the ratio of real damage vs. survivability in the game. If half your gear is damage stats you’re not doing half as much damage as someone who’s running full damage gear, you’re in fact doing much, much less damage.
There’s no viable way to make a pure healing class in GW2 without bringing in the trinity, simply because people have ways to heal themselves either by blast finishers on water fields people put down, a signet or healing skill. (#6) It’s a realistic approach to the idea they have to challenge traditional MMO content, meaning, F the trinity.
If you’re getting your butt handed to you, run, or heal yourself or stop DPS and let someone else take it. Or get better armor and runes. With the way people zerg through content, there’s literally no use to have a pure healer. With HoT, Anet is redesigning fights to include phases of combat or give chances at certain points in the fight to interrupt and if you don’t… hope you have insurance.
There’s just no need for a pure healer.
First of all, don’t tell people to do math to disprove your math if you haven’t actually shown your math. That’s just silly.
I’m sorry you think so. That math has been shown multiple times on these forums. “Your” side only ever offers belief. I was hoping you might show some math to back up your assertions, but since that hope is silly, I’ll just feel free to discount your appeal to common knowledge, which is in fact also silly.
Secondly, how the stats balance out on paper is largely irrelevant, because it’s ultimately not how good each individual stat is that causes the biggest issue, but what the demand for that stats contribution to the party is. How much healing a group needs is ultimately more important than how much healing gear can provide, because there is no benefit to having more than that.
Myopia. How the stats balance against each other is very much the issue because the devs balance around PvP, not PvE. Dungeon play is a very narrow and specialized part of the game. Balancing stats around it would do a disservice to every other part of the game, including persistent world PvE.
The one thing that does have an infinite demand is damage, and because of that any character that doesn’t inflict enough damage isn’t welcome in performance oriented groups.
I get that you want the healing stat to matter in those performance-minded groups. However, dungeon play does not exist in a vacuum where it and only it matters, and ANet is so far not willing to rewrite the entire game to make such a change, and I hope they remain in that mindset. Changing mechanics that affect all parts of the game to suit a preference in one tiny segment of the game does not seem like a win-win to me.
Thirdly, if you’ve done calculations you should have no problem understanding that because of the multiplicative nature of the three main damage stats, the ratio of damage stats vs. defensive stats on your gear doesn’t actually reflect the ratio of real damage vs. survivability in the game. If half your gear is damage stats you’re not doing half as much damage as someone who’s running full damage gear, you’re in fact doing much, much less damage.
Stat-based prefixes come in many flavors, but essentially there are four types: all damage stats (Berserker, Sinister, Assassin); two damage stats and one defensive stat (Knights, Rabid, Valkyrie); two defensive, one damage (Cleric, Dire, Soldier) and all defense (Nomad). Yes, the more defensive stats you slot, the lower your damage is. This is because defense is actually quiet strong in this game, it just isn’t that relevant if all you fight is one dimensional dungeon bosses.
In coordinated group play, every erg of possible damage is eked out. In that “perfect storm” format, offense is certainly greater than defense. This is exacerbated in that every “play how you want” group I’ve seen was freelancing at range, meaning they were not using many of the buffs available to max out their damage. I’ve not seen any reports as to how much damage a 4 glass/1 cleric group would lose v. 5 glass if they had the same amount of might/fury stacking, etc. I suspect it’s less than you think. However, with the current, on-farm and ad nauseam state of dungeons, any loss is unacceptable to farmers.
I suggest that you wait until HoT is released, or until we see the promised hard content, which is “supposed” to make defensive builds more welcome before we talk about fundamental changes to the math behind the game.
I’m just not sure how they can change the content to raise the demand for healing without making healers mandatory to complete the content, which is what, I think, we all agree should not happen.
making healing not be tied to an attribute will at least mean that healers need not be dedicated healers.
In my Opinion the scaling has a big flaw.
Look at the Damage Calculation without modifiers:
Damage = Strength / Armor
You Start with 1000 Strength and 1000 Toughness thats okay BUT Defense from Items cost you Nothing. The real start Values are 1000 Strength and ~2000Armor.
Was that mean?
Every Point Toughness is less effective until Strength reach your Armor rating then its even.
Tweaks:
B) Remove Defense Rating from Items which means Toughness has more value.
You might want to revise your calculation. The damage equation is actually:
Power * Weapon Strength * Skill Coefficient / Defense + Toughness.
Looking at it “without modifiers” is ignoring the way it works. Both offense and defense are benefiting from a gear-only stat.
Defense Rating from Equip is fixated. You cant trade Defense for more Strength. Defense Rating is not a Attribute with opportunity cost. Thats why your Armor Rating Start value is always ~2000. Weapon and Skillcoeffcient multiplies with Power thats mean that double Power always mean double Damage. The same with Toughness but defense Rating means you need 2000 Tougness for half damage. So Power scales better because you need lesser Points for the same effect.
Example:
Power 1000
Defense 2000
You have 1000 Points to Spend. What is the best way to maximize Damage over Time?
When you spend 1000 Points in Power you have a Damage + from 100%. When you spend 1000 Points in Defense you receive 66,66% Damage. but for the same damage before you die you need a Value from 50% aka 100% more Uptime.
I’m just not sure how they can change the content to raise the demand for healing without making healers mandatory to complete the content, which is what, I think, we all agree should not happen.
They can’t – that’s the thing – they really can’t.
Even if it were somehow possible it would require a massive amount of time and resources Anet simply aren’t willing to put into dungeon content.
Let’s face it – the dungeon team got dissolved and ever since they haven’t put even the slightest amount of resources towards the dungeons in the game.
You want them to find a way to make more defensive stats desirable but I’ll point out that isn’t even the biggest issue with dungeons at the moment.
There are far more critical issues such as exploits and progress-halting bugs that have yet to be addressed in any way.
Indigo actually has a very pertinent analysis of the whole situation – dungeons are in a bad spot right now and my personal feeling is that the reason they’re not investing effort into changing/revamping them is because only a very small portion of the players in the game still do them and on top of that the majority of players who still run them are farmers. And farmers don’t care about them anyway – they care about their gold.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
In my Opinion the scaling has a big flaw.
Look at the Damage Calculation without modifiers:
Damage = Strength / Armor
You Start with 1000 Strength and 1000 Toughness thats okay BUT Defense from Items cost you Nothing. The real start Values are 1000 Strength and ~2000Armor.
Was that mean?
Every Point Toughness is less effective until Strength reach your Armor rating then its even.
Tweaks:
B) Remove Defense Rating from Items which means Toughness has more value.
You might want to revise your calculation. The damage equation is actually:
Power * Weapon Strength * Skill Coefficient / Defense + Toughness.
Looking at it “without modifiers” is ignoring the way it works. Both offense and defense are benefiting from a gear-only stat.
Defense Rating from Equip is fixated. You cant trade Defense for more Strength. Defense Rating is not a Attribute with opportunity cost. Thats why your Armor Rating Start value is always ~2000. Weapon and Skillcoeffcient multiplies with Power thats mean that double Power always mean double Damage. The same with Toughness but defense Rating means you need 2000 Tougness for half damage. So Power scales better because you need lesser Points for the same effect.
Example:
Power 1000
Defense 2000You have 1000 Points to Spend. What is the best way to maximize Damage over Time?
When you spend 1000 Points in Power you have a Damage + from 100%. When you spend 1000 Points in Defense you receive 66,66% Damage. but for the same damage before you die you need a Value from 50% aka 100% more Uptime.
OK, so this is a nerf glass play-style idea. I’m sorry for fixating on the incomplete formula you used. Hopefully, you realize that by removing Defense you’d be nerfing everyone’s ability to take damage, not just glass.
The way I see it:
There are plenty of ways of rendering support without healing that nobody sees as game breaking or required.
Their power is not tied to wearing support focused gear, meaning there are no real support specialists.
There are far more mechanics for restoring hitpoints than for applying buffs/debuffs.
It makes sense to bring the green numbers full circle by letting them do the things that people like from supporters and away from just being a reactionary move to taking damage.
The best way to balance is in my opinion
Remove Defense Rating from Items and reduce Amror from Npcs equal.
Cut all direkt Damage in this Game by 50%
In the end are the damage income exact the same for Berserker Player but Player with Toughness receive less Damage then before.
The Result is that 1000 extra Toughness give boost your Survivilibity by 100%
or 1000 Power boost your Damage by 100%.
The Stats cost will be the same at equip so its okay that they give you the same inverted effect.
This will Boost Condition Damage too because you can use Toughness for reduce incoming damage better on equip. The target is that condition damage user at the end of the fight have the same HP remaining than Berserker player. The berserker player make fast direct damage, kills fast und receive little damage. The condition player need longer because DoT effects but extra Toughness helps im reduce incoming damage and he has the same HP remaining only the Killtime is the difference. At the other hand has the condi player more space for failures.
(edited by Capa.7684)
Condition damage is already strong, if not stronger than Direct Damage.
The only reason you don’t see it is because for the damage to take effect you need to wait for it to tick over. During that time any creature champion or above in PvE will have reduced effectiveness from them. Meaning you have to apply them faster than otherwise would be normal, or have increased duration food/sigils so the cleansing isn’t higher than your uptime.
Additionally cutting defenses and damage doesn’t solve the “zerker” problem. The only real way to address that is to improve the AI in the game and add more Mobile encounters. As is spiking a target that cannot/will not move is too easy. Coordinated groups already do this by stripping defiance and utilizing the already strong “Deep Freeze” from Icebow.
But hey control isn’t strong right ?
Maybe just maybe it’s not a system flaw its a player perception flaw. As in you still don’t get the mechanics or how to manipulate them into your favor.
Yea, any idea that simply gives defensive stats bigger numbers won’t help, since the problem is that you don’t need even the numbers you can currently get. It would just completely screw up any PvP balance where defensive stats already have their place because in PvP damage can’t be simply avoided.
Making damage have some kind of diminishing returns that makes overall damage output scale more proportionally to the stats your gear would be nice. It’s simply not right that even just running 25% less damage stats than someone else can already kitten near cut your damage in half.
Putting healing power together with boon duration would be nice, since then at least if you have some healing power you can provide the standard boon support that is much more appreciated than healing anyways a little better.
Again making damage have diminishing returns isn’t whats needed either.
Here’s a hint, players need to adapt and stop thinking this is a trinity based combat system.
Damage is fine, support is fine, condi’s are more than fine. What’s not fine is the user.
Healers in Guild Wars 2 are in a bad spot.
I stopped right there because there is no role for a healer to play in GW2. That’s not how the game is conceived.
Changing such a fundamental concept of the game to avoid trinity is simply not something that work, for more reasons than game mechanics.
Again making damage have diminishing returns isn’t whats needed either.
Here’s a hint, players need to adapt and stop thinking this is a trinity based combat system.
Damage is fine, support is fine, condi’s are more than fine. What’s not fine is the user.
Sorry, but when literally everyone is using exactly the same gear there is serious imbalance in the game. The way damage stats scale is currently really out of hand, completely regardless of where everything else in the game is at.
I stopped right there because there is no role for a healer to play in GW2. That’s not how the game is conceived.
There are a ton of healing skills and HoT proportionally adds more of them than the game ever had before. There is also a whole healing stat that seriously eats into your gear. I just don’t see this happening at Arena net:
Lead Designer: “Hey, what’s with all these things that let you build for healing? Our game isn’t about healing!”
Combat Designer: “Woops, butterfingers!”
Lead Designer: “Oh well, ship it I guess.”
(edited by Aetrion.8295)
Again making damage have diminishing returns isn’t whats needed either.
Here’s a hint, players need to adapt and stop thinking this is a trinity based combat system.
Damage is fine, support is fine, condi’s are more than fine. What’s not fine is the user.
Sorry, but when literally everyone is using exactly the same gear there is serious imbalance in the game. The way damage stats scale is currently really out of hand, completely regardless of where everything else in the game is at.
There is an imbalance but trying to turn defense stats into another kind of DPS stat is not the way to address it, encounter design is the only way to make this stuff worthy of taking.
Also consider PvP where giving more defense and DPS to Cele or tank specs would destroy it.
Making enemies work in such a way that encourages group support is the better solution.
I stopped right there because there is no role for a healer to play in GW2. That’s not how the game is conceived.
There are a ton of healing skills and HoT proportionally adds more of them than the game ever had before. There is also a whole healing stat that seriously eats into your gear. I just don’t see this happening at Arena net:
Lead Designer: “Hey, what’s with all these things that let you build for healing? Our game isn’t about healing!”
Combat Designer: “Woops, butterfingers!”
Lead Designer: “Oh well, ship it I guess.”
That’s right … that didn’t happen and that’s indicative of the fact that heals are just another active defense, not intended to be a dedicated role for a character. Therefore, the premise that Healers are in a bad spot doesn’t make sense in the first place because this game doesn’t have healers as a ‘thing’ to begin with.
(edited by Obtena.7952)
Healing power IS in a bad state in this game, and it does need to be fixed. However, I can’t think of a really good fix that belongs in GW2. Too many of the fixes would require huge overhauls of parts of the game that, quite honestly, are beyond the scope of what this game can and should do.
If I was to suggest an “easy” fix, I’d say to make some kind of “overflow” health bar, that active healing (not regeneration) can push you into. Have it drain quickly, so you don’t stay there long, and have it do … something. I’m not sure what, but it would have to be useful without being overpowered.
Sarcasm, delivered with a
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
delicate, brick-like subtlety.
Again making damage have diminishing returns isn’t whats needed either.
Here’s a hint, players need to adapt and stop thinking this is a trinity based combat system.
Damage is fine, support is fine, condi’s are more than fine. What’s not fine is the user.
Sorry, but when literally everyone is using exactly the same gear there is serious imbalance in the game. The way damage stats scale is currently really out of hand, completely regardless of where everything else in the game is at.
I stopped right there because there is no role for a healer to play in GW2. That’s not how the game is conceived.
There are a ton of healing skills and HoT proportionally adds more of them than the game ever had before. There is also a whole healing stat that seriously eats into your gear. I just don’t see this happening at Arena net:
Lead Designer: “Hey, what’s with all these things that let you build for healing? Our game isn’t about healing!”
Combat Designer: “Woops, butterfingers!”
Lead Designer: “Oh well, ship it I guess.”
Even if things were tweaked around – 3 years after having played the same dungeon content over and over again people would still use the exact same gear. It might be different from the gear we use now but don’t you really think a meta will always emerge?
You can’t make things different and equal.
Again – the things that let you build for healing are a compromise – allowing you to do it if that’s what you really want – but it isn’t going to make you optimal.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I don’t doubt that there will always be a “best way” to do things, I just happen to think that the best possible group should be one that includes characters that aren’t focused on raw damage, because that way people who like playing those kinds of characters are not categorically excluded from ever being part of a high performing group like they are now.
The fact that a singular best way to do things has crystallized out of all the options in the game and it points toward using just one single gear set and one particular set of builds shows that those things aren’t balanced.
When it comes to DPS ultra-specialization is highly rewarded, with every other type of gameplay it’s punished severely. That simply can’t be the intention of the devs. If they had wanted to develop a game where those styles of gameplay don’t exist at all they simply would have built the game from the ground up to never even lead anyone astray with build options and gear options that indicate that you should be allowed to do things that way.
Healing power IS in a bad state in this game, and it does need to be fixed. However, I can’t think of a really good fix that belongs in GW2. Too many of the fixes would require huge overhauls of parts of the game that, quite honestly, are beyond the scope of what this game can and should do.
If I was to suggest an “easy” fix, I’d say to make some kind of “overflow” health bar, that active healing (not regeneration) can push you into. Have it drain quickly, so you don’t stay there long, and have it do … something. I’m not sure what, but it would have to be useful without being overpowered.
Perhaps the game could use some kind of preemptive healing mechanic. I don’t know if it really fits, but I played another game that uses it and is intentionally part of the design.
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“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
When it comes to DPS ultra-specialization is highly rewarded, with every other type of gameplay it’s punished severely. That simply can’t be the intention of the devs. If they had wanted to develop a game where those styles of gameplay don’t exist at all they simply would have built the game from the ground up to never even lead anyone astray with build options and gear options that indicate that you should be allowed to do things that way.
I don’t see why that can’t be their intention. In fact, I think it’s obviously their intention, or we wouldn’t be dodging, blocking, using heals or triggering defensive boons as active defenses.
Those gear options exist for a number of reasons, one significant reason is because PVE gear is shared between WvW and PVE and can be earned doing either. I don’t think there is any contradictory message simply because you can equip whatever gear you want in PVE, even if it’s not optimal for damage. You don’t know as much as you think.
I support the initial idea of making non-mandatory healing more interesting/useful by adding some malus/benefit mechanic to the health pool other than on/off or alive/dead we already see this with the downed state mechanic that GW2 has introduced and which has made the game much more fun than previous implementations without a similar function.
The basic idea to give additional existing or potentially totally newly designed boons when “overhealing” characters could be a really interesting new support function without upping any of the current healing numbers, so it does not get into any mandatory but very useful spot.
And btw: coordinated blast finisher healing already is super powerful and for some stunts even mandatory: WvW Blast Finisher Healball anyone ?
If considering to add more flavour to the HP-Pool functionality you could also introduce some soft punishment mechanics for falling to a low HP state other than that just your uber-power-zerk-crit-spike-flash runes stop working, maybe weakness ?
(edited by Inverse.2967)
Increase Healing Power scaling by 25%, decrease current base healing by 10%.
Add Boon Duration scaling to Healing Power. (Ex 1000 Healing Power increases Boon Duration by 100%)
Doesnt change alot because Might stacks are too easy to obtain and the only other Buff worth Boon Duration is Protection in my Opinion. The only buff i see is for the Guardian because he has the right Toolset. And thats the main problem, most classes have not a Skills for useful scaling of Healing Power. In theory every class need a option for Heals wih Autoattacks of Weapon Skills with not so big Cooldowns. A Big 1 or 2 scaling doesnt help with giant Skill Cooldowns when i can hit 1-2 times with weapons and Power scaling.
I don’t see why that can’t be their intention. In fact, I think it’s obviously their intention, or we wouldn’t be dodging, blocking, using heals or triggering defensive boons as active defenses.
Yeah exactly. The whole combat system is asking you to take only the barest minimum of defenses, just as much as you need for whatever you’re attempting, and invest every single other point and option into output.
It makes sense, too. With defense largely being a factor of you (as in, the player), the character is free to focus on damage and damage only. Defense is already covered, after all.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
Fully trinity MMOs have active defenses and CCs too, or allow you to kite enemies around with slows to avoid damage. It’s compltely silly to say that those things existing means the game designers intended for healing to be worthless to performance oriented players.
Fully trinity MMOs have active defenses and CCs too, or allow you to kite enemies around with slows to avoid damage.
And surprisingly, everyone optimizes for maximum damage output in those. Who would have thought? :P
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
And surprisingly, everyone optimizes for maximum damage output in those. Who would have thought? :P
That’s hardly true.
Sure, if you play a DPS character in a standard MMO maximizing damage is what you try to do, but for one, there are classes that aren’t DPS that actually have a place in the game, and secondly, in the vast majority of MMOs gear isn’t treated as a build choice. There is simply a certain set of gear associated with your class, going so far as to have a special set of gear for every class for every tier of progression. Top tier sets are going to include armor and hitpoints as deemed appropriate by the devs for that level of play as well as whatever damage and sustain stats are on it.
Those games never give you a choice of 20 different gear sets except 19 of them are wrong. You simply get gear that works for your class, and if your class happens to specialize in damage then that gear will help you do damage.
One thing any lame WoW clone does way better than this game is definitely that you can’t kitten your character and set back your gear progression by weeks because you thought the devs gave you a choice for a reason. You just get whatever gear set says your class’ name on it and it works, no BS, no traps, just a game being honest about the fact that you don’t really have a choice.
It’s simply not like they couldn’t have done it that way in this game too. They could have just made every stat work on every skill and leave it up to the specializations to set what a character is good at at the moment. That would have been a much more elegant solution that wouldn’t leave thousands of people confused and frustrated. They chose to present people with a choice, so they owe it to us to make the choices valid.
Ultimately if they don’t fix it so making choices about gear is actually a valuable part of the game and not just something that frustrates and misleads people then they should just remove gear sets and go with the same system that other MMOs are using.
Your gear simply comes with ability power which gives a bonus to the magnitude of all abilities, a critical effect power which sets the chance of all random effects your build has, bonus hitpoints as appropriate for that level of gear, and some interesting set bonuses here or there.
If the devs can’t handle balancing the system they created they just have to go to the easy default that doesn’t lead to discussions like this because nobody feels like they are being teased with fake choices.
(edited by Aetrion.8295)