I’ve been really looking forward to HoT, however, with more and more info coming out about the new elite specs… not so much. It seems with the last update on class balance, the devs are focusing on PvE.
I say this because one of the primary feedbacks from the last BWE was that the new monsters are doing a lot of damage are have a higher health pool. After reading the posts on the class updates that just came out, it seems most of the classes are getting buffed dps. The warrior is a prime example. Yes, they toned down the rifle zerk ability, but the overall class was buffed a lot.
Here’s an example of one build that seems to me a bit rediculous:
(Please, don’t argue or reply to the build itself, such as why those runes, or I’d use this. That will derail the topic. This is just to highlight what I’m talking about.)
If you don’t know about guardians, here’s the deal.
You will be able to apply aoe burning at a minimum of every 2.5 seconds. This will most likely occurr much faster. This is due to Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath traits. Every 3rd hit will proc an aoe burning attack on the target. Theoretically, a well placed symbol which hits 5 targets and pulses 5 times will proc Virtue of Justice 8 times. Oh, and the longbow symbol also applies burning. Longbow 2 and 3 also pierces and longbow kittens lots of enemies. Burn, burn, burn. All from a safe distance.
As if that wasn’t enough, due to the Radiance trait line, you’ll be able to spam Virtue of Justices active effect at a certain point in the fight. That also causes burning, tether, might, retaliation, and, around you, an aoe blind.
While traps are new and shiny, I think they suck as they are targeted at your location, and there’s no guarentee they will activate. That’s a lack of dps or defense. I chose Hallowed Ground and Purging Flames as they serve both functions. The defensive are obvious, but they are both long lasting fire fields, which makes a burning bolt combo finisher. Purging flames also does massive burning damage.
If for whatever reason, you are attacked, with Amplified Wrath and Shelter, your foe will be burned, and this also will fill your Justices burning proc with Defender’s Dogma.
There are also a lot of passive dps increases. One of the never used traits, Unscathed Contender, which gives you more damage while under the effects of aegis. We never use this because as melee, we’re always getting hit. However, with a longbow, you should rarely get hit, so you will have an extra 20% dps. With Retribution, you get 10% increased damage while under the effects of retaliation, which, if you don’t have for some reason, you soon will when you start spamming Virtue of Justice. There’s Power of the Virtuous, which gives and extra 1% damage increase for each boon on you, which you should have a few, lets say 4%. There’s also Zelot’s Agression which is another 7% to crippled foes.
Here’s one for the warrior:
Just to quickly sum up: When running a warrior in WvW with cleansing ire and other traits, you gain adrenaline super fast. This means you’ll be able to use your burst skills right away. The hammer is an aoe attack that immobilizes, does massive damage, and is a blast finisher (some of this is not reflected in the editor). Yes, they changed the knockback to immobilization, but they increased the damage by a whopping 100%. I mean, who asked for that? Is that necessary? This dps will be insane. Oh, and add a ton of stability and a short amount of quickness.
As if that wasn’t enough, due to the Smash Brawler trait, there will be a certain point in the fight where you can just spam your F1 skill. Oh, and don’t worry about taking fatal damage because Dead or Alive will heal you. They increased the damage. It’s good that they added an internal CD, but 30 seconds? That still isn’t enough, when there are other traits that do less, but have a longer ICD, like Final Shielding on the elementalist that has a 75 second CD. Why does not dying have such a short CD? It should be at least 90 seconds. This is not balance.
There’s also an insane burn spec, but I’m kinda getting tired QQing about this stuff. I think y’all get the point.
(Again, please, don’t argue or reply to the build itself, such as why those runes, or I’d use this. That will derail the topic. This is just to highlight what I’m talking about.)
There’s another big drawback with all this dps in the new elite specs. WvW has a tendency to gravitate to the path of least resistance. Whichever class does the most dps and support vs survivability will reign supreme, hence the GWEN meta. When Anet got rid of attributes being tied to trait lines, this was a great thing that freed up a lot of builds, and created a much higher amount of diversity. This will be far from the case with the new elites. Every warrior will run Zerker. You’d be an idiot not to. Since we’re limited to 3 trait lines, that will severely limit the build choices. This is also a part of class balance.
With the much higher DPS coming out with HoT, we, in WvW are not getting inporved defenses, such as baseline toughness or better cleansing. We, as players, are not on par with the monsters in PvE, but we will be attacked like them. This basically means that whoever gets the jump on the enemy and attacks first will win. With the dumb change to stability, there will be almost no way to recover from an initial attack with all this dps and constant condi application. This needs to be toned way down or our defences as players needs to be toned way up.
Or, you could just tone down the new PvE zones so the classes remain a bit more balanced in PvP and PvE.
(edited by Spurnshadow.3678)