Guild Wars 2

Hello, Want to address the issue of balance when it comes to amulets and Runes.
If we look at the past what we see is this cycle of repetition when it comes to game balance. This is and will repeat the same problem, where things become more broken. The reason is because we are not addressing the cause of the disease (in balance) we are addressing the symptoms (op classes/specs).

The cause of the instability is due to the variance in the power of specs. Classes and specs do not need to massively different in power to make each spec feel unique. For example,

A ranger that bleeds targets and deals a total of 500k over a game, does not need to do 300k more damage then a ranger with chill application, that does direct damage but chills on auto attack.

So whats the cause of this massive variance? The Power. Where is the power located? In runes and amulets. How to Fix it? Remove or reduce the power granted by these values.

So That brings us to the discussion.

Rework of Amulets and Runes

So if we remove the power for the classes, and modify the base values of each class (the stats you get naturally, that you can never change), we can from here modify the stats and effects of runes, so that the game is far more balanced.

How do you ask?

It’s Simple!

understanding the way this changes the game

Since the power of each class will for the most part be unchangeable in this application, we get players to focus more upon the variance of each class and spec, as opposed to the amount of power. This removes for the large part the negative effects of complexity, while retaining most of the positive merits of it.

What this means is the developers can

- Have more direct control over the power of classes. That means that classes will be close to each other in balance, which validates all specs and classes making them all valuable

- Have more impact on the effects of runes because of specialization to one or a few classes as opposed to many.

-Amulets now open up to have more significant impact upon a build.

ok i got it kinda, but what does this all mean?

This means that since all classes will be directly editable by the developers in terms of their power (in this case, their damage output, not to be confused with the stat “power”) then the classes will be more balanced. That means classes like warrior will be viable in the meta.

so the rune and amulets how will they be changed?

We’ll see some major changes to these two aspects, like:

- Runes will obtain new effects
- Runes will focus more upon effects then stats
- A few generic runes will be added, like + 150 All Stats
- Runes will be limited to classes.

Some examples are

- Celestial Amulet: +150 All stats
- Rune of Stealth : 50% Chance on hit to cloak the target for 2 seconds (Ranger/Thief)
- Rune of Smoldering Power: Burning a target Dazes them (ele/engie)

Additionally, some more powerful effects will take place on the amulets like

- Amulet of Superior Toxic : When applying Poison, the healing reduction is improved to -55%
- Amulets of Precision : Wen attacking from range greater then 400, you gain + 20% Critical strike.
- Amulets of Bleeding: When a target bleeds their movement speed is reduced by 30%

So how does it all work out?

So classes in general will be more stable
Runes will be the decider of special effects of each class
Amulets will be the decider of special effects to doing specific things (range is greater than) or conditions being applied to a player (like poison, chill etc).

This means the customization of each build will improve, with it more complex aspects of customization, but at the same time the power variance will drop making classes closer to each other in competition.

Hope you enjoyed the read.

There are some runes/amulet combos that aren’t in pvp that would greatly help some classes, like warriors, but would be OP for others, which is a shame.

Furajir.3815:

There are some runes/amulet combos that aren’t in pvp that would greatly help some classes, like warriors, but would be OP for others, which is a shame.

These changes are suggested for PvP Specifically, so the creation of pvp specific runes, leaving the current ones alone (or slight adjustments). Warriors imo, need more HP, about 30%. Ideally, i think they should have lots of protection and hp application but be very weak to cc/kiting.

“Additionally, some more powerful effects will take place on the amulets”
Meh I don’t like this idea. Amulets should focus on stats, and runes on effects.
The rest looks pretty good thou.. except overpowered. Burns daze? I mean cmon, no more passive op stuff please. But if these effects would be interesting and not stupidly overpowered then absolutely.
“- Celestial Amulet: +150 All stats”
I think you took it too far, we’re talking +560 → +150 that means you really really REALLY limit stat variation for all classes and I’d say it should still be +350-ish to allow for some build diversity.
Generally though, runes being more interesting and more of them being viable and interesting is something I want to see.
I’d actually go in a direction of making them sets of two instead of 6 and you choose 3 runes (with the current amount of runes this will never work though, too few) to try to compliment them into one another with your build, much like you do with sigils really, but a different approach on these effects, except sigils are out of balance.

BeLZedaR.4790:

“Additionally, some more powerful effects will take place on the amulets”
Meh I don’t like this idea. Amulets should focus on stats, and runes on effects.
The rest looks pretty good thou.. except overpowered. Burns daze? I mean cmon, no more passive op stuff please. But if these effects would be interesting and not stupidly overpowered then absolutely.
“- Celestial Amulet: +150 All stats”
I think you took it too far, we’re talking +560 -> +150 that means you really really REALLY limit stat variation for all classes and I’d say it should still be +350-ish to allow for some build diversity.
Generally though, runes being more interesting and more of them being viable and interesting is something I want to see.
I’d actually go in a direction of making them sets of two instead of 6 and you choose 3 runes (with the current amount of runes this will never work though, too few) to try to compliment them into one another with your build, much like you do with sigils really, but a different approach on these effects, except sigils are out of balance.

No, all classes have their own native stats set. For example, necro might have 2000 condio power (With out amulet/runes) while another class might have only 1500 (just an example)

So the devs can build classes in a direction where it’s more in tune with their abilities.
Passive effects are more of a way to change the way power is happening as opposed to more. Adding stats on rune.amulet is breaking the meta, not helping it.

It’s really really unclear how you came to the conclusions that you did, I don’t see how your new foundation to balance off of would be any easier at all

Chaith.8256:

It’s really really unclear how you came to the conclusions that you did, I don’t see how your new foundation to balance off of would be any easier at all

Look at the meta. In all cases you will find either of the following is taking place

• Power of classes massively invalidates others
• Control effects of specific classes massively invalidates others

In all cases you will find these to be the symptoms of the meta breaking, but the cause for both of them is power variance. Power Variance is related to the amount of values the classes are obtaining. In all cases, these are being acquired by the runes and amulet system.

For example,

• Warriors are massively invalidated by crowd control, This is due to over tuning of power in the control duration from other classes.
• Rangers are heavily invalidated and by crowd control, moderately invalidated by it’s damage rates, this is due to power variance in both situations

changing the runes and amulets

Yes, removing the stat variance from runes (For the most part) will remove the ability to change stats, this is the point. By allowing people to stack these power rates, the developers allow the players to find broken combinations in it.

this is highly important, because this allows players to break the meta, as opposed to allowing them to tailor it to their play style. The only players that benefit from the fore are the ones that invest time (or have time to invest in researching ways) to break the meta.

Removing this removes the instability.

Last note

I am not saying the players should not be able to change their stats, I am saying that the amulets and runes should not be the cause of this. By shifting this power change into the talent specs themselves, we validate more builds, there by allowing for more player expression.

Lets do some math on this for an example,

Take of your amulets and runes. You will notice that you are left with base stats, 1000 of all stats except armor. You may also know (if you have multiple toons) that the exchange rate for 1000 life, is not equal across all toons. This means that all classes have internal base stats that are unique to the class, as well as equations of converting those values.

This is good for the (above) purposed system, as it means that the bases of what is purposed above is in effect, and very easy to implement.

What this means is that we can keep a variance of stats, with out breaking the meta.

If a necro is doing 800k damage a game, because he is able to stack said amulet, and get 400k in power, and 400k in damage, it means the rune/amulet is breaking the game.

by changing it out, we limit his damage to something lose to equal to the other classes. This keeps all specs very close in damage, removing the massive amounts of broken meta and simultaneously validating all classes.

Still looking for feedback, would love a reply from arenanet on the topic!

Anari.2137:

The reason is because we are not addressing the cause of the disease (in balance) we are addressing the symptoms (op classes/specs).

Sorry, but OP classes/specs are the problem. With a worse amulet/rune system than we have now, we had much more variation in competitive builds prior to HoT.

The only problem with the amulet and rune system is that we don’t have enough stat customization on the amulets. No need to completely change it.

A simpler way to do something similar is just… Ban or modify amulets depending on class – cele ele no, cele rev fine (etc). Or like… Cleric can give vitality for guard and toughness for druid.

That way you could cut it down to 5 REAL choices per class instead of 25 terrible amulets and 5 good. And you can stop removing amulets for every class because one build is OP

I’m not sure if it’s actually a good plan, but it might help?