Recommend scrolling to bottom since a lot is just beating the dead-horse.
I don’t think you really need to split skills.
In GW1 we saw the addition of Skeletons of Dhuum to Underworld encounters and many other PvE changes to mobs in general. These were reactions to player capabilities, without having to balance the professions skills themself, you were able to balance the environment to the players.
In GW2, this happened with the Fire Elemental event after much outcry that it was too difficult. This also happens to dungeon encounters when they’re either being too easy, hard or tedious (health reductions, mob additions, objective changes).
The key thing to note is instead of balance professions to the environment you can change the environment to the players. To this extent considering PvE isn’t that important not because I have any issue with PvE, but because you’re able to change the environment there to suit the needs of the players/professions within.
Say you did a change to Ranger and were concerned because Rangers have some good Open World presence. You’re able to change things in the Open world to factor Rangers. So whatever change happened you can say for instance “These dam rangers are trivializing Queensdale, let’s throw in something to trip them up.”
You can’t change parameters on the same level in WvW or SPvP because it’s now the professions vs professions instead of that professions vs npcs.
If Warriors are just destroying spvp content, and you got to nerf the warriors what sense does it make to say “well shoot then they’ll be even worse in PvE and they’re the worst profession there” when you could say “let’s do it, and we’ll see wtf is going on in PvE that makes them poor there and adjust it.”.
After-all Karl did bring up that Ranger pets were getting agony additions. Now what did that affect for SPvP and WvW? Absolutely nothing, but you the change just shows again that you can change the parameters in PvE to improve any difficulties or lack thereof that professions have to that format.
The reason to do otherwise?
1. It’s work to go and deal with mobs after a profession patch
- Granted, however even now it’s not like mobs were changed to counter Banners and venom share circles. I think it’s evident that there is quite some flexibility in “imbalance” within PvE so long as the content can be completed. Otherwise more changes would’ve been made in that format by now.
2. Rather allocate resources elsewhere
- Which I suppose is fine in itself, however you already have people who do this very thing already. Would make it slower. However fortunately for PvE, so long as content can be completed it’s alright. Now for PvP, “Winning” is basically the content, so if a profession combo is poor in that it’s a more significant effect. You see this from the player base of PvE which will run all-manner of things (myself included) so long as the content can be completed regardless of effectiveness.
3. Focused on the short-term
- Why?
4. It’s not about PvE vs Spvp vs WvW, it’s just Spvp balance vs WvW balance
- However first you have to think about to what and on what? WvW end-game is collecting as much points and locking-down a map. It’s a series of Legacy of the Foefire like objectives scattered throughout a map. When you say something is strong in WvW and so you’re wary of Spvp changes because of it. Strong how? Outside of Pve Stats and Food, there isn’t much in WvW that differs from Spvp itself. Many of these mechanics are shared.
Trebuchet in Khylo – Siege (including treb) in WvW
Npc assist in Ruins – Npc assist with Quaggons/kraits/ogres. Which again can be altered as a result of being NPC’s.
NPC guards in Foefire – Supply/fort guards in WvW – again..npcs…can alter the environment.
Gate in foefire – Gates in WvW? Huge difference in health however these are balanced primarily around Sieges so it’s not even a profession issue in general..
Guild Lord – Tower champion in WvW? Npc…alterable…
Standing in Circles in Spvp – Standing in Circles in WvW? Not an issue and one that can also be changed on an individual level…
However to tl;dr WvW shares many mechanics, and the goals themselves are pretty similar, stand in circles, eventually get points. Hold as many of an area as you can to win. WvW adds some hoops and makes the circle bigger. If you’ve got WvW balance…maybe you should look at the food/stats that WvW have instead…112% crit rate? You can’t be serious.
tl;dr conclusion:
From PvE events (like capture Arah) to WvW capturing Forts to Conquest. The game primarily has a good love for Circles, NPC’s and gates (foefire). All of which you can alter around the players. Since GW1 you were able to balance the environment around players instead of the other way around. If you do it like that you’ll probably be better off then giving a hoot about an environment you can change.
(edited by ensoriki.5789)