Although I strongly believe this skill is fine as it is, I can practically smell an incoming nerf. So, I’m going to make a few suggestions here in the event that ANet sees and uses said suggestions.
Epidemic currently has a radius of 600. That’s a pretty massive radius when you consider that things like Well Of Suffering only have a radius of 240. I believe that a fair nerf would be to reduce the radius to 360 which is the same size as a Meteor Shower.
Another fair nerf would be to disallow it from working on inanimate objects such as siege or on champions with high health pools. It was a nice change allowing conditions to affect siege but it inadvertently gave Epidemic a massive buff by allowing it to be cast on things with maximum condition stacks. I think it would be absolutely fair to change it so that Epidemic cannot benefit from this.
Reducing the amount of Burns it can transfer by two for every condition it transfers. This means that say for example it transfers Burn, Bleed, Poison, Confusion and Torment. The Burn stacks from the source are at 20 but because it transferred 5 conditions, it only transfers 10 Burns. Burning is a powerful condition and when combined with Guardian Purging Flames, this is when it can make Epidemic a real issue.
And lastly, reducing the amount of conditions it can spread to 5, but not the stacks. This would allow things like “Save Yourselves!”, Druidic Clarity or other skills that remove large amounts of conditions to more easily counter Epidemic without neutering the skill completely.
Epidemic is a powerful skill, there’s no way around that. It currently sees a lot of use in both large and small scale play as a way to counter the bunker meta. Some people dislike this skill because they feel that it has too much reward for too little intelligent play but as someone who has been a Necro for over 3 years, I guarantee there is skill, how ever little, in choosing the right targets for the most payoff. There are a lot of things that can go wrong during a 1second cast time and things often do.
I think a lot of people would agree that it’s boring to circle each other for minutes on end with no one dying because the bunker meta is too strong. Epidemic is one of the skills that prevents situations like this from happening by punishing poorly co-ordinated cleanses and spending too much time kiting. It is a valuable skill and one of the few that Necromancer has left that allows it to make a difference in large scale combat as well as in certain PvE situations such as raids.
Please, Anet… I beg of you, balance this skill properly without gutting it completely. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about it lately and while I do understand how it might seem overpowered, I strongly believe it only needs some small adjustments such as what I’ve suggested here to balance it.
Thank you for your time. If you wish to discuss different ways to balance Epidemic, please visit one of the various other threads on the topic. I’ve racked my brain on fair ways to settle this debate and I’m honestly not looking for any other input unless it’s discussing the meta or ways in which this skill is beneficial to the meta. No “nope needs to be nerfed harder” or “I like these ideas but how about -proceeds to suggest things that will make Epidemic never used again-.”
(edited by SpellOfIniquity.1780)
I think the better way to balance it would be to limit the amount of stacks it can transfer. Something like 6 stacks of burn, confusion, and torment, 10 stacks of poison, and 12-15 stacks of bleed.
Add an internal cooldown (the same way they did with CoR) so you can only be hit by epi once every 10 sec. That way if multiple necros pop it the damage is spread around the zerg and you aren’t being loaded up with more than the set stacks.
This would still make epi a pretty fierce bomb but it wouldn’t be insta death unless you are already low or running a full glass ele.
In other threads you state that condition don’t do 10k damage before 15sec, conditions are a niche and now asking for a nerf on a condition based skill? GG.
I think the better way to balance it would be to limit the amount of stacks it can transfer. Something like 6 stacks of burn, confusion, and torment, 10 stacks of poison, and 12-15 stacks of bleed.
Add an internal cooldown (the same way they did with CoR) so you can only be hit by epi once every 10 sec. That way if multiple necros pop it the damage is spread around the zerg and you aren’t being loaded up with more than the set stacks.This would still make epi a pretty fierce bomb but it wouldn’t be insta death unless you are already low or running a full glass ele.
Another possibility would be to add a cap to the number of condition stacks that can be applied to a player. Epidemic has existed as it has for years, it wasn’t until you could get hit with unlimited stacks of bleed, burning and poison that it got crazy.
In other threads you state that condition don’t do 10k damage before 15sec, conditions are a niche and now asking for a nerf on a condition based skill? GG.
Targeted change rather than a blanket nerf. Makes sense.
Yes nerf skill even more. Maybe players were just better before because it wasn’t problem in launch when it got unlimited range and you didn’t need line of sight.
This is just another case of the condition changes from the specialization update making a skill seem stronger than it actually is. If the number of stacks per condition were limited against players, then most people would have enough time to react with cleanses and heals. This should apply universally, not just this one skill.
these are all good changes.
I don’t think it needs a nerf.
As stated before.
- if the number of conditions is too big, the target goes into downstate before epidemic hits and all conditions are removed in downstate
- if you put tons of conditions on someone in downstate, the target often dies before you can epidemic off it
- guardian and rev stacking makes epidemic mostly useless
- epidemic on siege is the best answer to siege wars which is the real fun killer in wvw. don’t stack on your siege and you don’t get hit by epidemic
- you can counter epidemic by turning around when you have stacked too many conditions and you are no longer an epidemic target
- you can cleanse conditions
- epidemic has a cast time and limited range
asking for an epidemic nerf will just shift the meta to more guards and revs and more pin sniping
Potential changes to epidemic (with the reasoning) that can preserve the skill identity. Also shamelessly taken from the previous thread.
My only problem with epidemic is that it scales way too well compared to power based bombs (multiplicative rather than additive).
Example, you take 1 necro, scepter auto a guy for 1 bleed, then epidemic that bleed to get 5 more. That’s not too bad. Two necros auto a guy resulting in 2 bleeds, epidemic results in 20 new bleeds (2 bleeds * 2 necros * 5 targets). 3, 3, 5 is 45 total bleeds.
I think you get the point, but wow a n^2 * 5 formula for condi output.
Compare to a coordinated hammer bomb, you increase additively. Say 1 warrior earthshakers 5 targets: you get 1 earthshakers worth of damage on 5 dudes. Not bad. Add a second warrior, you get 2 earthshakers worth of damage (10 damage instances). Hmm, ok, this is ramping a lot slower than epidemic with just 1 person. 3 you just get 3 earthshakers worth of damage (15 damage instances). Man, compared to epidemic this is terrible.
So yeah, now apply this to zerg scales, and I would think that epidemic is definitely an overperformer.
Possible solution: Epidemic only copies the casting necros conditions. Now you don’t get that exponential scaling issue.
Alternative: Using the druid elite glyph tech, make epidemic bind to 5 enemies near the first target. Damage (power and condition) dealt to the “corrupted” target is shared (at a reduced rate) to those 5 targets. This lets power get in on the action, while also taming the damage share rate since it’s quite ridiculous as it is now. Allows for counterplay by letting the 5 position far away (potentially exposing them in a zerg fight). If we go with say, 33% damage share, this lets a targetted necro with 19000 hp cause up to 6270 damage (assuming he loses all of his life while corrupted) to 5 other targets. Tether range should be 600 to force targets to either move outside of range of any support shouts, or risk the damage while using supportive abilities.
I think the better way to balance it would be to limit the amount of stacks it can transfer. Something like 6 stacks of burn, confusion, and torment, 10 stacks of poison, and 12-15 stacks of bleed.
Add an internal cooldown (the same way they did with CoR) so you can only be hit by epi once every 10 sec. That way if multiple necros pop it the damage is spread around the zerg and you aren’t being loaded up with more than the set stacks.This would still make epi a pretty fierce bomb but it wouldn’t be insta death unless you are already low or running a full glass ele.
Another possibility would be to add a cap to the number of condition stacks that can be applied to a player. Epidemic has existed as it has for years, it wasn’t until you could get hit with unlimited stacks of bleed, burning and poison that it got crazy.
You do know Epidemic is capped at 25 stacks per condition, right? Also as stated, Epi meta is both a counter to the current bunker meta (in pvp they had to remove entire trinket lines because bunkers were so overpowered) but can also be countered very easily by the same meta. Revenants and guardians can easily make short work of conditions.
-snip- Revenants and guardians can easily make short work of conditions.
And usually do. Frontliners especially drop conditions so fast you’ll hardly see any of them make a single tick of damage before they’re removed. Unless the person is offsides, I pretty much never bother with trying to Epi frontliners because the conditions are gone almost as quickly as they appear. I honestly do not understand how people think there aren’t enough cleanses in large scale.
There has been so much whining over this skill that I thought it would be a good idea to make a thread about ways to balance it rather than ways to ruin it. I’m not suggesting all of what I’ve listed be done at once, just things that would fine to change. Either way, I hope it stays untouched because it’s rarely an issue except for those that don’t bring the appropriate skills to deal with it. Which, apparently, is a lot of people.
Yes nerf skill even more. Maybe players were just better before because it wasn’t problem in launch when it got unlimited range and you didn’t need line of sight.
It wasn’t a problem at launch because people were abusing boonshare, no conditions can cut through the unlimited spam of resistance.
Yes nerf skill even more. Maybe players were just better before because it wasn’t problem in launch when it got unlimited range and you didn’t need line of sight.
It wasn’t a problem at launch because people were abusing boonshare, no conditions can cut through the unlimited spam of resistance.
Valid point, but need to remember that resistance was added in game june 23, 2015.
Yes nerf skill even more. Maybe players were just better before because it wasn’t problem in launch when it got unlimited range and you didn’t need line of sight.
It wasn’t a problem at launch because people were abusing boonshare, no conditions can cut through the unlimited spam of resistance.
Valid point, but need to remember that resistance was added in game june 23, 2015.
Keep in mind that condition stacking is added on the same date.
Edit: Also, I thought your launch was referring to HOT and not gw2 launch. Afterall, this issue only start to explode in HOT with the pre-hot condition buffing.
(edited by SkyShroud.2865)
Yes nerf skill even more. Maybe players were just better before because it wasn’t problem in launch when it got unlimited range and you didn’t need line of sight.
It wasn’t a problem at launch because people were abusing boonshare, no conditions can cut through the unlimited spam of resistance.
Valid point, but need to remember that resistance was added in game june 23, 2015.
Keep in mind that condition stacking is added on the same date.
Edit: Also, I thought your launch was referring to HOT and not gw2 launch. Afterall, this issue only start to explode in HOT with the pre-hot condition buffing.
Except Epi is a recent trend not something that started with HoT.
The problem is that people these days don’t take as much condi clear as they used to. Used to be people ran condi reduction food and supports typically maxed out their cleanse capabilities.
Nowadays people just run power defense.
You do know Epidemic is capped at 25 stacks per condition, right?
Then just get four necros. EZ.
Yes nerf skill even more. Maybe players were just better before because it wasn’t problem in launch when it got unlimited range and you didn’t need line of sight.
It wasn’t a problem at launch because people were abusing boonshare, no conditions can cut through the unlimited spam of resistance.
Valid point, but need to remember that resistance was added in game june 23, 2015.
Keep in mind that condition stacking is added on the same date.
Edit: Also, I thought your launch was referring to HOT and not gw2 launch. Afterall, this issue only start to explode in HOT with the pre-hot condition buffing.
Except Epi is a recent trend not something that started with HoT.
The problem is that people these days don’t take as much condi clear as they used to. Used to be people ran condi reduction food and supports typically maxed out their cleanse capabilities.
Nowadays people just run power defense.
It wasn’t a recent trend. Boonshare completely counter epi which is why epi wasn’t widely used but that doesn’t mean it isn’t known. All experienced players (not fakers) know the existence of epi but not the general public or meta followers, most simply don’t belong to the competitive cohort which focus on most effective builds. I am sure some ignorance people should have heard of silly talks like epi counter boonshare during the height of boonsharing, that kind of silly talks was based on something.
Boonshare too wasn’t widely used right at the start, it still take many months for people to pick it up even though it was there since launch. Even during the time when I am back doing WvW again (after months of haitus from WvW to do HOT), I was pretty surprised how many people never heard of boonshare when it was such a obvious thing when putting together the most effective builds. Reason for such slow spread is simple, because it wasn’t there in metabattle.
(edited by SkyShroud.2865)
An aoe size nerf would help to a point but its still going to apply a lot of condi that are kitten ear unavoidable. I still think caping one epi per person (my own ideal of having it like a bomb that apears over some one head with a timer) so you can give a person time to react and still keep epi a size counter tool that it is. Now only if we had a size counter for power dmg…
After playing TC this week, I can’t express how much I hate epidemic.
An aoe size nerf would help to a point but its still going to apply a lot of condi that are kitten ear unavoidable. I still think caping one epi per person (my own ideal of having it like a bomb that apears over some one head with a timer) so you can give a person time to react and still keep epi a size counter tool that it is. Now only if we had a size counter for power dmg…
That would be a really interesting mechanic and would allow more skill based play in zerg fights, which the game really needs outside of really well organized zerg groups.
Unless the person is offsides
what is this, football?
but srs wouldn’t it be nice for backliners if the other side was penalized for pushing past the last line of defense?
but srs isn’t fairness the real culprit here, and the people who wield it? I don’t see anyone complaining about a concerted CoR strike, or lich, or 5 meteor showers… oh no its condi the best counter to tanks. once condi is nerfed this games ktrains domination will be complete.
An aoe size nerf would help to a point but its still going to apply a lot of condi that are kitten ear unavoidable. I still think caping one epi per person (my own ideal of having it like a bomb that apears over some one head with a timer) so you can give a person time to react and still keep epi a size counter tool that it is. Now only if we had a size counter for power dmg…
That would be a really interesting mechanic and would allow more skill based play in zerg fights, which the game really needs outside of really well organized zerg groups.
I like to see the epi trigger other epi effect on other ppl so you can make chain reaction and let stacking necro still work to a point.
As for a power dmg version maybe super small aoe that can hit 10 targets for one massive dmg spike?
It wasn’t a problem at launch because people were abusing boonshare, no conditions can cut through the unlimited spam of resistance.
In some ways Resistance is part of the problem. Load up player running Resistance with condi, corrupt or strip boon, Epi, watch a bunch of players die immediately.
It wasn’t a problem at launch because people were abusing boonshare, no conditions can cut through the unlimited spam of resistance.
In some ways Resistance is part of the problem. Load up player running Resistance with condi, corrupt or strip boon, Epi, watch a bunch of players die immediately.
There is a lot of questionable decisions with HOT to begin with.
Starting from the very basic, why do HOT gears have more stats? That alone already contributing to unbalancing WvW. Then, you add in the other power creeps that HOT brings, it become even more unbalanced.
For PvP, the devs could remove certain runes or modify certain amulet while waiting for the balance team to decide what to do. For WvW, we are stuck with all the balancing issues. For us players, we have no choice but to suck it all up and make use of whatever available.
Yes, resistance is not all that amazing if you have boonstripping but meh, that is only one of the few ways to fight conditions.
(edited by SkyShroud.2865)
Starting from the very basic, why do HOT gears have more stats?.
They have more variance, not more in total. Which is good.
Starting from the very basic, why do HOT gears have more stats?.
They have more variance, not more in total. Which is good.
Huh, it is mathematically more stats, I don’t even have to go into details about effective power or armor or health because even basic math will give you that.
Let’s compare with the two similar gear
Ascended Rings – Marauder vs Zinn’s Data Crystal (Zerk/Valk)
Marauder
106 Power
56 Vit
106 Prec
56 Fero
Total: 324
Zinn
126 Power
18 Vit
67 Pre
85 Fero
Total: 296
Now, look at how Zinn is compare to the normal Berserker Ring, both belongs to the pre-HOT era.
Berserker
126 Power
85 Pre
85 Fero
Tota: 296
So what give anet the brilliant idea to grant all HOT gears more stats when previous items are all balanced around the same total stats? Well, with the exception of celes.
Ok, the difference is minor, plus zinn and berserker both give you more damage.
Hello, that is just one piece. There’s a total of 6 armors, 6 trinkets and weapon(s). All of which, HOT give more overall stats. When power vs defense, power will gain more than defense simply due to the damage formula. Also, damage wise, believe it or not, marauder does more on average simply due to higher crit rate thus more consistent crit. The game is unbalanced.
ok for sake of comparison.
non hot gs war
marauder gs war
yes marauder has more overall stats. yes you will crit more. will you do more damage in a build with hot gear then without? that depends entirely on what build you use and how good your enemy is. obviously it doesn’t matter how high your crit is if the enemy is competent enough to not sit in channeled or pulsing damage.
4 stat prefix gear does have numerically more stats than 3 stat prefix gear.
That said it doesn’t automatically make 4 stat better. Berserker’s is still the best power DPS prefix.
Anet made the 4 stat likely because they realized the need for “predominantly this but with a touch of that” but they needed enough of “that” to make a difference.
For instance Zinn doesn’t give enough vitality to be worth anything. Marauders however does have enough vitality to be worth looking at for situations that value vit.
ok for sake of comparison.
non hot gs war
marauder gs war
yes marauder has more overall stats. yes you will crit more. will you do more damage in a build with hot gear then without? that depends entirely on what build you use and how good your enemy is. obviously it doesn’t matter how high your crit is if the enemy is competent enough to not sit in channeled or pulsing damage.
That argument makes zero sense.
4 stat prefix gear does have numerically more stats than 3 stat prefix gear.
That said it doesn’t automatically make 4 stat better. Berserker’s is still the best power DPS prefix.
Anet made the 4 stat likely because they realized the need for “predominantly this but with a touch of that” but they needed enough of “that” to make a difference.
For instance Zinn doesn’t give enough vitality to be worth anything. Marauders however does have enough vitality to be worth looking at for situations that value vit.
Berseker is highest dps only after you include other modifiers like fury and traits that further boost the crit rate.
Also, this isn’t about you thinking it is good enough to be used, it is about mathematically balanced. If balance is about good enough, then people will always go towards the direction of more.
On the topic of 3 stat vs 4 stat, if you discount boon duration and condi duration which don’t exist in 3stat armours anyway, then the only stat combos you have with higher stat totals are marauder, which gives a bit of vitality and hence contributes to tankiness, and crusader, which is the only way apart from celestial to get ferocity and healing power on the same item, which a lot of people already discount healing power as a decent stat.
Just saying it’s a bit of a false equivalency to just say “4 stat gear has numerically more stats than 3 stat gear” because apart from those two armour sets above the rest have numerically less stats but include boon or condi duration which don’t exist on 3stat gear.
*edit; if you do count boon and condi duration as stats then some rune sets give significantly more stats than others!
(edited by Rashagar.8349)
Berseker is highest dps only after you include other modifiers like fury and traits that further boost the crit rate.
If you don’t have those modifiers then Assassin’s is optimal DPS. And Assassin’s is a three stat amulet.
Berseker is highest dps only after you include other modifiers like fury and traits that further boost the crit rate.
If you don’t have those modifiers then Assassin’s is optimal DPS. And Assassin’s is a three stat amulet.
And? That has nothing to do with the given arguments, isn’t—————it?
On the topic of 3 stat vs 4 stat, if you discount boon duration and condi duration which don’t exist in 3stat armours anyway, then the only stat combos you have with higher stat totals are marauder, which gives a bit of vitality and hence contributes to tankiness, and crusader, which is the only way apart from celestial to get ferocity and healing power on the same item, which a lot of people already discount healing power as a decent stat.
Just saying it’s a bit of a false equivalency to just say “4 stat gear has numerically more stats than 3 stat gear” because apart from those two armour sets above the rest have numerically less stats but include boon or condi duration which don’t exist on 3stat gear.
*edit; if you do count boon and condi duration as stats then some rune sets give significantly more stats than others!
Of course you have to include those stats. Of course there are runes that are significant more stats than others which is why such runes are not usually found in PvP. PvE/WvW balancing is simply terrible. Gw2, all in all, is primary a pve game and with that, many hardcore pvp players already left due to it.
Anet dev team, (or the initial dev team if they are no longer around) had a very simple idea which is to standardize the gears so they focus balancing on skills, traits and runes. That much is obvious when you look at all the gears available in pre-hot. Obviously, that idea is abandoned.
(edited by SkyShroud.2865)
Berseker is highest dps only after you include other modifiers like fury and traits that further boost the crit rate.
If you don’t have those modifiers then Assassin’s is optimal DPS. And Assassin’s is a three stat amulet.
And? That has nothing to do with the given arguments, isn’t—————it?
On the topic of 3 stat vs 4 stat, if you discount boon duration and condi duration which don’t exist in 3stat armours anyway, then the only stat combos you have with higher stat totals are marauder, which gives a bit of vitality and hence contributes to tankiness, and crusader, which is the only way apart from celestial to get ferocity and healing power on the same item, which a lot of people already discount healing power as a decent stat.
Just saying it’s a bit of a false equivalency to just say “4 stat gear has numerically more stats than 3 stat gear” because apart from those two armour sets above the rest have numerically less stats but include boon or condi duration which don’t exist on 3stat gear.
*edit; if you do count boon and condi duration as stats then some rune sets give significantly more stats than others!
Of course you have to include those stats. Of course there are runes that are significant more stats than others which is why such runes are not usually found in PvP. PvE/WvW balancing is simply terrible. Gw2, all in all, is primary a pve game and with that, many hardcore pvp players already left due to it.
Anet dev team, (or the initial dev team if they are no longer around) had a very simple idea which is to standardize the gears so they focus balancing on skills, traits and runes. That much is obvious when you look at all the gears available in pre-hot. Obviously, that idea is abandoned.
It’s all well and good to say “of course they are included”, but unless your problem is specifically with either marauders (still not better dps than berserker) or crusaders (only really works in small amounts paired with zealots or with huge amounts of +crit from traitlines like reaper) then it’s still a bit of a false equivalency.
By which I mean, the scaling of 15pts = 1% is completely arbitrary, so they could have set 4stat armour totals as equal to 3stat armour totals and still had the other 4stat armours give the same amount of raw stats and duration as they do now. So if a problem exists with the other 4stat armours being more powerful than 3stat ones, it’s due to the scaling factor they’re using, and not the total, which can be fixed easily. So no I don’t think you do “have” to include those stats.
I for one like the idea of them introducing the higher stat totals in HoT armour on the condition that they keep choosing stranger or less seen stat combinations (nothing gave prec with vitality before apart from magi/celestial which are already very niche, and ferocity with healing is unique outside of celestial), which gives them a way to make weirder more niche stat combos less instantly worse than the ones that already exist and are “meta”.
This isn’t meant to be aggressively nit picky or anything, I’m just trying to say an answer to “why do HoT armour sets have higher stat totals than pre-HoT armour sets” could be “so they can try out more niche stat combinations”.
*edit; maybe I’m not explaining myself well, but I can’t figure out how better to say it.
(edited by Rashagar.8349)
Berseker is highest dps only after you include other modifiers like fury and traits that further boost the crit rate.
If you don’t have those modifiers then Assassin’s is optimal DPS. And Assassin’s is a three stat amulet.
And? That has nothing to do with the given arguments, isn’t—————it?
On the topic of 3 stat vs 4 stat, if you discount boon duration and condi duration which don’t exist in 3stat armours anyway, then the only stat combos you have with higher stat totals are marauder, which gives a bit of vitality and hence contributes to tankiness, and crusader, which is the only way apart from celestial to get ferocity and healing power on the same item, which a lot of people already discount healing power as a decent stat.
Just saying it’s a bit of a false equivalency to just say “4 stat gear has numerically more stats than 3 stat gear” because apart from those two armour sets above the rest have numerically less stats but include boon or condi duration which don’t exist on 3stat gear.
*edit; if you do count boon and condi duration as stats then some rune sets give significantly more stats than others!
Of course you have to include those stats. Of course there are runes that are significant more stats than others which is why such runes are not usually found in PvP. PvE/WvW balancing is simply terrible. Gw2, all in all, is primary a pve game and with that, many hardcore pvp players already left due to it.
Anet dev team, (or the initial dev team if they are no longer around) had a very simple idea which is to standardize the gears so they focus balancing on skills, traits and runes. That much is obvious when you look at all the gears available in pre-hot. Obviously, that idea is abandoned.
It’s all well and good to say “of course they are included”, but unless your problem is specifically with either marauders (still not better dps than berserker) or crusaders (only really works in small amounts paired with zealots or with huge amounts of +crit from traitlines like reaper) then it’s still a bit of a false equivalency.
By which I mean, the scaling of 15pts = 1% is completely arbitrary, so they could have set 4stat armour totals as equal to 3stat armour totals and still had the other 4stat armours give the same amount of raw stats and duration as they do now. So if a problem exists with the other 4stat armours being more powerful than 3stat ones, it’s due to the scaling factor they’re using, and not the total, which can be fixed easily. So no I don’t think you do “have” to include those stats.
I for one like the idea of them introducing the higher stat totals in HoT armour on the condition that they keep choosing stranger or less seen stat combinations (nothing gave prec with vitality before apart from magi/celestial which are already very niche, and ferocity with healing is unique outside of celestial), which gives them a way to make weirder more niche stat combos less instantly worse than the ones that already exist and are “meta”.This isn’t meant to be aggressively nit picky or anything, I’m just trying to say an answer to “why do HoT armour sets have higher stat totals than pre-HoT armour sets” could be “so they can try out more niche stat combinations”.
*edit; maybe I’m not explaining myself well, but I can’t figure out how better to say it.
Why shouldn’t those stats be included? It is really silly not to, how you make two gears balanced without accounting for every single part of it? In zero sum, to gain something, we need to lose something equivalent . Just look at a simple comparison with trailblazer and dire, dire do less damage just purely because of lesser duration. Trailblazer while having higher damage, it doesn’t lose significantly in the area of HP or toughness.
Sure, you can change the scaling of 15 points to 1% to another thing. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the overall stats is still higher. Btw, ferocity was percentage too, I find it contradicting when you didn’t exclude that stat, it makes your argument unsound.
Berseker is highest dps only after you include other modifiers like fury and traits that further boost the crit rate.
If you don’t have those modifiers then Assassin’s is optimal DPS. And Assassin’s is a three stat amulet.
And? That has nothing to do with the given arguments, isn’t—————it?
On the topic of 3 stat vs 4 stat, if you discount boon duration and condi duration which don’t exist in 3stat armours anyway, then the only stat combos you have with higher stat totals are marauder, which gives a bit of vitality and hence contributes to tankiness, and crusader, which is the only way apart from celestial to get ferocity and healing power on the same item, which a lot of people already discount healing power as a decent stat.
Just saying it’s a bit of a false equivalency to just say “4 stat gear has numerically more stats than 3 stat gear” because apart from those two armour sets above the rest have numerically less stats but include boon or condi duration which don’t exist on 3stat gear.
*edit; if you do count boon and condi duration as stats then some rune sets give significantly more stats than others!
Of course you have to include those stats. Of course there are runes that are significant more stats than others which is why such runes are not usually found in PvP. PvE/WvW balancing is simply terrible. Gw2, all in all, is primary a pve game and with that, many hardcore pvp players already left due to it.
Anet dev team, (or the initial dev team if they are no longer around) had a very simple idea which is to standardize the gears so they focus balancing on skills, traits and runes. That much is obvious when you look at all the gears available in pre-hot. Obviously, that idea is abandoned.
It’s all well and good to say “of course they are included”, but unless your problem is specifically with either marauders (still not better dps than berserker) or crusaders (only really works in small amounts paired with zealots or with huge amounts of +crit from traitlines like reaper) then it’s still a bit of a false equivalency.
By which I mean, the scaling of 15pts = 1% is completely arbitrary, so they could have set 4stat armour totals as equal to 3stat armour totals and still had the other 4stat armours give the same amount of raw stats and duration as they do now. So if a problem exists with the other 4stat armours being more powerful than 3stat ones, it’s due to the scaling factor they’re using, and not the total, which can be fixed easily. So no I don’t think you do “have” to include those stats.
I for one like the idea of them introducing the higher stat totals in HoT armour on the condition that they keep choosing stranger or less seen stat combinations (nothing gave prec with vitality before apart from magi/celestial which are already very niche, and ferocity with healing is unique outside of celestial), which gives them a way to make weirder more niche stat combos less instantly worse than the ones that already exist and are “meta”.This isn’t meant to be aggressively nit picky or anything, I’m just trying to say an answer to “why do HoT armour sets have higher stat totals than pre-HoT armour sets” could be “so they can try out more niche stat combinations”.
*edit; maybe I’m not explaining myself well, but I can’t figure out how better to say it.
Why shouldn’t those stats be included? It is really silly not to, how you make two gears balanced without accounting for every single part of it? In zero sum, to gain something, we need to lose something equivalent . Just look at a simple comparison with trailblazer and dire, dire do less damage just purely because of lesser duration. Trailblazer while having higher damage, it doesn’t lose significantly in the area of HP or toughness.
Sure, you can change the scaling of 15 points to 1% to another thing. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the overall stats is still higher. Btw, ferocity was percentage too, I find it contradicting when you didn’t exclude that stat, it makes your argument unsound.
Not really unsound at all, in the case of ferocity they already had an overall numerical percentage that had been present in the previous iterations of the items (some individual pieces were deemed to be overtuned), and a numerical value of the secondary stat totals on gear.
Edit; tldr, different situations
(edited by Rashagar.8349)
Counter is ez. Called malyx rev…..
I don’t really care about it myself but its probably going to go the way of other type skills like signet of inspiration and “we heal as one!”.
Probably set durations on the conditions with set number of stacks.
Not really unsound at all, in the case of ferocity they already had an overall numerical percentage that had been present in the previous iterations of the items (some individual pieces were deemed to be overtuned), and a numerical value of the secondary stat totals on gear.
Edit; tldr, different situations
Huh? What? It is the same math, geez.
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