Guild Wars 2

List other support do :
war : banner ,strength trait , might stack ,reasonable personal dps

ranger :spotter ,GotL ,healing , spirit, GoE
and beside the support role ranger can play top dps build .

Now look back to chrono especially after buff to Gotl and banner :

do least increase to group dps
do least personal dps
have least unique buff
have gimmick like portal and distortion which anet tried to avoid to make them too useful in raid or new fractal (nightmare CM second boss)
require most expensive gear + more game knowledge+ more complicated rotation (fairly easier now tho with soi change but still harder than above support role)

has no reliable dps build outside condi mes on matt

therefore it feels more like strip the only two things from the poor chrono .
anet used the alacrity as ticket for rev to enter support role which is a failure but i think likely they did that as intended so less outrage from mes ,as long as people accept this anet will buff rev alacrity to something easier and more reliable we will see this happen soon enough .

it’s funny that a pure support class can do support is much more op than other class could do dps or support by choice .

I’m pretty sure if anet actually buffed mes dps ,many of us will have easier time to accept our unique buff not unique anymore .

but add wind of chaos to iwarlock is considered as “constantly pressure” by balance team lol.

and the false info among gw2 community like quickness is strongest buff and how its unfair mes increase more dps than others (tho being trash dps dealer is more than acceptable for gw2 community ).
considering anet unreasonable buff/nerf just for sake of community belief ,especial towards the mysterious class mes
the future doesnt look bright for us.

another false info among gw2 community is :chrono is still best tank .and leaked elite spec is blur based spec ,it feels like anet went : oh lets make more tank spec for mes coz thats totally a solid role not trash dps ended up as tank .

To be clear , I’m supportive for more flexible team comp ,but current direction just feels far off from common sense and logic .not to mention effort vs reward lol.

TL;DR:if anet wants to give away some so called strongest buff from the pure support class ,maybe they should not lock that class into said buff bot to begin with .

at this point we really need devs to communicate about what they want mes to do /be ?

Alacrity was too powerful to be unique for all eternity. As much as I understand that people are upset it got given away since it was promised as an unique mechanic for chrono, we have to accept that.

When the next turn of elite specs comes and alacrity would still be chrono unique…. What do you expect to happen in high end play? People would demand you to play chrono, doesn’t matter you got another elite spec which is pretty good at it’s job (like being dps). Alacrity is too good and crucial for a group to renounce. I expect it to be given away to even more other classes, especially with the new elite specs.

The thing is… chrono still has the strongest support. And this makes balance delicate.

Before the patch, chrono was mandatory. Now… probably still is (I’m not an expert in raid meta)

If we want to increase our personal DPS (we do) to allow a DPS build, we have to make sure that chrono support keeps a low DPS to make up for the very high support. Currently, the main downside of alacrity is that it takes phantasm spots and thus reduce significantly our damage. Also we invest in boon duration for quickness which reduces even more. Finally we need the chronomancer traitline.
So any additional DPS increase should make good uses of these restrictions.

In general, balance-wise, giving alacrity to rev and more quickness to guardian is smart. I just don’t find it very thematic (Ventari is about peace, he would not reduce your CD to make you kill faster…) and it does feel like a broken promise. But balance-wise, I have no complaint.

@Kodama.6453
your post is exactly what i said as false info .

first of all alacrity added like 7% -15%around more dps .if in the future some comp with other buff without chrono doing more dps people will pick that comp no matter how unique how demanded you think alacrity is .at very least in pve its all about math for team dps. mirror comp = 3 people buff 2 actual dps dealer , do you srsly think it will become 4 people buff 1 dps dealer?

second
just Look at LFG : people asking healer , you join as druid , people asking dps dealer , you join as condi ranger .
there is no such thing as they will force you play support . you just give two possible builds to kittening compete different role .

your post is the very example which is false info

@Silverkey.2078

a druid does far more support than a chrono does and yet chrono is strongest ? in your belief maybe

and condi ranger is one of top dps dealer .

beside logic , lets check actul game play :

for dps mes build (power) u use iduelist or iswordman and pick different trait and use damage well + mantra for damage boost.

It is not hard at all to buff mes dps while keep support chrono low .
you guys made it sound like something too complicated . in the end it is not .

@Silverkey.2078
giving out chrono buff to others is smart or not is not the problem . the problem i said in my post is anet created a whole elite spec around quickness and alacrity which are actually not the strongest buff in gw2 pve(since in most case only damage related part matters) for a support role .in wvw maybe but u cant really do that in wvw as chrono anyway so its a moot point.

i meant anet pretty much locked chrono into quickness bot
just look at healing tempest its mirror of furture chrono fate .

game can still be healthy with unique buff stay unique while you dont always need a chrono to achieve top dps. plenty games tried different ways to solve this .

spreading unique buff is a cheap way to fix things .
on the top of that : to get the game to a so called healthy state by killing off one elite spec itself is unfair and unhealthy too

I don’t actually fully disagree with you. I have no problem with unique buffs remaining unique. I actually think guild wars 2 would be better off with the different boons or debuffing conditions not being given away like candies to all classes.

The ideal would be that a support build from each class exists which gives out approximately as much support and damage, and one damage build for each class which gives as much DPS. An ideal comp would need a mix of support and damage. Having only damage builds would lack the offensive (and possibly defensive) buffs, but only support would render the offensive buffs useless because nobody does good DPS. But then you would always be able to customize the team comp depending on who do you have with.

Many people claim “a raid would always take the best comp” but if comps vary by a few percentage points overall, proficiency in a class would be more important than choosing the right class, and taking the slightly less efficient comp would still be better than waiting longer to find the ideal comp. So it is not impossible at all to have a “good enough” balance.

But of course, you don’t want all classes to feel the same. While you want globally the same efficiency, you want each class to have a unique playstyle. Also, having this uniqueness means you could easily have different comps being optimal for different bosses depending on the mechanics (while still not too far of from each other overall). For example if a boss is moving fast, torment-mesmer be great DPS and you would need “mobile support”, an immobile boss would favor staff ele or AOE support (like wells for chrono). Having unique buffs is one way to achieve that, though not the only one.

So yes, overall I think I (and probably many revs) would have preferred Ventari to be given a new unique support buff. My point was just to say “stop whining” because it does not change much at the end except for flavor.