Yasi.9065

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > > > @"sigur.9453" said:

> > > > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > > > > > @"sigur.9453" said:

> > > > > > > > > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > > > > > > > I don't see a reason they need to ... it's not like there are so few comps that can complete content where raids need to be toned down to those comps. Maybe if people didn't try to just play how some website tells them, they would realize there ARE solutions to complete content outside of their narrow ideas of what they have been told is optimal.

> > > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > > See, this is the problem with pushing meta ... hardly any players know how to figure out how to play for themselves anymore. The can't figure out what to do when something changes.

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > for a lot of people it isn´t about completing the content anymore, if you are just in for the loot, maybe it isn´t the right content for you anyway. you can pretty much kill almost every boss with 10 necros autoatacking, but would that be fun? and thats the problem right now, you can either choose to play without optimal boons which is super akward and feels cluncky or play a super strict settup that make anoying (yes there are no hard mechanics, just anoying ones) mechanics even more anoying. missing out alc/quickness especially when you simply went for deleting a bomb at sabetha is the wort feeling ever. doing mechanics should be rewarding not punishing for your own gameplay expierience,

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > If the content isn't about completion and about the 'fun', then why is the thread complaining about how difficult the content is to complete? Seems to me we should stick to the thread for now.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > The idea that the raid design team needs to talk to the class balance team so that raids are not 'impossible' to complete makes no sense. Anet knows what mechanics are possible to do in a raid, they know by what margins teams are successful at completing them. Stats they have will tell them what is reasonable for class changes and what isn't. The idea that these two groups talk to 'hard-engineer' raids is unnecessary and not based on what is happening in the game.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Did you read op? I don't see the word difficult. Raids are still easy, but a bit more annoying or unfun you could say.

> > > > >

> > > > > yes I read it ... he was complaining about stacking mechanics punishing people for not stacking. That's a performance-based complaint ... even if the OP wants us to think it's not.

> > > >

> > > > It is not, it actually is both a performance and boss mechanic based complaint... even if you want us to think it's not.

> > >

> > > Convince yourself whatever you will. If it's NOT a performance based discussion, why the hell would the OP suggest that the raid content devs talk to the balance team? That makes no sense either; balance team doesn't influence 'not fun' raids at all. So which is it?

> > >

> > > The basic complaint is that the last balance reduced options for comps and made it more restrictive in play if you want to maintain performance.

> >

> > Compositions are based around boss mechanics and game design. I'm not even sure how you can suggest otherwise.

>

> ... good thing I have not ONCE so far suggested that compositions aren't based around game mechanics /shrug

> >

> > Player performance very often plays less a role in meta comps designed by high skill raid guilds because all their players are top tier and as such the composition (which often get mirrored by the general community for lack of better understanding) are based around boss mechanics.

> >

> > The complaint of TC as such makes sense, the balance team balances without the content in mind but simply with results say based on boon out put.

>

> The idea that class skills are balanced around content doesn’t make sense, ever; there is much more constancy with classes and their abilities than there is with content and the mechanics that govern them. Also, it's hard enough for devs to just balance classes let alone ensure that whatever that balance is, it further restricted by the imaginations of content devs to ensure players subjective sense of what is 'fun' is placated to.

>

> Sure, maybe there is too much favour towards stacking … and the solution to that shouldn’t be for the balance team to provide players with comps that allow them to ignore those mechanics like was happening with the absolutely and ridiculously broken Chrono boon giving, sharing AND duration increase builds.

For one thing... stacking IS a mechanic, is THE mechanic in mmos since, well, 2 decades now. LoS pull and stacking. Other mmos managed buffing, stacking and mechanics in raids/dungeons/whatever... why does Anet have such a hard time at it? My guess, because they dont actually have a set of groundrules and just adjust here and there to get a desired endresult, with rather not much success tbh.

Another thing, this thread is in NO way a "oh no chrono got nerfed"-whine thread, no matter how you and others are (forcibly) trying to make it into one. This thread is about how Anet went and changed chrono - the only "buffer" build in gw2 - without fixing the alternative comps first. This could have been prevented easily by just talking to the raids/fractals devs. Theres quite a lot of things wrong with the balance atm in regards to raids and fractals. Most caused by the balance team trying to promote a playstyle that just doesnt work properly.

a) Aegis vs protection: some raid encounters mechanics do so much dmg, that even if you execute them correctly, you can still end up loosing 70%+ of your life if you dont have protection, in case of dhuum bombs for example, max range detonated bomb does way too much dmg without protection... or without protection most dps classes cant run out and use the button without dieing on the way back. So this is a very important boon on some encounters, way more important than for example aegis. But guess what firebrand shits out in higher quantity? Yep. Aegis. For protection you need a dedicated weapon and/or shout. And then you need boon duration for it. Aegis on the other hand you really do NOT need every 10 seconds. Thats just way overkill, except for dh. And even there you could argue it is overkill, because it blows the virtues traitline dmg out of proportions.

b) Aegis+Stability vs vigor: Firebrand with its aegis and stability spam teaches players not to dodge. Thats even more exacerbated by the fact that if you lack vigor, you tend to dodge less anyway. Yes, this is a dmg increase, but no its not "skillful" in any way, and it generates a lazy playstyle.

c) Stacking vs mechanics: Quite obvious. Balance team wants us to stack and never leave the stack, punishes us severly for mechanics that make us leave the stack. Raid team wants us to do mechanics. Now what is it?

d) Balance team pushes for 4-5 supporter specs in raids, 2-3 supporter in fractals. While I dont have anything against this, just adding 1 healscrapper to gorseval for example already lets you totally ignore the cc retal phase. It lets you ignore and facetank mechanics that you SHOULD work around instead. Is that how we are now supposed to raid/do fractals? By just facetanking everything because skill isnt rewarded anymore, even punished? I really dont think thats what the devs had in mind when designing raids/fractals. Yes, more supporter, more hybrids make instanced content easier. Every mmo veteran could have told Anet that,

e) Prestacking in fractals at singularity. That this is even a thing, and has been a thing now for months is a disgrace, and just shows how the balance team just plainly ignores 5 man content. You cant atm really remove it though, because immediately people would notice how badly unbalanced the balance is in regards to boons.

I could go on, but its already a wall of text.. so.. let me just finish with one more notice to all those thinking that this thread is me whining about not being able to complete raids/fractals/whatever because I lost my OP chrono. I consider fb/ren comp in many ways superior to chrono, especially on every boss that you can go full offense on, like gorseval, sabetha, xera, cairn. It however falls far behind druid/chrono comp as soon as you need defense. Because fb/ren comp isnt well rounded. Druid/chrono comp was - and still is, they just added punishments in for everyone that is stupid enough... Im sorry... is good enough... to do mechanics. And to add insult to injury, you can adapt the comp to facetank everything, turning pretty much every boss into a weekly yawnfest. So no, Im not mad about not being able to do raids anymore. Im mad because the balance was incomplete, badly done and totally ignored raids/fractals design.

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > When rebalancung Fb (since the build is insanely op atm)

> > > that's funny

> > >

> > >

> >

> > Is it?

> >

> > I know many people do not consider WvW or other game modes as relevant. Sure if all you look at is fractal and raid content then chrono is and has been insanely overpowered. How well was the build performing in all other content? Exactly. This has been the case for quite a while now.

>

> its just that it hasn't really changed at all. mes got nerfed and next in line is fb, even tho its capped at 5 targets.

I try to formulate it differently. The problem with last "balance" patch isnt that chrono was nerfed, it had it coming. Problem is that they didnt simultaneously fix the problems known to them for months that alternative comps face.

Yes, fb/ren has more stability and aegis. Thats nice. But does it help against unblockable dmg? Well no. And theres quite a bit unblockable/undodgeable dmg in raids/fractals, for which you'd need protection to reduce that dmg to a level that you dont get downed by it. Most prominent is dhuum encounter, but also ticking arena dmg on some encounters is pretty high.

Did nerfing chrono fix the problem that fb/ren comp has in regards to it being a rather rigid rotation, leaving nearly no room for mechanics? No.

Instead, were before you could add a druid to that comp, or a chrono to supplement missing boons... you cant anymore, its not enough.

Did chrono nerf help with the comp itself being unflexible and leaving barely any "open slots" due to missing role compression? Again - no.

Did chrono nerf and F2 buff help healherald? No. Natural harmony still eats too much energy, heals too much at once, isnt flexible enough. Making it a healer that only really works in situations that lets you stack tightly.

I could go on, but you get the gist (I hope :) )

> @"phs.6089" said:

> So, what happened to 'Raids are easy AF?' If a single class could cheeze it to the grade of being easy AF, clearly there was something wrong, no?

You are confusing the issues. Doable is not the same as enjoyable. Loot in raids is so bad, people like me do it for fun. I have enough LIs to create 2 sets of each legendary armor on my main account alone. So loot is in no way enough incentive to clear raids even once a month.

Raids ARE easy. Enrage timers havent been an issue since W3 release. Is it fun though, to mindlessly, numbly pummel a boss while getting healed by 3-5 heal-supporters? Not having to watch for mechanics? God, no. Its horrid, Id rather go whack the test arena golem for hours. Does this make it challenging? Again, emphatic no. So, yeah... raids ARE easy. And even more so with current balancing. Just bring 4x boss specific top dps, 1 bs, 1 druid, 2 fb or chronos, 1 healer or heal renegade and another dps slot for special mechanics/cleave.

Horrible balance.

Because this:

a) forces DPS to go for top dps again instead of "enough dps", which as we noticed correctly 2 years ago already, breeds lots of toxicity,

b) forces you to change around after each boss, turning raiding into waiting room simulator v2.0 and

c) increases clear time by a lot.

Current balance you are either top tier speedclear team, maybe having fun (though for me, relogging constantly isnt fun, but well... thats subjective) or low tier team bringing too much support to even bother dodging anything anymore.

And why? Because anet went and spread boons, that were used to balance raids/fractals, all over the place. No structure, no vision. Not to mention intrinsic matters like boon stacking or boon re-application were completely disregarded, or we wouldnt have the issues that we now have.

THATS the issue. Not that raids have become difficult. Newsflash, they havent. Quite the opposite, only pugs make it hard on themselves because they dont want to run the strict meta Anet created for them - go figure.

> @"Setz.9675" said:

> > @"Yasi.9065" said:

> > > @"Setz.9675" said:

> > > If not having permanent protection is an issue go bring a hammer guard.

> >

> > You do realize hammer guard symbol only works if you can stack and is 5 man? So you'd need to bring 2 of those. Loosing 12k dps on each, thats 24k less squad dps. Sorry, unacceptable.

> You do realise you can use GS/hammer and not permanently use hammer right? Losing a few thousand dps to survive an encounter thanks to protection is completely acceptable, and if protection wasnt needed, why bother in the first place?

You do realize that STILL doesnt solve the issue at all? Have you even READ anything I wrote? Sorry, but while I would normally never do that, Im not gonna read more of your posts until you can show at least a tiny bit of reading comprehension.

> @"Laila Lightness.8742" said:

> Druid is old meta tho since ren fb can do its job too

You still need druid for might and/or protection. A wh tempest could fill that slot too, but tempest doesnt have spirits... so....

> @"Vinceman.4572" said:

> **What exactly is the gear we have to use if we run 2 fb + 1 ren?** (Under the assumption we'll easily be able to respec the next balance patch when new gear will be introduced)

> I really wanna know how this turns out to be so much superior vs. double chrono, especially on Desmina but also on other bosses with a fixed tank spot.

> (And I don't want to have variants, it must be set in stone so we don't have downtimes, I only allow one of the tanks having a 2nd gear available for Demina!)

>

> (Edit: Keep in mind it must be puggable otherwise we have a way more strict comp and decisionmaking which speaks for running the "old" meta. So it has to be realistically applicable. Things like: here you go harrier ren and fb tank, the next ren tank and condi fb and then condi ren + condi fb are no valid solution)

It really depends on what your goal is. If you want overstacked protection or at least 100% protection, you have to use 2x healbrand. Fury can be achieved with either axe symbol, sword symbol or meditation trait. All have downsides. 25 Might can currently only be achieved with scepter symbol - which forces you to run meditation trait(line) if you dont want to have to bring yet another supporter into the mix.

Renegade needs around 30-40% boon duration without chronos SoI extension for perma alacrity. So either run some weird condi variant to get around 20-24k dps out of it, or go straight for harrier.

Druid cant cover protection alone, so not even 2x quickbrand, 1x condi alacrity renegade works on most bosses. Replace druid with boon herald and you get perma fury, perma protection, perma swiftness... nicely overstacked to last you long enough to do mechanics... but that means no vigor. And only pbaoe healing really. Im currently looking into a power-boon-herald build, but its rather meh. Tomorrow gonna see how boonherald+condi druid performs, though with 2 chronos and not fb/ren comp.

You have to keep in mind, that quickbrand+alacrity renegade only replaces your 2 chronos. Might isnt capped (its only around 5-10 from quickbrands), protection is basically non-existent. No vigor, no swiftness, no retaliation. Barely any regeneration. Its a condi-comp on top, so VG and KC you need some "extra" to even come close to any chrono/druid comp. Renegade ramp up time is pretty long, quickbrands are quite bursty. But yeah, so you need other sources for might, regen, protection, vigor, swiftness, retal. Vigor and retal you can forgo imo. Leaves regen, protection, swiftness and might. Druid can only really offer around 60% boon uptime on protection , if you have to move a lot it drops rapidly. Swiftness only for 1 group. Vigor permanent for 1 grp, the other could have some uptime from sunspirit though its way less than protection from stonespirit even. Might would be covered. Works on some bosses, on most harder ones it just doesnt.

So, alternative would be... shift more boons onto firebrands. Renegade doesnt have even enough access to boons, and since you only want one anyway... they would have to be 10man to keep it simple. So healfirebrands - harrier or givers. Can cover additionally protection, swiftness if theres no boonstrip, retal, a bit more might, adds a touch of vigor, regen is okay. Might still isnt 25, though, so you'd want to add at least a condi druid for that (because it brings frost spirit, entangle, cc pet compared to other might stackers). But that means, you now have a 2-healer comp, with 2 off-supporters doing a bit more dps than chrono team in the past, but tbh... its not much. Fb/ren comp suffers a lot from "looks good on paper, translates badly to actual raids".

For pugs the second variant is optimal for fb/ren comp. Though it means your dps have to do for example at least 1 green - maybe even 2. Because everytime you try to let one of your supporters do mechanics that take longer than 20 seconds, you loose boon uptime.

> @"phs.6089" said:

> I'll repeat this: the message was loud and clear.

> Give your HoT classes a rest, PoF is out for a year now.

> Try and see what you can do.

>

I tried. Repeatedly. It only works on some raidbosses, and then only with a very very fixed comp that supplies missing utility/boons. Because anet didnt solve the problems of that comp, they just threw more aegis/stab/dps at it and tried to nerf the hot competition enough to make the pof variant look better.

Id love for fb/ren to be a thing. I love playing alacrity renegade (both harrier and condi) and firebrand is just so op. If the game was only about quickness, alacrity, stability and aegis... fb/ren comp would win hands down. But it isnt. Its also about being able to stack boons to leave to do mechanics, its about being able to bring additional utility, while doing your "core" job.

> @"Laila Lightness.8742" said:

> Soon it be 1ren,2fb. Bs. 6dps

Soon alliances will be released.

> @"Nimon.7840" said:

> All I hear from original post is like: I wanna get the op chrono back, cause we are too bad to play without.

What... the...? What does an obvious disconnect between balance team and content design team have to do with me wanting -according to you- chrono back? I dont btw. Im quite happy with the majority of changes, most of them I actually asked for quite vocally here and on reddit. Namely the nerfs to cc and stability/resistance spamming.

What anet did, however, was leave us for at least a month with an incomplete balance patch that didnt solve the problems of fb/ren comp - which btw I also tried repeatedly to bring to attention - while changing chrono in a way that still makes chrono mandatory, but now just worse to play on most raid encounters.

All your celebration on how chrono is dead, btw, is at least a month too early, because until next balance patch, the pug meta will be:

2 boon chronos

1 druid

1 healer

1 power BS

5 DPS

With more mechanics getting shifted from chrono onto BS/DPS (and yes, most likely onto scourge, since its perceived lowest boss dps).

For speedclears it will be:

2 boon chronos

1 druid

1 BS

6 DPS

Remind you of something?

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Yasi.9065" said:

> > Quickness on chrono is way more difficult to maintain than alacrity btw.

> >

> > While I like the input you guys are trying to give, believe me, I considered it all already, tried several comps with my static that made it past planning stage. And so far each and every comp came with problematic downsides.

> >

> > Ren/FB cant stack up boons long enough to leave for mechanics, chrono/druid cant re-apply boons fast enough when stripped due to mechanics. This directly influences your squad dps and your dmg taken.

> >

>

> As such the most viable all boss meta currently is:

> 1-2 chrono (tank+support)

> 2-5 dps chrono (power chrono for pdps, mirage for cdps) for SoI boon copy

> 1 banner slave

> 2 healers

>

> and thus we are back to a more restrictive meta where 2-3 dps slots are replaceable for random dps classes while the rest is fixed.

You need 1 healer max, and tbh, with 2x harrier/giver support chronos not even that. Fury can be covered with banner of discipline until boss health < 75% and might from sword phantasm gets extended enough so you dont need a might stacker. Frost spirit isnt quite as good on dps chronos since it doesnt affect illus.

Chrono dps however has its own downsides and only really shines on golem bosses. Everything with short phases results in mediocre to suboptimal dps.

But yes, currently the solution to all problems with ren/fb comp, is to just throw dps chronos at it.... Which just in itself is so infuriating and WILL be patched in mid of january, wanna bet? Most likely by adding concentration scaling to SoI. Because anet cant tough fb/ren, its after all the comp they want to promote to meta.

Quickness on chrono is way more difficult to maintain than alacrity btw.

While I like the input you guys are trying to give, believe me, I considered it all already, tried several comps with my static that made it past planning stage. And so far each and every comp came with problematic downsides.

Ren/FB cant stack up boons long enough to leave for mechanics, chrono/druid cant re-apply boons fast enough when stripped due to mechanics. This directly influences your squad dps and your dmg taken.

You can work around things like only having 240 radius pull instead of 600 radius focus pull. A scourge with epidemic takes away quite a bit of pressure.

But theres total no-goes. Like not having 100% protection on bosses like dhuum. Not having 25 might 10seconds into the fight. Not enough fury for power dps. Significantly lower estimated squad dps due to running too many healer just to cover essential boons. Even lower actual boss dps due to having to send dps off to do mechanics.

Again, Ive done the math. Ive done the testing. This thread is a conclusion. I really REALLY dont want to explain every step I had to take to get to that painful conclusion, just because you think you thought of something really new and cool no one considered before.

Heres a list of support builds I considered, calculated, mix and matched and tested:

* Druid -> harrier or condi or power

* Tempest -> harrier or condi or power

* Herald -> harrier or power

* Deadeye -> power with strength runes and scholar runes

* BannerPS -> power

* Engi -> HGH harrier holo

* Chrono -> boons or power (and "only" providing SoI and alacrity OR quickness to maximize personal dps)

* Firebrand -> harrier or condi or power

* Renegade -> harrier or condi or power

* Scourge -> minstrel or condi support mix (yes, it involved seraph and plaguedoctors, no it wasnt good)

If your idea is already listed here, chances are theres a downside to it you havent yet discovered yourself - probably because you lack willing victims eh friends to help you test it in raids and so far have only had the possibility to test on golem - or only ran pretend numbers in your head. Sorry to sound so arrogant, but having sunk considerable time into this already, its rather infuriating to have someone come here and say "well, its only bad balancing because you havent considered everything yet" or "ren/fb is the solution!!!11"

> @"Setz.9675" said:

> If not having permanent protection is an issue go bring a hammer guard.

You do realize hammer guard symbol only works if you can stack and is 5 man? So you'd need to bring 2 of those. Loosing 12k dps on each, thats 24k less squad dps. Sorry, unacceptable.

> @"Setz.9675" said:

> If quickness is an issue instead of 2 druids take 1 druid 1 firebrand (for fotm dont take the druid and use a FB instead). Previously mentioned guard could take Feel my wrath elite shout.

FB in fractals actually sucks because your pulls are too small, you dont have a port for skips. If you want to stack might on a fb you have to bring scepter. That means you run into trouble with fury uptime. If you bring fury and leave might stacking to PS-bannerwarrior, that bannerwarrior needs strength runes. Ren might stacking means you have to stack tightly for alacrity again, which is kinda the point of this thread.

Most importantly though... the last time I raided with 2 druids was hm... when anet changed gotl to 10man might. Not to mention, solving quickness issues in one group with a fb healer doesnt solve them in the other subgroup. And it adds another supporter to the mix, lowering your squad dps quite a lot, opening up a whole other can of worms because your dps drops below "can skip" point on most encounters. Not to mention, too low squad dps means your fullclear turns from < 3 hours to > 4 hours. Extra time spend on content thats not fun in current balancing.

> @"Setz.9675" said:

> If vigor is an issue druid could take Spirited Arrival over Windborne notes to get 16s of vigor for the party every 20s for simply swapping a pet. Or have engi take medkit (infusion bomb, AoE 10s vigor, 30s cd)

Actually, vigor isnt a problem, but its a symptome. A boon that should be accessible to all support builds - like fury and protection - thats only available to a select few.

> @"Setz.9675" said:

> Druid providing might or herald providing prot/fury is OP but chrono providing LITERALLY EVERYTHING is the baseline right? its meta dont change it. rofl

Did I say this anywhere? Stop projecting please. Ill spell it out just for you: the problem isnt that chrono got nerfed, the problem is that it was done in a way that doesnt properly work in most raid/fractal encounters, while leaving gaps that have been there for ages in alternative comps.

Lowering cooldown on SoI to 20seconds, reducing boon extension time to 3 seconds would probably solve already quite a lot of the mentioned issues. Reducing cooldown on wells, pulsing boons on wells and reducing duration would also help. Increasing radius of shield4 illu procc to 300 or 360.

Still leaves problems with fury and might. But well, at least it would be a start.

> @"Setz.9675" said:

> My english isnt good enough to properly mock this, again not Anets fault that you cant make adjustments.

Please refrain from answering without having properly reading the post you are answering to. Its bad form. Thank you. As I already said all the way up at the beginning. I tried, Ive done adjustments. The result is unsatisfying because -> see first post for reasons.

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> I don't see a reason they need to ... it's not like there are so few comps that can complete content where raids need to be toned down to those comps. Maybe if people didn't try to just play how some website tells them, they would realize there ARE solutions to complete content outside of their narrow ideas of what they have been told is optimal.

>

> See, this is the problem with pushing meta ... hardly any players know how to figure out how to play for themselves anymore. The can't figure out what to do when something changes.

Im sorry to burst that bubble, but Im actually quite proficient in theorycrafting, come up with builds usually by myself and/or adjust builds to work for me. I never copy builds from anywhere. I take "those" builds as pointers and integrate them - or not.

Ive tried for days to find a comp that can be used for a fullclear without having to waste time switching around everything after each boss. Or blowing lfgs out of proportion. Tried finding a good chrono player that also can switch to heal fb and quickness fb every other boss? Sorry, only a select few of those in existence. Hell, if you are lucky you find a chrono that can play tanky and dps oriented, but thats already stretching it.

Also, raids isnt only about "completing content". This is still a game, and it SHOULD be fun to do raids. For me and my static that translates into having a comp that:

* doesnt have to be adjusted on every boss with 3+ minutes downtime each time, turning raiding into a big waiting meme,

* forgives small mistakes, but

* is still challenging

Id say most statics think similarly about raiding. God knows, we dont do it for the loot.

Problem is that the re-application time of boons is too long with chrono, but ren/fb comp struggles to reach 100% uptime on might, fury, protection and 25 might.

Believe me, 20 seconds is a really long time without protection if you come back just when stonespirit dies without any boons on you. Not to mention how much your dps suffers without fury/quickness/might.

Alacrity has a bigger stacksize, so you can stack it high enough to survive most mechanics. Its atm the least problematic boon imo.

Hey,

after giving the new meta a few days of my life spend theorycrafting, tried out several different comps. Theres one thing thats become crystal clear to me.

Balance team and raid/fractal design team do NOT talk with each other.

The biggest issue with the current balancing, and something the balance team really SHOULD have been able to foresee, is that you get punished hard everytime you have to leave the group "stack" for some mechanic. You leave with minimal boon duration left on you, have to survive somehow doing your "thing", and you come back without any boons most of the time. And of course, mechanics usually are staggered, so that means, if you are unlucky enough, you are the poor guy that has to wait 20seconds SoI extension of any boons you might get while waiting, meaning you are left with low might, low fury uptime, low protection uptime, etc.

Now, most raid encounters and a lot of fractal encounters, as well as most fractal instabilities FORCE you to leave the stack, or prevent you from stacking tightly in the first place. This dichotomy makes for very unpleasant gameplay.

On top of that some boons are so elusive (fury, vigor, stability), or one build is so OP at providing them (druid -> might, herald -> protection/fury) that it really limits any kind of alternative comp.

All in all, current balancing might not make raiding impossible. But it sure makes it unpleasant, unfun and frustrating. Especially if you are trying to optimize squad dps.

I think they switched it up. Because 5x 1sec makes more sense for intensity stacking boons, 5x5 sec for duration stacking, since they become "one" stack. As it is, intensity stacking is OP, and duration stacking you never get more than 4 sec out of it on boons like quickness.

Trying to make new comps I stumbled upon a weird behaviour on the new SoI active part.

It seems like SoI extends the duration of ALL stacks for intensity stacking boons like might. And for duration stacking effects like quickness or alacrity, it basically adds 5x 1 stack of each boon.

This means, if you put enough mesmers with SoI in a squad, you can extend the same 25 mights indefinitely? And it also means that you loose quickness when SoI on quickness, thanks to 5 stacksize cap. WoA, TW, SoI together would be, in the moment you cast SoI be 7 stacks, but only 5 biggest remain -> SoI becomes 3 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

So, is this a bug? Or intended? Im not sure. But it makes SoI VERY powerful for intensity stacking boons.

> @"Asum.4960" said:

> In addition all these problems you describe leading to deleting niche dps builds, would do the exact opposite. Niche problems create opportunity for niche builds.

> Need a bit more capability of pulling mobs together and massive AoE Cleave? Well, Reaper is a niche DPS that is almost universally not accepted in groups in the Chrono meta. Also provides some of those little required boon rips most people probably don't even know exist, like the blue guardian before VG (I didn't), because Chrono autoattack always took care of that without thought and effort.

No, Im sorry, but even though thats how it SHOULD be, the solution is actually to just bring more chronos. Hence the rage ;) Instead of anet buffing alternatives slightly to make them as good as chrono, and just nerfing cc (yes including focus pull btw) + buffed sustain (stability and resistance), they went and balanced it all in a way that its now most efficient to bring 3+ chronos in raids. At least 1x dps chrono and 2x 15-16k "buff" chronos. DPS chrono has atm highest burst, and if put together with a renegade it actually has the highest sustained dps as well. SoI not using concentration allows < 30% boon duration chronos to instead stack berserker armor, making that comp pretty much unbeatable. So much for promoting alternatives.

/edit: Btw, Irenio posting how they will add more dps oriented concentration armor stat sets just shows that anet did NOT forsee this. Again. If they had, maybe they wouldnt have put DT on illusions and scaled SoI with concentration instead of giving a flat bonus.

> @"reikken.4961" said:

> > @"Yasi.9065" said:

> > And while "alot" of other classes have SOME might, its neither 25 stacks nor 10man, basically forcing you to run druid if you dont want to add yet another mandatory - or two - roles to the squad.

> >

> > Take ren/fb comp for example. You have to get REALLY creative to stack 25 might on fb. You can do it with scepter symbol... or empowering might trait. But the former excludes you from other VERY important weapon sets - like axe for pulls or mace for blocks or hammer for cc - really limiting your utility to unacceptable levels, and the later needs precision. Now, thanks to SoC changes, you ALSO need full harriers to reach 100% boon duration. Harrier has? Correct, no precision. For empowering might to give out enough might to get to 25, you have to have around 50% crit chance. Good luck with that.

>

> well chrono+druid is already the standard, so nothing changes except the loss of misc boons like vigor etc. it just goes back to how it was when chrono wasn't providing every boon in the game

>

> But anyway, as for firebrand comp, if you run radiance over virtues you crit on every hit, so you don't necessarily need any precision for Empowering Might to give out buckets of might.

>

> And then there are several alternatives, spreading might duty around the squad. Like deadeye can run fire for effect for a lot of might (also, one deadeye can cover might and fury for an entire squad if you're really hurting for might). Or weaver can grant 5-10 might to its subgroup with a few tweaks. Etc

Hence another mandatory slot you have to cover. Making LFG commanding even more of a nightmare. But thats not all. Might and fury are such important boons, having them spread over 4 (or even more) different contributing players in pugs? No way. Im not doing that to myself.

Ofc you can compensate all the changes in a static. Theres different ways to go about it, all more or less similar efficient and frustrating. But coordinating those different solutions with players I neither can view the build of to make sure they are even using correct equipment, traits and skills beforehand, nor can I trust them to be remotely capable at executing different strategies, or even play around not having a chrono do it all.... pure hell.

Before patch, if might was bad, Id just replace the druid. If other boons were bad, Id replace the chronos. In a fb/ren comp? With might and fury spread all over fb, ren, bs and a dps? Id have to look at logs after each attempt, checking which player is outputting less boons than should be expected for his/her build/profession. No thanks.

That means, very likely less pug raiding. Less pug raiding means less raiding in general. Means declining interest in that gamemode, means less funds being funneled into it. More waittime for new raids, less relevancy for future balance changes and so on.

You can hate on chrono all you want, but chrono was the reason raids were accessible to new/casual players.

Some additional testing in regards to power BS, you can use dumplings and upkeep around 10 might on it, which could be enough to not need scepter on 2nd fb for might. This wouldnt solve other problems with that comp (missing focus pull, missing vigor) but its at least something to consider.

> @"reikken.4961" said:

> > @"zombyturtle.5980" said:

> > The problem is instead of required classes being 4 ( 2 chrono, 1 druid, 1 bs) we are now going to see 5 or 6 mandatory classes to cover all the important boons.

>

> Nah, this is wrong. The only boons that are important enough or exclusive enough to demand a specific class be used are quickness and alacrity. Which chrono still covers.

> The only other mandatory boons are might and fury, and that's given out by a _lot_ of different classes. Including druid and warrior.

>

> Just look at the state of raids a few years ago. The only boons assumed to be permanent were quickness, might, fury, regen, and swiftness. And regen and swiftness were just because they're trivial to maintain.

You are forgetting protection, and yes, especially w5, w6 are more balanced around having protection. Just take dhuum for example. Bombs exploding on max range without protection still hurt you a LOT, especially low hp dps like eles and thieves.

And while "alot" of other classes have SOME might, its neither 25 stacks nor 10man, basically forcing you to run druid if you dont want to add yet another mandatory - or two - roles to the squad.

Take ren/fb comp for example. You have to get REALLY creative to stack 25 might on fb. You can do it with scepter symbol... or empowering might trait. But the former excludes you from other VERY important weapon sets - like axe for pulls or mace for blocks or hammer for cc - really limiting your utility to unacceptable levels, and the later needs precision. Now, thanks to SoC changes, you ALSO need full harriers to reach 100% boon duration. Harrier has? Correct, no precision. For empowering might to give out enough might to get to 25, you have to have around 50% crit chance. Good luck with that.

Now, that wouldnt be a problem, IF renegades might ability were 10 man. Newsflash - it isnt. So while you can cover 1 subgrp with all boons, the other misses around 10 stacks might. Bannerwarrior cant compensate that, his might is too short. Chrono could in the past but not anymore. And adding a druid just for might is pretty much the worst way to waste a slot. All of this means that you are limited to at least 5 mandatory slots now. 2x fb, 1x renegade, 1xbannerwarrior, and something like wh tempest, FE DE. And that doesnt even account for missing frostspirit and focus pulls. While you can forgo frostspirit, no focus pull means you need more cleave on some encounters. That in turn limits your DPS selection, which means even more rigid comps.

Did you enjoy playing niche dps builds once in a while? Well, tough. No room for that anymore.

> @"Irenio CalmonHuang.2048" said:

> Thanks for the general feedback and thoughts thus far.

>

> A quick clarification:

>

> The addition of new attribute combinations does not mean that balance updates, re-works and other changes targeting boon diversity will stop.

>

> We're **not** going to add either upgrade changes OR attributes combinations OR profession updates to offer those boon-centric playstyles as solid options.

> We're going to do **ALL** of the above.

But if you are adding other changes to it, why do we have to suffer this horrible balance now for at least 3-5 months?

For pug raids, honestly, this is terrible. Either you run a fixed slot raid now, which takes forever to fill... or you have to suffer < 70% boon uptimes on critical boons. New players, casual players now have to REALLY step it up to get the boons out, which also makes raids less accessible. You are now going to have to kick that druid that doesnt have 100% boon duration and cant place down spirits fast enough. No more leeway on cc. Everyone that has to leave the stack for mechanics gets punished HARD.

Honestly, this is such a huge step backwards for raids and their accessibility. And all because the comps you want to promote by nerfing all aspects of chrono arent at all well balanced. We would need only a little bit longer boon durations (especially on might and fury) on fb/ren for it to become good enough to accept the downsides of it. And yes, there ARE downsides to that comp. Missing focus pull the most obvious. This means you have to add yet ANOTHER mandatory build to that comp. Something with big enough cleave, like condi scourge.

You could replace the druid with a herald, but no... you cant get 25 might reliably on that because AGAIN boon duration too short. On top of that, retaliation uptime now is way lower, so you cant even work around that anymore with retribution trait.

> @"Lord of the Fire.6870" said:

> In Fractals 1 FB , 1 chrono , 1 BS , 1 tempest , and something with a lot of CC ( chrono will not have moa because of time loop)

>

> Edit: What you could also do is the groups which have FB in swap the chronos out for support revs this is something which needs testing

We tried alacrity renegade+heal fb in fractals yesterday and it was fine after some finetuning. Whats really missing without chrono, is focus pull... ports... skips. So if you want to run with fb/ren comp in fractals... you should think about adding a power chrono. Its really good dps and brings lots of utility... focus pull, boon rip (so your BS can stay warrior for more dps and better cc), skips and ports.

Probably, if you arent into prestacking like my static, you'll have to run a very fixed comp now... fb+ren+bs+power chrono+power slb/dh.

Havent tried boonherald in fractals yet, but it might be a good alternative since you arent reliant on vigor there anyway.

You'll probably always want 4 mandatory slots now, since every comp has its "problems" with boons now.

Here's different comps / setups that should provide most boons:

2 chrono comps ->

* 2 chrono + 1 druid for short fights is still fine

* 2 chrono + 1 druid + 1 alacrity renegade/harrier tempest for longer fights

* 2 chrono + 1 boonherald (+1 healer)

fb/renegade comps ->

* 1 tank fb (commanders for high precision to procc empowering might or givers with scepter) + 1 harrier fb + 1 harrier renegade

* 2 quickbrands + 1 tank boonherald + 1 harrier renegade

In general Id probably run power BS warrior now pretty much everywhere. The cc is very strong and can compensate the lost chrono cc/less fb+ren cc. The PS trait + reworked former GS-only trait in strength can supply some might especially at the beginning of fights.

Frostspirit is something I wouldnt bother with in pugs anymore. If you have a druid, fine... if you'd rather run with boonherald for better boon uptime, also fine. I wouldnt get hung up on that so much. Especially on fights you move around a lot, or with phases > 1 minute you loose more dps due to missing boons than missing frost spirit.

Whats really missing in fb+ren comps, is actually the focus pull. So you might want to make sure you have enough cleave. Like, for example... a condi scourge ;)

Hope this helps some.

EU LFG during "primetime" (around 5pm to 11pm UTC) is quite active. If Im not after a very specific comp/LI requirement I can find a squad in less than 10 minutes usually.

Ping idk, I can only tell you the reverse. I had around 130-180 ping when playing on NA for wvw. Theres a slight "hitch" in everything, but only noticable in 1v1 situations against thieves - at least for me. For raids what you really want is a steady ping. Then you can do pretty much all mechanics easily. If your ping jumps around a lot, due to packetloss/timeouts, it becomes unplayable pretty fast.

The moment I have to run a 8-10 fixed build squad to raid comfortably, is the moment Im gone. Why does Anet have to do the same mistake as Blizzard and not LEARN from them when they fixed it years later?

At least stick to boon-grouping and stop scattering boons all over the place. For example, healer builds offer protection, regen, swiftness... hybrid dps-support builds offer might, fury, alacrity, quickness and all other boons are self-generated only.

And whats up with the 'this ability 10 man, that ability 5 man'... its horribly unintuitive and makes some builds extremely OP and basically unreplacable. Either all 10man or all 5 man.

Why make everything more difficult - to balance for raids, for fractals, for wvw, for pvp - it sounds like a job creation scheme on the shoulders of the playerbase, and thats REALLY not okay.

And no, dangling some MAYBE added stat combinations in front of us will NOT solve this.

> @"castillle.5248" said:

> The only time this has happened to me is if a group wipes way too much. They never turned invis for me during the first 5 attempts.

It also happens with mobs that spawn and despawn regularly. Like Arkk. At one point, model just doesnt load anymore and the nameplate gets stuck on its last loaded position.

Sorry, never happened to me personally, but the other 3 people I run nearly daily fractals with have had this happen quite often. Thats what we summed up, and no, we dont wipe "often" or... at all.

> @"Einsof.1457" said:

> I play chrono because of the complexity...but anet just keeps dumbing it down. What do you guys think of this change to sigil of concentration? My thought is that my T4/raid rotation is going to be super boring now...

Tbh, I love the change. Why? Because its the right direction. Just providing boons is the most boring thing Ive ever done in any mmo. And thanks to the VERY rigid rotation of boon chrono in the past (before mimic change), the room for "other" things was just barely there.

Id rather have providing boons take up max. 30% of my time in fights so I can concentrate on other stuff. Doing dps. CCing adds. Doing mechanics. Maybe healing. THATs exciting. Doing the same rigid rotation every week - with only minimal variations per boss - I do not understand how people can think thats fun, complex and exciting. A monkey can handle that. Or a bot. And thats excatly how I felt playing chrono in the past.

Now with the mimic change chrono started to be fun. Finally I can DO things. And not being locked into weapon swapping? Im so excited now.

I guess the reason why so many hate the chrono changes, is because chrono gameplay becomes more and more like druid gameplay, and less "dps-at-golem-like". No more fixed rotation you can semi-afk do on every boss, and more responsibilties outside of that boon-rotation.

First thing Im going to test next week is how low I can now drop my boon duration as an off-chrono, how much dps stats I can squeeze in and if I can do cannons on off chrono now.

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> In recent days, a few players have expressed confusion or concern about our RMT policy, especially about how we handle cases where someone receives items or currency from a real-money trader. To help everyone best understand where we stand on this subject, we’ve clarified our position in our Knowledge Base article, [Policy: Purchasing Gold from Real Money Traders (RMT)](https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011560933 "Policy: Purchasing Gold from Real Money Traders (RMT)"). This expanded version is currently undergoing localization and will be posted in French, German, and Spanish as soon as possible.

>

> Please take a look at that document, and if you have any questions after you have done so, let us know.

>

Hi, thanks for posting this :)

One short question, we have seen several times that the gold got subtracted before the ig mail was opened. Does that mean that one can take the gold from the ig mail or do we have to let the ig mail sit unopened there or destroy the gold ourselves then?

Thanks again ;)

Ive been trying for the < 1min achievement for quite some tries now, but its painful and definitely NOT fun for me. And I only can take it for a little bit before I become so enraged I want to smash something - not a reaction Im prone to.

The drifting mechanic reacts sluggishly, sometimes not at all or after 10 seconds I started hammering the drift key. The tons of obstacle in the course exacerbate that problem because even a slightly too late drift - or end-drift - causes you to slam into them and either careen completely out of bounds, or stop still.

The uneven ground causes other problems, like if you land half a meter to the left in a small puddle, you cant drift immediately, and then you slam into tombs.

Plainly put: this is my worst nightmare. It reminds me of first-gen race car games from my youth. Equally un-fun, equally un-playable. Equally badly programmed.