Nephalem.8921

> @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > @"wilykcat.5864" said:

> > What if there is a 3rd mode for dungeons and a 2nd mode for fractal something like a challenge mode type thing.

> Fractals already have at least 4 difficulty settings each and many already have challenge motes.

Yes and there is no reason why its capped so low. an exp group just facerolls through t4.

> @"Aceofsppades.6873" said:

> > @"sokeenoppa.5384" said:

> > > @"Aceofsppades.6873" said:

> > >

> > > you say that but when a full clear involves playing the same chrono build for hours in a row that feels pretty boring to me. Now we can swap to quickbrand if we want a change of pace or if we think it will be better. I think more of the roles should have that

> >

> > I mean how is that any different than playing a bs, or lets say druid?

> >

>

> It isn't and thats the problem. think those roles should have relatively interchangeable alternatives

You can swap druid with tempest + slb or boonthief + slb.

It should be still possible to advance if bug occurs if you skip the air phase. Does bug out in cm aswell. They also bugged artsariiv aswell with the last patch. 2nd cc phase instantly completes.

> @"Paradoxoglanis.1904" said:

> PoF specs are way too power crept which makes boon application and support pretty trivial. With chrono you have to maintain complex rotations and keep track of a lot of different cooldowns. And try to imagine this, you actually have to pay attention to your characters position and where you place your skills. With FB and Renegade (and a lot of other PoF specs) its all just passive and aoe spam.

>

> I dont think there is any easy way to fix the playstyles of the objectively overpowered elite specs. Making arbitrary nerfs or buffs just ends up making a bigger mess of balance and class design. If people want to move away from the mindless aoe gameplay then a lot of elite specs need to be completely overhauled.

Have you ever played chrono? Boon chrono has no rotation. you spam your skills off cooldown. Extremely easy. You dont even need wells for perma quickness.

> @"Sileeent.5861" said:

> Almost all groups want an AlacRev and an QFB. Imagine what a Chrono had to do to provide those boons while a Rev or FB do it in their sleep.

>

> The thing that bothers me most about it is the importance of a FB. You can play QFB with solid power damage in fracts, also can play him with very high condi damage, and as if that wasn't enough, FB is also one of the best healers in the entire game, even without permanent party quickness uptime.

Seize the moment chrono has also very high power damage. Doesnt require any boon duration. Fb requires 25%. The problem is the quickness application and general lack of burst on chrono and the slow requirement. In theory they could be equal and chrono could do higher dps but who is going to provide slow in fractals? How do you shatter during split phases etc. Fb just has to press a button.

Boon chrono needs another rebalance. Seize the moment was a step in the right direction for raids but it just doesnt work in fractals. Current boon chrono is amazing in 10man content but just feels lackluster in 5man content.

Nerfing quickness and alacrity wont solve the problem. It will just make boon supports worse than dps. Pug alacrity renegades are already slot wastes in fractals. Alacrity is only ~15% more dps and doesnt justify the 2k dps most rens have. There need to be more boon specs and firebrand needs a drawback but im not sure how it could be nerfed without making it useless. Giving tempest quickness or alacrity would be a huge mistake though. It can already give 10target fury and might and has very high heals. Would rather buff meme specs like scrapper or normalize the boonthief. No more perma 10 target boons but quickness/alac instead or something.

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > @"Doxher.6237" said:

> > Arah is not hard at all but requires some knowledge. Lupicus is really easy if you reflect the projectiles at the end of the 1st phase. I used to solo all paths except p4 with thief back in the days, so with the elite specialisation it should be even easier.

>

> In other words, you just cheesed the more difficult parts.

> However, avoiding something doesn't make it less hard, if done the intended way.

The intended way is skipping the trash. It was never intended to kill everything. takes ages but is way easier.

Some classes can solo it in t4.

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> Lol no... Druid cannot do that it provides might and even thats not the best value package in a lot of cases.

> I think the only time i see druid these days is in boneskinner strike missions. Generally heal brand is the go to healer for most content like raids, fractals, and most of the other strikes. EVEN in strikes scourge is more value than druids due to its ability to power res, barrier, and it even can provide might to some extent. I generally dont see alot of druids these days unless its a friend of a friend who just wants to play druid. The go to staple for pugs is basically locked into firebrand for healing a utility + boons.

>

Druid is meta on almost every raidboss. Hfb isnt on any of them. Hfb isnt meta in fractals either. How do you even buff might to 10 targets with a hfb. One healer is perfectly fine most of the time. Pugs are always way behind meta. Some are still stacking in dungeon corners to this day.

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> My personal feelings on her stats aside, one-shotting a player with over 20k HP should never happen in T1, yet it does.

Which attack does this?

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> Except your wrong there. Doing lower tiers does not solve all problem. It probably doesn't even solve half of them.

> a few examples:

> In T1 and T2, the boss has nearly the same HP and damage output as on T3 (at least it feels that way, _doing it with the very same T3 group),_ as well as all her AoE and CC spam.

Her hp should scale normally. Did her a few times in t1-3 and "soloing" her there with t1-3 players. Her damage is almost nonexistant in early levels. The cm version has as much health as ensyloss and that boss came out way before pof.

> > @"Nephalem.8921" said:

> > Does that mean reaper gets a 20% dps buff? Warrior is already one of the top dps professions.

> Most Reapers I see seem to be doing better than most Warriors I see.

Because beginners in t1-3 dont know how to play and most of them havent read their skills or a guide.

> This implies that top end players are lacking of challenge.

> Cutting the damage down would provide you said challenge. It'd be a win to the top end.

The balance between the classes is in a good spot currently. The only exception is necro. Cutting the damage down equally isnt easyso i would rather see a hp increase.

> Also, the Top end supposedly does 10 times as much damage as the average, so cutting the damage in half might still be a rather mild nerf for the top end.

Thats because the average is used to faceroll open world with a mix of green masterwork gear and tries to do the same in fractals. The only way to balance for those players is by removing every bad choice. Only dps gear available in pve for example. No trait selections, etc.

> > People still struggling with bloomhunger shouldnt play t4 then.

> I don't think I ever mentioned T4. As I mentioned numerous times on these forums, balance needs to be done around the average, not around the small top end.

That fractal is not hard at all. Nothing has hp in lower tiers and the oneshot attacks dont even oneshot.

> > Not every fractal fight should be over in <30sec. Normal sunqua endboss is ~3min which isnt particularly long either.

> Even the one time I've beaten it, it took well over 15 minutes.

Please, just go to snowcrows or discretize, pick a meta build and try it again with a full team of meta build players. If you need 15min+ for it then its either a player problem or most likely a build problem. You can almost solo the cm that fast. SOLO.

On topic: Hfb is not even meta in fractals, the dps variants are. The problem was always that guardian just has too much tools which made it the safer "support" in classic 50 fractals compared to mesmer. Add quickness on top of strong utility and you get a strong quickness support. Groupwide aegis on a 12sec cd, wall of reflection and on demand instant stab are just too good. Chaos chrono was able to do that aswell but got deleted. But nobody played support firebrand in the beginning because mesmer was still able to do a lot of those things aswell.

So in my opinion its not because firebrand is just way too op but because there is just no decent alternative in fractals anymore. There are only 2 choices to begin with. Current seize the moment chrono works great on static raid encounters but it just doesnt work in fractals. You need to shatter clones constantly which requires clones, it requires slow, its burst takes enternities to land which doesnt work either with current 3sec phases. SoI was the main quickness source for a really long time and it worked really well with dynamic fractal encounters but the current version is just purely designed for 10man raids.

Compare that to firebrand clones which are just fire and forget instant casts. No other requirement needed.

> @"Wolfhound.4381" said:

> Avoid it. Final boss is too hard and it bugs out sometimes making you have to start over from the beginning.

The cm has been solo'd on day 1. Maybe its you and not the fractal.

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> I think both the amount of support and the amount of damage are in a fine spot.

> **Shaving damage down to Warrior levels** and shaving down support to a level a bit above Warrior would be fine.

>

Does that mean reaper gets a 20% dps buff? Warrior is already one of the top dps professions.

> > What is the kind of content that is no longer doable without builds "overperforming"?

> After the damage and support has been shaved, a lot of content deals far too much damage and has far too much HP.

> This includes most of the fractal additions and changes in the last few years, especially the newest HP Sponge: Sunqua peek.

> So far, I've been in a single successful group for Sunqua Peak.

> The HP of the bosses of Siren's Reef, Deepstone and Twilight Oasis would be quite high, too.

> With the support (and healing) being reduced, the rework of Molten Furnace would be problematic too. Those burning tornadoes with their broken hit boxes would be even more punishing than they already are.

> A lot of people also have problems with the reworked Bloomhunger fight.

> Too many people already are hardly able to finish these, so when their damage and supportive abilities get reduced, their chances are getting even slimmer.

>

> EDIT: This would probably also affect raids and Challenge motes.

> Some story bosses (like the end boss of Season 4, Episode 2) would be affected too.

> But the story let's you continue after dying, so that's less of an issue than group content.

>

I hope you are joking. Most raids can be 5manned currently and they are tuned for way lower dps. You could cut dps in half and they would need to adjustments. The new fractal is one of the easiest in normal mode and the cm is easier than the other ones. People still struggling with bloomhunger shouldnt play t4 then.

Not every fractal fight should be over in <30sec. Normal sunqua endboss is ~3min which isnt particularly long either. Shaving support just means going back to 5dps meta btw. Either have powerful support or its not worth taking it at all. I kinda enjoy the boon role in gw. Instead of healer, tank, dps you have healer, boons, dps or boons, dps.

Warrior has almost no support outside of banners or mightstack. Shaving support down to this level would be a huge step backwards.

> @"Brandon Uzumaki.1524" said:

> Can't help that healing is is not that powerfull after the instabilites rework, compared to other healers FB is mediocre at best, with the exception of the very potent burst you get on F2, but pure raw healing it's not that great.

> But Fractals nowadays are all about dying in one or two hit by the most basic mob, let's say you are a Berserker Ele, playing any fractal, and today instabilitires are Outflanked and Frailty, you take any other healer that's not a Firebrand or a Barrier Necro (maybe Scrapper), and you will be on the ground 9 out of 10 times, you have 8k HP, most mobs will hit for 10k from behind, you can't heal or regen that lol.

What do you mean with nowadays? Almost everything used to oneshot in old 50s. Mossman could even oneshot a warr out of stealth. Weavers play without a healer all the time. Facetanking was just never good.

Its the endboss of T2. Should be harder than the rest. I pugged a lot of t1-t2 for fun and those players handycap themselves with bad builds all the time.

There needs to be something that prevents players with <1-2k dps and no support/cc from advancing tiers. The new fractal is probably easier than SO for them anyways. There are lots of stuck t2/t3 groups aswell every time SO or sirens reef are daily.

Sunqua is easier than Sirens or SO in my opinion but its still too hard if your group consists of water eles, MM core necros etc. Almost every time i pug low level fracs for fun or recs i do at least 60% of the dps. Record is 95% with everyone being alive on art. Those players should wipe for hours until they start thinking about their strategy which consists of 50% running in circles for some of them.

Or maybe they could upgrade their gear to at least rare or exotic with a usuable stat. Most of them are using random stuff even in t2 and there needs to be something that just tells them that this is bad.

Im hoping for more alac/quickness specs with new elite specs. Or scrapper could get it.

> @"lare.5129" said:

> I don't see any big point to say that cfb is ok. It very depend from rotation chain, and don't be flexible like most others cdps.

> So for me 2 sg and one condi souldb ir more flexsible on cm100 than 3 cfb

Thats because you play with very very inexperienced players. Scourge does not even half of what a cfb can do there. Cfb is very flexible in its rotation btw. Also cfb has burst which the other condi builds dont really have. This helps a lot with fast breaks and burst.

> @"Laila Lightness.8742" said:

> A change is to make quickness a personal boon wich can only be applied once per 50seconds or simply replace the the trait quckness with swiftness wich makes more sence than quickness and tone down mantra of potence maybe drop might no skill in my opinion should give more than 1 boon. Change axe symbol to provide resistance unstead of fury and raise cd on sword symbol

Im glad you are not part of the balance team. Cd increase on sword symbol would just make it worse than scepter. Resistance on axe would be the most broken thing. Removing quickness would just completely remove it from the group and we would be back to mesmer only comps.

> @"GHawkR.7231" said:

> On the other side, as I am somewhat of an end-game player, have ton of exp and kp from frac CMs and raids, the recent frac CM feels like a turn off to me. I have been doing the latest 100CM daily since lunch, but fact that devs don't listen to make the frac a bit easier on graphic side (the bright lights on dark background feel tiring to watch and concentrate) and the fact that the frac takes twice as long in pugs and even some statics I experimented with (in comparison to other 2 CMs we have) is is just such a turn off for me. Would like to know how you cope with this! Have seen a few players who just straight up gave up on 100CM for daily, some even on CMs in general, as they already got the title, and the rewards are not worth it. In my case (I feel like a medium to good player) it takes 2-3hrs just to finish the frac CMs and T4s, and after that I am so exhausted I just want to turn off the game.

>

Its shorter than sirens reef and casual SO. My groups need 5.5-6min for it after just one week. <5min definitely possible in the future. Frac CMs + T4 take me 40min to 1h depending on if i pug or run with a static. Sorry but 2-3h doesnt sound normal. Are you running with offmeta memecomps by any chance? The new fractal is easier than the old cms in my opinion.

I usually just raid on monday and/or thuesday and do fractals like 3 times a week. And yes that means after raids i really have just 40min of content before i log out.

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

> I know, besides the horrendous balancing issues none of our static group has a condi FB ready ^^

> For numbers : The cFB wiht us in 100 cm did 16k and on ARK 22k when you compare that to top DPS of the build you know 20k are possible with an non speed run setup in 100 cm with a speed run setup it is surely 30k or more.#

> Power builds have 8-10k dps here while I think it not so much about power or condi it more like all good power builds have long rotas because a lot of the other condi build seems kinda weak too.

>

Cfb can only get those numbers on arkk if the group has very low dps.

Power builds do definitely more than 8-10k. Thats the dps the alac ren does with mallyx.

Power is not that bad but way harder to play than cfb on that boss. A lot of that dps is ranged aswell so that helps a lot. Will try some power comps once npng is gone.

> @"uberkingkong.8041" said:

> You give praise to thief?

> Lets look

> https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/thief/daredevil/power/

> 8 button opener 7 or 9 button bursts.

> Optimal, they did good.

Really not sure if im feeding a troll here but thats a single skill spamed 4-5 times. Wouldn't call that 8 button.

High skill is doing dps rotations while doing mechanics. Instead of memorizing all the steps you should just read traits and understand why rotations are that way.

Weaver is just going from air to fire and back. Dh just needs to use its burst into spear of justice. warr just spams as much decapitates as possible etc.

> @"uberkingkong.8041" said:

> How many buttons you have to push if your dps?

> Easy to do job properly when you don't have to memorize a 26 button opener, 16 button continuous button loop for optimal dps.

Maybe play wow if you want every class getting dumbed down to 3 buttons? Some ff jobs even have 15+ skills openers. 15 different skills. The majority of gw2 builds are very simple. Only condi engi and condi sword weaver are quite hard but nobody plays those to begin with.

The thief dps rotation consists of 3 buttons btw. The problem is that even the simple ones are too hard for some because they cant be bothered with reading their traits.

> @"Noah Salazar.5430" said:

> I do it solo as Scrapper bit often, not so hard when your scrapper or reaper

Its actually probably the hardest to solo on reaper. No active defenses. Easiest are thief, spellbrealer, guard any spec and mesmer.

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

>

> Pretty much any DPS setup with ranged & condi. The boss moves too much for stand still power melee rotations, and it has certain mechanics that cover it during the few moments that power melee gets to stand and land a damage rotation, which essentially interrupts the rotation and wastes CDs. Anything ranged condi is way better here.

>

> You know what I'm not even upset about it. I'm actually enjoying the design. I think it's high time that the game was introduced situations like this where players have reasons to tweak around builds and play different types of archetypes. I personally hope they add more content like this. For example, if you played GW1 you'd know what a Drok's Run is. I'd like to see content like that, where it encouraged a party to use their build/gear templates mid fractal and swap to highly evasive mobility builds, as example.

>

> There are a lot of really cool kinds of new challenges we could get, that would be practical now with build/gear template swapping. Here's hoping for more content like Sunqua.

In p2 maybe but power works very well in p1. Can burst it quite well. Only tested it once. want to wait until shitty npng is gone.

> @"Laila Lightness.8742" said:

> I honestly wish they added bosses who corrupt boons

How should this work? You either wont run with boon supports anymore or you would just randomly lose boons which is just annoying. There are already condi stripping mechanics. You can dodge them though.

Seriously double precast with all the utilities before the fight and then resetting everything to swap in other skills shouldnt be a thing. Soulbeast starts a fight with like 20sec of owp because of this or the ridiculous cfb ashes stacks. quadra fgs. Im all for precast but normal precasts, no cd reset ones.

Your "taking gameplay to another level" is basically buffing 40sec quickness and might with 100% bd, swapping to full dps and not caring about boons anymore.

Don't like boonstrip either and would rather see cd reset getting removed from mistlock. Double precast shouldnt be a thing.