Einlanzer.1627

I'm enjoying most of the content, and I think the overall state of the game is much better than it was a couple of years ago, but we're massively overdue for quite a few things:

a. better balancing and higher quality balance patches. Offensive power creep is out of control while defenses haven't been changed at all. Power and condi are still not particularly well balanced. Chrono and druid still dominate support too much due to excessive boon sharing. control and defense aren't really a thing when they should be. Once a quarter is not enough, and when we do get them they are very poor quality and small in scale for how long it takes to release them. Something is clearly very wrong with the work structure of the balance team. Probably a management problem. It desperately needs to be addressed. Quarterly patches should be much bigger in scope, and the ones we are currently getting quarterly should happen every 2-4 weeks.

b. PvP and WvW updates (will we ever get a 3rd WvW map?)

c. QoL updates and overhauls of outdated systems like the mechanics behind various attributes and how attributes are tied to gear. A cleaner attribute system that rebalances the effectiveness of various attributes is really needed. We also could use all kinds of other things like trait memory (at least, if not build templates) and supporting voiced dialogue for players guesting in another's story.

d. finishing the damn Revenant

e. UI issues. Lacking things as basic as simple explanation of what each trait line does. Way too many things are not intuitive and force players to research out of game, which is a huge turnoff for a lot of people.

f. We really need new weapon types to spice up the game instead of just recycling all the same ones over and over.

> @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> Even if you ignore everything else ... while doing LS3 one of the bosses had 1.5 million HP. Between the two extremes of my characters' builds that will take between 3 minutes and 1 hour to finish that fight. No prize for guessing which end I prefer.

Right, and that, precisely, is why there's a problem that needs to be addressed. Offensive builds make too much of a difference in offense while defensive builds don't make enough of a difference in defense.

> @"Mea.5491" said:

> Maybe an unpopular opinion but after several years of power creep, we really need a "defense" overhaul. The base HP and armor should be raised for every profession, Vitality and Toughness should scale better. Our damage increases all the time but our defensive stats are outdated and neglected.

I think this is pretty intuitive, to be honest. Alternatively, they could reign back some of the offensive power creep. I think conditions are still overtuned and need to be on shorter durations, and I think offensive boon sharing is out of control, and they never really properly normalized the scaling on berserker stats relative to others. You still just get too much bang for your buck from the combination of power, precision, and ferocity.

So, in short, I think Toughness and Vitality could actually be mostly fixed by reverting some of the power creep, though I think Healing Power is problematic and still doesn't scale the way it should. IMO, they should probably remove Healing Power and normalize the attribute as outgoing healing effectiveness, the same way concentration and expertise work. Maybe do the same thing for condition damage, honestly.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"TheQuickFox.3826" said:

> > Do offensive attributes give exponential damage increases, or is everything linear?

> > If everything is linear, why are Celestial stats generally not the most favourite stats amongst the playerbase, they give the most attribute points after all.

>

> Because nonspecialized builds in PvE are always inferior to specialized ones. And on specialized builds lot of stats would be completely wasted.

> Basically, any serious build need to be really good at at least one thing. Celestial isn't really good at anything.

But that actually is indicative of a balance problem. The need for specialized gear makes sense in role-based content, but, if the game was well balanced, a well distributed spread would be very viable if not outright the best in general/solo PvE.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> > Condi tends to be stronger than direct damage unless the fight is very, very short, which isn't a great meta to have.

> You really aren't following the current meta. That's no longer the case - power is overwhelmingly dominating on almost all raid encounters (with maybe 2 exceptions, and VG requiring some condi for red guardian).

>

> > Lastly, I don't think you need to have a hard "tank role", and it's actually better if you don't, however, defensive stats are not tuned the right way especially in PvE. They need to rethink the implementation of and mechanics surrounding Vitality and Toughness.

> I already explained to you in that other thread you started why i don't think it's possible within constrains of gw2. It's not that they are _tuned_ wrongly. The problem is much, much deeper than that and impossible to solve without rebuilding and redesigning whole combat engine from ground up.

>

> > @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > You can embrace these "soft" roles if you like, but the fact is support is only worthwhile in this game insofar as it increases damage output

> The same is true for the trinity model. In fact, the trinity model is itself a way to maximize damage output by shuffling some roles on limited number of players, allowing all the rest do dps with impunity.

> There's no practical difference between this model, and the GW2 one - they are just a result of the same way of thinking and the same type of optimization, just for a different environment.

>

> > @"Tails.9372" said:

> > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > Anet's not the one forcing anything on players.

> > As I've shown in the example given before: they do. They're just not as vocal about it.

>

> You're attributing a will to what i see mostly as a result of inherent (but still unintentional) design flaws and just being not so good at balancing.

>

Your "explanation" is merely your own interpretation. I absolutely think it's possible to retune the game in ways that make defensive stats less worthless, and don't even think it would be that hard to do. They just don't, because, as you said, they aren't good at balancing. They really need to have some fresh leadership on that team.

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> > > What's the point of even having defensive attributes if the game is all about offense?

> >

> > They are used extensively in PVP and of course in Raids. I think we can all agree that making the rest of the game work like PVP and Raids isn't a very good idea.

>

> ^ This. Having open world require you to use defenses would scare away the vast majority of the playerbase.

It wouldn't be "required". It would just be somewhat useful.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> > What's the point of even having defensive attributes if the game is all about offense?

>

> They are used extensively in PVP and of course in Raids. I think we can all agree that making the rest of the game work like PVP and Raids isn't a very good idea.

Actually, I wouldn't entirely make that assumption. I think general PvE encounters could stand to work a bit differently.

> @"Eponet.4829" said:

> > @"Daddicus.6128" said:

> > Whenever I ask what stats to use, the answer invariably is berserker (or a later variant) or a condition build. Nobody EVER says to take vitality or toughness, and most people actively push meIt away from those, when I ask.

> >

> > To me, that loudly proclaims that toughness and vitality are way WAY underpowered.

>

> It's not exactly that they're way underpowered. A fully defensive build is actually extremely durable. It's more that baseline survivability is actually really high while baseline offense is awful. I can take a couple of hits from quite a lot of things (including raid bosses) without any kind of mitigation or defensive stats whatsoever. The tradeoff for not investing in offense is way higher than the tradeoff for not investing in defense since so much defense is free.

>

> For all that people say that you don't need defense because you can avoid everything, few people actually do judging from the complaints that people made before the HoT areas got nerfed.

>

> Even with zero investment into defense, people are still moderately tanky, while without any offensive investment, offense is abysmal. The way to fix it would be to reduce the baseline durability people have so that glass cannon actually means getting one shotted by moves other than the ridiculously easy to avoid ones if they get hit and don't have blocks/evade/aegis/protection. Or alternatively, reduce the effects of multiplicative scaling on crit damage/condition damage scaling and increase the base power coefficient of attacks and base condition damage

>

> Enemy design is also a major part of it. Most enemies tend to attack fairly slowly, such that it's not difficult to avoid most of their attacks entirely and still have plenty of time for your own offense. Enemies that attacked at a faster rate would increase the time spent having to dodge, and stip away blinds/aegis much faster than current ones do, such that being able to withstand their frenzy of light attacks and only dodge the occasional heavy one could potentially make having some durability a more worthwhile tradeoff.

I agree with most of these points. I think there are three things that need to be addressed:

- mobs should attack more frequently with weaker attacks

- access to offensive boons needs to be nerfed somewhat. There is way too large a gap between the floor and the ceiling when it comes to offense relative to defense.

- condition damage should not be as strong as it is. It has the effect of undermining the usefulness of Toughness in particular as an attribute

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> It's not that they're underpowered, it's that they're useless. You don't need either. And you shouldn't need them either, so they're fine as they are.

I mean this logic doesn't make any sense to me at all. "They're totally broken but it doesn't matter because I don't care."

What's the point of even having defensive attributes if the game is all about offense?

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> PvE combat is designed to reward those who deal damage, not those who can bunker more efficiently. Under that clear design goal, the defensive stats are more than sufficient already. If you want ANet to consider updating the status quo, I'd ignore stats and instead focus the conversation about whether the game should embrace victory-through-attrition, instead of just success-by-domination.

Well victory through attrition should be a thing. Can you point to where they've stated that attrition shouldn't matter, and it should be all about offensive might? Because, if that's the case, aren't those attributes just red herrings that should be removed from gear?

> @"Haishao.6851" said:

> The game was always about active defense. Passive defense is just there to allow more room for mistakes.

> They're fine as they are.

Except they don't do that to the degree they should for the amount of offense you give up. That's the point. As mentioned above, though, it's probably more an issue with overtuned offense than it is with undertuned defense.

> @"Imperadordf.2687" said:

> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> > > @"Imperadordf.2687" said:

> > > > @"Tails.9372" said:

> > > > Yes, healing power is indeed underpowered.

> > >

> > > This is factually wrong.

> >

> > Well, it's nuanced. Different skills scale differently off of HP,

>

> That's what I meant

>

> >so some are fine, but many underscale.

>

> This i don't agree with

>

> >I think a lot of the problem area revolves around most personal healing skills not scaling well enough with HP, making it too much of a wasted stat when you aren't a dedicated group healer.

>

> Can you show me an underscaled one? Because I think most of the skills scale well enough with healing power.

>

> On the other hand, I think personal healing skills shouldn't have much scaling, because I don't think a glass cannon should get back %50-60 by herself.

That's flawed logic, because by definition if you are using a lot of healing power you are not a glass cannon. In fact, the problem is that glass cannons currently recover too much of their HP too easily precisely because of what I'm saying - personal healing skills are too strong at baseline and scale too poorly from HP. It should be the opposite -they should be weakish at baseline and scale better off of HP.

> @"Imperadordf.2687" said:

> > @"Tails.9372" said:

> > Yes, healing power is indeed underpowered.

>

> This is factually wrong.

Well, it's nuanced. Different skills scale differently off of HP, so some are fine, but many underscale. I think a lot of the problem area revolves around most personal healing skills not scaling well enough with HP, making it too much of a wasted stat when you aren't a dedicated group healer.

IMO, this is the main reason Celestial gear sucks, because the HP goes to waste as a solo player when it really shouldn't. If that wasn't the case, it would be pretty usable in a power/condi hybrid build.

> @"Tails.9372" said:

> Yes, healing power is indeed underpowered.

Yeah, these surveys are always difficult to make comprehensive. I actually think HP is undertuned too, as are most of the defensive boons (discussed above), meanwhile, offensive boons are overtuned and trivially easy to access.

> @"Arzurag.7506" said:

> Damage needs to be nerfed across the board. If you buff durability through stats now, bunker builds are going to be a thing again.

yeah, my feeling is the same. However, I think the "damage problem" is mostly a product of two things:

1.) Condition damage is overtuned, period. They really mucked things up trying to balance it and continue to balance it using a bad paradigm where they're trying to make them work like EQ DoTs, which makes no sense in GW2 . Condi should be on short durations and deal moderate damage - a single application of any condition should, in total, deal less than direct damage on low armor targets, and more than direct damage on high armor targets. There's really no bigger example of how the balance team doesn't know what they're doing. In addition to just resulting in too much damage being thrown around, this has the effect of making Toughness less useful than it otherwise would be, since conditions ignore armor.

2.) Offensive boons are both more numerous and easier to stack than defensive boons. They've overloaded skills and traits to where offensive boon sharing is excessive. It's trivially easy to maintain full stacks of might and 100% fury and alacrity uptime, which is goofy and needs to be nerfed (starting with Chrono and Druid). Additionally, offensive boons play off of your attributes more than defensive ones do. Protection tends to have less uptime and doesn't reduce incoming condition damage, making Vitality and Toughness both less useful. Meanwhile, both the regeneration boon and healing power as an attribute are undertuned - I think they need to rework Regen to stack intensity rather than duration.

Missing Option - "It should be its own new class"

So one of the things that concerns me a bit with elite specs is this idea that any new concept can and should be packaged into an elite spec for an existing profession. Some concepts warrant having their own class. I hope we see new ones at some point.

I actually think Monks deserve to be their own class with its own set of elite specs - a healer monk, a brawler monk, a dodge tank monk, etc.

The hard trinity is outdated, and I really like Arenanet's attempt at simulating a better, more fluid role system, but it needs a lot of work still, which it never gets in the quarterly "balance" updates.

The "support" role is too dominated by Druid and Chrono due mostly to excessive boon sharing, which is something that has persisted without balance updates for far too long. Many other professions have support-heavy loadouts but they're all very mediocre at it in comparison. Banner warriors, Heralds, core Guardians/Firebrands, Suport engis, and Water Eles should all be better at the support role than they are (or, rather, Druid and Chrono probably need nerfing).

The "control" role should be a thing but basically doesn't exist. Defiance is an overly simple mechanic that doesn't do a good job of making control a build-able or interesting role. I get that it's tough to design this well for boss encounters, but things should be designed in a way where a control-focused character can control the battlefield effectively with weaker enemies, which should probably be more present with boss encounters than they usually are. There are ways to do it, and Anet is just not doing a great job of exploring it.

For DPS, I think the Power/Condi balance isn't as good as it should be. Fights should generally favor a mix of both when most fights heavily favor one or the other. Condi tends to be stronger than direct damage outside of short fights and specialized mechanics to purge or resist condi, which I think is problematic design. As I've said numerous times, I really think power and condi should be balanced primarily through armor ratings and not through fight length (condi should have short duration and moderate damage application.)

Lastly, I don't think you need to have a hard tank role, but the "defender" role is currently severely lacking and basically as nonexistent as the control role is. It shouldn't be like it is in WoW where one player single-handedly holds the front line and takes all the damage, but players should be able to gear in such a way that they can manipulate threat to some degree to take attacks from weaker characters. They need to rethink the implementation of and mechanics surrounding Vitality, Toughness, HP, and threat manipulation.

edit - a poster IMO correctly pointed out that defensive attributes are indirectly underpowered as a result of offense being overtuned through a combination of factors, so the conversation quickly went in that direction.

> @"Gihn.1043" said:

> thats true, rev shouldnt get ahead of itself before fixing bugs like this first. but since its starting to do so well (damage/support wise) in pve, and terrain is more a pvp/wvw issue, it may not get the attention it needs

I think it's worth pushing for a redesign **before** addressing issues like that, honestly, otherwise, the redesign will probably never happen.

> @"Gihn.1043" said:

> this isnt so much about imbalance has optimization like he said. and you know them snowcrows and metabattle and the blind copiers they empower are AAAAAALL about optimization. we dont want to feed that ~~EVEN MORE~~ do we?

> do we?

> (point also stands for pvp and wvw btw, next you have the pug commanders kicking non-sylvari firebrands because they wiped at the keep)

Well, by all means, let's let this devolve into a debate about racial skills instead of what it was intended to be.

> @"LucianDK.8615" said:

> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> > > @"Gihn.1043" said:

> > > > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> > > > > @"LucianDK.8615" said:

> > > > > Anet might just as well remove racials, theyve been consistent about nerfing them if proving too strong. Not wanting to have people demand specific races for classes

> > > >

> > > > I don't agree with the need to remove racial skills just because people don't use them. In fact, in my opinion, they need to be buffed.

> > >

> > > do that and theres a risk of creating racial min/maxing at the endgame. eso already has a version of that with the gold standards of high elves for magicka damaga and redguard from stamina. i like that the races were all equal in gw2, in that sense

> > >  

> > > oh, and yeah you're right we only have two mainhands too, huh. would it be too much to ask for two more weaps, you think?

> >

> > I don't really see the problem with it, honestly. I never did. Why shouldn't your race strategically matter a little bit in the game? I think a new MH and a new OH could both make sense, but I don't think there's as much a need for OH as for MH, especially since Glint gets Shield.

>

> Look at WoW and the endless bickering about racial imbalance and how you need to be certain races to be optimal. Do you really want -that- here?

>

Uhm, you mean the way we have endless bickering about class imbalance?

> @"Gihn.1043" said:

> > @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> > > @"LucianDK.8615" said:

> > > Anet might just as well remove racials, theyve been consistent about nerfing them if proving too strong. Not wanting to have people demand specific races for classes

> >

> > I don't agree with the need to remove racial skills just because people don't use them. In fact, in my opinion, they need to be buffed.

>

> do that and theres a risk of creating racial min/maxing at the endgame. eso already has a version of that with the gold standards of high elves for magicka damaga and redguard from stamina. i like that the races were all equal in gw2, in that sense

>  

> oh, and yeah you're right we only have two mainhands too, huh. would it be too much to ask for two more weaps, you think?

I don't really see the problem with it, honestly. I never did. Why shouldn't your race strategically matter a little bit in the game? I think a new MH and a new OH could both make sense, but I don't think there's as much a need for OH as for MH, especially since Glint gets Shield.

> @"Gihn.1043" said:

> currently rev is incomplete, yes. out of the many suggestions, i have like the missing fifth legend, probably tied to the invocation line. however, i don't agree that it should have some "generic" property that allows it to be slotted with other active legends. what they all need, including this hypothetical legend, is a fourth utility.

>

> i'm not sure why you wanted racial skills to be added so much, when really, there are never used in any meaningful gameplay. they seemed to just be filler skills until a player got enough skill points for the proper abilities.

Yeah, that's another option, but I still think the 5th legend needs to be designed in a way that allows it to operate in a generalized way that can synergize well with any other legend. Each existing legend is too fixated on a particular role, making the whole legend swapping feature kind of silly and pointless. Glint and Kalla both operate as band-aids to this problem, which is an inappropriate way to design elite specs. This sort of approach is perfect for the "Invocation" legend.

I don't agree with the need to remove racial skills just because people don't use them. In fact, in my opinion, they need to be buffed. In fact, I honestly think they should be buffed to where they're at least situationally useful.

> @"Gihn.1043" said:

> also, i don't know about main hand axe either. have you ever tried building for rev on the build editor and just felt so bad looking at whopping TWO offhands? the only other classes with that much limitation are engi and ele, but engi has kits while ele has, you know, elements. the fifth legend should bring an offhand to the game, to bring the count to three

>

> *oh and thief has two OH, but they have the dual attack mechanic

I think it's fine. I think the fact that they only have two MH weapons is a bigger problem. Three MH two OH makes sense, and Revenants using dual axes is thematically appropriate.

Another - some type of HUD interface for NPCs that are fighting with you, allowing you to see their stats and skills and/or read a short bio about them.

**Revised for brevity and incorporating feedback:**

I think it's a fairly uncontroversial statement to suggest that the Revenant is an awesome concept marred by a shoddy execution. Relative to other professions, they are severely lacking in total skill count, customization, and gameplay fluidity, having too many things pre-determined by role choice. It's been in the game for far too long at this point to persist in the totally unpolished state it's been in since the HoT launch.

Here's my proposal for the right way forward for the Revenant, filling in missing aspects of the base class and getting elite specs out of the game of trying to band-aid it:

1.) Add a 5th core "legend" (Mist Channeling Stance), softly tied to the Invocation line. Mist Channeling stance would represent a generalized kit whose focus would be on synergy with the other core legends rather than having a specific role.

2.) Add a new core weapon (MH Axe.) MH Axe would be designed for hybrid damage much like Thief's MH Dagger. Revs need a third MH option that can be used in multiple builds, rather than being pigeonholed into S/S or M/A for whichever damage role they are in.

3.) Potentially give Mace some midrange capability to make it a condition focused weapon that has melee/ranged fluidity rather than power/condi fluidity, thematically linking it to the hammer in the same way that scepters are linked with staffs for other professions and fixing the problem of Revs having no viable alternate condi weapons other than Renegade shortbow.

4.) Optional alternative to 3 & 4 - remove weapon swap and make weapon skills be modified by current legend in some way.

5.) Give every legend 4 utility skills so their kits can be customized to some extent. In conjunction with #1, this will help give Rev players much more of an ability to custom design their loadout to suit their preferred playstyle. Optionally, allow access to racial skills and let those be slotted into any legend as well.

6.) Give Revenants a profession attribute that can impact energy consumption and/or regeneration. The profession mechanics are underused, but that doesn't mean Revenant should be the only class in the game that doesn't have one.