Is boonspam still making builds overperform?

[LionZero.3479]

Even though i'm just messing around in wvwvw (where this ofc is more prevelant) i feel to many builds still can pretty much perform without much trade-off in playstyle choice.

It's to easy to pick a traitline and/or utilities and suddenly run around with perma might stacks/protection etc.

This means going full glass where you want to reward active position and timing play moreso for trading off sustain and utility get's punished more then it should in matchups that build for said offensive stats with some defensive traits/util (runes/sigils) in the mix.

This leads to the glasscanons dealing and recieving about the same damage against such builds but lacking the utility and sustain leaving them outmatched and having to outperform the opponent by a heavy margin.

Which in term leads to said builds into matchups where paint dry becomes more exciting cause they lack the damage and both oversustain to pressure each other.

Perhaps however this is a design choice many see just, but i for one would like to see more layers in build approach where you either go full tank full glass or something in the middle and actually get the trade-offs that you'd expect to come with it.

Ofcourse if you would go into the direction of making boonspam less prelevant then obviously you also have to look at other means that acchieve the same by overperforming in evading or block upkeep time or simple passive blind/weakness/boonstrip applications.

Obviously i'm not saying these builds shouldn't be able to still setup good combo's with a nice burst, however they shouldn't be able to effortlessly run around with perma high might stacks/protection etc.

[eXruina.4956]

Yes it is.

[Yasai.3549]

Yes for sure.

 

I've said it multiple times over various threads that Boons are straight up overpowered.

Unlike Enchantments from the last game, Boons are to be seen as strictly buffs and not just limited expandable effects.

 

If yu can upkeep Boons, yu are essentially winning the stat game due to how powerful Boons affect the player and even a single Boon, like Protection for example, is akin to wearing an extra piece of Armor over yur opponent who doesn't have Protection.

 

This goes double or triple for characters that can boon up and maintain 25 Might, essentially wearing 4 pieces of armor over their opponent in terms of stats.

This is what mainly makes Boonbeast oppressive before their nerfs, and why Boon support will forever be a thing unless Boons are reworked, which let's be real, will never happen.

 

Or they could just do a PvP/WvW split for Boons, weakening their effects, but am sure it's just a bandaid at most since alot of Boons now have traits which boost their effects, like 40% Protection instead of 33% and making Might increase more Power at the cost of less Condition Damage.

[Exedore.6320]

Yes, boon spam is still a problem, but it's not nearly as bad or pervasive. as it used to be. For example, some warrior builds still stack 20+ might, but it doesn't last as long. Keeping away for 2-3 seconds is a lot easier than 6s, and having a narrow burst window is acceptable.

 

What's left is a few outliers. There's no need to adjust the benefits of boons themselves.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

No! Condi is overperforming therefore brainless condi aoe spam is making certain classes OP but I think nerfs are thankfully in the works to tone them down.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

> Yes for sure.

>

> I've said it multiple times over various threads that Boons are straight up overpowered.

> Unlike Enchantments from the last game, Boons are to be seen as strictly buffs and not just limited expandable effects.

>

> If yu can upkeep Boons, yu are essentially winning the stat game due to how powerful Boons affect the player and even a single Boon, like Protection for example, is akin to wearing an extra piece of Armor over yur opponent who doesn't have Protection.

>

> This goes double or triple for characters that can boon up and maintain 25 Might, essentially wearing 4 pieces of armor over their opponent in terms of stats.

> This is what mainly makes Boonbeast oppressive before their nerfs, and why Boon support will forever be a thing unless Boons are reworked, which let's be real, will never happen.

>

> Or they could just do a PvP/WvW split for Boons, weakening their effects, but am sure it's just a bandaid at most since alot of Boons now have traits which boost their effects, like 40% Protection instead of 33% and making Might increase more Power at the cost of less Condition Damage.

 

On Boon support, I think it's actually good in it's current state...mostly. The way I see things is tempest should be a bit of boon support (prot mainly) but generally aura sharing and healing. FB should be a little healing (some AoE burst or constant tick) but mainly support through giving boons like prot, might, quickness, stability and stunbreaking allies, essentially buffing the team and helping them push an advantage. What I see Druid as is a quick skirmishing healer that can drop some big focused heals in an area, help allies escape from a bad situation through superspeed and with some targeted debuffs like weakness and immob to help get a kill.

 

If boons are nerfed too heavy handed we lose the ability to have 1 of those niches and then we have supports competing in the same niche which leads to 1 getting short changed. Those weird supports like Chrono, scrapper and scourge would obviously sit somewhere between all this and support through barrier and condition conversion in the latter and a bit of boon support on the former.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Imo there are a lot bigger problems than boonspam. Boonspam definitely will make certain builds easier to play, but it's not like they lack counters. Most boons are pretty straightforward on what they do.

 

The things hurting PvP a lot more right now are probably:

 

1. Condition damage still allows people to take a highly defensive amulet ( IE: Rabid, sage, carrion ) and still do immense damage. If a power build tries to do the same thing, such as taking knights, they will be at a much more severe DPS loss. This has been a major balance problem since the release of the game, but the rework forcing most power builds into playing Zerk amulet has just made it more obvious. They should really consider making more conditions dependent on Expertise and Precision to have optimal damage output otherwise Condi-bunker builds will continue to boost players MMR/ratings far higher than where their actual skill level sits.

 

2. Increasing CDs for skills that are spammy due to doing too many things at once doesn't really stop them from being spammy. See: FB. There are still quite a few skills that should be looked at for having far too high "value" to them to the point where they are just always worth using.

 

3. Quickness is still kind of busted in PvP. This is most obvious on FB, Ranger, and Rev at the moment. Hell, Herald is legitimately clinging to staying in the meta purely by the fact that quickness lets you "pop quickness, spam shitloads of near-instant damage". There are a lot of ways to fix this, such as removing the amount of skills that grant quickness, or even reworking quickness to stack intensity rather than duration ( This way the stacks could be split between PvE and PvP, with PvE granting about the same quickness it already gives while in PvP most quickness skills would grant significantly less.)

 

4. Certain things were "missed" in the huge overhaul patch. For instance, pet damage is largely sitting at their PvE numbers which makes certain ranger builds feel like a 1v2. Necro sustain is still much higher than it deserves to be. Downstate ressing is now way too easy due to damage reduction. All these could use a cleanup patch.

 

5. Stealth mechanics in the game remain to be the poster child for "nerfing around the cheese instead of just nerfing the cheese". Stealth is way, way too easy to use in this game. Unstealth on hit instead of unstealth on cast is already pretty unhealthy for any PvP game, but gw2 takes the casual-pandering a step further and even lets you not unstealth _on miss_ . I don't think players really understand just how many people refuse to play gw2 PvP or take it seriously just based on this fact alone. I was in a random stream for another game on twitch.tv ( SMITE ) and asked people about GW2 and they were like "LOL You mean that shit game where you can just oneshot from permanent stealth yeah no thanks m8 uninstalled that trash AGES ago LMAO"

[Ragnar.4257]

> @"apharma.3741" said:

> > @"Yasai.3549" said:

> > Yes for sure.

> >

> > I've said it multiple times over various threads that Boons are straight up overpowered.

> > Unlike Enchantments from the last game, Boons are to be seen as strictly buffs and not just limited expandable effects.

> >

> > If yu can upkeep Boons, yu are essentially winning the stat game due to how powerful Boons affect the player and even a single Boon, like Protection for example, is akin to wearing an extra piece of Armor over yur opponent who doesn't have Protection.

> >

> > This goes double or triple for characters that can boon up and maintain 25 Might, essentially wearing 4 pieces of armor over their opponent in terms of stats.

> > This is what mainly makes Boonbeast oppressive before their nerfs, and why Boon support will forever be a thing unless Boons are reworked, which let's be real, will never happen.

> >

> > Or they could just do a PvP/WvW split for Boons, weakening their effects, but am sure it's just a bandaid at most since alot of Boons now have traits which boost their effects, like 40% Protection instead of 33% and making Might increase more Power at the cost of less Condition Damage.

>

> On Boon support, I think it's actually good in it's current state...mostly. The way I see things is tempest should be a bit of boon support (prot mainly) but generally aura sharing and healing. FB should be a little healing (some AoE burst or constant tick) but mainly support through giving boons like prot, might, quickness, stability and stunbreaking allies, essentially buffing the team and helping them push an advantage. What I see Druid as is a quick skirmishing healer that can drop some big focused heals in an area, help allies escape from a bad situation through superspeed and with some targeted debuffs like weakness and immob to help get a kill.

>

> If boons are nerfed too heavy handed we lose the ability to have 1 of those niches and then we have supports competing in the same niche which leads to 1 getting short changed. Those weird supports like Chrono, scrapper and scourge would obviously sit somewhere between all this and support through barrier and condition conversion in the latter and a bit of boon support on the former.

 

The irony being that right now Tempest is a better boon-support than FB is.

 

Before you call bullshit, go and actually look at the duration of boons both give (in PvP). Especially Protection, Vigor, Regen, Might. Even Stability is comparable.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Ragnar.4257" said:

> > @"apharma.3741" said:

> > > @"Yasai.3549" said:

> > > Yes for sure.

> > >

> > > I've said it multiple times over various threads that Boons are straight up overpowered.

> > > Unlike Enchantments from the last game, Boons are to be seen as strictly buffs and not just limited expandable effects.

> > >

> > > If yu can upkeep Boons, yu are essentially winning the stat game due to how powerful Boons affect the player and even a single Boon, like Protection for example, is akin to wearing an extra piece of Armor over yur opponent who doesn't have Protection.

> > >

> > > This goes double or triple for characters that can boon up and maintain 25 Might, essentially wearing 4 pieces of armor over their opponent in terms of stats.

> > > This is what mainly makes Boonbeast oppressive before their nerfs, and why Boon support will forever be a thing unless Boons are reworked, which let's be real, will never happen.

> > >

> > > Or they could just do a PvP/WvW split for Boons, weakening their effects, but am sure it's just a bandaid at most since alot of Boons now have traits which boost their effects, like 40% Protection instead of 33% and making Might increase more Power at the cost of less Condition Damage.

> >

> > On Boon support, I think it's actually good in it's current state...mostly. The way I see things is tempest should be a bit of boon support (prot mainly) but generally aura sharing and healing. FB should be a little healing (some AoE burst or constant tick) but mainly support through giving boons like prot, might, quickness, stability and stunbreaking allies, essentially buffing the team and helping them push an advantage. What I see Druid as is a quick skirmishing healer that can drop some big focused heals in an area, help allies escape from a bad situation through superspeed and with some targeted debuffs like weakness and immob to help get a kill.

> >

> > If boons are nerfed too heavy handed we lose the ability to have 1 of those niches and then we have supports competing in the same niche which leads to 1 getting short changed. Those weird supports like Chrono, scrapper and scourge would obviously sit somewhere between all this and support through barrier and condition conversion in the latter and a bit of boon support on the former.

>

> The irony being that right now Tempest is a better boon-support than FB is.

>

> Before you call kitten, go and actually look at the duration of boons both give (in PvP). Especially Protection, Vigor, Regen, Might. Even Stability is comparable.

 

Tempest can't share stab very well, in fact all it's stab is self (with the exception of that 1 earth trait that's bad) only and you're completely ignoring Guardian's monopoly on aegis. Tempest does have good and longer duration on protection, regeneration and vigor, might would depend on what traits you're running and weapons but there's a trade off.

 

Firebrand on the other hand has a lot of different stab sources, the elite mantra while it lost duration is still an ally stunbreak which is far more useful, can trait stab on F3, SyG and unbroken lines, lots of protection even if not as much as say Tempest or Prot Holo, resistance on it's F3, condition conversion, cleansing baseline, good regen uptime and some decent might output. Most importantly it also has aegis and quite a bit of shared aegis to block hits especially on mace/shield.

 

I think Tempest could stand to lose some of it's baseline vigor so they at least have to take invigorating torrents to maintain good uptime sacrificing self stab on overloads however saying Tempest gives out more stab than Guardian is very wrong.

[Vancho.8750]

> @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> Imo there are a lot bigger problems than boonspam. Boonspam definitely will make certain builds easier to play, but it's not like they lack counters. Most boons are pretty straightforward on what they do.

>

> The things hurting PvP a lot more right now are probably:

>

> 1. Condition damage still allows people to take a highly defensive amulet ( IE: Rabid, sage, carrion ) and still do immense damage. If a power build tries to do the same thing, such as taking knights, they will be at a much more severe DPS loss. This has been a major balance problem since the release of the game, but the rework forcing most power builds into playing Zerk amulet has just made it more obvious. They should really consider making more conditions dependent on Expertise and Precision to have optimal damage output otherwise Condi-bunker builds will continue to boost players MMR/ratings far higher than where their actual skill level sits.

>

> 2. Increasing CDs for skills that are spammy due to doing too many things at once doesn't really stop them from being spammy. See: FB. There are still quite a few skills that should be looked at for having far too high "value" to them to the point where they are just always worth using.

>

> 3. Quickness is still kind of busted in PvP. This is most obvious on FB, Ranger, and Rev at the moment. Hell, Herald is legitimately clinging to staying in the meta purely by the fact that quickness lets you "pop quickness, spam shitloads of near-instant damage". There are a lot of ways to fix this, such as removing the amount of skills that grant quickness, or even reworking quickness to stack intensity rather than duration ( This way the stacks could be split between PvE and PvP, with PvE granting about the same quickness it already gives while in PvP most quickness skills would grant significantly less.)

>

> 4. Certain things were "missed" in the huge overhaul patch. For instance, pet damage is largely sitting at their PvE numbers which makes certain ranger builds feel like a 1v2. Necro sustain is still much higher than it deserves to be. Downstate ressing is now way too easy due to damage reduction. All these could use a cleanup patch.

>

> 5. Stealth mechanics in the game remain to be the poster child for "nerfing around the cheese instead of just nerfing the cheese". Stealth is way, way too easy to use in this game. Unstealth on hit instead of unstealth on cast is already pretty unhealthy for any PvP game, but gw2 takes the casual-pandering a step further and even lets you not unstealth _on miss_ . I don't think players really understand just how many people refuse to play gw2 PvP or take it seriously just based on this fact alone. I was in a random stream for another game on twitch.tv ( SMITE ) and asked people about GW2 and they were like "LOL You mean that kitten game where you can just oneshot from permanent stealth yeah no thanks m8 uninstalled that trash AGES ago LMAO"

This should be made into a thread on its own. You just didnt mention the cc ragdolling, dodge attacks that have to be dodged and the mobility creep, but that will probably fit in point 2.

 

[Shao.7236]

> @"Master Ketsu.4569" said:

> Imo there are a lot bigger problems than boonspam. Boonspam definitely will make certain builds easier to play, but it's not like they lack counters. Most boons are pretty straightforward on what they do.

>

> The things hurting PvP a lot more right now are probably:

>

> 1. Condition damage still allows people to take a highly defensive amulet ( IE: Rabid, sage, carrion ) and still do immense damage. If a power build tries to do the same thing, such as taking knights, they will be at a much more severe DPS loss. This has been a major balance problem since the release of the game, but the rework forcing most power builds into playing Zerk amulet has just made it more obvious. They should really consider making more conditions dependent on Expertise and Precision to have optimal damage output otherwise Condi-bunker builds will continue to boost players MMR/ratings far higher than where their actual skill level sits.

>

> 2. Increasing CDs for skills that are spammy due to doing too many things at once doesn't really stop them from being spammy. See: FB. There are still quite a few skills that should be looked at for having far too high "value" to them to the point where they are just always worth using.

>

> 3. Quickness is still kind of busted in PvP. This is most obvious on FB, Ranger, and Rev at the moment. Hell, Herald is legitimately clinging to staying in the meta purely by the fact that quickness lets you "pop quickness, spam shitloads of near-instant damage". There are a lot of ways to fix this, such as removing the amount of skills that grant quickness, or even reworking quickness to stack intensity rather than duration ( This way the stacks could be split between PvE and PvP, with PvE granting about the same quickness it already gives while in PvP most quickness skills would grant significantly less.)

>

> 4. Certain things were "missed" in the huge overhaul patch. For instance, pet damage is largely sitting at their PvE numbers which makes certain ranger builds feel like a 1v2. Necro sustain is still much higher than it deserves to be. Downstate ressing is now way too easy due to damage reduction. All these could use a cleanup patch.

>

> 5. Stealth mechanics in the game remain to be the poster child for "nerfing around the cheese instead of just nerfing the cheese". Stealth is way, way too easy to use in this game. Unstealth on hit instead of unstealth on cast is already pretty unhealthy for any PvP game, but gw2 takes the casual-pandering a step further and even lets you not unstealth _on miss_ . I don't think players really understand just how many people refuse to play gw2 PvP or take it seriously just based on this fact alone. I was in a random stream for another game on twitch.tv ( SMITE ) and asked people about GW2 and they were like "LOL You mean that kitten game where you can just oneshot from permanent stealth yeah no thanks m8 uninstalled that trash AGES ago LMAO"

 

1. You look at Burn Guard and the problem is quite obvious that they didn't nerf any of the condition duration. Meanwhile Mallyx got it's energy nerfed which I mostly agree with but damage halved totally was a mistake as it turns out to be impossible to do any significant amount of damage compared Power now, even with the trait Transfer nerf was uncalled for as it only affects so much compared the facet which still clears to anyone around.

 

2. Firebrand real problem is the lack of trade off still, absolutely faceroll all the books twice before anything can actually be done. Pages needs to have a cooldown of their own to prevent spamming altogether, say 5 seconds per page that are shared through all books, it would be the least of problems given that one is enough to use the strongest skill which still tops off normal virtues and DH virtues without traits.

 

3. FB and Revenant honestly needs it to achieve anything relevant, the real problem comes from other things, especially Revenant with how Deathstrike been reworked to be a super fast yet still missing hit while chill and slow was plenty to work with while the casting was slightly slower and comparable to regular deathstrike now without quickness. The whole changes were just pointless and made it all worst in every aspects. As for Ranger, there's too many problems considering the fact they can run knight and still be dealing enough damage to delete in 3 seconds.

 

4. Life Force was untouched which makes up for this disgusting survivability, given that even if you drain shroud then give a lethal blow, they have like a quarter of their shroud back already that you have to shred through again. The vicious circle is too intense and the fact of being absolutely forced to interrupt their heal everytime to have a chance of winning is also bad, that minionmancer trait also needs to be looked up and have an actual icd shared across all minions because if you play anything condi related, you're immediately bombarded with everything back at you without the slightest effort from the Necro. As for downstate I find it hard to agree because there's stuff to prevent it and it works rather well, at best I'd slow it down by 10% but I would absolutely still try to make stomps necessary because just cleaving like pre patch was just laughable at best with no risk at all, makes everything too easy.

 

5. The nerf is quite obvious but Anet isn't listening, if every god damn skill that did damage out of stealth would apply reveal prior to the use, people would have at least a chance to react and everything would be less toxic, but no. Let's absolutely keep everything bonkers and down right to random evades to avoid any damage. Today I was actually alerted by just the sound of Infiltrator Arrow playing around me even as the Thief was in Stealth then wondered how I was even able to know, it's those little things that rely on player senses that make for a more balanced experience. Reveal needs to happen before the attack, not after it happened, it's like shooting first then asking questions, unfair as hell.