Getting Really Sick of Chrono + Druid Dominating Other Supports

[reikken.4961]

Grace of the land no longer has any reason to be 10 targets. It's now actually hurting build diversity in raids instead of helping. Spirits being 10 is good, as only ranger can provide that anyway, so it keeps you from having to have 2 rangers. But lots of classes can provide might, so the only thing druid's might hitting 10 accomplishes is giving raids more reason to take druid instead of another support. And making all other builds that provide might hopelessly outclassed and utterly useless.

 

like there exists a tempest build/rotation that can heal a party for lots while providing permanent 25 might, protection, vigor, swiftness, and regen to 5 people. But why would you _ever_ use that build when a druid can apply permanent protection and 25 might to 10 people? while also having more CC, and other strong utility like entangle and easy practical knockbacks.

[Enigmoid.1264]

> @"Neutra.6857" said:

> > @"Enigmoid.1264" said:

> > There are three primary healers (druid, revenant, tempest) and several off healers (firebrand, scourge). There are three primary boon bots (chrono, revenant/herald, firebrand).

> >

> > Of the three primary healers there should be some equality between the utility of the three. Druid is always taken because it brings fire and forget buffs through spirits and might stacking. Druid most definitely needs a little nerfing as it dominates the PvE and PvP scenes. As far as druid goes make the spirits baseline 5 man with the Nature's vengeance trait upping the cap to 10 man. Remove all boons from spirits, they are far too much fire and forget skills and the fact that a single spirit can pretty much maintain permanent vigor/protection/regen/stability across a 10 man raid party with the help of a chrono is far too unbalanced, especially as the druid doesn't work for these buffs.

> >

> > Heal revenant and tempest are pretty much dead across all game modes and drastically need some help. Revenant is a pretty fun build and the tempest elite specialization should find some use somewhere. Perhaps increase the radius of the tablet. Tempest needs some support buffs and ideally warhorn should be tweaked to be more of a support weapon - its basically an elite spec that isn't used anywhere. Upgrade the auras and make them stack-able so that they are actually useful (perhaps give them small amounts of stats dependent on the healing power of the tempest).

> >

> > Chrono needs its efficacy toned down. Time warp, boring as it is should be mandatory to maintain permanent quickness.

>

> They intentionally increased the number of people the spirits cover from five because that meant that only 1 druid was brought to raids instead of having two brought so that all 10 people got the spirit buff. If you revert that change then druid will be confirmed for 2 spots instead of 1. Removing the boons makes the druid a pretty much useless class in raids, as there are other classes that heal better. All you would be doing is making it so that heal eles are being brought, reducing the diversity further.

 

But the druid will still have the 10 man spirits... And two druids are still brought to basically every fight...

And heal eles (and revs/firebrands/scourges) are not brought at all... (I constantly hear this argument: "But if we nerf druid nobody will play druid and it will be useless!" Which conveniently ignores the fact all other healer builds are useless/strongly unoptimal when compared to druid and receive basically 0 playtime)

 

I play a lot of druid. And the class has way too much fire-and-forget mechanics. Spirits are by far the worst offender, drop them and forget them and stack powerful buffs on an entire raid group. The permanent and effortless protection from stone spirit means that the druid's lower healing is not a problem at all. Might from CA abilites is the icing on the cake and you do not have to make any effort/compromises to pump out 25 might on 10 people; both healing revenant and tempest have to give up and make compromises to stack might and at best they can only stack it on 5 people.

 

Heal revenant is a niche build and not really seen as druid out competes it. Revenant is on life support in PvE, dead in PvP. Druid on the other hand dominates in organized PvE and is a top tier build in PvP. It needs a careful but significant nerf. Tempest is dead across every game mode and weaver is only good in PvE.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

> @"Enigmoid.1264" said:

> There are three primary healers (druid, revenant, tempest) and several off healers (firebrand, scourge). There are three primary boon bots (chrono, revenant/herald, firebrand).

>

> Of the three primary healers there should be some equality between the utility of the three. Druid is always taken because it brings fire and forget buffs through spirits and might stacking. Druid most definitely needs a little nerfing as it dominates the PvE and PvP scenes. As far as druid goes make the spirits baseline 5 man with the Nature's vengeance trait upping the cap to 10 man. Remove all boons from spirits, they are far too much fire and forget skills and the fact that a single spirit can pretty much maintain permanent vigor/protection/regen/stability across a 10 man raid party with the help of a chrono is far too unbalanced, especially as the druid doesn't work for these buffs.

>

> Heal revenant and tempest are pretty much dead across all game modes and drastically need some help. Revenant is a pretty fun build and the tempest elite specialization should find some use somewhere. Perhaps increase the radius of the tablet. Tempest needs some support buffs and ideally warhorn should be tweaked to be more of a support weapon - its basically an elite spec that isn't used anywhere. Upgrade the auras and make them stack-able so that they are actually useful (perhaps give them small amounts of stats dependent on the healing power of the tempest).

>

> Chrono needs its efficacy toned down. Time warp, boring as it is should be mandatory to maintain permanent quickness.

 

I would rathet remove spirit trait and buffs of spirit if no one else has these why should ranger have that type

[ArthurDent.9538]

> @"Neutra.6857" said:

> > @"Enigmoid.1264" said:

> > There are three primary healers (druid, revenant, tempest) and several off healers (firebrand, scourge). There are three primary boon bots (chrono, revenant/herald, firebrand).

> >

> > Of the three primary healers there should be some equality between the utility of the three. Druid is always taken because it brings fire and forget buffs through spirits and might stacking. Druid most definitely needs a little nerfing as it dominates the PvE and PvP scenes. As far as druid goes make the spirits baseline 5 man with the Nature's vengeance trait upping the cap to 10 man. Remove all boons from spirits, they are far too much fire and forget skills and the fact that a single spirit can pretty much maintain permanent vigor/protection/regen/stability across a 10 man raid party with the help of a chrono is far too unbalanced, especially as the druid doesn't work for these buffs.

> >

> > Heal revenant and tempest are pretty much dead across all game modes and drastically need some help. Revenant is a pretty fun build and the tempest elite specialization should find some use somewhere. Perhaps increase the radius of the tablet. Tempest needs some support buffs and ideally warhorn should be tweaked to be more of a support weapon - its basically an elite spec that isn't used anywhere. Upgrade the auras and make them stack-able so that they are actually useful (perhaps give them small amounts of stats dependent on the healing power of the tempest).

> >

> > Chrono needs its efficacy toned down. Time warp, boring as it is should be mandatory to maintain permanent quickness.

>

> They intentionally increased the number of people the spirits cover from five because that meant that only 1 druid was brought to raids instead of having two brought so that all 10 people got the spirit buff. If you revert that change then druid will be confirmed for 2 spots instead of 1. Removing the boons makes the druid a pretty much useless class in raids, as there are other classes that heal better. All you would be doing is making it so that heal eles are being brought, reducing the diversity further.

 

Even without spirits, druid is still brought over heal ele in almost all cases because it already heals more than enough while bringing significantly better boon support with might, fury, swiftness, and protection (I guess protection is from a spirit so guess it doesn't count by my rules), way better cc, and better general utility, it can also does quite a bit more damage than heal ele unless the ele drops a lot of healing but we can ignore that. Even if for the sake of argument you were actually right and no one would run druid if spirits were removed (you are wrong, people said the same about gotl yet everyone still only runs druids) then removing them would be a good thing. If we can finally get to the point where druids are only the 3rd or 4th most popular heal builds, then that is a good thing. It is not healthy to have druid perpetually positioned as the best in slot healer, there should be times when it is inferior to its competition, as well as times when it is superior, that is balance.

 

Ideally, support builds should reach the point where dps builds are currently where you can play various different dps builds and no one really cares which one you play as long as it does decent enough damage or if the group is absolute min-maxing for a speed run. Just go into lfg and you will see groups looking for something along the lines of "LF chrono + druid + banner warrior + 2 dps" notice that the dps spots are generally flexible (the warrior spot is also kind of flexible in that most meta groups don't mind swapping out the warrior for a 3rd dps) in that you can bring basically any build from https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/ that does 30k+ dps and no one will care. Unfortunately balancing support builds is a more complex endeavor than the dps counter parts which can basically be boiled down to the benchmark number with a few asterisks to consider.

 

When it comes down to balancing support, there are 5 distinct areas that need to be considered: healing, dps boon up time, profession specific dps buffs, cc for break bars, and miscellaneous utility. Chrono + druid have excellent group healing, perfect dps boon up-time, ranger in general is the king of unique buffs still, along with warrior, mesmer has arguably the most breakbar cc in the game with druid also adding a lot, and there is a ton of miscellaneous utility between the two of them like group aegis, stability, portal, stealth, entangle, res support, etc. There simply are no weaknesses for chrono + druid while every other possible support combo has significant weaknesses (at least compared to chrono + druid). For instance the closest thing there is to compete against them is rev + firebrand which has great healing, perfect offensive boon uptime potential, and very good cc from rev though firebrand is meh. Unfortunately it only has assassins presence for unique buffs which is very little compared to spotter + spirits, and the miscellaneous utility generally lags behind druid + chrono in that the only real advantage it has is a bit better resistance and stability access. The lack of weaknesses from chrono + druid makes it so that there is very little reason to experiment with anything else, since they are the perfect solution to all problems that everyone knows and loves with the sole exception of hand kiting at Deimos which is an extremely niche situation.

[Enigmoid.1264]

@"ArthurDent.9538" I agree completely.

 

Exclusive buffs are not necessarily bad; exclusive buffs on only a few professions are bad. Give revenant a slightly larger tablet area and firebrand more reliable quickness (larger radius) and you have a replacement for the chrono and druid in one of the subgroups (firebrand and rev will do much more damage than chrono and druid) in about half the encounters. This build is already close to viable the issue is the reliability of getting the buffs and low cc/other utility. Give the revenant some more alacrity so they don't need so much boon duration.

 

Rework tempest so that the dagger/warhorn build actually works (camping staff water is boring and brings nothing but raw healing. Skills like sand squall should increase boons by an additional 4 seconds instead of 2 and/or be affected by boon duration. Increase healing on skills like "watery globe" which is by all means inadequate for the cooldown. ) and give stats to auras (i.e. fire aura gives 13% (?) healing power to power and enemies who hit you are burned for two seconds instead of 1 (1s ICD) etc.). While potent, aura uptime is generally pretty low so this should be balanced. Add a bit more cc on skills like cyclone (larger pull radius). Shout cooldown could be reduced a bit and/or the might from auras/shouts increased. Boom. Tempest is now viable somewhere and largely interchangeable with a druid (2 druids, 1 druid 1 tempest, or two tempests would largely provide the same efficacy). Druid has more cc and utility (tone down druid might stacking), tempest has more raw healing. Both provide significant buffs though the druid would put it on 10 people (would not really have to touch druid too much in this case).

 

Other support builds like scourge could be adjusted to be a more offensive off healer. Give a bit more barrier and/or raw healing. This build is held back by the lack of a viable equipment set, something like vitality/condition damage + expertise/concentration would immediately make the build viable with minimal other changes. High damage + epidemic would make it viable in many encounters.

 

Herald could also use some love but I've never played it. Give it some group quickness (pulsing swiftness is useless) and other tweaks and it may be good.

 

Unfortunately, due to how chrono is designed it would be difficult to build something that would directly compete with it. There are things that could be changed. Sword #2 skill usable while moving but no longer gives a evade (mesmer is OP in competitive because of very high evade so this would also help there) so. Damage on wells reduced by 30% (to make the superior damage but lower utility of rev + firebrand more appealing) and wells grant alacrity (1s) instead of healing (to prevent chrono from doing everything). Lastly "improved alacrity" changed to keep the 50% recharge but no alacrity from incoming sources (to prevent dps chrono). 100% quickness uptime without any other sources should require timewarp. This would down down some of its utility and damage.

 

Unique buffs are not necessarily a problem but a monopoly on them almost certainty is.

[Gravenz.6258]

@"CptAurellian.9537"

@"Eramonster.2718"

 

What I meant would be to first, make a better distribution of buffs. The fact that druids can cover 6 long term boons + 3 unique extremly powerful buffs is an aberration on its own.

Alacrity has been changed to a boon instead of a buff, it's a good step in the right direction in my opinion, quickness and alacrity shouldn't be clustered to one class. now that it is a boon, they're gonna be able to give it to more classes and specs in due time, like barrier was offered to Scrappers during PoF (even if they can't share it).

 

It brings the second subject, giving druids the 10 targets abilities was an excellent change, but they should have applied it to every boon sharing spells, at least in raids. As it is right now it just makes druids even more of an obligation than before.

If you go solo heal, going anything else than druid is shooting your raid in the foot with a charrzooka, if you go double heal which is rare these days... well that's my personal pov but 2 druids is a complete waste where a FB heal can give a sick amount of aegis to your raid and mitigate tons of damage, even negate some bosses abilities that recquire dodge thus boosting your raid's damage output.

 

 

 

 

[Mister Asdasd.6194]

Or maybe they could give other classes unique buffs on par with Druid and Chronomancer instead of nerfing popular classes to make less popular one more appealing. Also you seem very salty in your post, if you want to play heal renegade or whatever make a static group

[Azoqu.8917]

> @"Mister Asdasd.6194" said:

> Or maybe they could give other classes unique buffs on par with Druid and Chronomancer instead of nerfing popular classes to make less popular one more appealing. Also you seem very salty in your post, if you want to play heal renegade or whatever make a static group

 

Because the solution to the problem is going from 4 locked spots to 10 locked spots.

[thrag.9740]

> @"Azoqu.8917" said:

> > @"Mister Asdasd.6194" said:

> > Or maybe they could give other classes unique buffs on par with Druid and Chronomancer instead of nerfing popular classes to make less popular one more appealing. Also you seem very salty in your post, if you want to play heal renegade or whatever make a static group

>

> Because the solution to the problem is going from 4 locked spots to 10 locked spots.

 

I'm an advocate for the current setup. A few locked in spots is good, as it provides new players a reliable class to gear up for first time raiding. But I also agree 10 is bad. I don't know what the perfect number is. I think 4 is good. If a new player wanted to gear a dps, they would need to choose among several specific things (condi vs power, mirage for matt, etc). This problem is reduced greatly by gearing up either chrono, druid, or warrior.

 

I do wish Anet would work on equalizing the dps roles more.

[Malediktus.9250]

I think its perfectly fine the way it is. Every class should have one or more things that are completly unique to them so you want to have that class in your raid if you want that unique perk of that class.

I also think alacrity should never have been changed into a boon and grace of the land should never have been changed to might.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Give all classes all buffs

[Swadow.6213]

It is pointless to try and argue that Chrono and Druid give too much, it is what they were designed to do. Both are designed from the point of view to make them so integral to raiding and PvE that you dont have any options. Even though it is blatant class favoritism it is simply what it is. Mesmer is the favourite child of ANet with ranger following close behind, but not as noticeable as it is with mesmer since only one aspect of ranger is kept up like this.

[Neutra.6857]

> @"Swadow.6213" said:

> It is pointless to try and argue that Chrono and Druid give too much, it is what they were designed to do. Both are designed from the point of view to make them so integral to raiding and PvE that you dont have any options. Even though it is blatant class favoritism it is simply what it is. Mesmer is the favourite child of ANet with ranger following close behind, but not as noticeable as it is with mesmer since only one aspect of ranger is kept up like this.

 

Ranger, the favorite child of Anet, hahahahahahahha

[Lunateric.3708]

You'd have to give tempest and revenant unique buffs that manage to compete with druid spirits and that's all it would really take:

 

* For tempest it's really obvious, an unique buff that interacts with auras and imho, making aurasharing baseline in water.

* stronger/better elite for renegade. It has the opportunity to contest power DPS buffs druid brings (frost spirit), bleeding summon should scale with ally stats so it becomes an alternative for sun spirit.

 

I hope people learned the lesson the with SoI nerf: removing or severely hampering a skill/trait for a support meta class that is already embedded in the meta won't do anything other than making it even more mandatory (made single chrono comps become dual chrono comps, for example, deleted herald from meta comps too)

[Ultimatepwr.9562]

Why do people want more uniques. Uniques kill diversity not add to it.

 

A world where the meta comp is 10 eles is probably more diverse then a world where the meta comp is 1 of each class plus an extra mesmer, because in the ele world, the reason its probably meta is because ele is best at everything, and therefore taking another class is probably fine, because you probably don't need the best of the best.

 

obviously, the problem there is that buffs add team comp building flavor, but my point still stands. If every single "buff"/role could be done by at least 3 separate classes/elite specs, it would be a lot easier to make teams, and teams would be able to be more diverse. Plus, it would have the added benefit of future proofing the elite spec system. There would still be one team to rule them all, but as the dps classes prove, as long as the classes are close in balance, people would be fine with taking the slightly worse option.

[Agrippa Oculus.3726]

> @"Ultimatepwr.9562" said:

> Why do people want more uniques. Uniques kill diversity not add to it.

>

> A world where the meta comp is 10 eles is probably more diverse then a world where the meta comp is 1 of each class plus an extra mesmer, because in the ele world, the reason its probably meta is because ele is best at everything, and therefore taking another class is probably fine, because you probably don't need the best of the best.

 

"Probably" is the main word in your sentence here. You can also completely turn it around and say, the optimal comp. is that of 9 different classes: you could take 2 or even 3 Eles, you're just a little bit slower that way. Why don't they balance it like that?

And there are definitely ways to balance raids like that ..... From matrix balancing, where every class has 4 very interesting endgame viable roles, there's just one they excel at, therefore having all 9 in your team is best, but no probs if you just can't find a thief, just take another Ele with a lesser version of that role. Up to a far more simpler solution, making it from now on possible to kill a raid boss twice to get double rewards in one week, but only with a 9 different classes squad, you get the double rewards straight away (after killing the boss only once). .... And those are just two examples (with their own pros and cons) .... The possibilities are imo endless!

[Blood.5607]

> @"reikken.4961" said:

> Grace of the land no longer has any reason to be 10 targets. It's now actually hurting build diversity in raids instead of helping. Spirits being 10 is good, as only ranger can provide that anyway, so it keeps you from having to have 2 rangers. But lots of classes can provide might, so the only thing druid's might hitting 10 accomplishes is giving raids more reason to take druid instead of another support. And making all other builds that provide might hopelessly outclassed and utterly useless.

>

> like there exists a tempest build/rotation that can heal a party for lots while providing permanent 25 might, protection, vigor, swiftness, and regen to 5 people. But why would you _ever_ use that build when a druid can apply permanent protection and 25 might to 10 people? while also having more CC, and other strong utility like entangle and easy practical knockbacks.

 

Some encounters where a lot of moving is involved (Matthias and SH mainly) magi auramancer shines here with its strong passive AoE healing, more access to condi cleanse. I much prefer one harrir druid and 1 magi aura as the core healers for these encounters.

[Enigmoid.1264]

> @"Azoqu.8917" said:

> > @"Mister Asdasd.6194" said:

> > Or maybe they could give other classes unique buffs on par with Druid and Chronomancer instead of nerfing popular classes to make less popular one more appealing. Also you seem very salty in your post, if you want to play heal renegade or whatever make a static group

>

> Because the solution to the problem is going from 4 locked spots to 10 locked spots.

 

The issue of everyone being locked to 'meta comp' is a bit of a fallacy. The issue with the druid + chrono dominance is that the duo simply doesn't have any (very few) weak spots and simply functions as an 'all-in-wonder' pair across (virtually) every situation. Might? Check. Quickness? Check. Alacrity? Check. Crowd Control? Check. Reasonable range and easy to upkeep boons? Check. Ancillary boons like protection and vigor? Check.

 

The loss of boons + utility that a group would incur from bringing any other supports is tremendous and completely out of line.

 

The issue is also not the fact that there will always be some meta comp that is better than anything else but that unique compositions are close enough in terms of effectiveness that it really doesn't matter what you bring. The 'meta comp' may be the best but it should only be very marginally better than its alternatives. Raid lfg looks pretty much for chrono, druid, and dps. Groups really don't care too much about dps because the effectiveness across dps builds are largely the same (ignoring things like KC eles or SH necros). This is ideally what support roles should feel like.

 

The solution lies in doing two things. 1) buffing the other supports 2) making classes/specializations situational.

 

You can already see some of 2) in that a firebrand + revenant are marginally better than a druid + chrono on bosses where there is very little movement and cc is not required. However, revenant + firebrand should be better than they currently are on these types of bosses - they should completely outclass druid + chrono where cc and movement are not an issue. Alacrity as a boon means that revenant needs a lot of boon duration which kills its damage - add a concentration trait to revenant.

 

Tempest doesn't give out quickness or alacrity so it is only ever going to complement chronomancer and hence it really only has druid as its competition (honorable mentions are firebrand and scourge but those fulfill other roles). Tempest needs something on its aura's. They simply are not meaningful in PvE for the most part. Give them stats based on healing power (to prevent stacking dps tempests). Swap Powerful Aura (gives auras to allies and auras are upgraded) in water with Elemental Bastion in the tempest traitline. Swap Harmonius Conduit with Imbued Melodies (too much competition between the traits and you would never never take it over the alternative - warhorn should find some use as well). Harmonius Conduit and Hardy Conduit both grant their boons (protection and stability) to allies in range of the overloads. Speedy Conduit is quite useless - it should be changed/removed. There should be other minor tweaks and changes to traits and weapon skills as well, especially towards making warhorn more of a support weapon.

 

Chronomancer currently does way too much damage for the support it brings. Dps should be reduced to ~10k while maintaining 100% quickness + alacrity. This would allow other support specializations to possibly enter the meta. Blurred frenzy has to change or no other class (without another expansion) is going to be able to tank. Mesmer has recently been reworked and hasn't seen a balance pass over that rework yet so it is difficult to comment on changes that should be made (strictly in the context of PvE support).

 

 

[Talindra.4958]

More changes .. more ppl quit the game. It's good as it is. Last time when they listen to Nike remove grace of land.. few of my war friends quit raid.. buff players or boss .. don't nerf ..

[musu.9205]

> @"Enigmoid.1264" said:

> > @"Azoqu.8917" said:

> > > @"Mister Asdasd.6194" said:

> > > Or maybe they could give other classes unique buffs on par with Druid and Chronomancer instead of nerfing popular classes to make less popular one more appealing. Also you seem very salty in your post, if you want to play heal renegade or whatever make a static group

> >

> > Because the solution to the problem is going from 4 locked spots to 10 locked spots.

>

> The issue of everyone being locked to 'meta comp' is a bit of a fallacy. The issue with the druid + chrono dominance is that the duo simply doesn't have any (very few) weak spots and simply functions as an 'all-in-wonder' pair across (virtually) every situation. Might? Check. Quickness? Check. Alacrity? Check. Crowd Control? Check. Reasonable range and easy to upkeep boons? Check. Ancillary boons like protection and vigor? Check.

>

> The loss of boons + utility that a group would incur from bringing any other supports is tremendous and completely out of line.

>

> The issue is also not the fact that there will always be some meta comp that is better than anything else but that unique compositions are close enough in terms of effectiveness that it really doesn't matter what you bring. The 'meta comp' may be the best but it should only be very marginally better than its alternatives. Raid lfg looks pretty much for chrono, druid, and dps. Groups really don't care too much about dps because the effectiveness across dps builds are largely the same (ignoring things like KC eles or SH necros). This is ideally what support roles should feel like.

>

> The solution lies in doing two things. 1) buffing the other supports 2) making classes/specializations situational.

>

> You can already see some of 2) in that a firebrand + revenant are marginally better than a druid + chrono on bosses where there is very little movement and cc is not required. However, revenant + firebrand should be better than they currently are on these types of bosses - they should completely outclass druid + chrono where cc and movement are not an issue. Alacrity as a boon means that revenant needs a lot of boon duration which kills its damage - add a concentration trait to revenant.

>

> Tempest doesn't give out quickness or alacrity so it is only ever going to complement chronomancer and hence it really only has druid as its competition (honorable mentions are firebrand and scourge but those fulfill other roles). Tempest needs something on its aura's. They simply are not meaningful in PvE for the most part. Give them stats based on healing power (to prevent stacking dps tempests). Swap Powerful Aura (gives auras to allies and auras are upgraded) in water with Elemental Bastion in the tempest traitline. Swap Harmonius Conduit with Imbued Melodies (too much competition between the traits and you would never never take it over the alternative - warhorn should find some use as well). Harmonius Conduit and Hardy Conduit both grant their boons (protection and stability) to allies in range of the overloads. Speedy Conduit is quite useless - it should be changed/removed. There should be other minor tweaks and changes to traits and weapon skills as well, especially towards making warhorn more of a support weapon.

>

> Chronomancer currently does way too much damage for the support it brings. Dps should be reduced to ~10k while maintaining 100% quickness + alacrity. This would allow other support specializations to possibly enter the meta. Blurred frenzy has to change or no other class (without another expansion) is going to be able to tank. Mesmer has recently been reworked and hasn't seen a balance pass over that rework yet so it is difficult to comment on changes that should be made (strictly in the context of PvE support).

>

>

 

”The 'meta comp' may be the best but it should only be very marginally better than its alternatives. “

, “revenant + firebrand should be better than they currently are on these types of bosses - they should completely outclass druid + chrono where cc and movement are not an issue”

 

so chrono +druid should only be marginally better for bosses requires movement , but firebrand +rev should completely outclass druid + chrono when little movement is required . sounds logical .

 

and again , LGF pug never really represent real meta . they usually run 2 druids .in that case , firebrand +rev as second sub will always do more total dps than chrono + druid / and btw they have no cc issue if you run healer rev . by a lot of boon duration , you meant sigil of concentration , that's really a lot, same for firebrand .

and you do realize especially after last patch , taking feedback etc will hurt chrono alacrity uptime more now .and firebrand has all boon build in not just copy .

 

btw your solution is worst of all , you just make raid pug even more locked into meta , but different ones currently , people won't mind rev ,ele as second healer , but follow your suggestion , people will look for specific class for certain boss on top of the classes that give all dmg buff . just look at SH LFG , nothing can compete with necro epi there , and meta is duo necro epi bouncing .it's fun for some classes shine under certain condition , but don't force that into every class , every raid bosses , otherwise the game will feel much more gimmick than it is ,we are playing an action rpg not a puzzle game where you find what's your best situational comp

 

[musu.9205]

the issue is the druid spirit not chrono , as long as you have to bring at least one druid / soulbeast ,the healer is locked . and more people will play druid , because it's safe bet not because its best , otherwise they will play condi druid or power druid .

people really like to talk about how much chrono + druid bring , but rarely any of them even ever read about what firebrand + rev can do .and hardcore guild mostly aim for faster kill .

every time i played rev healer on sloth , people asked how could you stunbreak . that's how much people know .

 

banner , spirit and buff like EA need a total rework , also many support trait line . the game wasn't built with raid in mind . without proper rework , any buff /nerf will do more harm in a long run also limited future elite design .

[Enigmoid.1264]

> @"musu.9205" said:

> > @"Enigmoid.1264" said:

> > > @"Azoqu.8917" said:

> > > > @"Mister Asdasd.6194" said:

> > > > Or maybe they could give other classes unique buffs on par with Druid and Chronomancer instead of nerfing popular classes to make less popular one more appealing. Also you seem very salty in your post, if you want to play heal renegade or whatever make a static group

> > >

> > > Because the solution to the problem is going from 4 locked spots to 10 locked spots.

> >

> > The issue of everyone being locked to 'meta comp' is a bit of a fallacy. The issue with the druid + chrono dominance is that the duo simply doesn't have any (very few) weak spots and simply functions as an 'all-in-wonder' pair across (virtually) every situation. Might? Check. Quickness? Check. Alacrity? Check. Crowd Control? Check. Reasonable range and easy to upkeep boons? Check. Ancillary boons like protection and vigor? Check.

> >

> > The loss of boons + utility that a group would incur from bringing any other supports is tremendous and completely out of line.

> >

> > The issue is also not the fact that there will always be some meta comp that is better than anything else but that unique compositions are close enough in terms of effectiveness that it really doesn't matter what you bring. The 'meta comp' may be the best but it should only be very marginally better than its alternatives. Raid lfg looks pretty much for chrono, druid, and dps. Groups really don't care too much about dps because the effectiveness across dps builds are largely the same (ignoring things like KC eles or SH necros). This is ideally what support roles should feel like.

> >

> > The solution lies in doing two things. 1) buffing the other supports 2) making classes/specializations situational.

> >

> > You can already see some of 2) in that a firebrand + revenant are marginally better than a druid + chrono on bosses where there is very little movement and cc is not required. However, revenant + firebrand should be better than they currently are on these types of bosses - they should completely outclass druid + chrono where cc and movement are not an issue. Alacrity as a boon means that revenant needs a lot of boon duration which kills its damage - add a concentration trait to revenant.

> >

> > Tempest doesn't give out quickness or alacrity so it is only ever going to complement chronomancer and hence it really only has druid as its competition (honorable mentions are firebrand and scourge but those fulfill other roles). Tempest needs something on its aura's. They simply are not meaningful in PvE for the most part. Give them stats based on healing power (to prevent stacking dps tempests). Swap Powerful Aura (gives auras to allies and auras are upgraded) in water with Elemental Bastion in the tempest traitline. Swap Harmonius Conduit with Imbued Melodies (too much competition between the traits and you would never never take it over the alternative - warhorn should find some use as well). Harmonius Conduit and Hardy Conduit both grant their boons (protection and stability) to allies in range of the overloads. Speedy Conduit is quite useless - it should be changed/removed. There should be other minor tweaks and changes to traits and weapon skills as well, especially towards making warhorn more of a support weapon.

> >

> > Chronomancer currently does way too much damage for the support it brings. Dps should be reduced to ~10k while maintaining 100% quickness + alacrity. This would allow other support specializations to possibly enter the meta. Blurred frenzy has to change or no other class (without another expansion) is going to be able to tank. Mesmer has recently been reworked and hasn't seen a balance pass over that rework yet so it is difficult to comment on changes that should be made (strictly in the context of PvE support).

> >

> >

>

> ”The 'meta comp' may be the best but it should only be very marginally better than its alternatives. “

> , “revenant + firebrand should be better than they currently are on these types of bosses - they should completely outclass druid + chrono where cc and movement are not an issue”

>

> so chrono +druid should only be marginally better for bosses requires movement , but firebrand +rev should completely outclass druid + chrono when little movement is required . sounds logical .

>

> and again , LGF pug never really represent real meta . they usually run 2 druids .in that case , firebrand +rev as second sub will always do more total dps than chrono + druid / and btw they have no cc issue if you run healer rev . by a lot of boon duration , you meant sigil of concentration , that's really a lot, same for firebrand .

> and you do realize especially after last patch , taking feedback etc will hurt chrono alacrity uptime more now .and firebrand has all boon build in not just copy .

>

> btw your solution is worst of all , you just make raid pug even more locked into meta , but different ones currently , people won't mind rev ,ele as second healer , but follow your suggestion , people will look for specific class for certain boss on top of the classes that give all dmg buff . just look at SH LFG , nothing can compete with necro epi there , and meta is duo necro epi bouncing .it's fun for some classes shine under certain condition , but don't force that into every class , every raid bosses , otherwise the game will feel much more gimmick than it is ,we are playing an action rpg not a puzzle game where you find what's your best situational comp

>

 

I'm having trouble understanding your formatting. What I am saying is that nobody should be an all in one. You can be consistent, you can be game changingly strong but no build should be both.

Firebrand is terribly bad if people don't stack up - so it should be slightly better if people do stack up.

 

Not sure if what I am saying is clear. Builds should be situational. Builds should only be marginally more effective than other alternative builds.

 

"people will look for specific class for certain boss on top of the classes that give all dmg buff"

This is already done - what do you think druid and chrono are? Its just that it is always the same classes.

 

Rev/Tempest not being minded as the second healer is not a solution to the problem of druid always being the primary healer in every single encounter.

[Rhatha.2376]

I could see a bit of love to FB/Rev to the point where it's an alternative to two chronos. As I understand it, it's not far off, or maybe they even are already. The problem is that people are so used to the druid/chrono meta, have them geared, are used to how to position to get in wells, how to form groups around them, etc., that chrono/druid would need to be made not just worse, but significantly worse then the alternative to get people to switch in a timely manner.. then you have the same problem in reverse, but you also just angered most of your current support players.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

I want all skills and traits open for all classes

[CptAurellian.9537]

> @"Rhatha.2376" said:

> I could see a bit of love to FB/Rev to the point where it's an alternative to two chronos. As I understand it, it's not far off, or maybe they even are already. The problem is that people are so used to the druid/chrono meta, have them geared, are used to how to position to get in wells, how to form groups around them, etc., that chrono/druid would need to be made not just worse, but significantly worse then the alternative to get people to switch in a timely manner.. then you have the same problem in reverse, but you also just angered most of your current support players.

 

FB/renegade needs more than a bit of love to become competitive outside of niche cases. That combo is more clunky than chrono/druid (especially with regard to rev healing and FB quickness application, both of which have awfully small range), brings less buffs, has less CC and does not even have a big damage advantage due to the lack of proper hybrid stat sets. We tested it for one W1-4 clear and when I looked at the logs afterwards, it was just depressing.