Epidemic in raids needs to be nerfed

[apharma.3741]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > > @"mtpelion.4562" said:

> > > You can have my Epidemic right after the rest of the DPS builds get nerfed down to Necro DPS levels.

> >

> > Would be fine to me, I always thought DPS is too high across the board. Nerfing everything by 50% would be perfect since DPS makes encounters easier since mechanics happen less often or not at all.

>

> Hmm? Do you realize what does that mean in the context of Dhuum for instance?

 

I’m no fan of the guy but he does have a point. Damage has reached a level where most old content has become trivial, dungeons require little thought other than dps hard and fast and you can ignore mechanics. I remember seeing somewhere that pre HoT you’d be considered a top level player for getting close to 20k dps over a fight, now the infamous sbsbsb pretty much auto attacking will do this.

 

We are at a point where ANet has to choose, the path of power creep which is the one they are on or the path of reducing everything down a notch. Imo 30k is an acceptable upper limit for dps which should be reserved for either specialised comps (requiring multiple of certain classes like 5 scourges for epi bouncing) or for complete glass cannon dps which literally use damage skills in every utility, weapon, heal and elite slot with next to 0 support.

 

Edit: Someone will say it, yes this would mean adjusting some raid boss health numbers or enrage timers but this shouldn’t be a huge change needed.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"apharma.3741" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > > > @"mtpelion.4562" said:

> > > > You can have my Epidemic right after the rest of the DPS builds get nerfed down to Necro DPS levels.

> > >

> > > Would be fine to me, I always thought DPS is too high across the board. Nerfing everything by 50% would be perfect since DPS makes encounters easier since mechanics happen less often or not at all.

> >

> > Hmm? Do you realize what does that mean in the context of Dhuum for instance?

>

> I’m no fan of the guy but he does have a point. Damage has reached a level where most old content has become trivial, dungeons require little thought other than dps hard and fast and you can ignore mechanics. I remember seeing somewhere that pre HoT you’d be considered a top level player for getting close to 20k dps over a fight, now the infamous sbsbsb pretty much auto attacking will do this.

>

> We are at a point where ANet has to choose, the path of power creep which is the one they are on or the path of reducing everything down a notch. Imo 30k is an acceptable upper limit for dps which should be reserved for either specialised comps (requiring multiple of certain classes like 5 scourges for epi bouncing) or for complete glass cannon dps which literally use damage skills in every utility, weapon, heal and elite slot with next to 0 support.

>

> Edit: Someone will say it, yes this would mean adjusting some raid boss health numbers or enrage timers but this shouldn’t be a huge change needed.

 

So why do it, if you're going to keep the same relative power level? See Diablo 3. It doesn't make a difference if you're doing 30k a hit or 30 billion. It's just a number. All that matters is how much that is relative to the hp bars.

 

I think we probably *will* see dps dropped down a notch. Before the next expansion. Just like we saw it drop before PoF. And then the new elite specs will bring it back to pretty much the same levels, after being overtuned for a while. Again, just like in PoF.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"apharma.3741" said:

> > > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > > > > @"mtpelion.4562" said:

> > > > > You can have my Epidemic right after the rest of the DPS builds get nerfed down to Necro DPS levels.

> > > >

> > > > Would be fine to me, I always thought DPS is too high across the board. Nerfing everything by 50% would be perfect since DPS makes encounters easier since mechanics happen less often or not at all.

> > >

> > > Hmm? Do you realize what does that mean in the context of Dhuum for instance?

> >

> > I’m no fan of the guy but he does have a point. Damage has reached a level where most old content has become trivial, dungeons require little thought other than dps hard and fast and you can ignore mechanics. I remember seeing somewhere that pre HoT you’d be considered a top level player for getting close to 20k dps over a fight, now the infamous sbsbsb pretty much auto attacking will do this.

> >

> > We are at a point where ANet has to choose, the path of power creep which is the one they are on or the path of reducing everything down a notch. Imo 30k is an acceptable upper limit for dps which should be reserved for either specialised comps (requiring multiple of certain classes like 5 scourges for epi bouncing) or for complete glass cannon dps which literally use damage skills in every utility, weapon, heal and elite slot with next to 0 support.

> >

> > Edit: Someone will say it, yes this would mean adjusting some raid boss health numbers or enrage timers but this shouldn’t be a huge change needed.

>

> So why do it, if you're going to keep the same relative power level? See Diablo 3. It doesn't make a difference if you're doing 30k a hit or 30 billion. It's just a number. All that matters is how much that is relative to the hp bars.

>

> I think we probably *will* see dps dropped down a notch. Before the next expansion. Just like we saw it drop before PoF. And then the new elite specs will bring it back to pretty much the same levels, after being overtuned for a while. Again, just like in PoF.

 

It’s easier to reduce the power of players than to have to change the health of every single NPC across the game. Even with your stats scaling down in lower areas a 50% damage increase is noticeable. Then there’s the PvP/WvW side of things where we then have to see bizarre and frankly bonkers balance splits where skills have to do 100% more damage in PvE to keep up or even worse have to have cool down differences of up to 50%.

 

GW2 needs new players to keep going and having such large differences between each game mode is off putting to new players where a skill ends up being very different in power rather than being subtly different.

[Feanor.2358]

NPCs don't matter though. It's not like you can (or should) make open world "challenging". It's intended for the casual players and tuned for them. In any reasonably interesting combat system this means a powerplayer with an optimized build *will* be able to shred anything. It's not an issue - said powerplayers have raids to put their optimized builds to good use. And further, slowing down considerably the pace at which you progress through the content is not something you actually want. It just feels worse. Sluggish. It feels you're doing something wrong, especially for powerplayers. It's not a good idea. Try doing some world exploration without mounts and without Swiftness. You'll see what I'm talking about.

 

As for the pvp side. This game is, and have always been, pve-centric. It's a bad idea to balance a pve game around its pvp. Nowadays you have to make a choice. Do you want to have a great pve? Or do you want to have a great pvp? Unfortunately you can't really have both, as they impose rather contradicting requirements on your combat system.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> NPCs don't matter though. It's not like you can (or should) make open world "challenging". It's intended for the casual players and tuned for them. In any reasonably interesting combat system this means a powerplayer with an optimized build *will* be able to shred anything. It's not an issue - said powerplayers have raids to put their optimized builds to good use. And further, slowing down considerably the pace at which you progress through the content is not something you actually want. It just feels worse. Sluggish. It feels you're doing something wrong, especially for powerplayers. It's not a good idea. Try doing some world exploration without mounts and without Swiftness. You'll see what I'm talking about.

>

> As for the pvp side. This game is, and have always been, pve-centric. It's a bad idea to balance a pve game around its pvp. Nowadays you have to make a choice. Do you want to have a great pve? Or do you want to have a great pvp? Unfortunately you can't really have both, as they impose rather contradicting requirements on your combat system.

 

Dungeons, raids and fractals all contain enough NPCs that it’s better to rebalance the amount of damage players do vs constant rebalancing of NPCs and this is assuming we make block changes to NPC groups not having to alter specific mini bosses, bosses and elites separately.

 

You said it yourself, “It doesn't make a difference if you're doing 30k a hit or 30 billion. It's just a number. All that matters is how much that is relative to the hp bars.”

 

The more we creep the easier older content becomes and the lower the life expectancy it has. I mean we’ve reached the sub 2 minute mark on VG for a record, this alone should be a wake up call to stop the power creep or else all older raids will stop being a challenge to people who can find their backside with 1 hand.

 

There’s no reason why you can’t have good PvE and PvP, the game used to have it and the further power creep goes the more the disparity will show making the choice more compulsory.

[Feanor.2358]

Dungeons are abandoned. It doesn't matter if you can solo all their bosses together. Because they're abandoned.

Trash in fractals and raids is irrelevant, and very often skipped. It's not the focus of this content, and it shouldn't be. Because fighting trash is dull and boring, especially when compared to fighting an actual boss with actual mechanics. Which both fractals and raids feature.

 

I'm opposing the idea of significantly lowered damage output not because of lower numbers, but because lowering damage without lowering the hp of mobs across the game will slow down the pace across the game, and I don't like that.

 

Finally, you can have decent pve and pvp. But not great. I'd say this game has great pve. And there's no point losing it for a marginal improvement in pvp, which was never its focus.

[Belorn.2659]

> @"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:

> > @"steki.1478" said:

> > > @"Agrippa Oculus.3726" said:

> > > > @"Ceit.7619" said:

> > > > One thing that I keep seeing come up and find hilarious is ele's complaining about complicated rotations. You guys need a perspective switch. You guys have SO MANY AWESOME DAMAGE SKILLS that you need to do a lot just so you can hit them all and are complaining about a class that has ONE AWESOME DAMAGE SKILL that for 4 fights, is higher dps than ele, but not as much higher as ele is compared to necro everywhere else. Are you guys being serious right now?

> > >

> > > This (don't get me wrong, still want Epi to be nerfed, though ... in combination with huge buffs to anything else Necro related), but what strikes me the most is that most of these Ele mains talk about other classes while they clearly have never (properly) played them before. And I understand as well, you don't _have_ to "read" into other classes, cause you're already needed everywhere anyway! Have you ever heard of a Raid PUG saying: we don't want Ele's cause they have "complex rotations"???

> > > Most Necro mains on the other hand, they _have_ tried other classes, mainly because they're simply not wanted in the PvE endgame as a Necro.

> > >

> > > To some Ele fanatics out there: it's really easy to spit down from your Ivory tower, show some empathy please! Don't worry, ANet will not nerf your awesome Top 1 damage, they've NEVER done it before, so why would they start now. But a little bit more leniency to the other classes is appreciated. Thanks.

> >

> > Exactly one year ago (and a bit more), staff tempest was only useful on big hitboxes.

> And what are most Raid bosses? Exactly: big Hitboxes (bigger than small, at least). So they were still number 1 .... As always! Never really changed, except for maybe a few weeks, but it was obviously a bug then (Scourge after PoF release being an example at that).

 

No. Most raid bosses are medium to small. When ele was considered viable on only large hit boxes this translated to exactly three raid bosses: Gor, Sloth, KC. Even with wing 4's bosses of sam and deimos, condi ranger were at that time #1.

 

Then the nerfs came, ironically in order to decrease the dps of large hit boxes, and when pof was released this resulted in weaver having acceptable dps choice for medium targets if-and-only-if they stand still. Condi ranger also get heavily nerfed, and got mostly replaced by HS for the medium/small targets.

 

Which is where we are now. Large hit box and weaver has the crown. Medium immobile targets and weaver and HS share. Small target and HS has the crown. If medium or small and movement then mirage is the superior choice and weaver end up last. Scourge just managed to beat into this ordering because given the perfect environment epidemic is the single highest DPS skill by far.

 

There is a few specific exceptions. SB is good for Cannons on sab, backwarg on escort, and sam CM. DH can do river of souls. Thieves can open the door in wing 4. Nerfing epi won't change this.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> Dungeons are abandoned. It doesn't matter if you can solo all their bosses together. Because they're abandoned.

> Trash in fractals and raids is irrelevant, and very often skipped. It's not the focus of this content, and it shouldn't be. Because fighting trash is dull and boring, especially when compared to fighting an actual boss with actual mechanics. Which both fractals and raids feature.

>

> I'm opposing the idea of significantly lowered damage output not because of lower numbers, but because lowering damage without lowering the hp of mobs across the game will slow down the pace across the game, and I don't like that.

>

> Finally, you can have decent pve and pvp. But not great. I'd say this game has great pve. And there's no point losing it for a marginal improvement in pvp, which was never its focus.

 

Yes you would need to lower boss health proportionally for some areas but the areas needing changes would be low, it would be wings 3-5 bosses that might need a shave and possibly some of the newer fractal bosses/redesigned bosses and that’s it.

 

The advantages however give a preservation of older content difficulty (older raids, LW, open world and dungeons) and make skill splitting much less harsh so we wouldn’t be seeing these silly 100% damage splits or 50% differences in cool downs. In such an environment epi would probably need toning down to 15 stacks of conditions though in context of the OP.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"apharma.3741" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > Dungeons are abandoned. It doesn't matter if you can solo all their bosses together. Because they're abandoned.

> > Trash in fractals and raids is irrelevant, and very often skipped. It's not the focus of this content, and it shouldn't be. Because fighting trash is dull and boring, especially when compared to fighting an actual boss with actual mechanics. Which both fractals and raids feature.

> >

> > I'm opposing the idea of significantly lowered damage output not because of lower numbers, but because lowering damage without lowering the hp of mobs across the game will slow down the pace across the game, and I don't like that.

> >

> > Finally, you can have decent pve and pvp. But not great. I'd say this game has great pve. And there's no point losing it for a marginal improvement in pvp, which was never its focus.

>

> Yes you would need to lower boss health proportionally for some areas but the areas needing changes would be low, it would be wings 3-5 bosses that might need a shave and possibly some of the newer fractal bosses/redesigned bosses and that’s it.

>

> The advantages however give a preservation of older content difficulty (older raids, LW, open world and dungeons) and make skill splitting much less harsh so we wouldn’t be seeing these silly 100% damage splits or 50% differences in cool downs. In such an environment epi would probably need toning down to 15 stacks of conditions though in context of the OP.

 

I'm not talking about the bosses. *Boss* health numbers can be tweaked for balance reasons. What you're proposing is in effect scaling up the hp of all the trash, everywhere. This serves no purpose. Trash will not make for more interesting fights just because they take more time to kill. It will make for more annoying fights. For that same reason.

 

The difficulty of the older raids are fine. We played them with pretty much the same damage outputs. In some cases, with higher. Remember Fresh Air staff tempest at its highest? The apparent decline in difficulty there is largely due to players getting more experienced and tactics getting refined over time.

 

Difficulty in LW and open world is irrelevant. They're cakewalk *by design*.

 

Difficulty in dungeons is irrelevant. Because they are *abandoned*.

 

So you're proposing balance changes that will hinder each and every player out there, making their overall gameplay experience feel noticeably worse, to "preserve" a bunch of inconsequential stuff. Can you see the problem in this?

[Raizel.8175]

> @"apharma.3741" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > @"Malediktus.9250" said:

> > > > @"mtpelion.4562" said:

> > > > You can have my Epidemic right after the rest of the DPS builds get nerfed down to Necro DPS levels.

> > >

> > > Would be fine to me, I always thought DPS is too high across the board. Nerfing everything by 50% would be perfect since DPS makes encounters easier since mechanics happen less often or not at all.

> >

> > Hmm? Do you realize what does that mean in the context of Dhuum for instance?

>

> I’m no fan of the guy but he does have a point. Damage has reached a level where most old content has become trivial, dungeons require little thought other than dps hard and fast and you can ignore mechanics. I remember seeing somewhere that pre HoT you’d be considered a top level player for getting close to 20k dps over a fight, now the infamous sbsbsb pretty much auto attacking will do this.

>

> We are at a point where ANet has to choose, the path of power creep which is the one they are on or the path of reducing everything down a notch. Imo 30k is an acceptable upper limit for dps which should be reserved for either specialised comps (requiring multiple of certain classes like 5 scourges for epi bouncing) or for complete glass cannon dps which literally use damage skills in every utility, weapon, heal and elite slot with next to 0 support.

>

> Edit: Someone will say it, yes this would mean adjusting some raid boss health numbers or enrage timers but this shouldn’t be a huge change needed.

 

That would be pure cancer as it would decrease diversity in dps-options considerably. I very much like that raid-bosses in GW2 are all about mechanics (even if you can cheese some) and not about some hard dps-checks. ANet is well advised to keep it that way with the miserable class-balance the game offers. There are more important problems anyway. The first one being the need to completely overhaul chrono and druid.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > @"apharma.3741" said:

> > > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > Dungeons are abandoned. It doesn't matter if you can solo all their bosses together. Because they're abandoned.

> > > Trash in fractals and raids is irrelevant, and very often skipped. It's not the focus of this content, and it shouldn't be. Because fighting trash is dull and boring, especially when compared to fighting an actual boss with actual mechanics. Which both fractals and raids feature.

> > >

> > > I'm opposing the idea of significantly lowered damage output not because of lower numbers, but because lowering damage without lowering the hp of mobs across the game will slow down the pace across the game, and I don't like that.

> > >

> > > Finally, you can have decent pve and pvp. But not great. I'd say this game has great pve. And there's no point losing it for a marginal improvement in pvp, which was never its focus.

> >

> > Yes you would need to lower boss health proportionally for some areas but the areas needing changes would be low, it would be wings 3-5 bosses that might need a shave and possibly some of the newer fractal bosses/redesigned bosses and that’s it.

> >

> > The advantages however give a preservation of older content difficulty (older raids, LW, open world and dungeons) and make skill splitting much less harsh so we wouldn’t be seeing these silly 100% damage splits or 50% differences in cool downs. In such an environment epi would probably need toning down to 15 stacks of conditions though in context of the OP.

>

> I'm not talking about the bosses. *Boss* health numbers can be tweaked for balance reasons. What you're proposing is in effect scaling up the hp of all the trash, everywhere. This serves no purpose. Trash will not make for more interesting fights just because they take more time to kill. It will make for more annoying fights. For that same reason.

>

> The difficulty of the older raids are fine. We played them with pretty much the same damage outputs. In some cases, with higher. Remember Fresh Air staff tempest at its highest? The apparent decline in difficulty there is largely due to players getting more experienced and tactics getting refined over time.

>

> Difficulty in LW and open world is irrelevant. They're cakewalk *by design*.

>

> Difficulty in dungeons is irrelevant. Because they are *abandoned*.

>

> So you're proposing balance changes that will hinder each and every player out there, making their overall gameplay experience feel noticeably worse, to "preserve" a bunch of inconsequential stuff. Can you see the problem in this?

 

You’re hanging your argument now on trash mobs? Really? The mobs that everyone skips and doesn’t fight unless they have to, which die in 2s anyway and where a 20% damage reduction to players would make no discernible difference to kill time?

 

https://qtfy.eu/guildwars/benchmarks-may-balance-patch/

https://snowcrows.com/benchmarks/

 

We aren’t clearing them faster just because of refined tactics, we are clearing them faster because of power creep too, it’s not just the damage, it’s the role compression too where a Druid now might stacks, heals, buffs, everything, even in the multiscourge run they run the minimum support needed, 2 chrono, 1 Druid and a warrior for buffs where as at start of raids you would have an extra warrior or druid lowering damage slightly for their buffs.

 

The benefits aren’t just preserving some semblance of challenge for old content, it also allows for us to have a more subtle and less bonkers PvE/PvP/WvW split where skills don’t have to be on wildly different cool downs and damage amounts like we are seeing now.

[Feanor.2358]

Role compression is another thing. We're simply taking more dps characters into the party, because we can. Lowering the damage numbers can address this, but it's a really crappy way of doing it. See, raids aren't all there is to this game. Yes, we tear through trash anyway. But your average open-world player doesn't. Your proposal would worsen the gameplay experience of many non-raiders while not really make any difference for the raiders. It's a poor trade-off.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> Role compression is another thing. We're simply taking more dps characters into the party, because we can. Lowering the damage numbers can address this, but it's a really crappy way of doing it. See, raids aren't all there is to this game. Yes, we tear through trash anyway. But your average open-world player doesn't. Your proposal would worsen the gameplay experience of many non-raiders while not really make any difference for the raiders. It's a poor trade-off.

 

Bad players will always be bad they won’t notice a 20% damage reduction because they go from 2k auto attacks to 1.6k if just looking at it as a flat damage reduction. Realistically speaking balancing classes to have a 20% dps reduction would actually target higher damage skills and traits so that open world person playing power traits and carrion/apothecary/celestial mix gear is not seeing a noticeable lowering of damage.

 

I already showed you the benchmarks from just over a year ago, most classes were hovering around the 30k mark, now most classes are 33-37k. It is clear it’s not just role compression and taking an extra dps. I’m not sure if we can find pre HoT dps estimates, I’ll have a look maybe DEKeyZ still has some kicking around on her YouTube.

[Feanor.2358]

You can't disregard the casual players on the behalf of "they're bad anyway". Be that as it may, they outnumber the hardcore playerbase and their gameplay experience has to be taken into account when making balance decisions.

 

And by the way, the hardcore crowd is very often obsessed with powercreep for no good reason. So what if there's some powercreep? It only increases the pace of the game slightly. It gives the feeling of becoming more powerful, which is positive and appreciated by the players. Bringing that back, *especially* in a drastic way like you propose, would feel exactly the opposite - terrible. No developer wants to make their players feel that bad.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Feanor.2358" said:

> You can't disregard the casual players on the behalf of "they're bad anyway". Be that as it may, they outnumber the hardcore playerbase and their gameplay experience has to be taken into account when making balance decisions.

>

> And by the way, the hardcore crowd is very often obsessed with powercreep for no good reason. So what if there's some powercreep? It only increases the pace of the game slightly. It gives the feeling of becoming more powerful, which is positive and appreciated by the players. Bringing that back, *especially* in a drastic way like you propose, would feel exactly the opposite - terrible. No developer wants to make their players feel that bad.

 

I think you missed my subtle point. Most of these bad open world players you’re now using as a defence for the ridiculous power creep we have are **running around auto attacking** they literally use the most bizarre inconsistent gear, traits and skills but likewise don’t actually use their skills either. They won’t see a significant change to their damage because it’s so low the difference will be about 200 damage. The difference this will make is an auto attack or two.

 

Yet when ANet announced lateral progression and not power creep they were overwhelmingly applauded for this, when they delivered the power creep of HoT many players left and complained. This has most definitely played a part in why PvP and WvW have done nothing but decline ever since HoT. You can see this by the declining leaderboard ratings, the way servers are being merged and now scrapped entirely.

 

We do too much damage and we can clearly see the strain this is putting on the balance team where the high damage of PvE is increasingly having to be balanced against the low health pools of players in PvP/WvW.

 

Once again you said it yourself, “It doesn't make a difference if you're doing 30k a hit or 30 billion. It's just a number. All that matters is how much that is relative to the hp bars.”

 

Edit: Here’s another benchmark set from mid 2016, discarding the large hit box numbers most classes are 25-30k for realistic buffs.

[Raizel.8175]

You're too short-sighted about this, @"apharma.3741" .

 

The casual players you are talking about make up a big part of the player-base. They have to be taken into account. Would the reversal of the power-creep make the game better? No. We already have a lack of diversity when it comes to support-classes. Reducing or reverting the power-creep would lead to a lack of diversity in dps-specs (you know the pseudo-elitist-community of this game, I hope?). Do you want to return to the times where some classes were simply denied access to dungeons? Do we really want to return to that. Sure, power creep has negative impacts on PvP and WvW, but it is necessary in PvE.

 

[Feanor.2358]

> @"apharma.3741" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > You can't disregard the casual players on the behalf of "they're bad anyway". Be that as it may, they outnumber the hardcore playerbase and their gameplay experience has to be taken into account when making balance decisions.

> >

> > And by the way, the hardcore crowd is very often obsessed with powercreep for no good reason. So what if there's some powercreep? It only increases the pace of the game slightly. It gives the feeling of becoming more powerful, which is positive and appreciated by the players. Bringing that back, *especially* in a drastic way like you propose, would feel exactly the opposite - terrible. No developer wants to make their players feel that bad.

>

> I think you missed my subtle point. Most of these bad open world players you’re now using as a defence for the ridiculous power creep we have are **running around auto attacking** they literally use the most bizarre inconsistent gear, traits and skills but likewise don’t actually use their skills either. They won’t see a significant change to their damage because it’s so low the difference will be about 200 damage. The difference this will make is an auto attack or two.

 

That's still 1-2 attacks more *on every mob they encounter*. It adds up.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Raizel.8175" said:

> You're too short-sighted about this, @"apharma.3741" .

>

> The casual players you are talking about make up a big part of the player-base. They have to be taken into account. Would the reversal of the power-creep make the game better? No. We already have a lack of diversity when it comes to support-classes. Reducing or reverting the power-creep would lead to a lack of diversity in dps-specs (you know the pseudo-elitist-community of this game, I hope?). Do you want to return to the times where some classes were simply denied access to dungeons? Do we really want to return to that. Sure, power creep has negative impacts on PvP and WvW, but it is necessary in PvE.

>

 

This is assuming we go back in a literal way to pre hot balance level where classes weren’t very balanced at all. There is no reason why the current closeness of dps rankings (which are more balanced relative to each other) cannot be toned down while preserving the relative strength of the builds to each other. That’s without mentioning how it makes other non meta almost non viable builds more viable. I’m not talking random casual player builds but things like power reaper, power rev etc which are so far behind their condition counterparts it’s a bad joke, really Teapot has been making a joke of it for a few weeks.

 

Raids are meant to be the most challenging content in the game. I may be short sighted in your opinion but you’re making the presumption that ANet literally reverses every change since HoT and if you think power creep will do anything but make raids easier you need an optician. Power creep always makes older content irrelevant which only serves to decrease the pool of challenges to players, what I’m saying is we need a conscious and long term effort on reducing the damage of players while reducing boss HP to match.

[Raizel.8175]

> @"apharma.3741" said:

> > @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > You're too short-sighted about this, @"apharma.3741" .

> >

> > The casual players you are talking about make up a big part of the player-base. They have to be taken into account. Would the reversal of the power-creep make the game better? No. We already have a lack of diversity when it comes to support-classes. Reducing or reverting the power-creep would lead to a lack of diversity in dps-specs (you know the pseudo-elitist-community of this game, I hope?). Do you want to return to the times where some classes were simply denied access to dungeons? Do we really want to return to that. Sure, power creep has negative impacts on PvP and WvW, but it is necessary in PvE.

> >

>

> This is assuming we go back in a literal way to pre hot balance level where classes weren’t very balanced at all. There is no reason why the current closeness of dps rankings (which are more balanced relative to each other) cannot be toned down while preserving the relative strength of the builds to each other. That’s without mentioning how it makes other non meta almost non viable builds more viable. I’m not talking random casual player builds but things like power reaper, power rev etc which are so far behind their condition counterparts it’s a bad joke, really Teapot has been making a joke of it for a few weeks.

>

> Raids are meant to be the most challenging content in the game. I may be short sighted in your opinion but you’re making the presumption that ANet literally reverses every change since HoT and if you think power creep will do anything but make raids easier you need an optician. Power creep always makes older content irrelevant which only serves to decrease the pool of challenges to players, what I’m saying is we need a conscious and long term effort on reducing the damage of players while reducing boss HP to match.

 

Fact is that the balancing is already crap. The biggest offender are support-specs, where people only want chronos and druids. The balancing in dps-potentials is also crap though (approx. 25% difference is crap, no matter how you argue), but due to the power-creep, nobody really cares because you still have enough dps that you don't have to be a class-nazi. If you lower the dps overall, people will want you to play only top dps specs just so they can continue to cheese mechanics and be over with content fast. Is that desirable? In my opinion, no, just nope. At least now, people can play the class they want when it comes to dps specs and that is good. It improves the gaming-experience. Or do you want to have a fixed setup of 2 chronos, 1 druid, maybe another healer or a second druid and then maybe 6 weavers? No, thank you. Instanced PvE is already too niche in GW2, no need to make it even more niche. ANet could very well stop developing instanced PvE in that case.

[apharma.3741]

> @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > @"apharma.3741" said:

> > > @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > > You're too short-sighted about this, @"apharma.3741" .

> > >

> > > The casual players you are talking about make up a big part of the player-base. They have to be taken into account. Would the reversal of the power-creep make the game better? No. We already have a lack of diversity when it comes to support-classes. Reducing or reverting the power-creep would lead to a lack of diversity in dps-specs (you know the pseudo-elitist-community of this game, I hope?). Do you want to return to the times where some classes were simply denied access to dungeons? Do we really want to return to that. Sure, power creep has negative impacts on PvP and WvW, but it is necessary in PvE.

> > >

> >

> > This is assuming we go back in a literal way to pre hot balance level where classes weren’t very balanced at all. There is no reason why the current closeness of dps rankings (which are more balanced relative to each other) cannot be toned down while preserving the relative strength of the builds to each other. That’s without mentioning how it makes other non meta almost non viable builds more viable. I’m not talking random casual player builds but things like power reaper, power rev etc which are so far behind their condition counterparts it’s a bad joke, really Teapot has been making a joke of it for a few weeks.

> >

> > Raids are meant to be the most challenging content in the game. I may be short sighted in your opinion but you’re making the presumption that ANet literally reverses every change since HoT and if you think power creep will do anything but make raids easier you need an optician. Power creep always makes older content irrelevant which only serves to decrease the pool of challenges to players, what I’m saying is we need a conscious and long term effort on reducing the damage of players while reducing boss HP to match.

>

> Fact is that the balancing is already crap. The biggest offender are support-specs, where people only want chronos and druids. The balancing in dps-potentials is also crap though (approx. 25% difference is crap, no matter how you argue), but due to the power-creep, nobody really cares because you still have enough dps that you don't have to be a class-kitten. If you lower the dps overall, people will want you to play only top dps specs just so they can continue to cheese mechanics and be over with content fast. Is that desirable? In my opinion, no, just nope. At least now, people can play the class they want when it comes to dps specs and that is good. It improves the gaming-experience. Or do you want to have a fixed setup of 2 chronos, 1 druid, maybe another healer or a second druid and then maybe 6 weavers? No, thank you. Instanced PvE is already too niche in GW2, no need to make it even more niche. ANet could very well stop developing instanced PvE in that case.

 

Again reread what has been put, reduce player damage and boss health. In relative terms even a 25% difference between the top and lower damage builds will make no difference in viability. You can run a full group of power reapers and still clear every single raid boss without worrying about enrage or hitting dps checks outside of maybe some Xera strats. If anything reducing player damage (obviously you mean top end builds) to 25-30k mark serves to increase viability as there’s a lot of builds that people will instantly kick half the time just because they’re so far behind there is really no reason to play.

 

https://twitch.tv/videos/256223688

 

Power reaper doing more damage than most pugs, if they had 5 reapers doing that damage every single encounter would be smooth.

 

I find it funny you complain about cheesing mechanics with weavers yet now (and what this thread is about) people are cheesing and completely bypassing mechanics with scourge and epi and the ridiculous power creep we’ve had over the last year and a half.

 

Also I made no comment on current raid comps and support specs, don’t start presuming I’m ok with chrono and Druid being alright to always be in every raid comp since the beginning when I have not said so.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

Weaver is fine, Necro in a tough spot carried into raids by one skill which isn't healthy for Necro, keep epi as it is or nerf it and give Necro something so elitist pugs don't kick them out sorted.. Thread over

[steki.1478]

> @"Mini Crinny.6190" said:

> Weaver is fine, Necro in a tough spot carried into raids by one skill which isn't healthy for Necro, keep epi as it is or nerf it and give Necro something so elitist pugs don't kick them out sorted.. Thread over

 

You do realise that people will get triggered only because you said weaver was fine, right? This thread moved away from epidemic a long time ago.

[Mini Crinny.6190]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> > @"Mini Crinny.6190" said:

> > Weaver is fine, Necro in a tough spot carried into raids by one skill which isn't healthy for Necro, keep epi as it is or nerf it and give Necro something so elitist pugs don't kick them out sorted.. Thread over

>

> You do realise that people will get triggered only because you said weaver was fine, right? This thread moved away from epidemic a long time ago.

 

its hard for people to understand that Weaver HAS to be doing amazing dps because it offers literally nothing else

[steki.1478]

> @"Mini Crinny.6190" said:

> > @"steki.1478" said:

> > > @"Mini Crinny.6190" said:

> > > Weaver is fine, Necro in a tough spot carried into raids by one skill which isn't healthy for Necro, keep epi as it is or nerf it and give Necro something so elitist pugs don't kick them out sorted.. Thread over

> >

> > You do realise that people will get triggered only because you said weaver was fine, right? This thread moved away from epidemic a long time ago.

>

> its hard for people to understand that Weaver HAS to be doing amazing dps because it offers literally nothing else

 

Ye, that argument was used plenty of times, but the fact that water attunement exists makes weavers "extraordinary supports, a class that can heal when no other dps class can, while still maintaining 70k dps bursts" or that "weavers only damage, while others have to revive downeds" and similar nonsense. Its not like weavers can just drop aoe heals or *hint hint* barriers every 20 seconds without swapping weapons or traits.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> > @"Mini Crinny.6190" said:

> > > @"steki.1478" said:

> > > > @"Mini Crinny.6190" said:

> > > > Weaver is fine, Necro in a tough spot carried into raids by one skill which isn't healthy for Necro, keep epi as it is or nerf it and give Necro something so elitist pugs don't kick them out sorted.. Thread over

> > >

> > > You do realise that people will get triggered only because you said weaver was fine, right? This thread moved away from epidemic a long time ago.

> >

> > its hard for people to understand that Weaver HAS to be doing amazing dps because it offers literally nothing else

>

> Ye, that argument was used plenty of times, but the fact that water attunement exists makes weavers "extraordinary supports, a class that can heal when no other dps class can, while still maintaining 70k dps bursts" or that "weavers only damage, while others have to revive downeds" and similar nonsense. Its not like weavers can just drop aoe heals or *hint hint* barriers every 20 seconds without swapping weapons or traits.

 

Bah. Healing in zerk gear would do much good, right? About as much as dpsing in full Magi. Not to mention that you say goodbye to your dps if you decide to roleplay a healer anyway. So - of course - nobody does that. So, it's just a dps build like any other, except more fragile, more susceptible to interrupts and more dependent on movement and positioning. Yeah, weaver actually *is* fine.