The State of PvE balance

[Kas.3509]

The problem I see with necro is it's insanely op in PvP due to AOE's, fears and great survivability with big hp pool, but in PVE it's kinda sad for "hardcore" content where dps to signle target matters most because when you take away their epi(which is great for orbs,trash etc), they're the worst pick.

 

But it seems its kinda hard to balance out necro, because with their aoe's and great survivability they can't be given best dps too. They tried to take away part of their survivability with scourge (taking away shrouds) but honestly I feel like scourges are on par with surviving with reapers.

 

The sad thing is, I believe at this point in game all classes should hav at least 3 viable builds:

1) Power dps

2) Condi dps

3) Healer or tank or buffer

and then at least 1 of them would be good for pve. The problem with necro is it has almost na party utility compared to other classes and has no build 3 option.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

> @"CptAurellian.9537" said:

> > @"GWMO.4785" said:

> > Also serious question: what is with this Epidemic complains? It transfers condition from one to another, which works as intended. It can scale quite hard if more necro's do it. But that is just because there is more necros. I dont really see why that makes the skill itself "overpowered". Someone please explain this to me...

> It's epi bouncing between several necros. One epis out from the boss and then the others use the add to bounce the 25 stacks of everything back to the boss. That way, on the boss they have their normal stacks of conditions plus a crapton of stacks from the inbound epi, resulting in quite absurd singletarget damage. As long as they get the coordination done, at least.

>

 

I don't see an issue because it requires that coordination. It's too much of a fringe/niche case to just say outright that the skill itself is OP.

[Belorn.2659]

> @"Kas.3509" said:

> But it seems its kinda hard to balance out necro, because with their aoe's and great survivability they can't be given best dps too. They tried to take away part of their survivability with scourge (taking away shrouds) but honestly I feel like scourges are on par with surviving with reapers.

 

I recall reading that Weaver had this as a design goal compared to core ele and tempest, where tempest has condi clears, cc and stun breaks and weaver got higher dps. In theory you could do the same to the next necro elite spec by cutting their health pool, removing their condi clears and barriers in favor of pure dps.

 

But I doubt this will happen. If each class had a identical dps set which all shared the same stats and lack of any support, then does choosing which class to bring have any meaning beyond cosmetic and RP? If you had to choose between two dps classes where one had a bigger health pool and both has the exact same dps, which one would you pick?

[JackassTheX.6351]

> @"Belorn.2659" said:

>If each class had a identical dps set which all shared the same stats and lack of any support, then does choosing which class to bring have any meaning beyond cosmetic and RP? If you had to choose between two dps classes where one had a bigger health pool and both has the exact same dps, which one would you pick?

 

I have never played WoW, but it seems to me like the folks who have commented above have mentioned WoW having this kind of situation, right?

 

I think every RPG should have at least _some_ degree of specialization, otherwise it stops being a _role_playing game... yeah I know that some consider roleplay something that can be done outside of the actual gameplay, but I find it inseparable to the whole experience. I mean, can you imagine Minsc from Baldur's Gate throwing banners around? Swords, not words! Where I'm going with this is that I don't find the current state of PvE balance (Ele nerf, Scourge state, Druid nerf) discourages specialization - whether or not you like that is a different story. I do. But I come from Baldur's Gate and GW1 as far as RPGs are concerned, both games which highly reward specialization, so I'm all for it; partly because I like it, partly because I'm used to it.

 

> @"Kas.3509" said:

>The problem with necro is it has almost na party utility compared to other classes and has no build 3 option.

 

As a dedicated healer, no, but I would still consider barriers, boon strip, condi cleanse, life stealing traits, decent CC via Golem, Oppresive Collapse and even Shade skill 4, pretty good party utility. But I'll be the first to admit I'm not the best to advocate Necro in hi-end PvE, since I'm not that far yet - I'm just going off what I see playing Scourge in Fractals and what folks in my guild have told me of Scourge in Raids.

[Xantaria.8726]

> @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > @"CptAurellian.9537" said:

> > > @"GWMO.4785" said:

> > > Also serious question: what is with this Epidemic complains? It transfers condition from one to another, which works as intended. It can scale quite hard if more necro's do it. But that is just because there is more necros. I dont really see why that makes the skill itself "overpowered". Someone please explain this to me...

> > It's epi bouncing between several necros. One epis out from the boss and then the others use the add to bounce the 25 stacks of everything back to the boss. That way, on the boss they have their normal stacks of conditions plus a crapton of stacks from the inbound epi, resulting in quite absurd singletarget damage. As long as they get the coordination done, at least.

> >

>

> I don't see an issue because it requires that coordination. It's too much of a fringe/niche case to just say outright that the skill itself is OP.

 

Could say the same of all weaver discussions as well though, you need a very perfect rotation and build the group around it in order to reach the dps. Yet many complain about weaver being op as well, while its the most niche classcanon of them all.

Epi itself isnt hard to coordinate as long as you are using ts or discord, which people will when they are planing to use that tactic. Otherwise its just a 3 button skill to get insane dps just fron the utilityskill himself.

In my opinion i think as well that it is just so unique of a case, being only very op in raids where it actual hurts noone if it stays there, that the effort isnt needed to nerf it. However, that aside, the skill itself being quite strong and the performance to do so being very easy, the skill itself enables to much dmg from a single skill. They can nerf it if they therefore rework the core necromancer, giving him better dmg modifier for the cost of his hp (maybe for examble give the necro only half of the hp bar for his shroud and but a trait into a defensive traitline where the hp can be brought back to normal at the cost of a dps traitline), otherwise necromancer will fall out again in raids once epi would be nerfed.

On the other hand i dont understand why most people in the forums just want nerfs for classes they dont like instead of requesting buffs or reworks of the classes they think are undertuned (for examble instead of nerfing epi rework it so that it will not give 5 foes around the target 25 of each condi stack from your main target, but insteadit will rather adjust the stacks of your main target to foes around you, for examble if vg has 150 condi stacks, the seeker will have that many too. However, if you now use epi on the seeker, vg will loose all his current condis and get the 150stacks of the seeker. And before this maybe breaks some stuff in wvw/pvp again, reduce the potency of the skill in those modes)

 

 

[Galmac.4680]

Hmm, so eles are supposed to do really high damage, but necros should not, because two necros can bounce epi? Necros are always balanced when in groups, but other classes are seen as single players. Two eles with meteor shower make twice high damage...

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Oldirtbeard.9834" said:

> > @"gateless gate.8406" said:

> > Coming from WoW, it's very strange to see such a massive gap between DPS in this game.

> >

> > Here's the breakdown of DPS classes in my previous MMO: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17#

> > There is only a 15% difference between the best and worst specs. Removing the absolute best and absolute worst, that difference shrinks to just 10%. Compare that to the 24% difference between a GW2 Necro's 29k and a Weaver's 36k. For kicks, compare it to the 52% (!!!) difference between 29k and 44k. You cannot have a class doing 52% more damage than another.

> >

> > Arguments like "class X is harder to play than Y so therefore it NEEDS to do more DPS" is a fallacy, as (1) any gameplay difficulty is often both overstated and easily overcome by good players, and (2) raid groups will always demand the best and reject the worst, especially when you have sites like metabattle and tools like DPS meters. And that's really the most toxic effect of egregious balancing: Players who have spent possibly hundreds of hours on Necro are simply locked out of a significant portion of game content.

>

> This is why I only Raid in games that take balance seriously, I never delve deeper here than T1 Fractals/Story Dungeons/Open World because I can't take Raids and Top Tier Fractals seriously in this game if the Devs can't take it seriously either by doing proper balance.

>

> There's enough GW2 does right to keep me interested though so what does it matter if I miss a new Raid release every 9 Months to a Year (I imagine it gets pretty boring doing the same 4 bosses over and over for that amount of time, when I get to do new Open World content every 2.5 months).

 

Actually looking at https://www.gw2raidar.com/global_stats balance for raids looks fine. It is fractals where elementalist seems to dominate but that seems to be lacking in data points.

 

That aside people who only look at golem numbers can't be taken seriously either ...

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"GWMO.4785" said:

> From where i see it: Necro is easy to play, and there for is not / does not feel rewarding. Ele on the other hand, is harder to play (correcty), which rewards you with higher damage output if play it correctly. But thats kinda hard to pull in actual encounters given your foe does not stand still idling like in the benchmark videos. Also your damage will drop significantly if you dont do your rotation right. Making it mediocore or even lower then what a necro can do in general. So there is that skillcap. So all-in-all i think the "ratio" is fair.

>

> Also serious question: what is with this Epidemic complains? It transfers condition from one to another, which works as intended. It can scale quite hard if more necro's do it. But that is just because there is more necros. I dont really see why that makes the skill itself "overpowered". Someone please explain this to me...

 

Because the theory here is compounding power..... and its something GW2 uses in a lot of places due to how skill upkeep is normally measured in seconds instead of minutes. Using Raids during HOT as an example, Quickness and Alacrity were 2 boons Chornos had good access to. Quickness has existed for a long time in the game, but its sources were rare, and its uptime very rarely higher then 30% on skill its attached to. Alacrity also used have a universal 66% recharge reduction, but was compensated for by including that reduction rate in those skills to reach a target cool down timer. When operating like this, Chornos had maintain a very carefully timed rotation on Alacrity in order to keep the skills coming off cool down to reapply it. You mess up this rotation, and it will usually take 10-15 seconds to restart the rotation. Chrono skills were layed out specifically with 100% internal alacrity uptime in mind. Quickness also had a similar low margin for error, but you could potentially kick start it external sources. With Boon sharing, uptime was at least 60%, which is a huge boost to group DPS.

 

Like Epidemic, 2 Chornos (one Tank, one Boon share), could take turns popping Boon share, because the difference between the builds was just extra toughness on the tank, and either sword or focus depending on the fight. Both also had access to group alacrity, meaning it doubled the amount of alacrity DPS classes had during most of the fight. This combination of 50% increase in attack speed (which could reach 100% uptime), and an effective 50% reduction in cool downs doubles the DPS potential of any rotation that didn't have any specific triggers needed. Thats what compounding power does..... 2 or more individual bonuses resulting in a greater sum total then its parts. The Zerks Trifecta is another example, the multiplicative effect of % based bonuses, skills that copy existing states (like Boon share and Epidemic), conversion skills, https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Permeating_Wrath + multi hit skills, all become more powerful the more things get involved in the equation. In some cases, that growth can be near exponential.

 

Because of the way Epidemic works, and that most bosses no longer have a cap on the number of condition stacks the can suffer, despite only being able to copy up to 25 stack of any particular condition, you're effectively doubling those stack on the first bounce back, and increases by a factor of 1 with each additional necro - <=25 "stacks" *(N-1). With 5 necros, you can turn 25 burning stacks into 125 burning stacks with one well timed series of actions. Far greater then anything all 5 necros could create together with their other skills focusing the same target. For the sake of argument, if 5 Necros could be the source of the initial 25 burn stacks, then you wouldn't need another class to set up that the stacks for them. If any one class can generate 25 burns stacks, then thats one less slot lost for the set up, giving room for yet another necro to scale the damage up further. Just as a Boon share chorno can maintain 120% (or more) up time on all boons, as long as the base application of the first source was at least 5 seconds. (and yes, 120%..... it can effectively grow the total duration with every pass through a boon share rotation).

 

In fact, Chrono Tanks were never intended to be a thing by the Devs. But by combining 4 roles into one build, Teams free up 3 additional slots for controls (if mechanics are a concern), or just more DPS. Because no other class can do these kind of things, a minimum of 1 Chrono is taken into every Raid, and 2 eliminates the rotation margin of error from the tank.

[Xantaria.8726]

> @"Galmac.4680" said:

> Hmm, so eles are supposed to do really high damage, but necros should not, because two necros can bounce epi? Necros are always balanced when in groups, but other classes are seen as single players. Two eles with meteor shower make twice high damage...

 

Yeah and they die when looked at. Look, you cant expect a classcanon with complex rotation (which also is in a niche spot btw) and a class with multiple group support and massive surviveability to do equal dps. Weaver is meant to be a pure dps spec, so of course he does exactly that.

And i am not saying necros shouldnt do dps, though i love how people put others words in their mouths.... i simply explained what the problem with epidemic and necro itself is, and thats basicly that he cant go dps even if he wants to since shroud and coretraitlines is stopping him from doing that since he cant choose to drop hp+support for dps modifiers.

And no, you cant have massive hp, sec hp bar, support skills+good dps. Thats even the argument to why necro hasnt been buffed yet, which is even the bigger problem then epi, which like i already said doesnt hurt anyone if it stays like that (though people should admit that its the strongest utility skill for pve in terms of dps, even if you cant bounce). But at least anet seems to be on the rework train, so i hope they will rework corenecro.

 

 

[Eekasqueak.7850]

> @"Xantaria.8726" said:

> > @"Galmac.4680" said:

> > Hmm, so eles are supposed to do really high damage, but necros should not, because two necros can bounce epi? Necros are always balanced when in groups, but other classes are seen as single players. Two eles with meteor shower make twice high damage...

>

> Yeah and they die when looked at. Look, you cant expect a classcanon with complex rotation (which also is in a niche spot btw) and a class with multiple group support and massive surviveability to do equal dps. Weaver is meant to be a pure dps spec, so of course he does exactly that.

> And i am not saying necros shouldnt do dps, though i love how people put others words in their mouths.... i simply explained what the problem with epidemic and necro itself is, and thats basicly that he cant go dps even if he wants to since shroud and coretraitlines is stopping him from doing that since he cant choose to drop hp+support for dps modifiers.

> And no, you cant have massive hp, sec hp bar, support skills+good dps. Thats even the argument to why necro hasnt been buffed yet, which is even the bigger problem then epi, which like i already said doesnt hurt anyone if it stays like that (though people should admit that its the strongest utility skill for pve in terms of dps, even if you cant bounce). But at least anet seems to be on the rework train, so i hope they will rework corenecro.

>

>

 

Scourge uses the shroud HP as a mana bar though, so shouldn't that translate to much higher DPS?

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

It isn't just the necromancer. It is also the Scrapper, the Herald, the Renegade, the Daredevil, the Deadeye, and the Tempest. Hell, Anet just did a big revamp on the Deadeye and they made it worse all around.

 

All non-DPS roles have no space. While all teams want to have as much DPS as possible, all teams also only want _just enough_ tanking, healing, and buffing. So, when Anet decided to revamp the roles of all of these classes, they decided that people should never play these classes. Unless the spec is the best at the role, it isn't going to see play.

 

Take the tempest, for example. Anet said that they wanted to re-define the tempest as "support." All the tempest can do is slowly overload their elements over the spam of 10 seconds to give out 5 seconds of a boon. They can't maintain the might cap. They can't maintain fury, swiftness, or protection. They don't have any unique DPS buffs. The only environmental effects they have are auras, and auras are terrible. All the tempest can do is heal, and because the tempest is beaten outright by the druid and the renegade, then they have a hard time getting in to groups.

 

Chronomancers are the best tanks, the best buffers, the best CC, and the best at doing all of this at the same time. Druids are the best at unique buffs, and they have enough healing. Unless these facts change, any move to make a spec better at tanking, or healing, or buffing, or support, or crowd control, it is just going to make that spec worse. Tempests did not get better by being called support. Scrappers did not get better by being called a tank. Deadeyes did not get better from whatever the heck they did. In PVE, you have 3 viable options: Best DPS, DPS + unique utility, or you're better at the multiple roles that Chronomancers and druids fulfill.

[Xantaria.8726]

> Scourge uses the shroud HP as a mana bar though, so shouldn't that translate to much higher DPS?

 

It would if it werent for those crap coretraits^^. I was more talking about reaper and core with the shraud. It would deserve a spot around the 34k as a dps-spot since he still has sole utilitys.

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

I wouldn't mind if _every_ class was overpowered in PvE. The issue is that the developers didn't split PvE from PvP soon enough and continue to do so. Keep in mind, Guild Wars 2's vast population doesn't PvP. It's the minority. And that vocal minority has caused more damaged to PvE entertainment than anything. And why? Because sadly the developers listened to the complaints in some poor man's attempt to create an e-sport on Twitch. Again, this game caters to a casual, PvE audience. At some point, the developers lost sight of this. And here we are.

 

How to fix it?

 

I wish I could say they could, but at this time, we've gone beyond the point of no return. The best they can do now is to split any further balance between PvE and PvP and slowly reverse some of the changes to PvE play. And as time goes on, with more updates and expansions, the new elites will replace the old. And yes, people will forget as the newest shiny elites outshine the old ones.

 

That's the only solution to this nonsense now: Don't look back. Look forward. And don't make the same mistakes again.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"ranya ni.9356" said:

> Okay, you know what? I need to stick my leg in and say my two cents.

>

> I main necro. I have been a necro main since gw1 and it is my first and main toon in gw2. When gw2 first debuted necro was so op that the other classes were making this exact same complaint. I could, before scaling, easily solo in level 80 areas and take down champions with just myself and two minions. You know who couldn't? The elementalist. They aren't supposed to. They are a _glass canon_. They are supposed to do stupid amounts of damage at once. If you sneeze on them too hard they go down. Necro doesn't do the damage it used to, that's true, but it was so op that it needed nerfing.

You do remember that even then Necro was so "OP" that noone serious about group composition wanted them in instanced content? That "OPness" was useful for one thing only - open world. And if you can remember, there was another build that was also equally "OP" in that situation. The _bearbow_ (by complete accident another build that had no place in any serious group composition).

 

And that's not why Necro got the nerfs, by the way. The nerfs were 100% on account of PvP.

 

[Bearbrunt.4196]

> @"Deepcuts.9740" said:

> I see "PvE balance" but I read ideas/complaints about Necro and Ele only. Mostly complaints about Ele from a Necro player.

> My main is Ranger/Druid but I never recall creating topics about other professions and complaining they are too over powered.

> My wish is that every class can reach a balance where it is desired as much as the next class. As in: buff the crappy classes; don't butcher good ones.

 

Ha! I definitely let my bias show, I didn't mean for it to get in the way of my point - it's easy for me to get salty about the necro situation because of the bad experiences I've had w/ others. From this thread, it seems the consensus has changed a bit. I didn't mean to complain about ele's from a necro perspective, but rather show how large the gap in damage is between Ele's and **everyone else** + Necros and **everyone else.**

 

I've played multiclass for awhile now (necro/ele/rev/guard/mes/ranger) and necro/ele are my most-played so I'm just trying to write about what I have experience with. However, I used the example of Necros and Eles _specifically_ because they are the DPS _extremes_, not because of my exp with them or of any salt/jealousy about their differences. If power rev were at the top extreme and ranger were at the bottom I'd have written about them. You don't need to main a class in order to make a valid judgment/critique of them either. I don't main ranger, but I know that they have more viable PvE options than any other class right now. Rangers can pull within 2-3k of the max dps for all other classes besides ele; _**every other class can do this too**_, except for necro. I'm not saying other classes are necessarily overpowered (aside from ele), but necro has always been _underpowered_ compared to them.

 

Judging by the recent patch notes, anet seems to notice those extremes. They're at least partially trying to close those damage gaps that have remained unchanged for so long (ele - above all profs by a _large_ margin - on the top; necro on the bottom). This makes me hopeful because it feels as if they are trying to "buff the crappy classes" and not "butcher good ones" (unless, like some, you count deadeye/daredevil as butchered :anguished: )

 

Your wish is my wish. There are plenty of other builds/specs that are in a position just as bad as both necro elite specs, I just didn't bring them up because the classes that have those specs all have _**other viable options that can compete**_. Take thief, for example. Since the patch, daredevil can't pull above 30k single target. Thiefs can spec into deadeye, which can still pull 31-32k despite the recent changes. If you're a neglected power rev, you have the option of switching to condi ren (shortbow just got updated and its _awesome_ + the new underwater condi weapon is neat). Engineers/scrappers have been shafted in the past, but holosmith has given them a viable solution to the problem.

 

Necro, as a class, has only ever had epidemic to fallback on. Epidemic blows every other class out of the water on a lot of fights, so I used it to try and point out a fundamental flaw in the current state of PvE: Players generally want to compete/have fun on the DPS meters, but any sustained fight that has more than 1 vulnerable target is going to be necro-dominated solely because of epidemic, not because of any immersive gameplay or skill involved -- just wait for everyone to stack condis and boom you're melting everything -- call a bounce, boom now everything's melting twice as much. This can be encouraging for easily gratified necro players, but ruins the experience for everyone else.

 

Imho the game will get a lot more interesting when necros and raid comps are not able to rely on epidemic anymore. If epi gets nerfed, **ALL** classes will actually be able to compete against necros in a lot of scenarios and necros won't have to take such a cookie-cutter ability. Though, considering base necro dmg is so low, something would need to happen to the necro kit to bring it up to parity with all the other classes.

 

Despite everything, the meta is in the best situation it's ever been in and appears to only be getting better. My hopes are high.

[JackassTheX.6351]

> @"Xantaria.8726" said:

>for examble instead of nerfing epi rework it so that it will not give 5 foes around the target 25 of each condi stack from your main target, but insteadit will rather adjust the stacks of your main target to foes around you, for examble if vg has 150 condi stacks, the seeker will have that many too. However, if you now use epi on the seeker, vg will loose all his current condis and get the 150stacks of the seeker.

 

I thought that Epi always worked like that i.e. the condi spread only works once - I didn't even know Epi bouncing was a thing. :D

 

 

[Turin.6921]

> @"Vrita.7846" said:

> > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > @"Vrita.7846" said:

> > > With the current nerf to MS, I don't think there's any reason to bring a staff Weaver to anything anymore. People seem to forget that Weaver brought literally nothing except dps, so if you take that away from it, what can it do? If it can't bring dps, while also having a complex rotation, it'll just be another condi engi. Did Weaver need a nerf? Sure, but it didn't need to be gutted the way it did. Besides, the nerf to MS wasn't just a nerf to Weaver, it nerfed cored ele and Tempest as well which aren't even that great to begin with, and now they're worse. Weaver has plenty of dmg modifiers, why didn't they nerf those to tone the dmg down a bit? It's pretty clear Anet's balance team doesn't know what the hell they're doing, cause they make such horrible decisions on almost every balance patch they put out.

> >

> > Now that's an exaggeration. I don't like the change, but staff weaver is still top dps unless you can epi bounce. Or, well, you're doing a condi-friendly boss.

>

> Doesn't change the fact that they targeted the wrong thing for a nerf. They can nerf Weaver without nerfing ele as a class. It'll hurt sword/d, but they can buff that to compensate for proper staff Weaver nerfs.

 

The problem is that an OP MS created balance issues for all ele specs and probably future ones. The reason weaver was OP was not the elite spec balance but the core balance. The fact that a single nerf on a single skill reduces DPS that much shows this. Its a similar issue as with epi. Nerfing only weaver skills would push non-staff weavers that are still viable to non-functional. Nerfing the base class allows them to make any further changes focused only around the Elite Spec (current or future ones). Nerfing core ele was the right call i would say. If it was a bit too much is arguable but still weavers are top DPS especially in big hitboxes.

[Zaklex.6308]

> @"Ardenwolfe.8590" said:

> I wouldn't mind if _every_ class was overpowered in PvE. The issue is that the developers didn't split PvE from PvP soon enough and continue to do so. Keep in mind, Guild Wars 2's vast population doesn't PvP. It's the minority. And that vocal minority has caused more damaged to PvE entertainment than anything. And why? Because sadly the developers listened to the complaints in some poor man's attempt to create an e-sport on Twitch. Again, this game caters to a casual, PvE audience. At some point, the developers lost sight of this. And here we are.

>

> How to fix it?

>

> I wish I could say they could, but at this time, we've gone beyond the point of no return. The best they can do now is to split any further balance between PvE and PvP and slowly reverse some of the changes to PvE play. And as time goes on, with more updates and expansions, the new elites will replace the old. And yes, people will forget as the newest shiny elites outshine the old ones.

>

> That's the only solution to this nonsense now: Don't look back. Look forward. And don't make the same mistakes again.

 

You're absolutely correct, and what they should do is in one fell swoop split ALL of the skills for ALL of the classes between PvP and PvE....balance PvE how THEY(ArenaNet) wants it to be balanced(not how we the players would like it balanced) and then stick to fixing PvP balance. It is their game, they can balance it any way they see fit...yes, we play their game but we do not balance it, we just play it, but we should be playing it however we want, regardless of how it's balanced. If people don't like how a particular profession is balanced, then play something else or get used to it, of course that's just my opinion.

[Ganathar.4956]

> @"gateless gate.8406" said:

> Coming from WoW, it's very strange to see such a massive gap between DPS in this game.

>

> Here's the breakdown of DPS classes in my previous MMO: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/17#

> There is only a 15% difference between the best and worst specs. Removing the absolute best and absolute worst, that difference shrinks to just 10%. Compare that to the 24% difference between a GW2 Necro's 29k and a Weaver's 36k. For kicks, compare it to the 52% (!!!) difference between 29k and 44k. You cannot have a class doing 52% more damage than another.

>

> Arguments like "class X is harder to play than Y so therefore it NEEDS to do more DPS" is a fallacy, as (1) any gameplay difficulty is often both overstated and easily overcome by good players, and (2) raid groups will always demand the best and reject the worst, especially when you have sites like metabattle and tools like DPS meters. And that's really the most toxic effect of egregious balancing: Players who have spent possibly hundreds of hours on Necro are simply locked out of a significant portion of game content.

 

WoW normalized class utility and survivability a long time ago. That's why classes can have such similar dps without breaking balance. Ele needs less drawbacks if its dps is to be similar to other professions.

[Orpheal.8263]

PvE needs no balance...

 

pvE needs to be in first place only FUN for everybody, interestign to play and provide for all of its classes diversive playstyles, so that all classes are in PvE useful, due to having strenths and weaknesses in their roles of how you can play the classes, as either Damage Dealer, Supporter or Defender/Crowd Controler in which no class should extremely outperform in any of those 3 categories the other classes so much, that players think of Class X being "useless", only because Class Y, Z and A are like tripple as much effective in doing somethign specific, that Class X has absolutely no chance to be considered at all to be taken with you into instanced group content, like Dungeons, or specifically Raids, which are Sub Pve Content, which are the only areas where PvE needs to be "balanced".

 

Aside of these instanced ares doesn't pvE need balance at all and the game would be much more fun and interesting, if we would have in PvE as part of our character progression somethign similar again, like PvE Only Skills, where just fun, style and effectivity stand in focus first in regard of skil ldesign, to make pvE an awesome gamign experience with the strongest goal of creating fun for the player.. because thats what players actualyl want to have in first tine, when playing PvE.

Balance is solely somethign for PvP and WvW and any kind of form of player competition, which are Dungeons and Raids in PvE - competition to be taken into the group, unless you create your own group

 

Scourges need to be nerfed hard, yes, but only for PvP and WvW.. in PvE they can stay how they are.. because 10 NPC monsters won't ever complain ,if they get killed from their ridiculous super cancerous huge AOE Condition Spam of a Scourge using its massively overpowered skills

But players in fact will do complain about something like that, when you die in seconds, without a chance to avoid this garbage, because the whoel screen gets clustered full in seconds with their way too huge AoE condi bombs, forcing you to fight therm from wide range, if you can, just to stay safe from getting condi nuked to death instantly. **No class in this game should ever have in competitive game modes the ability to somehow instant kill other players!!**

This is an absolute no go and games, which have this kind of problems that there are instant kill builds in the game, just show, that the people responsible for it have seemingly no clues of how to balance their classes/games - most likely due to not really playing their own game self to realize, what nonsense they added to the game and that they should get rid of it ASAP again.

Stuff like this happens only, when 99% of the games combat system gets ignored for 6 years to be adjusted, doing permanently only number changes on skills and traits and calling the results of that then "balance".

[Vrita.7846]

> @"Turin.6921" said:

> > @"Vrita.7846" said:

> > > @"Feanor.2358" said:

> > > > @"Vrita.7846" said:

> > > > With the current nerf to MS, I don't think there's any reason to bring a staff Weaver to anything anymore. People seem to forget that Weaver brought literally nothing except dps, so if you take that away from it, what can it do? If it can't bring dps, while also having a complex rotation, it'll just be another condi engi. Did Weaver need a nerf? Sure, but it didn't need to be gutted the way it did. Besides, the nerf to MS wasn't just a nerf to Weaver, it nerfed cored ele and Tempest as well which aren't even that great to begin with, and now they're worse. Weaver has plenty of dmg modifiers, why didn't they nerf those to tone the dmg down a bit? It's pretty clear Anet's balance team doesn't know what the hell they're doing, cause they make such horrible decisions on almost every balance patch they put out.

> > >

> > > Now that's an exaggeration. I don't like the change, but staff weaver is still top dps unless you can epi bounce. Or, well, you're doing a condi-friendly boss.

> >

> > Doesn't change the fact that they targeted the wrong thing for a nerf. They can nerf Weaver without nerfing ele as a class. It'll hurt sword/d, but they can buff that to compensate for proper staff Weaver nerfs.

>

> The problem is that an OP MS created balance issues for all ele specs and probably future ones. The reason weaver was OP was not the elite spec balance but the core balance. The fact that a single nerf on a single skill reduces DPS that much shows this. Its a similar issue as with epi. Nerfing only weaver skills would push non-staff weavers that are still viable to non-functional. Nerfing the base class allows them to make any further changes focused only around the Elite Spec (current or future ones). Nerfing core ele was the right call i would say. If it was a bit too much is arguable but still weavers are top DPS especially in big hitboxes.

 

The reason MS hit as hard as it did was because you'd usually stack as many dmg modifiers as you can on it. MS got 20% more dmg from the fire traitline, if you're running air (which you would for fractals and KC) you would get 20% on stunned enemies from tempest defense, an addition 20% on enemies below 50% hp, then you would get a free 15% crit chance from Weaver, 7% more dmg with swiftness, 10% more dmg from double attuning, then you would get a 270 power bonus for being in fire attunement, then there's the stat conversions: 7% of your precision is converted into ferocity and 14% of your power is converted into ferocity, and then the ferocity bonus for wielding lightning hammer, then of course banners, EA, frost spirit, 25 might, 25 vuln, and food. MS by itself doesn't really hit that hard, it requires the ridiculous amount of dmg modifiers to hit the kind of numbers it did. MS was a high risk/high reward skill, now it's a high risk/mediocre reward skill.

[Raizel.8175]

> @"Orpheal.8263" said:

> PvE needs no balance...

>

> pvE needs to be in first place only FUN for everybody, interestign to play and provide for all of its classes diversive playstyles, so that all classes are in PvE useful, due to having strenths and weaknesses in their roles of how you can play the classes, as either Damage Dealer, Supporter or Defender/Crowd Controler in which no class should extremely outperform in any of those 3 categories the other classes so much, that players think of Class X being "useless", only because Class Y, Z and A are like tripple as much effective in doing somethign specific, that Class X has absolutely no chance to be considered at all to be taken with you into instanced group content, like Dungeons, or specifically Raids, which are Sub Pve Content, which are the only areas where PvE needs to be "balanced".

>

> Aside of these instanced ares doesn't pvE need balance at all and the game would be much more fun and interesting, if we would have in PvE as part of our character progression somethign similar again, like PvE Only Skills, where just fun, style and effectivity stand in focus first in regard of skil ldesign, to make pvE an awesome gamign experience with the strongest goal of creating fun for the player.. because thats what players actualyl want to have in first tine, when playing PvE.

> Balance is solely somethign for PvP and WvW and any kind of form of player competition, which are Dungeons and Raids in PvE - competition to be taken into the group, unless you create your own group

>

> Scourges need to be nerfed hard, yes, but only for PvP and WvW.. in PvE they can stay how they are.. because 10 NPC monsters won't ever complain ,if they get killed from their ridiculous super cancerous huge AOE Condition Spam of a Scourge using its massively overpowered skills

> But players in fact will do complain about something like that, when you die in seconds, without a chance to avoid this garbage, because the whoel screen gets clustered full in seconds with their way too huge AoE condi bombs, forcing you to fight therm from wide range, if you can, just to stay safe from getting condi nuked to death instantly. **No class in this game should ever have in competitive game modes the ability to somehow instant kill other players!!**

> This is an absolute no go and games, which have this kind of problems that there are instant kill builds in the game, just show, that the people responsible for it have seemingly no clues of how to balance their classes/games - most likely due to not really playing their own game self to realize, what nonsense they added to the game and that they should get rid of it ASAP again.

> Stuff like this happens only, when 99% of the games combat system gets ignored for 6 years to be adjusted, doing permanently only number changes on skills and traits and calling the results of that then "balance".

 

You know... the thing about Scourge in PvP... it's perfectly balanced there actually. The reason you get condi-nuked in PvP is because of boon corruption and this games massive boon-spam.

[Orpheal.8263]

> @"Raizel.8175" said:

> You know... the thing about Scourge in PvP... it's perfectly balanced there actually. The reason you get condi-nuked in PvP is because of boon corruption and this games massive boon-spam.

 

Which is why I say all the time, that this game needs a massive overhaul of its complete condition and boon system, reducing the total amount of spammable effects down from 28 to 16 with maximum 8 Conditions and Boons only, instead like 14 on both sides ...

 

Alot of Boons and Conditions are totally obsolete in this game and should get better reworked into class unique trait effects, as skill effects, or become secondary Attribute Effects, or turned directly better into an attribute, like for example Resistance, which should be turned from a Boon into an Attribute that reduces received Condition Damage, like Toughness reduces Direct Damage and should give as secondary Effect Condition Immunity Time for when you remove Conditions, that the removed Conditions can#t get instantly reapplied to yiu, unless your Immunity Time from your Resistance Attribute is over.

 

This way would get Condi Spam alot better balanced, because players would have then finally a way to reduce Condition Damage by increasign their Ressitance Attribute and the effect of becoming immune to Conditions would get balanced this way better too by making you not instantly immune for soem time to all conditions, but actually only those which you removed by a Condition removal Skill/Trait Effect/Rune/Sigil Effect, makign this way naturally Condition Spam alot lesser effective, without that you become instantly immune to absolutely all Conditions, like it is now the case with Resistance as Boon..plus you also can't instantly lose the effetc then anymore, because it got corrupted, stolen or removed from you, before you get hit by a condi nuke bomb AoE that kind of 100>0s you in a matter of seconds, before you have even the chance to react quick enough.. cause its still humans with reaction times of several seconds that are playing this game, not robots with inhuman reaction speeds in the milli seconds

 

[Raizel.8175]

> @"Orpheal.8263" said:

> > @"Raizel.8175" said:

> > You know... the thing about Scourge in PvP... it's perfectly balanced there actually. The reason you get condi-nuked in PvP is because of boon corruption and this games massive boon-spam.

>

> Which is why I say all the time, that this game needs a massive overhaul of its complete condition and boon system, reducing the total amount of spammable effects down from 28 to 16 with maximum 8 Conditions and Boons only, instead like 14 on both sides ...

>

> Alot of Boons and Conditions are totally obsolete in this game and should get better reworked into class unique trait effects, as skill effects, or become secondary Attribute Effects, or turned directly better into an attribute, like for example Resistance, which should be turned from a Boon into an Attribute that reduces received Condition Damage, like Toughness reduces Direct Damage and should give as secondary Effect Condition Immunity Time for when you remove Conditions, that the removed Conditions can#t get instantly reapplied to yiu, unless your Immunity Time from your Resistance Attribute is over.

>

> This way would get Condi Spam alot better balanced, because players would have then finally a way to reduce Condition Damage by increasign their Ressitance Attribute and the effect of becoming immune to Conditions would get balanced this way better too by making you not instantly immune for soem time to all conditions, but actually only those which you removed by a Condition removal Skill/Trait Effect/Rune/Sigil Effect, makign this way naturally Condition Spam alot lesser effective, without that you become instantly immune to absolutely all Conditions, like it is now the case with Resistance as Boon..plus you also can't instantly lose the effetc then anymore, because it got corrupted, stolen or removed from you, before you get hit by a condi nuke bomb AoE that kind of 100>0s you in a matter of seconds, before you have even the chance to react quick enough.. cause its still humans with reaction times of several seconds that are playing this game, not robots with inhuman reaction speeds in the milli seconds

>

 

Won't ever happen. The boon-spam is intentional. It was introduced with HoT for raid-content and has evolved ever since.

[Funky.4861]

> @"Vrita.7846" said:

 

> The reason MS hit as hard as it did was because you'd usually stack as many dmg modifiers as you can on it. MS got 20% more dmg from the fire traitline, if you're running air (which you would for fractals and KC) you would get 20% on stunned enemies from tempest defense, an addition 20% on enemies below 50% hp, then you would get a free 15% crit chance from Weaver, 7% more dmg with swiftness, 10% more dmg from double attuning, then you would get a 270 power bonus for being in fire attunement, then there's the stat conversions: 7% of your precision is converted into ferocity and 14% of your power is converted into ferocity, and then the ferocity bonus for wielding lightning hammer, then of course banners, EA, frost spirit, 25 might, 25 vuln, and food. MS by itself doesn't really hit that hard, it requires the ridiculous amount of dmg modifiers to hit the kind of numbers it did. MS was a high risk/high reward skill, now it's a high risk/mediocre reward skill.

 

This. Necro has very few damage modifiers, no blocks, invulns, rebounds, reflects, arcane shields etc.

What if anet gave other classes an epidemic-like skill? What would happen to necros then? I believe necros would be completely obsolete. Epidemic is not the problem, it's necro's low damage compared to any other dps build.