What is going on? Anet actually making some good balance changes? madness

[Asum.4960]

> @"Yasi.9065" said:

> > @"Asum.4960" said:

> > In addition all these problems you describe leading to deleting niche dps builds, would do the exact opposite. Niche problems create opportunity for niche builds.

> > Need a bit more capability of pulling mobs together and massive AoE Cleave? Well, Reaper is a niche DPS that is almost universally not accepted in groups in the Chrono meta. Also provides some of those little required boon rips most people probably don't even know exist, like the blue guardian before VG (I didn't), because Chrono autoattack always took care of that without thought and effort.

>

> No, Im sorry, but even though thats how it SHOULD be, the solution is actually to just bring more chronos. Hence the rage ;) Instead of anet buffing alternatives slightly to make them as good as chrono, and just nerfing cc (yes including focus pull btw) + buffed sustain (stability and resistance), they went and balanced it all in a way that its now most efficient to bring 3+ chronos in raids. At least 1x dps chrono and 2x 15-16k "buff" chronos. DPS chrono has atm highest burst, and if put together with a renegade it actually has the highest sustained dps as well. SoI not using concentration allows < 30% boon duration chronos to instead stack berserker armor, making that comp pretty much unbeatable. So much for promoting alternatives.

>

> /edit: Btw, Irenio posting how they will add more dps oriented concentration armor stat sets just shows that anet did NOT forsee this. Again. If they had, maybe they wouldnt have put DT on illusions and scaled SoI with concentration instead of giving a flat bonus.

 

For me this patch never looked like anything but a stepping stone.

I'm not saying it's great now after this patch, I'm saying I can appreciate the direction ANet is going in, and hope they get there soon.

 

And they really have to bring Chrono down first, before they can build up alternatives to match it, otherwise every support in the game would have ended up just doing everything, but with a different tint on skill effects.

 

I much rather see some profession identity coming back at the cost of some wonky times now before getting there, than ending up in a gamestate where it's just, every support provides all boons in the game permanently now, almost solo's any Breakbar, pulls mobs together, strips boons, skips mechanics with portals, etc etc etc, but one is pink, one blue, one green.., have fun.

 

Other supports can't compete with Chrono not because they are bad, but because Chrono is out of this world OP. Not only in terms of boons and CC, but almost every other aspect of the game as well. It's good to see they are starting to chip away at that, while not trying to completely crush the profession in one go.

With over 3 years of Chrono being pretty much mandatory in every piece of endgame PvE content, I have enough patience to wait through triple Chrono now as well.

[Arkantos.7460]

forced to play powershiro since years .... besides we have a 2. xpac and ALL OTHER CLASSES having multiple builds

i love to play revenant and would want play other builds ...

but in reality:

## when i play something else- not Power shiro- and having succes in matches, I get called noob and get hate from my own team -.-

I logged off and take a brake mostly because of that

im waiting for a patch wich brings some good stuff or maybe renegade as playable thing, somehow in pvp

[Zin Dau.1749]

Chronomancer has been out for 3 years, reworked a dozen times, and they're still at the stage of learning how to balance it. But it's so cute and applaudable to see these devs keep trying and failing, right. Almost as cute as watching babies learn to walk.

 

Problem is devs think constantly redesigning "broken" abilities and dynamics into other untested abilities and dynamics will achieve "true" balance. (Which itself is a pointless goal.) We've been through this for years, and the only true consequences are never what the devs or whining players envision in their intent from the changes.

 

For example the original intent was no more trinity and roles that groups can't live without. The reality is players will always find new ways to combine skills into unseen emergent gameplay, and players themselves will define what and how the meta forms. Regardless of how well your intention is and how clever you devs think your solutions are.

 

This piecemeal stepping stone patching methodology is also baflling and frustrating. They take months between balance patches. And the best they can do is some half-baked untested cross-my-fingers bandaid. Which will still get broken by clever players. That means it's nothing but a never-ending cycle of devs creating new situations for elite players to solve, but really the status quo doesn't really budge or improve over time. Every problem is replaced by more problems. It's illusion of work but no positive results; like shuffling paper around just to make yourself seem busy.

 

Meanwhile the losers are the rest of the playerbase, who have to keep up with never-ending, seemingly pointless series of changes every other month. Along with that is frustration to find new builds, acquire new gear, relearn how to play the same fricking class for the umpteenth time.

[Dahkeus.8243]

I think the devs did a great job of communicating the reason for their changes this time around, but they still have a tendency of making sweeping changes that break more things than they fix.

 

Example of this was the Lead Attacks change: Their aim was to nerf Deadeye burst. A fair change. However, by nerfing Lead Attacks, they nerfed *all* thief builds and builds like D/P are now in worse spots than they were before, even though they were lagging in the meta already.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Dahkeus.8243" said:

> I think the devs did a great job of communicating the reason for their changes this time around, but they still have a tendency of making sweeping changes that break more things than they fix.

>

> Example of this was the Lead Attacks change: Their aim was to nerf Deadeye burst. A fair change. However, by nerfing Lead Attacks, they nerfed *all* thief builds and builds like D/P are now in worse spots than they were before, even though they were lagging in the meta already.

 

Agreed, it was nice to read what the intention was. I also enjoyed the warning about future changes (not being sarcastic here, it is nice when devs reach out and state that more work is on the way).

 

I'm just not sure Wintersday was the best time, after all developers deserve holidays too to be with family and friends (after it is getting a 24h job which nobody thanks you for).

[Opopanax.1803]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Opopanax.1803" said:

> > You completely missed the first point. Completely.

> >

> > And of course gearing boon durations costs damage. However you aren't thinking about the ways that Anet could deal with this, but rather the old mentality of 100% boon duration being mandatory. It wont be if they share boons across more classes.

> >

> > Listen close: there wont be less dps slots. This is your pure conjecture.

>

> Boon duration IS a Stat which has a unique purpose: enhance duration of boons.

>

> To believe that Arenanet will do away with this stats, which is possible, is pure speculation at this point in time.

>

> Your argument is:

> Well we might get to take multiple classes which provide boon X, multiple classes which provide boon Y and multiple classes that provide boon Z. As such boon duration will not be required.

>

> There are multiple inconsistencies with this train of thought:

>

> 1. This would be insane power creep

> 2. Given that 1 class would alway be best at damage and given boon, the remaining classes for this boon would be undesired and locked out

> 3. It would make boon duration as a Stat completely useless. Again while this might be an approach, it is highly unlikely

>

> I don't see any argument why dps slots would NOT suffer currently and you have not yet provided any reasonable argument that they will. Again we have had multiple iterations of raid squad metas and your theory has never been the case, unlike mine.

 

Just because you can't see it doesn't mean they can't fix it. They have already made a good start at spreading it out. You also don't have the big picture, which doesn't help your assumptions.

 

Additionally, why would we have ever seen any other raid meta when chrono has been so strong since raids were introduced? Your logic is circular at best.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"Opopanax.1803" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > @"Opopanax.1803" said:

> > > You completely missed the first point. Completely.

> > >

> > > And of course gearing boon durations costs damage. However you aren't thinking about the ways that Anet could deal with this, but rather the old mentality of 100% boon duration being mandatory. It wont be if they share boons across more classes.

> > >

> > > Listen close: there wont be less dps slots. This is your pure conjecture.

> >

> > Boon duration IS a Stat which has a unique purpose: enhance duration of boons.

> >

> > To believe that Arenanet will do away with this stats, which is possible, is pure speculation at this point in time.

> >

> > Your argument is:

> > Well we might get to take multiple classes which provide boon X, multiple classes which provide boon Y and multiple classes that provide boon Z. As such boon duration will not be required.

> >

> > There are multiple inconsistencies with this train of thought:

> >

> > 1. This would be insane power creep

> > 2. Given that 1 class would alway be best at damage and given boon, the remaining classes for this boon would be undesired and locked out

> > 3. It would make boon duration as a Stat completely useless. Again while this might be an approach, it is highly unlikely

> >

> > I don't see any argument why dps slots would NOT suffer currently and you have not yet provided any reasonable argument that they will. Again we have had multiple iterations of raid squad metas and your theory has never been the case, unlike mine.

>

> Just because you can't see it doesn't mean they can't fix it. They have already made a good start at spreading it out. You also don't have the big picture, which doesn't help your assumptions.

>

> Additionally, why would we have ever seen any other raid meta when chrono has been so strong since raids were introduced? Your logic is circular at best.

 

I already yielded that changes can be made which we can not foreseen by us. I can make assumptions though based on previous balance iteration of the game, which is a lot more logic than making wild guesses based on my own dream world of "maybe".

 

What I was saying is: you are basing your support and acceptance on exactly that, faith and miracles without taking into account how raid metas have changed and developed. There is a ton of ways how the raid meta could have been changed, none of which included even touching alacrity and quickness on chrono.

 

Let's wait and see, maybe you get to come back 6 months from now (if you are even playing the game at that point) and be happy that everything worked out (or unhappy that everything worked out just as you hoped, again unique boons is a terrible idea). Maybe I get to see Arenanet rework chrono for the x-th time and re-balance Firebrand (which is insanely overpowered by now because what no one realizes is: the reason why Firebrand was not prefered over chrono in pve had nothing to do with quickness) or maybe the developers pull a magical bunny out of their hat and surprise us all. It will be interesting.

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Opopanax.1803" said:

> > You completely missed the first point. Completely.

> >

> > And of course gearing boon durations costs damage. However you aren't thinking about the ways that Anet could deal with this, but rather the old mentality of 100% boon duration being mandatory. It wont be if they share boons across more classes.

> >

> > Listen close: there wont be less dps slots. This is your pure conjecture.

>

> Boon duration IS a Stat which has a unique purpose: enhance duration of boons.

>

> To believe that Arenanet will do away with this stats, which is possible, is pure speculation at this point in time.

>

> Your argument is:

> Well we might get to take multiple classes which provide boon X, multiple classes which provide boon Y and multiple classes that provide boon Z. As such boon duration will not be required.

>

> There are multiple inconsistencies with this train of thought:

>

> 1. This would be insane power creep

> 2. Given that 1 class would alway be best at damage and given boon, the remaining classes for this boon would be undesired and locked out

> 3. It would make boon duration as a Stat completely useless. Again while this might be an approach, it is highly unlikely

 

DPS slots won't be "reduced" for the simple reason that the meta don't need 9 different boons to reach it's most effective damage output. Defensive boons will be neglected and professions that need a high number of boons to reach their peak won't be as favored as profession that just need the offensive boons.

Alacrity, fury, might and quickness are your roster of support if one of them can provide healing this will be even better, the other can just hope that they have what's needed to be taken in for a dps slot.

[Opopanax.1803]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > @"Opopanax.1803" said:

> > > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > > > @"Opopanax.1803" said:

> > > > You completely missed the first point. Completely.

> > > >

> > > > And of course gearing boon durations costs damage. However you aren't thinking about the ways that Anet could deal with this, but rather the old mentality of 100% boon duration being mandatory. It wont be if they share boons across more classes.

> > > >

> > > > Listen close: there wont be less dps slots. This is your pure conjecture.

> > >

> > > Boon duration IS a Stat which has a unique purpose: enhance duration of boons.

> > >

> > > To believe that Arenanet will do away with this stats, which is possible, is pure speculation at this point in time.

> > >

> > > Your argument is:

> > > Well we might get to take multiple classes which provide boon X, multiple classes which provide boon Y and multiple classes that provide boon Z. As such boon duration will not be required.

> > >

> > > There are multiple inconsistencies with this train of thought:

> > >

> > > 1. This would be insane power creep

> > > 2. Given that 1 class would alway be best at damage and given boon, the remaining classes for this boon would be undesired and locked out

> > > 3. It would make boon duration as a Stat completely useless. Again while this might be an approach, it is highly unlikely

> > >

> > > I don't see any argument why dps slots would NOT suffer currently and you have not yet provided any reasonable argument that they will. Again we have had multiple iterations of raid squad metas and your theory has never been the case, unlike mine.

> >

> > Just because you can't see it doesn't mean they can't fix it. They have already made a good start at spreading it out. You also don't have the big picture, which doesn't help your assumptions.

> >

> > Additionally, why would we have ever seen any other raid meta when chrono has been so strong since raids were introduced? Your logic is circular at best.

>

> I already yielded that changes can be made which we can not foreseen by us. I can make assumptions though based on previous balance iteration of the game, which is a lot more logic than making wild guesses based on my own dream world of "maybe".

>

> What I was saying is: you are basing your support and acceptance on exactly that, faith and miracles without taking into account how raid metas have changed and developed. There is a ton of ways how the raid meta could have been changed, none of which included even touching alacrity and quickness on chrono.

>

> Let's wait and see, maybe you get to come back 6 months from now (if you are even playing the game at that point) and be happy that everything worked out (or unhappy that everything worked out just as you hoped, again unique boons is a terrible idea). Maybe I get to see Arenanet rework chrono for the x-th time and re-balance Firebrand (which is insanely overpowered by now because what no one realizes is: the reason why Firebrand was not prefered over chrono in pve had nothing to do with quickness) or maybe the developers pull a magical bunny out of their hat and surprise us all. It will be interesting.

 

And you keep overlooking the fact that the meta has never had any chance to change because chrono could bring alacrity and quickness plus nearly everything else by themself. There is no chance of a.meta change with that in place. This has nothing to do with faith and miracles, just obvious conclusions.