Balance Notes Preview - Discussion

[otto.5684]

> @"kasoki.5180" said:

> > @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

>

> > Truth told, if you are wearing 100% zerker gear the nerf won't impact you as you were already over crit cap, but that's the part that bugs me, because this trait actually made it possible for a DPS spec to wear some Valkyrie pieces or use accessories with the Berkserk + Valk stat (which drops some precision for vitality) and boost survivability without impacting DPS output. I wonder if maybe the Devs looked at this and said "meh, top tier DH are already at 130% crit cap, we can nerf this".

> >

> > If you nerf something that didn't need to be nerfed and yet no new options open up, why nerf it?

> >

> > Again this is really a minor thing, because you can overcome this nerf with gear choices. But it was unnecessary, ineffective, and it will have a negative impact on players who prefer to run around with more than 11k health.

> >

>

> But thats kind of the point. Trait allowed you to bypass what was designed to be professions main weakness and trade off (side note, I agree that HP should be changed). You start from the basic premise that this didnt need to be nerfed, which ArenaNet obviously disagrees with. And so do some other players. The fact that meaningful replacement wasn't implemented doesn't change the fact that trait wasn't good for the game and needed to be nerfed.

>

> > @"otto.5684" said:

> >

> > Too much compared to what exactly in PvP?! Holo, herald, warrior, soul beast, mirage or necro?! I laughed a bit when you mentioned mender. You know this whole thread has nothing to do with FB support, right?

>

> All of the mentioned professions are known "offenders" in PvP. Comparing core guard to things like soulbeast or mirage makes little sense if we are talking about whats good for this game.

 

Dude, you cannot say all PvP builds are broken then say we only should fix guardians dps. We either fix all of them or none of them. They need to be on the same level. If not, then the class balance fucking failed.

 

And I am not going get into what is good for the game, cuz that is complex and subjective. The most two important aspects of balance is that: all classes are on equal footing. Classes have multiple builds that are on equal footing. This patch and the previous one have been doing the exact opposite. Last patch hammer and shatter aegis were killed. This patch the back bone of guardian PvP dps build is being removed.

 

[Obtena.7952]

Still clinging to that idea Anet is targeting performance balance ay? I see that's working well.

 

Frankly, I don't believe that balance is good for the game. It's good for players that care about balance. Game doesn't need balance to be good; certainly the last 6+ years have shown us that.

 

I think Kasoki is right; RI was borderline broken. Not only did it allow you to complete ignore the primary stat that gives crit in order to achieve 100% crit rate cap, it allowed for a situation where it opened up extreme levels of HP because of optimal stat choice. Seems to me that NEITHER of those things are inline with what Anet intends for the class (and the question was why it made it to the game in the first place). I also don't think it's Anet's purpose to make stats trivial in the sense that they aren't necessary to achieve what they are intended to do. There was tons broken with how RI was implemented.

 

Also, what is broken on other classes is completely irrelevant to the discussion here.

[Zephoid.4263]

Sure, it was too good. But guards numbers were built around it. Guard It's like saying the last block holding up the jenga tower is too good because its holding up the tower. Lets pull it out half way and see what happens. Wana guess?

 

If they were going to remove RI, buff other traits to compensate for some of that lost crit chance. Rework some of the awful aegis interaction (heal or damage) traits into something relevant to ANY build of guard. Rework the signets so they actually give meaninful buffs to be useful with PI. SOMETHING if they are going to pull that peg out to hold the tower together.

 

Guard as a whole had no top teir build except boon FB in WvW. Nerfing core/dh's primary damage trait shouldn't be remotely on the radar.

 

[Oberwaldmeister.8239]

PvE

 

Just to clarify things:

 

The standard precision on level 80 is 1000 which equals 5% precision.

On full berserker gear you have 961 additional points of precision where every 21 points equals 1% precision.

 

5% + (961 : 21)% = 50,76%

 

Righteous Instinct will give now a flat 25% precision boost whenever you have retaliation/there is symbol under the enemy.

 

50,76% + 25% = 75,76%

 

Radiant power is flat 10% boost whenever you hit a burning enemy.

 

75,76% + 10% = 85,76%

 

Now we come to boosts from allies/boons:

 

Fury gives a flat 20% precision boost:

 

85,76% + 20% = 105,76%

 

Druid's spotter gives 100 points for precision:

 

105,76% + (100 : 21) = 110,52%

 

Banner of Discipline gives with Inspiring Battle Standard 200 points of precision:

 

110,52% + (200 : 21) = 120,04%

 

Soo 120% after next tuesdays patch and 145% now.

So the only thing that changed is DPS without a group. Maybe in some cases, where you don't have Fury at the start of your rotation you will notice that that there is a difference.

Still would've been nice if they just decreased it to 33% and buffed the passive boost for perfect inscription by like 5-10%.

Still there is barely any use for perfect inscription without heavy CC need. Nice try Anet atleast in PvE.

 

Edit: Splitting RI in gamemodes was too exhausting right?

 

Generally: i would wish that there is a strict split between gamemodes so nerfing a OP PvP Classic doesn't effect the Classic in PvE and vice versa. I thought they want to do this but didnt notice anything yet.

[Ghos.1326]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > @"crazyhusky.2985" said:

> > > @"Yannir.4132" said:

> > > > @"crazyhusky.2985" said:

> > > > Oh sorry I forgot that trait vene existed Since it condition based, still not 140% though.

> > > > However it still stops a Dragonhunter from able to invest in other stats that it needs. Like Vitality. since it has a low HP pool.

> > > > You can not run about with max damage guard, because you'll be 1 shot. in pvp/wvw

> > > >

> > > > It wouldn't be bad if they bumped up Guardian to the Mid tier HP Pool, so we can actually be threat.

> > >

> > > You get 130% when you count what it currently does, then you add Spotter + Banner which are about 10% together.

> > >

> > > 50% from Berserker gear set.

> > > 50% RI currently.

> > > 20% Fury.

> > > 10% Radiant Power

> > > 10% Banner + Spotter

> > > Even with 0 party buffs you are sitting at 130% crit chance atm.

> > >

> > > And you don't need any extra Vitality, I've been raiding on a Berserker set for years.

> > > Obviously this crit chance formula is useless for PvP. Which is what it was meant as.

> >

> > I was going from DH/Guard on it's own without any outside effects since you are not always going to have spotter and banners.

> > RI effects Both DH and Base guardian, the nerf it hurts DH more than Base guardian.

> >

> > That 50% crit chance is VERY diffcult to maintain within the current Meta builds of DH for PVE. It only has 2 ways of getting Retal.

> > Greatsword 4 and heal skill, you shouldn't be using the heal skill to proc retal, because you may need the skill to heal yourself.

> > So basically Dragonhunter has only 1 effective way of getting Retal. which means you need to run Greatsword.

> > If you run try to the virtue traitline to get another couple of ways of gaining Retal, then you're giving up all your power and will have a lower Greatsword CD and DPS.

> >

> > The issue isn't really RI itself, it is the lack of retal that Dragonhunter can get. This is why you see more Base Guardian's around in pvp.

> > Because you can run Virtues with radiance then pick zeal or valor depending on your playstyle.

>

> This isn't entirely accurate ... DH has as much Retal access as core or FB because the things that give you retal aren't restricted to non-DH things.

>

> If the current PVE meta restricts DH from good access to Retal to begin with, then the change to RI has almost no impact on DH in the first place.

>

> Change to RI won't affect PVP significantly either ... if people thought 50% was motivating reason to choose RI, they won't scoff at 25% either. The fact is that anyone should have seen this nerf a mile away ... you cap crit so easily and can so easily replace precision with vitality on a wide variety of power gear. Absolutely no tradeoffs there; that's just not sustainable.

>

>

>

 

See I agree with you on this honestly. The current core guard builds pre-patch that run the radiant greatsword/hammer builds get super high crit chance easy, without needing to use any precision gear, or even do special attack interactions (using engineer needing to crit to gain extra crit chance from fury using No Scope trait, needing to crit to apply bleed which gives more crit chance using passive trait in firearms, as an example). instead all they needed to do was gain a boon, and apply a condition to get that high crit chance. in my humblest opinion, thinking of how it allowed the guardian to be an actually decently sustainable skirmisher that could also burst well, it was a needed nerf to the trait. now if they still choose to take their current amulet, instead of having 80-100% crit chance almost all of the time, now they'll only have about 40-60%, a fair tradeoff of power damage to keep their higher healthpool.

 

Regardless, they can still just also take marauders and reach high crit chances, just with a bit less survivability now, which is good.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Zephoid.4263" said:

> Guard as a whole had no top teir build except boon FB in WvW. Nerfing core/dh's primary damage trait shouldn't be remotely on the radar.

>

 

Except that's not how Anet thinks ... and we see it EVERY balance patch. The decision to change things on a class has zero to do with where it ranks. It simply makes no sense to impose how you think on Anet's approach to changing the game. We still got people thinking Anet is balancing for some between-class equivalent performance target; how can anyone think that based on the last 6 years? I mean, the fact that a 50% crit buff on RI even existed should convince anyone that's not how Anet does things because there is no way that kind of buff would exist in a game where the developers are trying to make equivalent class performance in the first place.

[Ezrael.6859]

50% crit chance is worth 1050 precision!

It was always going to be brought back in line with everything. Which is why I always stayed at 50% base crit with my builds and never relied on the RI carry with full Valkyrie gear for WvW.

[ReaverKane.7598]

Yay they broke guardian.

I'm so done with this game.

[Etterwyn.5263]

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> Yay they broke guardian.

> I'm so done with this game.

 

What did you do before August 2017?

[otto.5684]

Btw, Anet surely by design put RI at 50% a year and a half ago, to make Valkyrie the go to option for power builds in PvP. Anyone thinking it was initially an error or an oversight is deliusional. Anet devs are not that dumb, that they did not realize how it worked. The idea that Anet just woke up this patch and realized that players can over clock critic chance, so they nerfed it, is absolutely false.

 

The change to RI, without any doubt, is targeted specifically to kill any possibility of using Valkyrie stats. There is no other purpose. There are no “options” or “better performing” than other traits. That it is all bullshit, since the other two traits, one is used for condi damage and the other for support to begin with. And even if RI is nerfed to 10%, it will still be a better option than the two other traits for power dps builds.

 

The real question is what basis is Anet using to determine the core guardian is over performing in PvP. The core power build in PvP is not top tier meta by any means.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @"Etterwyn.5263" said:

> > @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> > Yay they broke guardian.

> > I'm so done with this game.

>

> What did you do before August 2017?

 

Before August 2017 the average DPS wasn't 30k.

I'm actually done with this game for a while now, but this is pretty much the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back... I've been waiting for a decent balance patch, pretty much since 2015.

Guardian's been on the half and half just about forever, never the best but never the worse, now power guards will be joining Revenants and Necromancers with their most reliable source of damage gone.

 

> @"otto.5684" said:

> Btw, Anet surely by design put RI at 50% a year and a half ago, to make Valkyrie the go to option for power builds in PvP. Anyone thinking it was initially an error or an oversight is deliusional. Anet devs are not that dumb, that they did not realize how it worked. The idea that Anet just woke up this patch and realized that players can over clock critic chance, so they nerfed it, is absolutely false.

>

> The change to RI, without any doubt, is targeted specifically to kill any possibility of using Valkyrie stats. There is no other purpose. There are no “options” or “better performing” than other traits. That it is all kitten, since the other two traits, one is used for condi damage and the other for support to begin with. And even if RI is nerfed to 10%, it will still be a better option than the two other traits for power dps builds.

>

> The real question is what basis is Anet using to determine the core guardian is over performing in PvP. The core power build in PvP is not top tier meta by any means.

The real question is, when will they cycle the balance people to some other job and put fresh minds in, because, balance has been the main detriment to this game, especially PvP, since 2015.

[Arken.3725]

I'll give my piece, I do not like how strong RI is but as others have said (and I agree), we are slaves to it. We need it as it is in its current state. Nerfing it(at least for spvp) will decimate build diversity down to JUST support-FB.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> Yay they broke guardian.

> I'm so done with this game.

 

Yeah, they broke it when they made RI give 50% crit rate on retal a long time ago ... but you didn't have a problem with it then did you?

[MorpheusDV.8592]

So what is the issue here apart from a PvP/WvW standpoint?

 

Granted I only do CMs and T4s now since I don't have time for anything else, even raids, but I'm still overcapped on crit even with taking PI over RI.

 

Am I just not seeing something from a PvE point of view, or is it just PvP/WvWers complaining on an already broken traitline?

 

 

[nativity.3057]

Going to preface this long post by stating that I'm strictly a core Guardian main. I've enjoyed Dragonhunter in the past, but it, being designed as a power spec never interested me or replaced core Guardian, and Firebrand was not a profession I enjoyed. So I'll definitely be biased.

 

 

I think my position can be summarized as "what about xyz" where xyz is any profession that core guardian competes with at in PvP. I'm mainly a WvW player, and such the PvP aspects are amplified because of stat distributions and mode balancing. Basically, while many classes are stronger in WvW than they would be in PvP, core Guardian is reversed in that aspect.

 

 

I've joked about core guard being "budget revenants", in the sense that revs have better bursts in the role of +1ers.

In teamfight settings, core guardians fall behind holosmiths because of the latter's sustain and AoE damage with lower CDs.

In strict 1v1s, boonbeasts have better matchups. Guardians do have better rotation bursts, but these bursts are cooldown oriented and builds that can sustain fights will win 1v1s when skill is equal (and this is a reference to core guardians' ability to dominate lower ladder rankings, but falls short to players that can press the dodge key correctly and timely).

 

 

I don't mean to say that Righteous Instincts and Smiter's Boon weren't quality traits. Honestly, these traits were very good. The Radiance traitline was probably the best traitline Guardians had. Having free 50% crit was great. It allowed us to build for the natural low base health guardians had. Smiter's boon would heal a guardian to near full if it hit at least 3 players when using Litany of Wrath, a skill that was categorized as a meditation and benefited from the Valor traitline.

 

Core guardian was a build I had fun on because of its kit (that didn't revolve around the nerfed traits, but the access to instant ports). I played core Guard in WvW because I enjoyed spending hours on the class, trying to mix and match skills to play 4D chess with enemy players that were used to the bread and butter core guard rotations. There were severe limitations to what the build could achieve. It had great 1v1 matchups and terrible 1v1 matchups (Thieves and Rangers respectively). And while people can say that core guardians had a low skill floor (I agree, and I couldn't compare it to core Engi or Weaver), you could tell which Guardians played the class, and which ones rolled onto it for fun.

 

 

But all this is not relevant when we talk about expansion power creep. Holosmith, Soulbeasts, and Revenants were more deserving of nerfs. But Guardians were placed on the chopping block?

 

 

 

 

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> > Yay they broke guardian.

> > I'm so done with this game.

>

> Yeah, they broke it when they made RI give 50% crit rate on retal a long time ago ... but you didn't have a problem with it then did you?

 

Like other classes don't have similar traits. That brought power Guardian in line with other classes, never overpowered them. That's what balancing a game means, it's not lets cripple this class because we don't like this trait. That's the same poor showmanship that's been crippling this game since HoT launched.

 

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> Still clinging to that idea Anet is targeting performance balance ay? I see that's working well.

>

> Frankly, I don't believe that balance is good for the game. It's good for players that care about balance. Game doesn't need balance to be good; certainly the last 6+ years have shown us that.

>

Yeah, 25-30% of the staff had to go because the game was doing so great. PvP isn't a cesspool or anything. Nah, everything is great.

 

> I think Kasoki is right; RI was borderline broken. Not only did it allow you to complete ignore the primary stat that gives crit in order to achieve 100% crit rate cap, it allowed for a situation where it opened up extreme levels of HP because of optimal stat choice.

1) to have 100% crit you still needed to run berserker gear.

2) Extreme levels of HP on a Guardian. Yeah that shows how much you know about this game. Extreme HP in one of the three classes with the lowest baseline.

 

>Seems to me that NEITHER of those things are inline with what Anet intends for the class (and the question was why it made it to the game in the first place). I also don't think it's Anet's purpose to make stats trivial in the sense that they aren't necessary to achieve what they are intended to do. There was tons broken with how RI was implemented.

>

> Also, what is broken on other classes is completely irrelevant to the discussion here.

Yes, because this isn't about balance. So other classes doesn't matter, balance is achieved in a vacuum, it's never about balancing all the classes to within a similar tier.

Nah, that's crazy talk, right?

 

 

[Etterwyn.5263]

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> > @"Etterwyn.5263" said:

> > > @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> > > Yay they broke guardian.

> > > I'm so done with this game.

> >

> > What did you do before August 2017?

>

> Before August 2017 the average DPS wasn't 30k.

> I'm actually done with this game for a while now, but this is pretty much the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back... I've been waiting for a decent balance patch, pretty much since 2015.

> Guardian's been on the half and half just about forever, never the best but never the worse, now power guards will be joining Revenants and Necromancers with their most reliable source of damage gone.

>

> > @"otto.5684" said:

> > Btw, Anet surely by design put RI at 50% a year and a half ago, to make Valkyrie the go to option for power builds in PvP. Anyone thinking it was initially an error or an oversight is deliusional. Anet devs are not that dumb, that they did not realize how it worked. The idea that Anet just woke up this patch and realized that players can over clock critic chance, so they nerfed it, is absolutely false.

> >

> > The change to RI, without any doubt, is targeted specifically to kill any possibility of using Valkyrie stats. There is no other purpose. There are no “options” or “better performing” than other traits. That it is all kitten, since the other two traits, one is used for condi damage and the other for support to begin with. And even if RI is nerfed to 10%, it will still be a better option than the two other traits for power dps builds.

> >

> > The real question is what basis is Anet using to determine the core guardian is over performing in PvP. The core power build in PvP is not top tier meta by any means.

> The real question is, when will they cycle the balance people to some other job and put fresh minds in, because, balance has been the main detriment to this game, especially PvP, since 2015.

 

Ah you know what, I wasn't thinking in terms of PVP and amulets, since I just do PVE and WVW. I apologize.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > > @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> > > Yay they broke guardian.

> > > I'm so done with this game.

> >

> > Yeah, they broke it when they made RI give 50% crit rate on retal a long time ago ... but you didn't have a problem with it then did you?

>

> Like other classes don't have similar traits.

 

They do, that's why we have seen traits like that are getting nerfs in the past too. Don't pretend like Guardian is this massive nerf magnet. The RI trait was unreasonable at 50%, full stop.

[Zephoid.4263]

If 50% RI was unreasonable, its only because it looks so good in a vacuum. The rest of the traits for guard are pretty bad. It has one of the lowest % damage increase set of any of the classes in the game. Only DH's 20% on spear (comes with low uptime) brings it close. The base damage of all its weapons bar GS and focus 4 are low. Base guard has AWFUL dps utilities with only bane signet being good.

 

Guard has the lowest base HP of any class in this game. 50% RI gave it the ability to take a pretty uncommon stat set (valk) and make it useful. If they wanted to make RI 25% and balance guard, buff some of the other traits. That we got no compensation is the problem.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Zephoid.4263" said:

> If 50% RI was unreasonable, its only because it looks so good in a vacuum. The rest of the traits for guard are pretty bad. It has one of the lowest % damage increase set of any of the classes in the game. Only DH's 20% on spear (comes with low uptime) brings it close. The base damage of all its weapons bar GS and focus 4 are low. Base guard has AWFUL dps utilities with only bane signet being good.

>

> Guard has the lowest base HP of any class in this game. 50% RI gave it the ability to take a pretty uncommon stat set (valk) and make it useful. If they wanted to make RI 25% and balance guard, buff some of the other traits. That we got no compensation is the problem.

 

That doesn't make any sense ... a buff like RI looks good on ANY class because any class would benefit swapping from zerkers to Valk's if they could access 50% crit rate increase. There is NO argument here that is based on buffing a class 50% crit being reasonable. It simply is not.

 

Having the lowest Base HP is not relevant here. 50% Ri was not introduced to trivialize trait choice and boost HP on the class ... we already HAVE a Vitality GM trait for that.

[Obtena.7952]

There isn't anything stupid here ... 50% crit buff on RI was unreasonable in of itself, regardless of whatever shortcomings on Guardian you think you can justify it with.

[otto.5684]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> There isn't anything stupid here ... 50% crit buff on RI was unreasonable in of itself, regardless of whatever shortcomings on Guardian you think you can justify it with.

 

This statement does not make any sense whatsoever. At least put some effort in the trolling attempts..

[Obtena.7952]

Sure it does. I guess you just didn't understand it. It's not a requirement for you to understand the sentence to know why Anet changed RI. Good thing.

[otto.5684]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> Sure it does. I guess you just didn't understand it. It's not a requirement for you to understand the sentence to know why Anet changed RI. Good thing.

 

Lol. I understand the sentence. It just does not make sense. A Fail troll is a fail troll.

[Obtena.7952]

/shrug ... it makes sense to Anet. They agree as well. I guess that's what maters ... a whole bunch of people changing the game the way they want, not how you think it should be.

 

You know, this is going to blow your mind but ... everytime you guys complain that a change will result in the class completely sucking in some competitive game mode ... you justify the nerf, EVERYTIME. Think about that. Being sensational or dishonest is simply not helping you be convincing. Did you even read why Anet told us they were changing the trait? It has nothing to do with any of the things you are talking about. What makes you believe that low HP class is a compelling reason for anything? You realize Anet INTENDED for Guardian to be a low HP class right? yet somehow, here comes the 'we're a low HP class' argument to support the idea these are bad changes. You must see how silly argument actually is no?