Core vs Elite balancing - buff core or nerf elite?

[Firebeard.1746]

In the more recent balance patches it feels like the devs have been mostly focused on nerfing elite specs instead of bringing core closer to elite power. It's been a gripe within the community for a while, that elite specs were too powerful, but it was never my impression that the community wanted elite specs nerfed. It's also problematic that these balance changes are being made without changes to the content these specs were balanced around - PVE content might get too difficult as a result. It's also problematic that some of these specs are becoming nigh unplayable with no attention to class balancing history. Does the community want core buffed or elites nerfed?

[Glider.5792]

Elite specs are supposed to be "New ways to play a class", not a direct buff to an already existing class. They just need to be nerfed to be equal to core, but have a different playstyle.

> @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> bumping so this isn't lost. I see it's not a super popular poll but hoping to keep Anet's attention because this is a point the balance team needs to learn.

It's only been 5 hours, you dont need to bump a thread multiple times per day.

 

 

[Elmo Benchwarmer.3025]

Nerf them hard.

[Documental.5946]

for/10char

[bluberblasen.9684]

nerf elite spec.

when you buff core - elite is often buffed too.

 

[Miellyn.6847]

Nerf the overperforming specialisations. We don't need more power creep.

[Jethro.9376]

Even if you buff core or nerf elites, core specs will never be at the same level of power thanks to outdated mechanics and differences in utility.

 

Elite specs shouldn't be able to use some core skills. That would be a draw back a-net wants classes to have.

[Cyninja.2954]

Where is option 3?: I don't think core and elite builds should be equally powerful.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Both i say. Elites in certain cases are just overboard with their cheese (like invulni/evade/block uptimes on mirages or sb). As a necro i can only corrupt so many boons and they pop right back up moments later. Any further then this and it's a pure spam fest of corrupts vs boons.

 

On the other hand some core specs do suffer and in no way can be compared to their elites simply due to core being shit rather then elite that OP (hi necro).

[Ben K.6238]

I'd prefer if the power creep in this game was dialled back, at least in the competitive game modes. Can't do that with buffing.

[Omernon.9762]

Most elite specs need nerf, and some core classes need a visible buff.

 

For example I hope that they will one day buff elementalist’s core staff, because weaver sword is superior in every possible game mode. On the other hand core warrior doesn’t need as dramatic buff if any - maybe on some less common weapons like 1h sword.

[Voltekka.2375]

Are we talking about wvw/pvp, or pve? Cause in competitive modes, core specs are more than viable. Wvw (and pvp) roaming has core (meta builds) : thief, necro, guard, warr, mesmer, ele, ranger as well. Buffing those will kill any semblance of balance there is. If the question is pve, I cant imagine why Anet would buff core when its free to play. Expansions bring the company money, if you make core strong why get em?

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> Where is option 3?: I don't think core and elite builds should be equally powerful.

 

There is a certain truth here. Firstly, impossible to make everything equal. Just doesn't happen in an MMO; at best you can get close, but never equal. But I do think choosing between core and elite should have both advantages and disadvantages that are tied to the specialization.

 

For example, I prefer Power Core Guardian over DH. At first it was because I disliked traps and LB was jank (still is) but over time I came to love being able to run Virtues trait line, along with Zeal and Radiance, to give party utility via my virtues. As Core I can give AoE condition cleanse, stunbreak + stability + protection, might and regen. This all comes at the cost of damage.

 

If ANET buffed core damage to be equal with DH (don't know how they would do it), the choice between the two would effectively be a choice between group utility via F1-F3, vs the DH versions of the F1-F3, traps and access to longbow.

 

If you like how traps work, longbow, or prefer Spear of Justice to Virtue of Justice, etc, you would pick DH. If you didn't like those, you chose Core. Elite specializations give you access to new utilities (traps), weapons (longbow) and mechanics (different F1-F3) and I feel that is what the choice should be about.

 

But any Power DPS Guardian player would automatically go to DH simply because it does, at minimum, 10% more DPS on a golem, and probably much more in real fights where Aegis uptime isn't guaranteed, all because of modifiers built into DH traits. To date I've never seen another core Guardian pugging in T4s - not one.

 

That I think is the real crux of the problem here, and I realize it isn't as cut/dry with other professions.

 

[derd.6413]

good read, gave me a good laugh

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Glider.5792" said:

> Elite specs are supposed to be "New ways to play a class", not a direct buff to an already existing class. They just need to be nerfed to be equal to core, but have a different playstyle.

That's not a good idea, for a very simple reason - core specs got nerfed in order to make place for elite specs to shine. At the moment, no matter how we're going to nerf elite specs, core ones (berring some edge cases) are in a very bad spot. They need to be buffed up to make them able to stand on their own first, before we'll start messing up with elites.

 

(That's for PvE, if anyone's wondering. I don't feel qualified to talk about PvP balance at the moment).

 

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> Where is option 3?: I don't think core and elite builds should be equally powerful.

That option went out of the window the moment Anet announced that making them equal was one of their balance goals.

 

 

[Scipion.7548]

I wish a core spec to become an elite spec, for each classes. A new character would automatically use the "vanilla" elite spec which you can replace by an elite spec from an expac. The vanilla elite specs should be overhauled to be on par with other elite specs, concerning effectiveness and fun.

 

Guardian : Virtues becomes an elite spec, unlocks hammer and consecrations.

Warrior : Discipline becomes an elite spec, unlocks rifle and banners.

Ranger : Beastmastery becomes an elite spec, unlocks greatsword (or axe ?) and commands.

Thief : Trickery becomes an elite spec, unlocks bow and tricks.

Engineer : tools becomes an elite spec, unlocks ? and gadgets.

Mesmer : Illusions becomes an elite spec, unlocks torch and Glamour skills.

Necromancer : Soul Reaping is renamed Soul Magic (to not be confused with Reaper) and becomes an elite spec, unlocks ? and Spectral skills.

Elementalist : Arcane becomes an elite spec, unlocks ? and arcane skills.

Revenant : Invocation becomes an elite spec, unlocks ? and ?.

 

[Cyninja.2954]

I think the entire debate about core and elite specs makes no sense and core should be clearly inferior, but I shall explain why:

 

First off, core specs as is right now are completely integrated into every elite spec with only some minor alterations here and there. To change this, core builds would need to be built similar to an elite spec with very own traits and mechanics. This would be potentially even more effort than a new elite spec since core traits, skills, etc would need to be redesigned as to not work the same way in elite specs.

 

If the effort is just as much as designing a new elite spec, then I'd rather arenanet work on additional elite specs. It would be way easier to balance around 3 elite specs (without major concern to core classes) over balanceing around core classes and 2 elite specs (for referance, currently they are balancing mostly around the elite specs only).

 

I just don't see the benefit in making core classes viable. The only reason for this would be if people enjoy the core abilities over every single elite spec available to their class. In which case its more an issue of designing an elite spec which caters or is somewhat similar to the core class (which most classes have). Even then I would personally racther have 3 elite specs than core builds +2elites.

 

As to power creep, yeah that ship sailed looooong ago. I don't deal with notions of grandeur or immagination. The power creep will never get toned back, and to some extent it shouldn't since all content since HoT was designed with higher than vanilla power levels in mind. I do agree though that elite specs should be toned down a bit as well as balanced against each other.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> I think the entire debate about core and elite specs makes no sense and core should be clearly inferior,

Perhaps, but last two balance patches were full of nerfs to elite specs under the banner of making them equal to core. Personally i think that wasn't a good idea, but if we do need that to happen, and Anet is going to do it anyway, then i'd definitely want Anet buffing core, and giving core unique options, rather than them keeping hammering elite specs until they stop moving.

 

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> I just don't see the benefit in making core classes viable. The only reason for this would be if people enjoy the core abilities over every single elite spec available to their class. In which case its more an issue of designing an elite spec which caters or is somewhat similar to the core class (which most classes have). Even then I would personally racther have 3 elite specs than core builds +2elites.

Yes, having a new elite spec that is basically core on steroids, without changes to its gameplay and aestethics would be a good choice as well. In some cases the especs have a completely different feel than core, while at the same time taking away options from it. Necro is a good example here. Ele is another.

 

And yeah, cutting back on power creep would require rebalancing a lot of the content we've got since HoT (especially the more difficult parts, like raids, new fractals and fractal CMs), since they were _not_ balanced around pre-expansion power levels.

 

[Elmo Benchwarmer.3025]

> @"Scipion.7548" said:

> I wish a core spec to become an elite spec, for each classes. A new character would automatically use the "vanilla" elite spec which you can replace by an elite spec from an expac. The vanilla elite specs should be overhauled to be on par with other elite specs, concerning effectiveness and fun.

>

> Guardian : Virtues becomes an elite spec, unlocks hammer and consecrations.

> Warrior : Discipline becomes an elite spec, unlocks rifle and banners.

> Ranger : Beastmastery becomes an elite spec, unlocks greatsword (or axe ?) and commands.

> Thief : Trickery becomes an elite spec, unlocks bow and tricks.

> Engineer : tools becomes an elite spec, unlocks ? and gadgets.

> Mesmer : Illusions becomes an elite spec, unlocks torch and Glamour skills.

> Necromancer : Soul Reaping is renamed Soul Magic (to not be confused with Reaper) and becomes an elite spec, unlocks ? and Spectral skills.

> Elementalist : Arcane becomes an elite spec, unlocks ? and arcane skills.

> Revenant : Invocation becomes an elite spec, unlocks ? and ?.

>

 

The dream. ?

 

The Engineer tools line should unlock the rifle.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

> @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> I think the entire debate about core and elite specs makes no sense and core should be clearly inferior, but I shall explain why:

>

> First off, core specs as is right now are completely integrated into every elite spec with only some minor alterations here and there. To change this, core builds would need to be built similar to an elite spec with very own traits and mechanics. This would be potentially even more effort than a new elite spec since core traits, skills, etc would need to be redesigned as to not work the same way in elite specs.

>

> If the effort is just as much as designing a new elite spec, then I'd rather arenanet work on additional elite specs. It would be way easier to balance around 3 elite specs (without major concern to core classes) over balanceing around core classes and 2 elite specs (for referance, currently they are balancing mostly around the elite specs only).

>

> I just don't see the benefit in making core classes viable. The only reason for this would be if people enjoy the core abilities over every single elite spec available to their class. In which case its more an issue of designing an elite spec which caters or is somewhat similar to the core class (which most classes have). Even then I would personally racther have 3 elite specs than core builds +2elites.

>

> As to power creep, yeah that ship sailed looooong ago. I don't deal with notions of grandeur or immagination. The power creep will never get toned back, and to some extent it shouldn't since all content since HoT was designed with higher than vanilla power levels in mind. I do agree though that elite specs should be toned down a bit as well as balanced against each other.

 

If I'm not mistaken years ago A-net themselves said that E-Spec would offer different playstyle(not a straight-up upgrade to core) without making it mandatory but currently it's meta e-spec or shoo away. There's no need to "built similar to an elite spec", because they're just nothing more than a traitlines and skills like everything else. I don't understand your point of view at all, it seems like you consider E-spec like something totally different, but they're nothing more than a trait lines and access to new skills, do not forget that.

With next e-spec that will show up probably with next x-pack, it will be much HARDER to balance game even more, since there will be a possible new interactions between traitlines and skills themselves.

The only reason why e-spec should be "better" than core is marketing(yay buy new x-pack, feel stronk) and that's it.

People somehow were capable of playing without elite speces before HoT and they were doing fine, but dunno, it kinda feels like players are not capable of playing game without cheese these days.

It is possible to balance this game properly and they need to be balanced with their core counterparts in mind instead of elite specializations, shaving like 25-50% to power and condi damage, reducing output of boons, condis and healing as well as their durations by minimum 33%, increasing cooldowns on skills to properly match other core skills and that alone would bring e-speces to barely acceptable levels then only tweak traits here and there and finito. Not a rocket science.

[TheGrimm.5624]

> @"Voltekka.2375" said:

> Are we talking about wvw/pvp, or pve? Cause in competitive modes, core specs are more than viable. Wvw (and pvp) roaming has core (meta builds) : thief, necro, guard, warr, mesmer, ele, ranger as well. Buffing those will kill any semblance of balance there is. If the question is pve, I cant imagine why Anet would buff core when its free to play. Expansions bring the company money, if you make core strong why get em?

 

Agree, have enough alts that I run all three in a number of classes, and no the core ones I run in WvW do not hesitate to take out their elite counterparts. They have been doing a good job of balancing out core and elite in my view. Back in the day, would agree there was a distinct edge but these days...have no problems leaving some characters set as core builds.

[TheGrimm.5624]

Also there is no 'Other' option so you are probably going to miss some votes on people reading.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"TrollingDemigod.3041" said:

> I don't understand your point of view at all, it seems like you consider E-spec like something totally different, but they're nothing more than a trait lines and access to new skills, do not forget that.

Because, at least for some classes, they _are_ different. For example, Ele dps option is weaver, and double attunement changes the gamplay enough that i completely stopped playing that class. Same with Necro and scourge - i just don't see scourge as the same class both in aestethics and gameplay style. I liked Reaper, but that also was different than core necro.

 

> With next e-spec that will show up probably with next x-pack,

As i said in another thread - what next expac? I'm quite sure they aren't working on any.

 

> People somehow were capable of playing without elite speces before HoT and they were doing fine, but dunno, it kinda feels like players are not capable of playing game without cheese these days.

That's because everything from HoT till now has been done around elite specs balance wise. Also, you probably don't remember how significantly core classes' traitlines were gutted pre-HoT in order to make space for elite specs.

 

Remember, pre-HoT open world was balanced around green gear, instanced content around rares, everything assumed much lower player dps output, small amount of boons, and some self-healing. Now most content assumes at least exotics, much bigger dps values, presence of a healer, and a much higher complement of boons. If you suddenly lose all that, while the content still assumes you have it, it's going to be painful for everyone involved.

 

If they are going to nerf the current power level the whole post-core game is based on, i'd definitely want them to tune down all the encounters first.

[Cyninja.2954]

> @"TrollingDemigod.3041" said:

> > @"Cyninja.2954" said:

> > I think the entire debate about core and elite specs makes no sense and core should be clearly inferior, but I shall explain why:

> >

> > First off, core specs as is right now are completely integrated into every elite spec with only some minor alterations here and there. To change this, core builds would need to be built similar to an elite spec with very own traits and mechanics. This would be potentially even more effort than a new elite spec since core traits, skills, etc would need to be redesigned as to not work the same way in elite specs.

> >

> > If the effort is just as much as designing a new elite spec, then I'd rather arenanet work on additional elite specs. It would be way easier to balance around 3 elite specs (without major concern to core classes) over balanceing around core classes and 2 elite specs (for referance, currently they are balancing mostly around the elite specs only).

> >

> > I just don't see the benefit in making core classes viable. The only reason for this would be if people enjoy the core abilities over every single elite spec available to their class. In which case its more an issue of designing an elite spec which caters or is somewhat similar to the core class (which most classes have). Even then I would personally racther have 3 elite specs than core builds +2elites.

> >

> > As to power creep, yeah that ship sailed looooong ago. I don't deal with notions of grandeur or immagination. The power creep will never get toned back, and to some extent it shouldn't since all content since HoT was designed with higher than vanilla power levels in mind. I do agree though that elite specs should be toned down a bit as well as balanced against each other.

>

> If I'm not mistaken years ago A-net themselves said that E-Spec would offer different playstyle(not a straight-up upgrade to core) without making it mandatory but currently it's meta e-spec or shoo away. There's no need to "built similar to an elite spec", because they're just nothing more than a traitlines and skills like everything else. I don't understand your point of view at all, it seems like you consider E-spec like something totally different, but they're nothing more than a trait lines and access to new skills, do not forget that.

 

**Yes, the entire core class is available to every elite spec. That is the fundamental difference to elite specs which can, as a result of being exclusive to each other, get balanced way easier.** Now in order for both core AND elite spec to be equal in power, the elite spec needs to be essentially a full sidegrade to the core class while ALSO offering an additional traitline and new skills. I doubt that is even remotely possible to be achieved and you would too doubt this to be possible if you gave it some deeper thought.

 

It's a very simple mathematical equation. Core builds are X, elite specs are Y. X is part of Y thus Y is X+N, but you want X and Y to be equal. This would be only doable with severe drawbacks in elite specs (as to compensate for having access to the full core class) which in turn means they would need severe penalties. Not only is this not fun, it would be very hard to balance. As I had mentioned earlier.

 

> @"TrollingDemigod.3041" said:

> With next e-spec that will show up probably with next x-pack, it will be much HARDER to balance game even more, since there will be a possible new interactions between traitlines and skills themselves.

 

Exactly, and if they have to balance around core builds it will be even harder. I totally agree.

 

> @"TrollingDemigod.3041" said:

> People somehow were capable of playing without elite speces before HoT and they were doing fine, but dunno, it kinda feels like players are not capable of playing game without cheese these days.

 

Strawman argument. With only 1 elite spec available a LOT of roles in this game were not covered. With 2 elite specs, more roles are covered thus core builds become less viable. With 3 elite specs nearly all roles can potentially be covered.

 

Right now there is still some roles not covered and core builds either fill those roles, or they are not filled at all. Not every class has access to a heal build, way less classes had access to heal builds with only HoT. Not every class has access to support builds, even less classes had access to those with HoT. Etc.

 

With 3 elite specs it would theoretically possible to cover nearly any role, if so designed, by any class. There would be no more room for core builds.

[Knighthonor.4061]

> @"Voltekka.2375" said:

> Are we talking about wvw/pvp, or pve? Cause in competitive modes, core specs are more than viable. Wvw (and pvp) roaming has core (meta builds) : thief, necro, guard, warr, mesmer, ele, ranger as well. Buffing those will kill any semblance of balance there is. If the question is pve, I cant imagine why Anet would buff core when its free to play. Expansions bring the company money, if you make core strong why get em?

 

this is where I believe the problem is. the problem isnt the balance between Core and Elite. yeah some classes are terrible in terms of Core, but thats not the subject here. the problem is the balance of the game modes. Balance the different game modes to make more builds visible. Not buff/nerf the core/elite specs