Gw2 has such a different take on boons compared to so many other games out there. After playing gw2 for so long, I find it very tiring constantly applying boons. Unlike other games where you buff up and it stays for a long time and all you have to do is concentrate on the fight.
I agree completely! Traditional MMO buffs have purpose because you make the conscious decision to apply it for specific scenarios. Few buffs in GW2 are like this. Aeis, Stab, Healing, and some unique buffs really.
but if you go that route you simply make the fight easier, managing boon uptime is part of the challenge, having said that i think that the potential solution said at 8:33 was a good one
@Redmon de gustibus. I on the other side find too easy use buff skills that last several minutes. Before I played mmos with even a 30min buff duration (and a small CD) pratically wasting 1 slot in ur skillbar ... Any solution? Yes for those games adding more and more skillbars so now you can have 1 bar for buffs that you use at the start and then you forget about them....pratically food and enhancements. As last thing i can only add that boons are generally granted by skills that do other things too so if you need the other effects for that specific skills you can use It again not for granting the boon but for cc,interrupt or just dps..... I kind of agree with @ShadyCat i'm in favor of more occasions in which a timed skill is required like aegis stab root and block (btw most of the buffs in usual mmos are very basic like atk and def boosts, you can pratically have 3-4 skills that do the same thing with only different levels of effectiveness) but not too much of them in the same fight or some classes will be excluded in favor of others that can do them easly
After playing 10k hours lineage 2 and 6k hours of guild wars 2 I totally prefer guild wars 2 style. Getting boons/buffs once every 5 or 20 minutes or more is boring to play as a support main. Paying attention to the game and pressing your keys are the best in any game. Unless someone is bored to play the game. The 5-6 buttons every 20 seconds is nothing and won't prevent anyone from concentrating on the fight. Totally disagree with the time of boons, 30s max is good enough for any boss fight in the game.
THANK YOU for addressing this. Since herald got quickness, I've felt like a crazy person wondering why everyone was so happy about it. With such a low duration, spamming all of my utilities off cd was my only option to keep quickness up. Like you said, it isn't difficult, but it's far from fun. I'd much rather concentrate on the combat than watching numbers tick down just to spam them all again. Rev was my favorite class to play, but after feeling forced to play quickherald, I had to drop it and go back to thief, abandoning the support role completely.
Supports are struggling because the combat system is incredibly shallow, no matter how much people love and praise it. Everything about combat is "maximize dps!" and so the only purpose of supports is to, well, spam Alacrity and Quickness which help maximize dps. This I think is an unforseen consequence of doing away with combat that requires proper defense (not dodging) and healing. When enemies do too much damage to mitigate and healing is inefficient AT BEST, ending fights the quickest way possible is the most optimal path to success. So here we are. The optimal path to success.
Or nerfed, like 25->15 to 20 for alac 50->20 to 25 for quickness. Quickness especially is just too strong 50!!!!! percent action speed like holy cow that’s just too strong
I think the best solution would sth that was already mentioned on the Reddit thread. Make boon application not tied to the utility skills but the unique mechanics of the class. Things like Alacrity mirage is a good example that is tied to chaos vortex. Make warrior zerk quickness tied to rage and entering berzerk, alacrity on druid tied to celestial avatar etc.
Should of just given Herald quickness on stance change (6sec base). It promotes the revenant playstyle of switching between stances, and would just fit into the classes regular rotation
It could also be given out on pulse rather than on consume. That way, you benefit by keeping facets on and only using them when their effect is needed.
@@lunarezlycablood1838 Well in that case you can make the base duration low so that multiple facets are needed to maintain 100% uptime. The issue with that is if you have 0 concentration, it might be hard to upkeep unless every facet is on in which case you drain energy quickly. There would have to be a middle ground somewhere because at some point you will also need to swap to another legend for 10 seconds where you are providing no quickness. Although, I guess facet of nature would still be providing marginal quickness uptime while in the other legend. But if we have a low base duration, that one facet alone probably won't provide a lot of uptime.
Yo that actually sounds really good tbh, or the idea of granting quickness while maintaining a certain threshold of facets rather than consuming them sounds great too. You’d drain your energy to maintain the facets to grant quickness then once you run out you legend swap which could have really great synergy with the energy on legend swap from invocation trait line. Then once you run out of quickness swap to herald again and repeat. That sounds really solid tbh
If there design philosophy is going to be bring the player not the profession than they need to make gear more available to allow stuff like build swapping. They want us to try different builds but the process of gearing a new build is kind of nightmarish.
Yeah, let's make this game has even less long-term goals to work towards like legendary gear. Gw2 is one of the most convenient game to have and play alts. There's no need to make it even easier.
@@ikpts if you take away what is special on a legendary? what's the point of working hard to make them? they just become another grind/pay lots of goldto get skin
Gearing a new build takes somewhat between a week if you have nothing to start with and just a few minutes if you've got stuff to quickly buy/craft things.
Class Homogenisation is BS! Killed a lot of other mmos already, where in the spirit of balacing all classes where just made the same. Classes are fun if they are being played different and unique and with fun mechanics that every class should have to distinguish them from each other. Why even bother different classes if you homogenize them all again?! If that is your plan just make ONE class to rule them all, balance fixt.
Bloom, FULLLLLLLLYYY agree. This was a perfectly structured video, with some great talking points to raise up in the community. Using Druid as an example to further your points of integrating the whole kit of the class -- I'm so upset to see that Alacrity has not been peppered throughout its glyphs, traits, and celestial avatar skills. Ugh, I love this video so much.
I think the best boon support mechanic is the one given to the Harbinger right now - you already have the incentive to be in shroud as much as possible anyway, so all you need to do is position yourself correctly and take some concentration in your build to make your quickness work. Otherwise 'boon buttons' that override the purpose of a utility skill are a thing even with Firebrand and there's absolutely nothing fun about playing a qFB other than it's easier to provide quickness than it is for other professions. All in all, I'm having the weird feeling that the game design doesn't actually want us to have dedicated boon support people in a group comp. Like might and fury are getting covered by multiple people in a squad, I feel like that's what Anet sort of expects for alacrity and quickness - bring multiple people with access to the boon and have them share the responsibility for it, rather than just one person with a ton of concentration covering the boon for your group. If that's true, I don't necessarily agree that they're going about it the right way but I wouldn't mind a world where alac and quick are built into pretty much everyone's kit and aren't these exclusive boons that require specific professions, gear, and/or traits to be there.
I'd rather spam my weapon skills, since DPS uptime is never going away, and save my utility skills for actual utility. Increase the number of situations where I have to think about why I want to press a skill.
This has been my biggest gripe of the game of late. I've had arthritis since I was a teenager. So I tend to get really grumpy with anything that's meant to be used "on cooldown". It's just an auto-attack with extra steps. If there's not some interesting combo, synergy or decision being made, then it's just busy work. I love support builds, but I'm not having fun engaging with that system, which reduces my options. Mech and Firebrand aren't exciting me. Quickness Harbinger is good simple fun, though I'm still waiting for it to work reliably with Transfusion. Staff Mirage is spammy, but at least in an interesting way.
ANet has been walking away from the original roles-free "idea" and more into the meta players made, more akin a trinity. They absolutely need to revamp a couple of systems. I think giving players guidance on set roles, then designing end-game around said roles, as they would then be fully official, would allow them to design incredible encounters. "Fixing" supports would be part of said revamps. Hey maybe in 2 expansions, so about 7 years :D
Good commentary, not flaming but recognizing the good and the bad. I think ANet has had a hard time transforming from the "no holy trinity" tank/heal/dps mindset into roles, and the clashing design philosophies show. I main Revenant and have the same complaint we all have about the new quickness spamming Herald - it technically works, but it breaks the *playstyle*. I think their balance team is working in the right direction though.
Recently, Anet has changed access to Might and Fury to make it basically foolproof to provide. I think they should take the same approach for Alac/Quick. Right now, applying these boons is tedious and not rewarding. There is no reactive element. It’s just a constant mashing of your keys. There’s no thought, no purpose. If we are expected to permanently keep up these boons, then it should be as easy as possible. Otherwise you’re just expecting people to hit more buttons for no gain. Why should some classes have to hit 3-4 buttons while others can hit 1-2 for the same purpose?
This is probably one of the best approaches, make it foolproof to apply quickness/alacrity with 100% uptime, but apply it like it was done to scrapper, U either give quickness or might has 50% increased effect on you, either that or straight up make them niche buffs like stability or aegis, which increases the skill ceiling of them but also improves the playeability of classes utility skills purpose, and just balance the game around not having them
I really do not agree with this. Making all boons automatic will just make the build crafting and variety completely boring. They should be indeed make sure that support classes require equal effort and reduce the skill differences between support classes, but remove their gameplay completely and make them fool proof means you only end up with healers and DPS. That is an incredibly boring. And some support classes are genuinely fun to play. It would remove a huge a mount of the fun to not have hybrid support/DPS classes. It is good that they made might and fury fooproof and removing unique buffs. But removing everything would just make everything stale. They need to tune the way they are applied.
@@mormegil231 I don't find upkeep boons to be interesting enough in their current form to really justify this tedium. They aren't purposeful in the way stab or aegis are. Making them purposeful (when should I apply quick? When should I apply might?) is probably off the table. So we are left with these boons that are boring and demand a lot of your attention and buttons to provide. There is no gain here.
I’ve always loved the freedom of playstyle guild wars allows you. You shape the controls for you, you shape your build to fit your preferences, and you can change everything about how you look. I think the problems come from how good some play styles are relative to other players. If you play without looking at the wiki or being judged by people in raids, pvp, or wvw none of the fancy builds really matter. You play how you want and optimize it for you.
I know this video is about supports, but one issue I have with balance atm is that certain power builds still are really far behind the rest of the metagame without having much utility to make up for it. I would like to see power daredevil, dragonhunter and holosmith buffed in PvE. These builds are really fun but they just don't quite bring enough to the table right now.
I main Harbinger and providing 100% quickness uptime is really a breeze. I don't even need to spam any skills, just use one utility skill, make sure I have some life force (easily accomplishable with a pistol 2 and scepter 3), and then I go into shroud. If I can spend around 10 seconds in Harbinger shroud (which is piss easy considering you already gain 15% life force when you enter, and shroud 5 gives you even more) then I already have provided enough quickness to the group to make it through the 10 second or less cooldown on shroud. Obviously I lose some dps due to traits and making sure I have concentration, but even with celestial gear I can reach up to 12k dps, as long as I don't mess up my curses rotation. And if I want to increase that, I can put on a few pieces viper's gear. Edit: Originally I said that I reach 17k dps, but that's only while in shroud. Obviously outside of that the dps drops, so the average is 12k. Not amazing, but decent for normal mode strikes.
The reason I have relatively low DPS is because I use celestial gear on purpose, so that I have more survivability. If I wanted to increase it, I would just add a few pieces of Viper's. Would still be able to maintain 100% quickness uptime. But I don't want to do that, because, as I said, I want more survivability. And I don't exactly know if you actually listened to what he said, because my comment was a direct response to his video, so let me lay it out for you. He argued that having 100% quickness uptime on Herald was a double-edged sword, because if you wanted to accomplish that, you had to spam your utilities and ignore their other situational uses. My response to this was merely a mention of the fact that providing 100% quickness uptime with Harbinger comes at no such trade-off, since you do it automatically via a trait, and the one utility skill (outside of your elite) that you also use to provide quickness doesn't really have situational uses. So the one thing you sacrifice is a little bit of damage.
@@harrincourt95 You actually don't need to keep spamming your utility skills all the time, with an actual boon setup you are able to stack 20s+ quickness pretty quickly and just sit on assassin till you gotta refresh some boons on dragon stance. Thing is - it's easier to keep up quickness on viper/ritualist harbinger, than it is on berserker/diviner herald, with berserker>diviner herald, it really gets very spammy and you do less dps than viper>ritualist harbinger (by around 6k). Regardless.. if we'd all wanted to be as optimal as possbile we'd all be playing Firebrands anyway. Herald is downright worse quickness provider than Harbinger, that much isn't even up to discussion - hell, harbinger is probably the best dps quickness provider in the game currently. without any clunky design choices like spammy-ness of herald or banners of warrior.
I'm glad you mentioned warrior. I've been away from the game for like 7 years, so a lot of things are basically new to me, but since I came back I've been playing what I would call "The Banner Buddy" build. Core warrior with a bar full of banners and dual wield axes. I've really enjoyed it. Tons of damage (least from my "Noob" perspective) and super easy quickness and might. My only complaint has been how squishy I am in 80+ content. I think its due to a lack of healing, so I've been trying to tweak things to add a bit more of that into my build. Warrior also seems to lack a lot of the combo starters that a lot of other classes throw down. Honestly I almost didn't mind Braham following me around just cause he would put down aoe fields for me to spin to win in. I might try longbow in my swap for fire fields like shown in this video.
The introduction of concentration and making 100% boon uptime possible with just one player is the cause of all of this, and imo made the game way too easy. Back in 2012/13 boons were something you applied highly situational (with a few badly balanced exceptions) and it was great for the game. No 40k+ dps bs.
i think few years back when applying boons the uptime was like for 1min plus if i remember, and therefore you can help the group to lower down the bosses hp. Now the boons uptime is like 59 sec
I completely agree, and what's worse is that the design feels both lazy and intentional. When it was just scrapper, okay that's a mistake. When you take that pattern and apply it to herald and specter, it's intentional.
Agreed, if a utility skill needs to be spammed off cooldown then it's not a utility skill anymore, feels like there are a lot of ways they could fix this issue luckily, hopefully they do. It's fine to have a few spammy specs but it's an issue when all of them become like that.
I think they should start with integrating "character specific key binds" in the option. There are too many builds in the game currently and they all play very differently.
I think i would have to disagree on some of things stated in this video. We can talk about support playstyles, DPS, Optimization etc but the ultimate question all of these boils down to is, Is it easy so that everyone can get in and do this role vs "Skill expression is being deteriotated". Take the herald example that in recent times has one of the easiest methods to provide quickness but also one of the spammiest. We can argue about design choices and all the cool quirks about herald situational usage of their utilities, when to use them but one of the major drawback of playing this QHerald is losing out on all of these quirks for giving quickness by consuming them. If they are not quickness providers, herald's just camp in two facets passivly with occasional consumption of their facets. Another aspect to this is that these type of builds are quite good at making casual/newer players provide that boon to that group without reading/watching a 1hr guide on how to do them with rotation. Most people just wanna get in, pick a class and wanna be able to provide something for the group or even in a solo gameplay for themselves. IMO, Making it easier does not automatically destroy or hinder skill expression, It actually does the opposite in most cases cause there are going to be better and more in depth skill usage and trickery for best results. You take away these easier build choices that are good for encouraging people to build it and provide something for the team, You end up with a narrow pool of classes that are ultimately going to be picked without question. Not to mention the fact that people who wanna actually get into these type of group content will be turned off (Most). After your initial video on herald quickness, i myself did it and was able to enter groups which i could not before, I also saw couple of heralds who used that build (who were relatively new but also couple of vets too in that). If you want people to get into content (or just want a more relaxed build) it is important that these type of builds exist in the game so that they can focus on learning the mechanics of the various fights than be attacked by information from all sides. I would take this even further and say that every class needs to have some sort of an "Easy" build such as QScrapper, Qherald that have their own niches. They will never be the best but they do provide something at a more relaxed way.
I totally agree that interesting utility skills, traits and/or weapon effects should not be "sacrificed" by disregarding the very effects that they were originally designed for just to maintain upkeep on a much-needed buff. This is results to clunky and spammy gameplay. Hopefully, the dev team will take this into serious consideration.
AGREED! I play both qbrand and quickherald (both badly) but it is a very strange thing to go from having utilities I can use for mechnics to just spamming all utilities and not having anything left for mechanics. I do hope Anet take the time to rejig some of this stuff. It feels so scuffed on Rev that I am so limited, time wise, swapping into another stance cos you have to get back to Dragon to continue quick spam. :( Thanks clarifying all that with this video! 😎
I agee 100%. As someone that plays quick-scrapper and mech a lot, this is spot on. Me and a lot of guild mates avoid playing alac specter because not only does it need insane well-spamming to keep alac up, it also moves you around each time, which makes it incredibly annoying to play. And they even want to change scrapper gyros to be wells, to make it even more painful to play. As always, Firebrand and Mechanist don't have that problem, so better play those.
Great video! It's especially relevant now with Anet planning to change scrapper's pulsating gyros with AoE abilites. Oh and I was wondering what armour skins the Charr in the thumbnail is wearing. It looks awesome!
The thing is that ANet didn't like it when supports were that flexible too. Look at the Fire Brigade comp where it was two firebrands and an alacren. It was over homogenized since Ren was clearly the best alac source in the game with Soulcleave support, decent damage in Shiro, high stab uptime in Jalis, a projectile bubble in Ventari, boonstrip in Mallyx, and so on. It was almost too versatile. I think ANet wants there to be a legitimate trade off for bringing boons and that is at the cost of versatility. All of the boons where you mash a skill type off cool down, or in scrapper's case super speed, have that trade off. The others that don't like quickness chronomancer, alacrity renegade, alacrity mirage, alacrity mechanist, quickness harbinger, and quickness firebrand are extremely versatile and a lot of them are kind of overpowered in some aspects. Though, Ren and Chrono can get some love.
How good is concentration for extending Quickness duration? Seems like a way to get around it on paper, but not something I've played myself so I dunno.
First, I don't think any Elite spec should be able to provide Alacrity or Quickness by default, it should be a talent choice. Some Elites can choose to provide Quickness, some to provide Alac, and some can choose between the two. Second, I don't mind the idea of having to spam 3 utility skills to provide 100% uptime, but you should be able to max out your Concentration and get 100% uptime from a single skill (or, with say 50% Concentration, 2 skills is enough). Then you can gear full support and maintain the boon by yourself, or coordinate with a couple of others to maintain it between you.
Great video and suggestions! I hope Anet is paying attention, and/or you have sent them these suggestions in writing, as they really seem to need the constructive feedback right now. It seems that Anet might have lost their way in balance theory and implementation over the past 6 to 12 months, if not longer. I'm not sure how much time the developers have to actually play the game, as some of their balance decisions recently haven't made much sense, and have left many in the community puzzled about the thinking behind many of the balance patch decisions. All of this is terribly important, as bad balance decisions can drive even the most ardent supporters away from the game, when bad choices are unresolved for months and in some cases, years at a time. Frankly, even though I'm not a competitive PvP, or WvW player in GW2, I'm surprised that there are any players still doing these game modes anymore, because of the lack of attention that Anet has shown in those areas for many years. If we want to see GW2 grow and thrive (which I'm sure we all want), then balance in all modes of the game must be done well, and the developers should strive for consistent goals that don't require drastic changes every 3 to 6 months. Most players do not enjoy having to re-gear their characters, and relearn new play strategies and tactics constantly, after they have spent weeks and months perfecting their builds and memorizing optimal rotations. Least of all, many players really dislike it when profession defining characteristics are drastically changed or eliminated from the game, as solutions to balancing builds, when perhaps other balance solutions could have been tried. It's a blessing that GW2 has such diverse build possibilities that allow players to be so creative, but it is also the main source of pain and grief for developers, who are tasked to attempt to balance those thousands of different build possibilities. I feel sorry for the developers, because they have an impossible task to attempt, and no matter which solutions they put forward, some players will love the changes, some will hate them, and most will simply not understand most of the build possibilities. For this reason, I give the developers at Anet a lot of slack, because there is no single right answer to the continuing problem to balance the game, but it is encouraging that Anet appears to be willing to listen to the community recently, and we have tons of great community members with good ideas for possible solutions to some of the biggest balance problems in the game. Thanks again for this video, and I hope it get viewed by all of the right people at Anet, as well as other key content creators in the community.
I am a untamed player longbow/hammer i hope we get more love soon for pve. I took to power/crit chance build i am autistic and Untamed was easiest for me to grow use to given it was closest to core spec. Idk how many times im told my dps sucks but i enjoy playing longbow main and hamer for breakbars.
Temp and Druid bring alac, but they suffer from crappy application methods. The game definitely is suffering from missing another good quick healer. Herald could be a decent choice if the devs give it a bit more love.
All clases have supports thinks on it. And is needed having your own support too for wvw or pvp, but yeah, firebrand and scrapper, are actually very spamy in WvWzergs.
It definitely does feel like the utility skills have become quickness/alacrity buttons with secondary effects that are generally not relevant. Mashing buttons off cd makes the combat feel brainless and uninteractive
I feel like a Druid shouldn't be forced to spam spirits' ability in order to keep alacrity up. Why won't they just make them give alacrity whenever they provide a buff? Or why Tempest has to spam their overload all the time? The problem with support builds is that mechanist for example can provide alacrity without any effort, by just using their primary attack. Other supports just have to spam all their utilities and that's a bad design, cause supports and healers should use their abilities situationally.
Hi, man Could you please tell, what is it like to play GW2 non-target mod? Is it truly worse then tap-targeting in pvp and pve? I just got my first 80lvl using non-target, but everyone says that tap-targeting is better
For PvP it's not ideal I think as you want to be able to drop AoEs behind/above you, but for PvE it's totally fine. In the end, your enjoyment of the game should take priority over optimisation! I've cleared all PvE content with it, if you can play decently with it and perform your role then others won't care :)
Pretty sure ArenaNet would say that “100% uptime” for a boon is the issue. Game is not meant to be played that way. I’ve seen some people suggest nerfing boons to make the dps difference they provide less. This would discourage builds that focus on “uptime” and encourage players to use skills when appropriate.
Personally I think Alac and Quickness should be reworked from upkeep boons to powerful boons that you can only throw out on very long cooldowns to start coordinated burst windows. But I'm biased from playing FFXIV where comparable buffs and debuffs are on cooldown timers with 60s intervals and you're heavily incentivized to line them up. I think having more of an effect in a short window leads to more of a feeling you're supporting a tactical assault rather than just babysitting and making sure everyone's fed and getting their naps.
the only real problem is some clases can do this easy and some are forced into 1 build and rotation to do it,im playing air/arcane/weaver and i have like 6 ways to get quickness,im remaking my build once a day to try some other way to get all boons just doing solo content lol,the class is high apm no mater what,and gets all boons out of combat just swapping elements and doing a few instant skills that need no target,but its almost restricing,as if i make a build that doesnt give me all boons all the time its just bad no mater what else it can do better,its like not even an option
You are not wrong, but imagine the monumental difficulty and hardships the devs would have to go through to change this issue. They would have to overhaul almost the entire combat system, might end up with a bigger issue other games (such as ESO I think?) where everyone would have to re-learn how to play from scratch.
I don’t think it would that drastic, they just need to slap on quickness or alacrity to the unique class mechanics rather than the utilities. To name a few: specter’s shadow shroud, Druid’s celestial avatar or herald’s facets but changing from consuming the facets to grant quickness to maintaining the facets. A perfect example of what I mean is alacrity tempest where it’s tied to tempest’s unique mechanic of overloads.
if herald boons were higher duration it will throw all quickness build out of the park. there is a reason it is set to low duration and a reason herald is used as support dps on low man speed runs
Hey there mate! Could i add you ingame? I need some revenant knowledge, seen your videos and decided that i may ask you to train me a bit, if thats possible ofc ^^ Im a vet, but never ever have i played as a revenant seriously enough. Great work youre putting up in your videos, keep it up!
jack of all trades, master of none I don't like high APM combat, I would prefer it if they could make boons longer durations, just turn seconds into minutes, and have the attack skill with more intellectual timing where it is more useful to wait to use it than use right away off CD
Excellent video. We'll see what the pve patch in Nov. brings, but as long as Mech and FB bring so much to the table with little investment skill wise (Mech moreso than FB), then I don't see how they're going to change things. I do have some hope that cmc gets it and knows there's little choice right now. And yes, people can argue that you're not going to get booted for playing an off-meta spec 90% of the time, I just want to see more specs thrive in that healer/support role for all kinds of content.
Yeees "you can play any role on your main class" still it seems in fractals atleast people are always looking 1 spec in certain. They are not asking for any healer for example just hfb xD..
Im enjoying playing Quick Herald and gotta say, sure we spam our Utilitys quite hard but its the fun part to try and controll it to the point of fitting the boon application while also timing it with the mechanics. Also the snowcrows rota build is very fluid and intuitive so atleast in the case of herald i gotta say they have done a good job.
You didn't bring up the reason behind the tight boon uptime. Balance devs don't want people to stack classes to provide key boons without any trade offs in traits or equipment.
Thanks for the on-point video. Comments are always about how Scrapper is so tanky because of its barrier up-time. But, if you want to fill the role of a quickness provider, you are no longer tanky because you have to give up 15% barrier to give quickness. It forces you to be highly survivable or provide an essential boon. Not a good design.
sorry I don't know how to say it, why is the gw2 community so limited? in general the dps is too high, the cure is too strong too simple to cure, the boons too easy to give, aegis and stability are too destructive for the mechanics you mention that the professions classes must be unique but you also say that I have to support as the guardian, pressing 2/3 buttons does not seem to me to make them playably unique, I don't mean that you are not right but simply that there are more ways to balance, for example the guardian was born to support in fact he has the best variety of skills to support, the best thing would be to make it the lowest dps,in general for all professions, for example, the more difficult that profession the more damage it can do, lelementalist. the professions they can have the same number of buttons to press, the best would remain the one that gives stability and aegis, therefore the Gardian. even if they removed stability and aegis and made the professions more balanced, the professions that would be used would always be the easiest, for me if there is something that must be removed is perma, no profession should be able to give 100% of a boon, so as to return what was thought of to a more hybrid combat system, more hybrid, this is an mmo means relying on others especially with the gw2 system, created specifically to connect people, for example you talk about the fact that to keep 100% as a supporter with the revenant you have to use all the utilities, I understand what you mean and you are not wrong, you can rely on others for what you miss. even now, even if they are not well balanced, you can very well play in all the roles with the profession you prefer, the only thing that changes is the difficulty, the game does not limit you at all and the community that does it wanting to use only the easier professions . having said that obviously there is part of the blame to be attributed to arena,open world should force players to watch their build more, with more specific dynamic events or in other ways, and insert more raid mechanics in world bosses and meta events, balance is not only between parofessions but between professions in the environment in the pve, the pve we have is not well balanced for the combat system of the professions, what would be needed in the pve it would be more strategy, example more mechanics at the same time, mobs with mechanics like blue and red vale guardian, the support system is based on staying close so make sure that the boss's attacks are mostly to destroy this formation with the most powerful attacks not defensible by aegis or stability, or with debuffs, something that forces players to do the mechanics. and probably there are other ideas that are not coming to me right now in mind. in the end what I try to say is that the game can give much more than what the community asks, why do you keep asking to limit? , instead you should ask the opposite
Because the difference is FB has the unique identity of providing Aegis while also providing long lasting boons with such low APM, same as Mechanists. While other classes have to keep their APM high just to provide all the necessary boons whilst also having clunky mechanics. Almost on every situation, FB and Mechs > Any other support class. The difference of power dynamic isn't healthy for the game and the playerbase long term.
@@ZXbolterZX I was trying to say that there are more solutions and that the community keeps asking to balance the various professions with each other, without realizing that it means making them all the same, which in the end it would change very little, instead of asking for a balance between the various professions in the pve, it is useless to have a good balance between the profession but not an adequate pve for the combat system that gw2 has, I believe that the pve must be part of the balance, to my opinion the pve must concentrate more in a single word strategy, and make sure that you do not win only for the dps
@@dago6722 No we're not trying to make every class the same. We don't want every support to be like an AFK Mechanist. We just want the relative ease that FB an Mech has to be the same for the others. Simple solution is making the boons last a bit longer so that you dont need to keep button mashing. Remove the cast time from Druid etc.
@@ZXbolterZX sorry but what would change like this? I think the game can be very different compared to classic systems. this is just my opinion, I can be perfectly wrong
@@ZXbolterZX so? you can have the same apm as fb or mecha, the fact that the two professions have advantages given by specializations does not change, because they should want other professions even if with the same apm, never said that the community is wrong only that it has a restrictive view , there is already harbinger that gives quick and has a dps higher than the fb, then why is it not the only one wanted? simple stability and aegis, fb can give stab and aegis without needing to be a support, they are part of the skills of the specialization, first of all balancing the game is very complicated and there are many things that need to be changed not only the builds. this is what I believe
"firebrand doesnt follow this model" Im sorry, but fucking what? FB mashes the fuck out of mantras for quickness (including its heal skill), and needs its elite for that too.
Gw2 has such a different take on boons compared to so many other games out there. After playing gw2 for so long, I find it very tiring constantly applying boons. Unlike other games where you buff up and it stays for a long time and all you have to do is concentrate on the fight.
I agree completely! Traditional MMO buffs have purpose because you make the conscious decision to apply it for specific scenarios. Few buffs in GW2 are like this. Aeis, Stab, Healing, and some unique buffs really.
but if you go that route you simply make the fight easier, managing boon uptime is part of the challenge, having said that i think that the potential solution said at 8:33 was a good one
@@RazerTNT I don't think spamming your skills of CD makes it more challenging. If anything it makes it more tedious.
@Redmon de gustibus. I on the other side find too easy use buff skills that last several minutes. Before I played mmos with even a 30min buff duration (and a small CD) pratically wasting 1 slot in ur skillbar ... Any solution? Yes for those games adding more and more skillbars so now you can have 1 bar for buffs that you use at the start and then you forget about them....pratically food and enhancements. As last thing i can only add that boons are generally granted by skills that do other things too so if you need the other effects for that specific skills you can use It again not for granting the boon but for cc,interrupt or just dps..... I kind of agree with @ShadyCat i'm in favor of more occasions in which a timed skill is required like aegis stab root and block (btw most of the buffs in usual mmos are very basic like atk and def boosts, you can pratically have 3-4 skills that do the same thing with only different levels of effectiveness) but not too much of them in the same fight or some classes will be excluded in favor of others that can do them easly
After playing 10k hours lineage 2 and 6k hours of guild wars 2 I totally prefer guild wars 2 style. Getting boons/buffs once every 5 or 20 minutes or more is boring to play as a support main. Paying attention to the game and pressing your keys are the best in any game. Unless someone is bored to play the game. The 5-6 buttons every 20 seconds is nothing and won't prevent anyone from concentrating on the fight. Totally disagree with the time of boons, 30s max is good enough for any boss fight in the game.
THANK YOU for addressing this. Since herald got quickness, I've felt like a crazy person wondering why everyone was so happy about it. With such a low duration, spamming all of my utilities off cd was my only option to keep quickness up. Like you said, it isn't difficult, but it's far from fun. I'd much rather concentrate on the combat than watching numbers tick down just to spam them all again.
Rev was my favorite class to play, but after feeling forced to play quickherald, I had to drop it and go back to thief, abandoning the support role completely.
Supports are struggling because the combat system is incredibly shallow, no matter how much people love and praise it. Everything about combat is "maximize dps!" and so the only purpose of supports is to, well, spam Alacrity and Quickness which help maximize dps.
This I think is an unforseen consequence of doing away with combat that requires proper defense (not dodging) and healing. When enemies do too much damage to mitigate and healing is inefficient AT BEST, ending fights the quickest way possible is the most optimal path to success.
So here we are. The optimal path to success.
Yup, this is the core problem of gw2. Been a problem since vanilla gw2
I want quickness and alacrity to be removed.
Or nerfed, like 25->15 to 20 for alac 50->20 to 25 for quickness. Quickness especially is just too strong 50!!!!! percent action speed like holy cow that’s just too strong
I'd rather have them permanently on all characters instead. My main is a Vindicator who gives himself perma-quickness and I just love hitting fast.
I think the best solution would sth that was already mentioned on the Reddit thread.
Make boon application not tied to the utility skills but the unique mechanics of the class. Things like Alacrity mirage is a good example that is tied to chaos vortex. Make warrior zerk quickness tied to rage and entering berzerk, alacrity on druid tied to celestial avatar etc.
Should of just given Herald quickness on stance change (6sec base). It promotes the revenant playstyle of switching between stances, and would just fit into the classes regular rotation
It could also be given out on pulse rather than on consume. That way, you benefit by keeping facets on and only using them when their effect is needed.
possibly pulse when you upkeep 5+ energy, so you're not going to just camp Glint with a few facets.
@@lunarezlycablood1838 Well in that case you can make the base duration low so that multiple facets are needed to maintain 100% uptime. The issue with that is if you have 0 concentration, it might be hard to upkeep unless every facet is on in which case you drain energy quickly. There would have to be a middle ground somewhere because at some point you will also need to swap to another legend for 10 seconds where you are providing no quickness. Although, I guess facet of nature would still be providing marginal quickness uptime while in the other legend. But if we have a low base duration, that one facet alone probably won't provide a lot of uptime.
Yo that actually sounds really good tbh, or the idea of granting quickness while maintaining a certain threshold of facets rather than consuming them sounds great too. You’d drain your energy to maintain the facets to grant quickness then once you run out you legend swap which could have really great synergy with the energy on legend swap from invocation trait line. Then once you run out of quickness swap to herald again and repeat. That sounds really solid tbh
If there design philosophy is going to be bring the player not the profession than they need to make gear more available to allow stuff like build swapping. They want us to try different builds but the process of gearing a new build is kind of nightmarish.
Yeah, let's make this game has even less long-term goals to work towards like legendary gear. Gw2 is one of the most convenient game to have and play alts. There's no need to make it even easier.
@@mateusznawrot8941 The game has millions of long-term goals. Gearing shouldn't be one of them.
@@ikpts if you take away what is special on a legendary? what's the point of working hard to make them? they just become another grind/pay lots of goldto get skin
Also give us more free equipment and build slots. But I don't see how that's gonna help them make money.
Gearing a new build takes somewhat between a week if you have nothing to start with and just a few minutes if you've got stuff to quickly buy/craft things.
Class Homogenisation is BS! Killed a lot of other mmos already, where in the spirit of balacing all classes where just made the same. Classes are fun if they are being played different and unique and with fun mechanics that every class should have to distinguish them from each other. Why even bother different classes if you homogenize them all again?! If that is your plan just make ONE class to rule them all, balance fixt.
Bloom, FULLLLLLLLYYY agree.
This was a perfectly structured video, with some great talking points to raise up in the community.
Using Druid as an example to further your points of integrating the whole kit of the class -- I'm so upset to see that Alacrity has not been peppered throughout its glyphs, traits, and celestial avatar skills.
Ugh, I love this video so much.
I think the best boon support mechanic is the one given to the Harbinger right now - you already have the incentive to be in shroud as much as possible anyway, so all you need to do is position yourself correctly and take some concentration in your build to make your quickness work. Otherwise 'boon buttons' that override the purpose of a utility skill are a thing even with Firebrand and there's absolutely nothing fun about playing a qFB other than it's easier to provide quickness than it is for other professions.
All in all, I'm having the weird feeling that the game design doesn't actually want us to have dedicated boon support people in a group comp. Like might and fury are getting covered by multiple people in a squad, I feel like that's what Anet sort of expects for alacrity and quickness - bring multiple people with access to the boon and have them share the responsibility for it, rather than just one person with a ton of concentration covering the boon for your group. If that's true, I don't necessarily agree that they're going about it the right way but I wouldn't mind a world where alac and quick are built into pretty much everyone's kit and aren't these exclusive boons that require specific professions, gear, and/or traits to be there.
I mean the whole game is built off spam with the limited amount of abilities.
I'd rather spam my weapon skills, since DPS uptime is never going away, and save my utility skills for actual utility. Increase the number of situations where I have to think about why I want to press a skill.
This has been my biggest gripe of the game of late. I've had arthritis since I was a teenager. So I tend to get really grumpy with anything that's meant to be used "on cooldown". It's just an auto-attack with extra steps. If there's not some interesting combo, synergy or decision being made, then it's just busy work. I love support builds, but I'm not having fun engaging with that system, which reduces my options. Mech and Firebrand aren't exciting me. Quickness Harbinger is good simple fun, though I'm still waiting for it to work reliably with Transfusion. Staff Mirage is spammy, but at least in an interesting way.
ANet has been walking away from the original roles-free "idea" and more into the meta players made, more akin a trinity. They absolutely need to revamp a couple of systems. I think giving players guidance on set roles, then designing end-game around said roles, as they would then be fully official, would allow them to design incredible encounters. "Fixing" supports would be part of said revamps. Hey maybe in 2 expansions, so about 7 years :D
Good commentary, not flaming but recognizing the good and the bad. I think ANet has had a hard time transforming from the "no holy trinity" tank/heal/dps mindset into roles, and the clashing design philosophies show. I main Revenant and have the same complaint we all have about the new quickness spamming Herald - it technically works, but it breaks the *playstyle*. I think their balance team is working in the right direction though.
Recently, Anet has changed access to Might and Fury to make it basically foolproof to provide. I think they should take the same approach for Alac/Quick.
Right now, applying these boons is tedious and not rewarding. There is no reactive element. It’s just a constant mashing of your keys. There’s no thought, no purpose. If we are expected to permanently keep up these boons, then it should be as easy as possible. Otherwise you’re just expecting people to hit more buttons for no gain. Why should some classes have to hit 3-4 buttons while others can hit 1-2 for the same purpose?
This is probably one of the best approaches, make it foolproof to apply quickness/alacrity with 100% uptime, but apply it like it was done to scrapper, U either give quickness or might has 50% increased effect on you, either that or straight up make them niche buffs like stability or aegis, which increases the skill ceiling of them but also improves the playeability of classes utility skills purpose, and just balance the game around not having them
I really do not agree with this. Making all boons automatic will just make the build crafting and variety completely boring.
They should be indeed make sure that support classes require equal effort and reduce the skill differences between support classes, but remove their gameplay completely and make them fool proof means you only end up with healers and DPS. That is an incredibly boring.
And some support classes are genuinely fun to play. It would remove a huge a mount of the fun to not have hybrid support/DPS classes. It is good that they made might and fury fooproof and removing unique buffs. But removing everything would just make everything stale. They need to tune the way they are applied.
@@mormegil231 I don't find upkeep boons to be interesting enough in their current form to really justify this tedium. They aren't purposeful in the way stab or aegis are. Making them purposeful (when should I apply quick? When should I apply might?) is probably off the table. So we are left with these boons that are boring and demand a lot of your attention and buttons to provide. There is no gain here.
I’ve always loved the freedom of playstyle guild wars allows you. You shape the controls for you, you shape your build to fit your preferences, and you can change everything about how you look. I think the problems come from how good some play styles are relative to other players. If you play without looking at the wiki or being judged by people in raids, pvp, or wvw none of the fancy builds really matter. You play how you want and optimize it for you.
I know this video is about supports, but one issue I have with balance atm is that certain power builds still are really far behind the rest of the metagame without having much utility to make up for it. I would like to see power daredevil, dragonhunter and holosmith buffed in PvE. These builds are really fun but they just don't quite bring enough to the table right now.
I main Harbinger and providing 100% quickness uptime is really a breeze. I don't even need to spam any skills, just use one utility skill, make sure I have some life force (easily accomplishable with a pistol 2 and scepter 3), and then I go into shroud. If I can spend around 10 seconds in Harbinger shroud (which is piss easy considering you already gain 15% life force when you enter, and shroud 5 gives you even more) then I already have provided enough quickness to the group to make it through the 10 second or less cooldown on shroud.
Obviously I lose some dps due to traits and making sure I have concentration, but even with celestial gear I can reach up to 12k dps, as long as I don't mess up my curses rotation. And if I want to increase that, I can put on a few pieces viper's gear.
Edit: Originally I said that I reach 17k dps, but that's only while in shroud. Obviously outside of that the dps drops, so the average is 12k. Not amazing, but decent for normal mode strikes.
Meanwhile herald provides twice the quickness uptime(usually above 20s left on the buff, permamently) with twice the dps, lol.
The reason I have relatively low DPS is because I use celestial gear on purpose, so that I have more survivability. If I wanted to increase it, I would just add a few pieces of Viper's. Would still be able to maintain 100% quickness uptime. But I don't want to do that, because, as I said, I want more survivability.
And I don't exactly know if you actually listened to what he said, because my comment was a direct response to his video, so let me lay it out for you.
He argued that having 100% quickness uptime on Herald was a double-edged sword, because if you wanted to accomplish that, you had to spam your utilities and ignore their other situational uses. My response to this was merely a mention of the fact that providing 100% quickness uptime with Harbinger comes at no such trade-off, since you do it automatically via a trait, and the one utility skill (outside of your elite) that you also use to provide quickness doesn't really have situational uses. So the one thing you sacrifice is a little bit of damage.
@@harrincourt95 You actually don't need to keep spamming your utility skills all the time, with an actual boon setup you are able to stack 20s+ quickness pretty quickly and just sit on assassin till you gotta refresh some boons on dragon stance.
Thing is - it's easier to keep up quickness on viper/ritualist harbinger, than it is on berserker/diviner herald, with berserker>diviner herald, it really gets very spammy and you do less dps than viper>ritualist harbinger (by around 6k).
Regardless.. if we'd all wanted to be as optimal as possbile we'd all be playing Firebrands anyway. Herald is downright worse quickness provider than Harbinger, that much isn't even up to discussion - hell, harbinger is probably the best dps quickness provider in the game currently. without any clunky design choices like spammy-ness of herald or banners of warrior.
At the very least, boon application ought to be baked into an elite spec's weapon in some form or another even if it's part of a trait
At 3:28 I sat up in my chair, my eyes opened up wide followed by me saying out loud "What are you doing?"
I'm glad you mentioned warrior. I've been away from the game for like 7 years, so a lot of things are basically new to me, but since I came back I've been playing what I would call "The Banner Buddy" build. Core warrior with a bar full of banners and dual wield axes. I've really enjoyed it. Tons of damage (least from my "Noob" perspective) and super easy quickness and might. My only complaint has been how squishy I am in 80+ content. I think its due to a lack of healing, so I've been trying to tweak things to add a bit more of that into my build. Warrior also seems to lack a lot of the combo starters that a lot of other classes throw down. Honestly I almost didn't mind Braham following me around just cause he would put down aoe fields for me to spin to win in. I might try longbow in my swap for fire fields like shown in this video.
The introduction of concentration and making 100% boon uptime possible with just one player is the cause of all of this, and imo made the game way too easy. Back in 2012/13 boons were something you applied highly situational (with a few badly balanced exceptions) and it was great for the game. No 40k+ dps bs.
i think few years back when applying boons the uptime was like for 1min plus if i remember, and therefore you can help the group to lower down the bosses hp. Now the boons uptime is like 59 sec
I feel this especially for specs like *cough cough* untamed. they really need to change this
I completely agree, and what's worse is that the design feels both lazy and intentional. When it was just scrapper, okay that's a mistake. When you take that pattern and apply it to herald and specter, it's intentional.
I like the idea of classes having extenders. hvy armor = protection, light armor = quickness, and scholars = alacrity.
"Boon extension...? I haven't heard that name in years..."
*Signet of Inspiration peers from the shadows*
The sad thing is that ANET will nerf Mechanist, which is a class that can passively provide alacrity and barrier.
Your comment about extending boon duration reminds me of how power berserker class is designed to work
Great video man really describe the issue in an easily digestible and concise manner
dps mech has similar spamming issues with having knockback as a part of the rotation to provide max quickness uptime.
Agreed, if a utility skill needs to be spammed off cooldown then it's not a utility skill anymore, feels like there are a lot of ways they could fix this issue luckily, hopefully they do. It's fine to have a few spammy specs but it's an issue when all of them become like that.
I think they should start with integrating "character specific key binds" in the option. There are too many builds in the game currently and they all play very differently.
This was incredibly well stated.
Other content creators, please react to this!!
Let's keep the conversation going.
I gotchu.
hard agree, been playing specter in strikes recently and this is exactly how i feel about all the well skills
I think i would have to disagree on some of things stated in this video. We can talk about support playstyles, DPS, Optimization etc but the ultimate question all of these boils down to is, Is it easy so that everyone can get in and do this role vs "Skill expression is being deteriotated". Take the herald example that in recent times has one of the easiest methods to provide quickness but also one of the spammiest. We can argue about design choices and all the cool quirks about herald situational usage of their utilities, when to use them but one of the major drawback of playing this QHerald is losing out on all of these quirks for giving quickness by consuming them. If they are not quickness providers, herald's just camp in two facets passivly with occasional consumption of their facets.
Another aspect to this is that these type of builds are quite good at making casual/newer players provide that boon to that group without reading/watching a 1hr guide on how to do them with rotation. Most people just wanna get in, pick a class and wanna be able to provide something for the group or even in a solo gameplay for themselves. IMO, Making it easier does not automatically destroy or hinder skill expression, It actually does the opposite in most cases cause there are going to be better and more in depth skill usage and trickery for best results.
You take away these easier build choices that are good for encouraging people to build it and provide something for the team, You end up with a narrow pool of classes that are ultimately going to be picked without question. Not to mention the fact that people who wanna actually get into these type of group content will be turned off (Most).
After your initial video on herald quickness, i myself did it and was able to enter groups which i could not before, I also saw couple of heralds who used that build (who were relatively new but also couple of vets too in that). If you want people to get into content (or just want a more relaxed build) it is important that these type of builds exist in the game so that they can focus on learning the mechanics of the various fights than be attacked by information from all sides.
I would take this even further and say that every class needs to have some sort of an "Easy" build such as QScrapper, Qherald that have their own niches. They will never be the best but they do provide something at a more relaxed way.
I totally agree that interesting utility skills, traits and/or weapon effects should not be "sacrificed" by disregarding the very effects that they were originally designed for just to maintain upkeep on a much-needed buff. This is results to clunky and spammy gameplay. Hopefully, the dev team will take this into serious consideration.
I agree with what you said, but you really should start weapon swapping on condi berserker instead of camping longbow.
AGREED! I play both qbrand and quickherald (both badly) but it is a very strange thing to go from having utilities I can use for mechnics to just spamming all utilities and not having anything left for mechanics. I do hope Anet take the time to rejig some of this stuff. It feels so scuffed on Rev that I am so limited, time wise, swapping into another stance cos you have to get back to Dragon to continue quick spam. :(
Thanks clarifying all that with this video! 😎
I agee 100%. As someone that plays quick-scrapper and mech a lot, this is spot on. Me and a lot of guild mates avoid playing alac specter because not only does it need insane well-spamming to keep alac up, it also moves you around each time, which makes it incredibly annoying to play.
And they even want to change scrapper gyros to be wells, to make it even more painful to play. As always, Firebrand and Mechanist don't have that problem, so better play those.
Great video! It's especially relevant now with Anet planning to change scrapper's pulsating gyros with AoE abilites.
Oh and I was wondering what armour skins the Charr in the thumbnail is wearing. It looks awesome!
The thing is that ANet didn't like it when supports were that flexible too. Look at the Fire Brigade comp where it was two firebrands and an alacren. It was over homogenized since Ren was clearly the best alac source in the game with Soulcleave support, decent damage in Shiro, high stab uptime in Jalis, a projectile bubble in Ventari, boonstrip in Mallyx, and so on. It was almost too versatile. I think ANet wants there to be a legitimate trade off for bringing boons and that is at the cost of versatility. All of the boons where you mash a skill type off cool down, or in scrapper's case super speed, have that trade off. The others that don't like quickness chronomancer, alacrity renegade, alacrity mirage, alacrity mechanist, quickness harbinger, and quickness firebrand are extremely versatile and a lot of them are kind of overpowered in some aspects. Though, Ren and Chrono can get some love.
How good is concentration for extending Quickness duration? Seems like a way to get around it on paper, but not something I've played myself so I dunno.
Almost a year with the game and I have no idea what a booms and class so I think the it had a design problem because I can tell what does what
First, I don't think any Elite spec should be able to provide Alacrity or Quickness by default, it should be a talent choice. Some Elites can choose to provide Quickness, some to provide Alac, and some can choose between the two.
Second, I don't mind the idea of having to spam 3 utility skills to provide 100% uptime, but you should be able to max out your Concentration and get 100% uptime from a single skill (or, with say 50% Concentration, 2 skills is enough).
Then you can gear full support and maintain the boon by yourself, or coordinate with a couple of others to maintain it between you.
Honestly I wish GW2 had a proper holy trinity. Classes and instanced content would be so much better as long as they keep the build crafting
Great video and suggestions! I hope Anet is paying attention, and/or you have sent them these suggestions in writing, as they really seem to need the constructive feedback right now. It seems that Anet might have lost their way in balance theory and implementation over the past 6 to 12 months, if not longer. I'm not sure how much time the developers have to actually play the game, as some of their balance decisions recently haven't made much sense, and have left many in the community puzzled about the thinking behind many of the balance patch decisions. All of this is terribly important, as bad balance decisions can drive even the most ardent supporters away from the game, when bad choices are unresolved for months and in some cases, years at a time. Frankly, even though I'm not a competitive PvP, or WvW player in GW2, I'm surprised that there are any players still doing these game modes anymore, because of the lack of attention that Anet has shown in those areas for many years. If we want to see GW2 grow and thrive (which I'm sure we all want), then balance in all modes of the game must be done well, and the developers should strive for consistent goals that don't require drastic changes every 3 to 6 months. Most players do not enjoy having to re-gear their characters, and relearn new play strategies and tactics constantly, after they have spent weeks and months perfecting their builds and memorizing optimal rotations. Least of all, many players really dislike it when profession defining characteristics are drastically changed or eliminated from the game, as solutions to balancing builds, when perhaps other balance solutions could have been tried.
It's a blessing that GW2 has such diverse build possibilities that allow players to be so creative, but it is also the main source of pain and grief for developers, who are tasked to attempt to balance those thousands of different build possibilities. I feel sorry for the developers, because they have an impossible task to attempt, and no matter which solutions they put forward, some players will love the changes, some will hate them, and most will simply not understand most of the build possibilities. For this reason, I give the developers at Anet a lot of slack, because there is no single right answer to the continuing problem to balance the game, but it is encouraging that Anet appears to be willing to listen to the community recently, and we have tons of great community members with good ideas for possible solutions to some of the biggest balance problems in the game. Thanks again for this video, and I hope it get viewed by all of the right people at Anet, as well as other key content creators in the community.
I am a untamed player longbow/hammer i hope we get more love soon for pve. I took to power/crit chance build i am autistic and Untamed was easiest for me to grow use to given it was closest to core spec. Idk how many times im told my dps sucks but i enjoy playing longbow main and hamer for breakbars.
i'm tired of seeing hfb and only hfb being wanted in every piece of content
Make your own group and ask for/play whatever you want.
heal quick scapper represent
In fractals maybe, but in 10 person content it's all HAM. I spend 90% of my time on FB as either CDPs or QCDPS
i swap to willbender from firebrand because im tired of being "boon slave" and yet some ppl really want to be able to provide 100% uptime boons.
Not enough classes have access to both healing and either quickness or alacrity. It's either HAM or QHFB...
Temp and Druid bring alac, but they suffer from crappy application methods. The game definitely is suffering from missing another good quick healer. Herald could be a decent choice if the devs give it a bit more love.
Curious... what would you think if alac and quick weren't spreadable?
Not gonna lie, I'd probs like it
What is your outro song?!
All clases have supports thinks on it. And is needed having your own support too for wvw or pvp, but yeah, firebrand and scrapper, are actually very spamy in WvWzergs.
It definitely does feel like the utility skills have become quickness/alacrity buttons with secondary effects that are generally not relevant.
Mashing buttons off cd makes the combat feel brainless and uninteractive
Bloom for Gw2 President 2023!
I feel like a Druid shouldn't be forced to spam spirits' ability in order to keep alacrity up. Why won't they just make them give alacrity whenever they provide a buff? Or why Tempest has to spam their overload all the time? The problem with support builds is that mechanist for example can provide alacrity without any effort, by just using their primary attack. Other supports just have to spam all their utilities and that's a bad design, cause supports and healers should use their abilities situationally.
Yo totally agree with this! The quick herald is such a spammy build to play. It's fun and yet not.
Hi, man
Could you please tell, what is it like to play GW2 non-target mod? Is it truly worse then tap-targeting in pvp and pve? I just got my first 80lvl using non-target, but everyone says that tap-targeting is better
But i dont like tap-targeting experience in GW2. I want to stay on non-target
But as i sayed, they say that it is worse for pvp and pve
For PvP it's not ideal I think as you want to be able to drop AoEs behind/above you, but for PvE it's totally fine. In the end, your enjoyment of the game should take priority over optimisation! I've cleared all PvE content with it, if you can play decently with it and perform your role then others won't care :)
@@BloomHD thank you, i appreciate the answer from experienced gw2 player
Pretty sure ArenaNet would say that “100% uptime” for a boon is the issue. Game is not meant to be played that way. I’ve seen some people suggest nerfing boons to make the dps difference they provide less. This would discourage builds that focus on “uptime” and encourage players to use skills when appropriate.
Personally I think Alac and Quickness should be reworked from upkeep boons to powerful boons that you can only throw out on very long cooldowns to start coordinated burst windows. But I'm biased from playing FFXIV where comparable buffs and debuffs are on cooldown timers with 60s intervals and you're heavily incentivized to line them up. I think having more of an effect in a short window leads to more of a feeling you're supporting a tactical assault rather than just babysitting and making sure everyone's fed and getting their naps.
the only real problem is some clases can do this easy and some are forced into 1 build and rotation to do it,im playing air/arcane/weaver and i have like 6 ways to get quickness,im remaking my build once a day to try some other way to get all boons just doing solo content lol,the class is high apm no mater what,and gets all boons out of combat just swapping elements and doing a few instant skills that need no target,but its almost restricing,as if i make a build that doesnt give me all boons all the time its just bad no mater what else it can do better,its like not even an option
You are not wrong, but imagine the monumental difficulty and hardships the devs would have to go through to change this issue. They would have to overhaul almost the entire combat system, might end up with a bigger issue other games (such as ESO I think?) where everyone would have to re-learn how to play from scratch.
I don’t think it would that drastic, they just need to slap on quickness or alacrity to the unique class mechanics rather than the utilities. To name a few: specter’s shadow shroud, Druid’s celestial avatar or herald’s facets but changing from consuming the facets to grant quickness to maintaining the facets. A perfect example of what I mean is alacrity tempest where it’s tied to tempest’s unique mechanic of overloads.
if herald boons were higher duration it will throw all quickness build out of the park. there is a reason it is set to low duration and a reason herald is used as support dps on low man speed runs
"Bring the player not the class" did not end well for WoW, so i hope they decide not to go in that direction...
Hey there mate! Could i add you ingame? I need some revenant knowledge, seen your videos and decided that i may ask you to train me a bit, if thats possible ofc ^^ Im a vet, but never ever have i played as a revenant seriously enough. Great work youre putting up in your videos, keep it up!
jack of all trades, master of none
I don't like high APM combat, I would prefer it if they could make boons longer durations, just turn seconds into minutes, and have the attack skill with more intellectual timing where it is more useful to wait to use it than use right away off CD
Hey they fixed the druid's spamming utility skills by making them spam celestial avatar skills, it's ok!
Another bloom video? More like, another banger video.
Excellent video. We'll see what the pve patch in Nov. brings, but as long as Mech and FB bring so much to the table with little investment skill wise (Mech moreso than FB), then I don't see how they're going to change things. I do have some hope that cmc gets it and knows there's little choice right now. And yes, people can argue that you're not going to get booted for playing an off-meta spec 90% of the time, I just want to see more specs thrive in that healer/support role for all kinds of content.
Thank you so much
Remove quickness and alacrity from the game ( ~ * o * )~
Yep, it's pure crap. The only one I'm playing is QFB cuz you don't have to mash your keyboard to provide quickness.
Yeees "you can play any role on your main class" still it seems in fractals atleast people are always looking 1 spec in certain.
They are not asking for any healer for example just hfb xD..
I think its more of an Operator malfunction
Just allow for people to put multiple skills on autoattack, like you can do on pet abilities on ranger and mech
Im enjoying playing Quick Herald and gotta say, sure we spam our Utilitys quite hard but its the fun part to try and controll it to the point of fitting the boon application while also timing it with the mechanics. Also the snowcrows rota build is very fluid and intuitive so atleast in the case of herald i gotta say they have done a good job.
1000% truth spoken
You didn't bring up the reason behind the tight boon uptime. Balance devs don't want people to stack classes to provide key boons without any trade offs in traits or equipment.
Thanks for the on-point video. Comments are always about how Scrapper is so tanky because of its barrier up-time. But, if you want to fill the role of a quickness provider, you are no longer tanky because you have to give up 15% barrier to give quickness. It forces you to be highly survivable or provide an essential boon. Not a good design.
cant agree more
**laughs in harbinger**
sorry I don't know how to say it, why is the gw2 community so limited?
in general the dps is too high, the cure is too strong too simple to cure, the boons too easy to give, aegis and stability are too destructive for the mechanics
you mention that the professions classes must be unique but you also say that I have to support as the guardian, pressing 2/3 buttons does not seem to me to make them playably unique, I don't mean that you are not right but simply that there are more ways to balance, for example the guardian was born to support in fact he has the best variety of skills to support, the best thing would be to make it the lowest dps,in general for all professions, for example, the more difficult that profession the more damage it can do, lelementalist.
the professions they can have the same number of buttons to press, the best would remain the one that gives stability and aegis, therefore the Gardian.
even if they removed stability and aegis and made the professions more balanced, the professions that would be used would always be the easiest, for me if there is something that must be removed is perma, no profession should be able to give 100% of a boon, so as to return what was thought of to a more hybrid combat system, more hybrid, this is an mmo means relying on others especially with the gw2 system, created specifically to connect people, for example you talk about the fact that to keep 100% as a supporter with the revenant you have to use all the utilities, I understand what you mean and you are not wrong, you can rely on others for what you miss.
even now, even if they are not well balanced, you can very well play in all the roles with the profession you prefer, the only thing that changes is the difficulty, the game does not limit you at all and the community that does it wanting to use only the easier professions .
having said that obviously there is part of the blame to be attributed to arena,open world should force players to watch their build more, with more specific dynamic events or in other ways, and insert more raid mechanics in world bosses and meta events, balance is not only between parofessions but between professions in the environment in the pve, the pve we have is not well balanced for the combat system of the professions, what would be needed in the pve it would be more strategy, example more mechanics at the same time, mobs with mechanics like blue and red vale guardian, the support system is based on staying close so make sure that the boss's attacks are mostly to destroy this formation with the most powerful attacks not defensible by aegis or stability, or with debuffs, something that forces players to do the mechanics. and probably there are other ideas that are not coming to me right now in mind.
in the end what I try to say is that the game can give much more than what the community asks, why do you keep asking to limit? , instead you should ask the opposite
Because the difference is FB has the unique identity of providing Aegis while also providing long lasting boons with such low APM, same as Mechanists.
While other classes have to keep their APM high just to provide all the necessary boons whilst also having clunky mechanics.
Almost on every situation, FB and Mechs > Any other support class.
The difference of power dynamic isn't healthy for the game and the playerbase long term.
@@ZXbolterZX I was trying to say that there are more solutions and that the community keeps asking to balance the various professions with each other, without realizing that it means making them all the same, which in the end it would change very little, instead of asking for a balance between the various professions in the pve, it is useless to have a good balance between the profession but not an adequate pve for the combat system that gw2 has, I believe that the pve must be part of the balance, to my opinion the pve must concentrate more in a single word strategy, and make sure that you do not win only for the dps
@@dago6722 No we're not trying to make every class the same. We don't want every support to be like an AFK Mechanist. We just want the relative ease that FB an Mech has to be the same for the others. Simple solution is making the boons last a bit longer so that you dont need to keep button mashing. Remove the cast time from Druid etc.
@@ZXbolterZX sorry but what would change like this? I think the game can be very different compared to classic systems.
this is just my opinion, I can be perfectly wrong
@@ZXbolterZX so?
you can have the same apm as fb or mecha, the fact that the two professions have advantages given by specializations does not change, because they should want other professions even if with the same apm, never said that the community is wrong only that it has a restrictive view , there is already harbinger that gives quick and has a dps higher than the fb, then why is it not the only one wanted? simple stability and aegis, fb can give stab and aegis without needing to be a support, they are part of the skills of the specialization, first of all balancing the game is very complicated and there are many things that need to be changed not only the builds. this is what I believe
"firebrand doesnt follow this model"
Im sorry, but fucking what? FB mashes the fuck out of mantras for quickness (including its heal skill), and needs its elite for that too.
supports in this game is some of the worst of any mmo.