2/22 balance patch

[Mold 43]

We have the afternoon to sort out what we're bringing to tonight's raid. What does the balance patch mean for boomslangs and beyond?

1 obvious conclusion: no double warrior banners.

[oddGo 12]

Need to do some math to confirm, but I think Engi now wins at DPS. *maniacal laughter*

[Mold 43]

It does look good for engie.

Some questions I have about the patch:

Reaper shroud got buffed a lot, but is it enough to ever take one?

How are we supposed to justify taking just one druid without a 10-terget spotter?

Why would you ever take a Revenant healer in raids for the alacrity if you are still required to take 2 chronos (I don't think the buffs to Time Warp and Well of Action allow the chrono to come close to solo-quicknessing a 10-player group)?

Does daredevil's vault getting quickness effects push vault-spam into the rotation?

What do PS warriors bring now that they only need one spot for banner?

[oddGo 12]

Reaper is a maybe, that was a lot of buffing.

 

For the Druid, the 150 precision might be best replaced all together with Precision trinkets, and bringing an extra DPS for fights where only one healer is needed, or Condi Druid using Hidden Barbs instead of the second Spotter.

Edit: To clarify, the idea of a Condi subgroup and a Power subgroup could be the difference here. Condi subgroup might value the precision less and thus that group would get the Condi Druid using Hidden Barbs. For the power Group, they would want that Spotter from a Healing druid if that works out comp-wise.

You might not, but in fights where a second healer is needed, maybe get a Healing Rev instead of the Healing Ele. That should push Alacrity uptime much closer to 100%.

 

For Darefdevil, maybe. I don't know it well enough.

 

The second PS could bring more CC, FGS (if not Condi and thus using it already) and maybe even the other banners! Not kidding, extra stats are extra stats even if they are defensive. That could mean a nice survivability uptick for the group.

Edited February 22, 2017 by oddGo

[Maia 85]

How bad was the condi ranger nerf? Can we keep full spotter coverage by bringing one Druid and one ranger?

The other consideration is spirits did not get the ten party member target increase. We typically have at least two frost spirits around and sometimes other spirits. 

 

Thinking about this from another angle: What is the smallest change we have to make for tonight so that we're not wasting stuff? Seems to me our regular comp with warriors compensating for the banner thing should still work, right? Of course it could be optimized, but I don't think it's broken.

Edited February 22, 2017 by Maia

[Mold 43]

That's a good point. I guess it's a choice between having closer to +5 gotl with 2 druids and bringing a ranger with spirits/spotter. The ranger nerf was offset by a buff to sharpening stone. Maybe ranger players can tell us if that util would be crowded out if they had to frost and sun spirits. If that's a viable dps build, then bringing just one druid is probably a good idea for lots of fights.

Regarding rev: maybe I'm overlooking the benefits of +33% boon duration, too. And if Rev can keep up alacrity 100%, chrono could probably get by without shield. Hmmm.

Regarding warriors: Tactics Banner seems like it's going to be pretty strong. Boon duration buff for 10 makes life easier for warriors, chronos, druids, etc.

 

[Kintari 96]

Meteor Shower nerf sounds really severe.  Not able to test it ATM but it sounds bad.

[oddGo 12]

Condi Ranger was buffed. They take Trap Trait, not Sharpened Edges I believe. I think we may still want two druids, even with the GotL change, or we stop assuming Frost Spirit and Spotter for one subgroup, but those both don't mean as much to a Condi group. Here is my thought currently.

Power PS (Disc. & Strength), Healing Druid (Frost, Spotter, GotL), Quickness Chrono

+ Two Power DPS

Condi PS (Def. & Tactics OR CC), Healing/Condi Druid (Sun, GotL [we might be able to assume 5 stacks all the time as opposed to three now]), Quickness Chrono

+ Condi/Power Engi (Even without Spotter I think Engi still over crits because of traits), Condi DPS

One of the Power DPS might optimally be Power Engi for the aura, as passive conditions ticking for more in additional to maybe being the top Power DPS now might take the cake. 

[Maia 85]

Thanks for correcting me Odd. I read too fast and was for some reason mixing together the sharpening stone change and the sharpened edges change. 

Dyslexia strikes again.

[oddGo 12]

It's all good. I think that we might still want to work with mirror comp, but the classes will be what is mirrored, not the builds and utilities themselves necessarily. We net gain because of the GotL average going up and the second PS being able to bring extra CC or defensive banners. Even if that is the only change, that is something.

[Maia 85]

The rumor in the forums is that ele staff dps is down 5k. Could be off because I'm not sure of the source but it gives us an idea.

[Bone 26]

A few thoughts:

1) The buffs to condi PS are great. Increasing the might application of "For Great Justice" and the added condi boost from Deep Strikes make condi the clear warrior build winner at most fights. Additionally, that two warriors can now cover all four banner types will seriously aid team sustain. We should still take two of 'em.

2) The damage bump to Jalis' hammers lead me to believe that Rev is, once again, a very solid DPS choice. Plus, the group would get the Assassin's Presence boost.

3) Power Necro changes still strike me as inadequate. Without increasing the attack speed of GS across the board and boosting its group utility, power Necro still seems like a lesser option than thief, elementalist, thief, or condi ranger.

4) CC should never be a problem.

5) Condi engie sounds like the Space Jam. 

6) Since the 10-player effect was not extended to Spotter, spirits, EA, and other indispensable group buffs, I don't believe this patch necessarily frees us from the tyranny of the mirror comp. There might be greater flexibility, but we still likely want to double up two or three classes. Still, a step in the right direction, ANet.

[Twisted 7]

Big step in the right direction. This is cool.

[Twisted 7]

Engi is obviously 'back.' Will be interesting to see if Rev, Necro, and other Guard builds become viable for raids

[oddGo 12]

I won't be able to to do much in terms of math tonight (I will leave that to Ziggy, he is far more versed in the numbers than I am), but yes, Engi is now Space Jam. Both the Power and Condi builds got serious buffs. Power is more clear cut in terms of gains.

Some early numbers I have seen for Necro are also promising, but I will once again defer to Ziggy when he is able to get the numbers.

[Kintari 96]

dat scepter deeps

 

[Bone 26]

Ummm, holy shit.

That said, is everyone testing with unrealistic (re: ALL) buffs now? When I was working the golem yesterday, I used only the realistic buffs and boons common to previous rotations tests.

[Maia 85]

Nike posted about which buffs to use when benchmarking on Reddit recently:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/5vqnd4/meta_pve_benchmarks/

Looks like qT is on it and is hoping to get their new builds and benchmarks on their website tomorrowish.

Edited February 23, 2017 by Maia

[Bone 26]

He makes a good point that using all boons will overly inflate certain professions' damage. For instance, PS Warrior has a trait in the Tactics line that bumps damage 1% for every boon on the bar. Adding all of them would distort Warrior's DPS readings. 

[Mold 43]

[Unrelated to dps benchmarks]

I was giving chrono some thought during lunch today. The huge buff of timewarp has me thinking about possibilities. I think it's possible now for two chronos to keep up 100% quickness using only timewarp and continuum split. I'm trying to come up with a way to exploit that for the benefit of the group, and I'm really struggling to find any improvements.

• Traited TW will do 7 pulses of 2s quickness over 12 seconds. w/ 100% boon duration, that's 28 seconds of quickness for 10 people.
• Traited right, you can push continuum split down to a 53s cooldown with alacrity. So, with activation times and such, this comes out to a pretty easy 100% quickness uptime for everybody...with a foolproof aoe application.
• This requires an inspiration/illusion build with 100% boon duration sans sigil of concentration.

This trick is limited by the fact that you have to have 100% boon duration without sigil of concentration. And chrono utilities are not good at much except utility anyway. You also need to keep up alacrity all the time, which limits things quite a bit. I'm trying to come up with some kind of sinister/commander hybrid build, but nothing seems any good. No weird chrono-support-shatter build for me

[Bone 26]

It is an interesting idea, Mold. I will note that Banner of Tactics improves boon duration by 10%, a boost equivalent to Bountiful Sharpening Stones.

On a related note, I have been fiddling with the idea of a single-warrior raid group. I think it's possible for one power PS using commander's armor, strength runes, and dumplings to keep the group capped at 25 might stacks. This, of course, assumes two things: 1) other classes (druid, elementalist, rev) kick in a little might now and then, 2) the boon splashing of a warrior in his/her own subgroup would eventually hit all raid members. 

For the setup to be worthwhile, the DPS of one sub-optimally geared warrior and one replacement would need to exceed the DPS of two warriors. However, it would free up a spot for another class and its unique party buffs. 

Any thoughts on this? Is it worth the fiddling?

[Mold 43]

I guess that depends on how might applies. Does the boon hunt for a nearby ally who has an open might slot? Or does it just apply to whoever's nearest, regardless of their total stacks? If it's the latter (which is how I think quickness works), then we'd need a lot of extra might floating around from someone else (enough to ensure there's plenty of overcapping). Seems easier to min-max if you can be sure you're creating just enough might without wasting it.

But I don't know. The 9s every 3s nature of EA, Spotter, AP, and Pinpoint Accuracy all make the blob party seem pretty tempting.

[oddGo 12]

I have been toying with the same idea Bone. There are a few things I would like to test to see if a 8-1-1 might be a reasonable set up.

For this to work, I would like to assume some things that I would need to test before such assumptions could be made:

-There are several candidates for secondary might-stacking that might keep the warrior from having to re-gear into something crazy. I will be on TS later tonight after class if anyone would like to do a little think tank session.

-Stat aura traits pulse every 3 seconds, and last 9 seconds. I want to test a few of the assumed characteristics about the priorities associated with them.

-Similarly, I want to observe the behavior and characteristics of Spirit buffs.

-I am hoping to try and do a little more research to see if anyone has anything more concrete on Chrono Solo-Perma-Quicknessing rotations.

Even though qT hopes to have all of there stuff out tomorrow (excited to see what Lugi will do for Engineer), these are still things I would like to do some observational tests on if they do not. I know they tried something like an 8-1-1 setup on Sab, but I would like to know more or try to find out more myself about the elements in play that could make it worthwhile.

[Mold 43]

Re: solo quickness chrono. I worked on a rotation last night. I think it is a very bad idea. The math makes it theoretically possible (I made a rotation that meets requirements), but you will drop below 100% every time:

- someone misses a tick of TW

- your well expires on the wrong allies

- an ally misses a well

- your allies move, making your signet apply to the wrong people

- your allies don't catch the shield

In order for solo-quickness to work, you need people to stand stationary. I think good play on a golem boss like Sab would lead to 80% uptime on average, with 3 random people getting more like 100% and 3 random people getting 60%. Additionally, you nerf alacrity dramatically. If you try to compensate for alacrity by bringing a rev, you no way to ensure that alacrity goes to the right people.

[oddGo 12]

If that's the case, that is a little disappointing, but understandable. If that is the case, and double Chrono is still the way to go, then a few follow up questions come to mind. If we want to test the concept of a non-mirror comp, what might be some theoretical distributions if the only thing we were looking to change was swapping out 1 warrior? What about a warrior and a druid as well? Would those two pursuits even be worthwhile efforts? Is it the case that mirror simply remains the most efficient set up? So many questions.

Edit: I really, REALLY wish they would have added another strong quickness generator. Even if it could not compete with Chrono, if it was able to cover gaps just enough to allow for the solo Chrono while still being a build worth bringing at least partially on it's own merit, that would have been excellent.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2017 by oddGo