skoryy

Good idea. I'll start with this line: "a complete failure to understand or establish whom the game is being balanced for, much less why" While I think he's off on this one, and I'll explain later, it does bring to mind one thing that has come to mind reading the forums as of late. The latest patch notes do have explanations for some changes, what I think is missing is what the guiding philosophy for all the changes are. What are y'all balancing towards? A mission statement of "this is what we're doing and what we'll be building in future issues and pages" might go a long way towards helping make things clearer. Then again, it took years for the word 'manifesto' to finally fade off in Guild Wars 2 discussions, so I'm not entirely gonna blame y'all for not going down that route. "Rushing through content, killing enemies in a targeted sequence, and building enough defense that you require minimal healing is not just doable but preferable. This means archetypes that facilitate that are ascendant, and those that don’t lag behind, especially at endgame. Moreover, it means that there’s a strong emphasis on mechanics that justify that speed or benefit from it" Yeah, he's right here, and this is a crux of a lot of forum discourse, buuuuuuuuuuuut... "Controllers are supposed to have an advantage whereby they are fairly safe thanks to hard control, and that’s balanced by lower damage, except with this patch, that’s been undone; they’re no longer as safe." I'm really not sure where he's getting at with this one, especially as he links to the inherent controller changes. How does more containment and keeping controller pets under control make you less safe? "A lot of the powers that are getting various downgrades are not meta picks anyway." The tanker inherent and rad armor changes are some real meta nerfing! "If no one has a comprehensive picture of what the game’s balance is supposed to look like, and the end result is an MMORPG that feels as if the fun is slowly seeping out with each balance pass." I'm not entirely sure I do agree, but a picture of what balance is supposed to look like might not be a bad idea. But again, 'manifesto'. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Can I have their stuff that you didn't want?

And everyone, like myself, in between.

I'll repeat what I said on /r/sto the other day, since it fits the discussion: Reddit, forums, Discords, and all offline discussion will have to tiers of builds, powers, et al: 1. Optimal 2. Trash

There was just a huge thread a week or two ago that said that building for defense cap was out of date, and its all about building for procs. If mobs are dying without even defense mattering, let alone control, then all the reworked IOs and special effects aren't going to matter when you can still procbomb your way through content. If damage is king and makes everything else irrelevant, there are two ways of fixing that: Nerf damage Tougher mobs In this patch, we're getting both.

Where is this in the patch notes?

How long does it take you in Live?

I think that's key. My beta testing was probably slower than what it would be on live, but also I'm not timing or spreadsheeting so it doesn't feel different. It's still the same tanker experience in roughly the same amount of time.

The posts in this very thread saying there were all of two powers to take in Plant and forget the rest.

Because if you can skip everything but 2 powers in Plant but no other control set can do the same, that's not a balanced set. And when I hear 'S+ tier' and 'my OP build needs all these extra powers' and 'its the only viable way to play in <insert mode here>', then you're not giving arguments against nerfing Plant. You can have it two ways: * Revert the Plant changes, but buff all the other control sets to match * Nerf Plant

I took my up-and-coming Fire/Energy with her completed build into some sewers to knock Council around. Honestly, I didn't notice any real change from when I first was testing her build before the beta. It still feels like a tanker: She can take a licking and keep on ticking. She can hard carry the team, but there'll be plenty there for the rest to do.

I did, that's how I know you're playing the same game. "I'm a villain, I know how the game is played, but I'm not playing the same game!" Villain, please.

"I'm a villain, I know a con when I see it." Soooo.... being a villain, you'd be running the same con, of course.

This is why I play controllers, my cats have enough control over my life as it is. 😄

Tankers: "We've been unfairly nerfed!" Brutes: "Tankers have been unfairly buffed!"

Yep, that'd be it. I was hovering.

Further testing on a spawn of lower-level Malta and having a 'oh that's how it works' moment: The tesla lightning hits one held target in the AoE but will chain to another in the AoE and then another until it runs through everyone held. I do see numbers pop up but still nothing in the log. I'm still not sure where it gets 801 damage total out of it.

I decided to try some testing on a pylon and found: The 'tesla lightning' effect every few seconds, which leans into it being 12 ticks over 45 seconds. When I set the AoE between two pylons, the tesla lightning only hit one pylon. I can't tell how much damage its doing, no numbers pop up over the pylon or show up in the combat log. I did see an 'Overpower' over the pylon at one point.

I'll need a little help on this one, because I'm not seeing where I'm getting 801 damage out of the effects listed. If I get 45 instead of 12 ticks?

Okay, actual serious feedback time now I've tried a little and thought on it. Not sure if bug or WAI: I was running a sewer and had my Phantasm set to BG petcom_all follow defensive. This resulted in him getting stuck behind walls and not reacting if I was attacked. If I set him an attack order, however, he popped right out and started blasting. +2/x8 isn't a problem as long as I can manage aggro, and even +4/x8 seems doable if I'm even more careful. My current builds are proc'd to high heaven, so I'm curious if there'd be an improvement or not if I switched back to more straight damage. I'll have to put together an alternate build to find out. EDIT: All the new Containment pop-ups had me giddy until I realized that there's only more chances for it to spawn, not that it has a greater chance to spawn and does more damage.

Okay, but you can just say "we have too many lowbies, sorry" and kick.

Initial test running +2/x8 with my fully loaded Elec/Time. Yes, yesss, yesssssss! "My God, its full of Containment and Overpower!"

It's my understanding, or at least what I've learned in the past week or so, that an empty blue bar on the mob doesn't really affect anything? They can still use their attacks as normal.

I might have it proc'd already? I'll have to check once I no longer have a cat napping on my shin and I can login.

First one over is the Elec/Time controller, I've got to see this.