Balancing Play: A Simple Fix

I have read a gazillion posts over the last few years about Balancing the game, PvE and PvP. Whether it be from Dev pages about what they hope to do and what they hope it will accomplish or whether it be from Players with their myriad and imaginative rewriting of skills and rules, I think that they have all missed one HUGE and simple fix.

Caveat, now that there are so many Super Skills, some of those which aren't tied to a Class Attribute, this fix may at first seem under-whelming. But please, think carefully about it after you read it.

Set the max for a Secondary Class Attribute to 9.

All of a sudden N/Rt isn't such an awesome Healer, just decent.

All of a sudden E/A isn't ruling the Farming scene, nor is A/E.

All of a sudden Me/N isn't the Elite Curser.

... W/D does more damage with Warrior weapons than Scythe.

... R/D, R/A, R/P, and R/W are better off as Rangers, than as Economical Melee.

I am sure that there are a lot more changes that this fix would bring about, but I don't want to waste time pointing them out. What I do know is that there has been a lot of talk about the uselessness of this class or the other, because some one else can do it better as a different primary. I do know that people are upset because they can't pug as a Rit or Derv, heck, my Rt and D toons have been parked for a LONG time.

Of course, this won't help regarding the issues of [skill]Cry of Pain[/skill] or [skill]"Save Yourselves!"[/skill] or other non-class based skills. It won't help balance the super-powers derived from Consumables either. But as I said, this one simple fix would, I think, dramatically recreate the landscape of the game that we all fell in love with. Something needs to and soon as it seems that the relationship is growing stale.

Thank You for Reading.

Flame On

As a side note, it may impact [skill]Cry of Pain[/skill] in that as a Me secondary, one's Hexes wouldn't be as effective, although, maybe not as much.

PS: I miss Gear Tanking.

PPS: I know that my join date is 02/07. Don't bother pointing that out.

Although it would fix some things, I think it would be to big of an impact and restrict to much outside gimmicks, plus it has been a core mechanic of GW since the beginning, not just a skill added later.

Attributes are allready capped for secondary professions. You can't use runes to boost that attribute. True class combos make power builds, but players are smart as a whole and will min/max anything. If a warrior wants a high weapon attribute outside of his primary line he must sacrifice massive skill points and limits his options to do so. Same is true for any class combo. The system isn't broken, there are just too many skill combos for the developers to keep up with.

This, combined with the fact that very few people are paying attention to GW still to balance it, so it tends to miss certain aspects of the game, certain overpowered skills, and any other possible oversights.

I'd rather see a hit to skills like CoP and SY than to the Primary/Secondary system that's been a staple of the game.

I like the idea of a 9-att cap on secondary professions. Clever. It's about time people started using rangers with bows for once

Considering that not using runes for secondary attributes isn't that much of a penalty because no one really uses much over minor excluding for a few things. I actually really like this idea. Sure it completely changes the game but at it's current state I'd rather see some classes that never get play to get some use than continue on the way it is.

He did say PvE and PvP right?

It would actually make PvP "fresh" again

I wouldn't mind having a special event to test this out.

Suddenly all the crap about "customising your hero with secondary classes" goes out the window. Is good as is. kthx.

It's an interesting idea, but I think it would take away from the game, at least in PvE.

Flexibility is valuable in two areas:

1. I've been in situations where my Ranger was looking for a PUG, and all the group wanted was a frontliner. The way it is now, I have good options to fulfill that role for the team. Take those away by weakening my flexibility, and they might opt to roll with a Warrior hero instead. I've been in similar situations with my Assassin, where the group didn't want another frontliner, but wanted a barrager. I can do that with the current system (though they'd be better off with me in the frontlines). Flexibility helps people get into PUGs.

2. Playing with bows is fun, but being able to grab a scythe or an axe helps keep me interested in the game. More viable options for builds leads to more interest in the game, at least for me. This keeps me playing longer than if bows or pets were my only viable builds.

I think it's an interesting idea but after some consideration I think I have to agree with dasmitchies as far as attribute capping goes. Also, I don't think the changes would be as pronounced as the ones in the original post.

The problem with N/Rt stems more from the fast recharge of the rit skills and the energy return from soul reaping than it does from the amount the skills heal for each time they're used. It would take a little hit but it would still be superior to Rt/any as a healer because the loss of heal quantity is compensated for by the increased quantity of heals N/Rt allows.

While it would still kill perma for any/A it wouldn't really slow down A/E that much. The damage from skills would be less effective and make the overall run slower, but with [Glyph of Lesser Energy] it's plenty possible to maintain your perma and recast damage skills more often without too much stress on the energy pool. Instead of a 2 minute raptor run for any/A you get a 4 minute one for A/E only. Fixing a single skill in [Shadow Form] gets at the fix you're after without affecting any profession combination without an A somewhere in it.

Not really, the Me/N elite curser simply carries [Signet of Illusions] and maybe [Arcane Mimicry]. They can already bypass the inability to use runes to get a secondary attribute above 12, and adding the 9 point cap would only increase the value of this skill on Me/any for that fact alone.

I may be mistaken, but (at least for R/W and R/P) typically when a ranger is running something like this only 9 points are put into the weapon mastery attribute anyway since points also get put into beast mastery and expertise, so this change wouldn't really have an impact on these at all. It still wouldn't solve [Rampage as One], at least, and I don't think R/D or R/A are enough of a problem to warrant a change that affects everyone.

I thought that Arkantos thread was trying to address that.

@Raul -- But that would force the use of an alternate Elite and a second skill slot. Also, then A/Es could only do have as many runs in a given time frame. Isn't the economy way too dynamic these days? Wouldn't a little more stability in the Supply/Demand structure be nice? Granted, it wouldn't be that big of a change there.

@Age -- No, Ark's string is yet another in a long line of Skill Balancing strings, with one strike at Soul Reaping and then Consumables. I don't think that SR needs to be changed and I don't use Cons normally either.

@Kerwyn -- I know its an original part of the game, but I have wondered about it since I started playing in '05. Only back then it didn't matter so much, the game was MUCH simpler and Much more elegant.

@Vinny -- Toss off. It is obvious that this change would apply to both aspects of the game. It would balance PvP as well.


When I started playing the game it was a pretty amazing experience. But over the years it has become a monstrous system of inelegant gimmicks.

/notsigned because it would remove a lot of diversity from GW.

It's good that we can all try to find ways of balancing GW, but I have to /notsign this one.

Whether or not, as people have stated, ppl only use Minor Runes at this stage of the game doesn't mean that the extra +1 from a rune doesn't help. There are such things as breakpoints, and a few fall on 14, which is impossible to attain by a secondary. While lowering the cap for secondary attributes might make things "fresh", it is as someone else pointed out - the availability to raise attributes to 12 for any profession has been a core mechanic since release.

If you changed this, it would force players to modify existing builds, but at almost 4 years of gamestate... this would be more of a mistake than a balance, I'm sure of it.

Thanks for the suggestiong Grenths Ire, it's good to see ppl thinking on this, but the way you have suggested doing it would cause more harm than good, methinks.

Now I need to think of things that could be used to re-assert balance... most of my thoughts have already been voiced in this, and previous, threads... ah well... can't win them all, I suppose...

~ Nihilist

/notsigned

I run axe, sword, hammer, spear, daggers and scythe on my warrior.
3 weps isn't enough

Regardless of all yes/no that come to my mind, this might be a valuable lesson.

Sorry /notsigned
I make a lot of my builds with the secondary profession.
I don't want to lose that.
But anyway, it is technically capped because runes cannot be used for secondary attributes.

Nah.

but this actually gives me to think of something else, rewards players who put more emphasis on their primary class. if you op out secondary class, the damage/healing done using ONLY your primary class are boosted

Rangers are are meant to do well with all energy-based attacks, mesmers are meant to be a faster casting version of any support spellcaster, etc. These uses of secondary skills with primary attributes and armor were designed to be that way. If a build is degenerate, nerf the build, but there are a ton of fun and balanced builds that would be hit badly by this, and there are a ton of OP skills and builds that wouldn't be affected at all.

I've given this some thought and while the option seems interesting I won't vote in favor of it.
The main problem isn't so much in the secondary profession, it's in the primary combined with the secondary.
Lowering secondary to 9 would nerf this, but it would also hurt professions that don't benefit from their primary that much.
I think the system works fine as it is, but might need a little tweaking on the primary class-bound attribute.
For example, expertice works on all non-spell skills as far as I recall. Could be bound to ranger skills only. SR could be inverse linked to the effectiveness of secondary skills (lower SR to make them more effective, raise it and make them less effective).
But that would require too much work to implement I guess.

But in general the possibility to use both primary and secondary skills up to 12 is good in my opinion.

... All of a sudden you take versatility out of GW. Heres an idea , why dont you take out the second prof option ? pffff . The key is to make the MAIN attrib of each profession more powerful ( if they are not now ) and to affect almost each skill ( like divine favor , affects monk spells on allies and sometimes oneself ) of that profession.

I'd go for this if you could use your secondary profession's runes so getting back to 12 would require a Health hit. This way you could have a 9+1 without penalty, but 12 Critical Strike and 12 Scythe Mastery wouldn't be as viable.

Seems like a good idea to me in theory for some things, but balance really shouldn't have to be this hard and drastic to achieve.

This wouldn't make things balanced.

The second profession is there to help the primary profession, changing this to the OP's idea would require a rebalance of ALL the skills (skill breakpoints say hi) and that's a lot of time consuming for the devs.

@ the OP: Dervs and rits are good. The fact that they aren't popular in pugs is because to they don't know what the profession actually can do or because they're still tied to the first 6 core professions (can almost say 5 since mesmers in groups are a rarity).

Fixing the game isn't as easy as you may think. Keep this in mind: bad players make bad teams.

The area where I always see pugs forming is Temple of the Ages. From my experience pugs still use their professions in the wrong way, skill bars are just awful. Only a very small percentage of the players use PvE skills. It's always the same skill bars and when you try to help you get the usual "I'm around since release i know the game very well" or stfu u nub comment.


Outside of the FoW/UW scene there are missions and quests but the builds are still bad (if not worse).


@ the OP: You speak of warriors with scythes and rangers not using bows, Keep in mind that a Rit/Ranger can do more splinter damage than a Ranger/Rit due to having the ability of using channeling runes, removing that ability, your rit will eat dust a lot more. It's like you're contradicting yourself there.

I'll conclude this by saying that the game needs fixing yes but this isn't the solution. Making the 2nd profession less important will make the game worse not better.

EDIT: Forgot to mention about the consumables part, they are a nice addition to the game. They come handy for players who want to accomplish something in GW but have little time to play or for the hardest areas in the game and other situations. I find them balanced as they are.

/notsigned

- Ganni