So, now that the Great Big Mesmer Update is complete, Anet is working their way through Dervish improvements. In the meantime, however, are there any other pressing issues for PvE balance as a whole that you think need to be ironed out? With the new ability to split primary attributes between PvE and PvP, are there any that could use a tweak or two? Any individual attributes that need improvement, minor spot fixes to even a single skill, or entire classes that need serious tinkering?
Share your thoughts and ideas, all things PvE balance related.
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Personal whims to follow. Can't have a balance thread posted without the author ranting and raving about his own ideas, now can we?
The three main things I would like to see are the following.
1) An end to the Healing Nuker and Nuking Healer absurdity.
In particular, I'm talking about the smiting monk being a better all around nuker than the average elementalist, and the ER infuser out healing any dedicated healing profession in the game. But while nerfing ER and making RoJ less of a dumbfire pure damage skill would help, it is a deeper problem than that.
Elementalists need a way to get through armor. HM's naturally high levels mean creatures have naturally more armor. Problem is, while fire/water/lightning/earth damage is thusly inhibited, holy/dark/shadow/chaos/untyped damage is not. The result is that the iconic nuker profession doesn't deal enough damage in HM to be competitive with other classes, who have AoE capabilities to deliver untyped damage all over the place.
Fortunately, rectifying this problem is relatively simple. Take a bunch of the underused skills, glyphs in particular, and change them around to provide degrees of armor penetration, linked to Energy Storage. Glyph of Elemental Power (made redundant by consumables) and Glyph of Essence (same result as Sacrifice, but generally inferior) would be perfect for this, as would a change to Intensity to make it provide armor penetration instead of a flat damage increase.
Meanwhile, Monks have the worst energy management of any caster in the game. Ritualists can siphon it from spirits, grant themselves double energy regeneration or restore it with a flick of the wrist. Mesmers can steal it, drain it, juggle it, manipulate it like a puppet. Elementalists can regain it, gain tax breaks on it or restore it. Necromancers have never had an empty energy pool in PvE in GW history, and wonder what everyone keeps fussing about. But Monks have absolutely nothing.
In part, this is as designed. Monks gain a lot of beneficial effects by giving up energy, bonding in particular, as well as some special enchantments that increase costs for higher yields. The problem is that monks who are NOT bonding and not using these special skills have squat when it comes to keeping their energy up. Whereas their counterpart healer class can slurp up energy from spirits, a healing or standard protection monk relies completely on a secondary profession merely to keep casting if the battle lasts any reasonable length of time.
Ergo, providing monks with ways to meet their energy needs (ones that do NOT work while bonding) would do wonders for making the class no longer bound in holy matrimony to other class's e-management skills.
On a side note while talking about the monk, it would be nice to see a split in Divine Favor that allowed the PvE version of the skill to be less restrictive. At the moment, it is the only primary in the game which is class restrictive, only working with Monk spells, whereas all other professions get their bonus to any skill that falls into their category (strength effects all attack skills, FC helps everything, etc). This is also, strangely, appropriate, as adding the DF bonus to Restoration skills might be overdoing it. Ergo, it might instead extend the bonus to any monk skills that target allies, making signets more viable, and a different effect on monk skills that target foes (making single target smiting actually worth a damn).
2) Serious love for the Ranger.
The PvE Ranger has some major issues. Nature Rituals are weak, never gaining the spirit boosts ritualists received, and are generally not worth a slot. Traps lack effectiveness in casual play, not sufficiently rewarding a ranger who brings them alongside the bow rather than picking up a staff and doing nothing but trapping. Beast mastery is still...awkward business as usual, although it has improved to some degree. But most importantly, the marksman line is largely useless, outside of one elite and perhaps three other skills, with a million different ways to fire a single shot that deals insufficient damage. It has way too many single target skills that have no effect other than a paltry damage increase, far below single target damage for any other weapon, melee or range.
Generally speaking, Rangers in PvE have only been good at two things; Barraging and Interrupting. The latter category has had its thunder completely stolen by the new Mesmer abilities, and the former is far too dependant upon other profession's skills, like splinter weapon.
There was a good idea posted a while back about making the pet the center of a Ranger's damage output, and finding a different function for the low damage bow. This is a reasonable idea; change many of the underperforming bow damage skills to something like condition play, the ability to chain together various debilitating effects (so, Marauder's Shot, for example, might cause weakness if the target was bleeding, thus providing synergy with Hunter's Shot or Barbed Arrows and granting a ranger access to conditions he currently can't inflict). Meanwhile, infuse the nature spirits with a rit-like buff, and make them actually worth a skill slot, especially the elites. Finally, perhaps give traps a bundle mechanic akin to ashes, which would let the ranger carry them around and deploy them where needed.
3) Better ways for Paragons to shout at people without wearing pants.
The upgrades to the Command line did wonders for offensive 'gons, but Motivation is still seriously lacking. Part of the problem is way too much specialization with far too few skills; no one uses something like Lyric of Purification because there simply isn't enough signet use in the average party to make it worthwhile. Furthermore, paragons are actually punished for playing in a standard party, because they can heal a group of all casters or all physicals better than they can a mixture of physicals and casters. And there is no middle ground; chants either have a benefit, or they are worthless on any given target. If you use Aria of Restoration, the warrior on the frontline isn't getting any benefit, just like using Zealous Anthem isn't helping your mesmer friend.
Motivation needs some serious reworking in the way that chants and echoes function, as these skill types are the core feature of the attribute line. Chanting needs much, much better targeting (a system where it heals MORE if the skill they used was the specified type, for example, with a minor boost if they use something else). Either that, or echoes need to become a way to manipulate chants to give the paragon direct control (so a finale might end chants on an ally for a selected benefit, thereby allowing a paragon to use something like Aria of Restoration and then activate Purifying Finale to make the aria relieve the warrior's conditions, since he could not otherwise benefit from its effects).
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