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The original was posted on /r/guildwars2 by /u/MaselMMO on 2024-04-01 00:01:43.
Hi!
It's been a while since I made a post on PvE balance, so I thought it was time to do it again after the changes of the March 19th patch have made their way into the game and things kinda settled down.
I spent some time looking at the , playing various aspects of PvE-content and looking at the popularity of particular builds over time ().
This isn't supposed to be a very long post, but I'd like to highlight a few problems that have been persistent and evident over the last two years cine EoD was released.
First off, here are the first and final damage numbers for all current benchmarks (and some legacy benchmarks) taken from the SC website as of yesterday:
First and Final Benchmark Numbers (March 2024)
Before we get to the problems, I'd like to start with something positive though: when you look at the spread of first and final numbers, you can see that most builds are within a reasonable margin of dps, allowing to you to play the build you want without hindering clearing 99% of the content in GW2. Part of that is caused by the power creep that has happened over time, where we see most builds doing a good bit over 40k dps.
Now to the problems though :P
Problem 1: power builds are superior to condition builds under the current balance philosophy. This isn't really a new phenomenon, but it is pretty apparent when looking at the first and final numbers. The median damage first number for power builds is 44372, the final median is 42418. Condition builds are ~6% behind on the first number (41634), and are basically identical on the final number (42380).* Phases in real encounters are shorter than a golem fight, reinforcing this problem. Intuitively, one would think that power builds would have to be "punished" for their higher burst damage with lower sustained damage, but they're not. This makes it hard for well-played condition builds to keep up with a decently played power build (which is something I experienced first hand over the last few patches).
Problem 2: DPS levels seem to be balanced around benchmarks themselves, not the transferability of benchmarks into actual content. The devs have stated that their overall goal for damage is ~40k damage, which they (kind of) achieved for most builds. That approach, however, cuts things short in many ways. When looking at the popularity of builds over time, one would expect that builds with the highest benchmarks are chosen by endgame players, but that is not always the case. The applicability of dps to actual encounters can be restricted severely by many factors:
- complexity of rotation,
- lack of range,
- low defiance bar damage,
- low burst damage,
- finnicky mechanics (e.g. stealth, damage tied to health thresholds)
- low survivability and self-boon coverage
- and more.
Even though its anecdotal evidence: in the recent Cerus CM race for example, every dps player there played condition virtuoso. That is because it is the build with probably the best transferability of its high benchmark dps into actual content when facing mechanics (very high range, fairly easy to learn, great utility options, good burst damage). Condition deadeye on the other hand could probably have a 50k+ benchmark and still won't be played much because it doesn't translate well into encounters. Based on GW2Wingman (only includes data from combat logs uploaded to the site), ~15% of players in strikes this current patch played virtuoso and only 1.64% played deadeye (part of that is probably power deadeye too).
What can we do about this? Probably not much, but it doesn't seem to hard to evaluate a certain "damage budget" for each build based on the transferability into actual content, relative to other builds. Such a damage budget would give some builds more leeway for higher benchmarks, while others would need be toned down. This would also alleviate the issue with power vs condition outlined above, as burst damage would be a factor to consider.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you see any other issues I didn't list here?
Cheers,
Masel
* Note that the first golem number is a suboptimal indicator for burst damage, as it often takes a little while to get there. For shorter phases, the difference is evidently larger.