RlyDontKnow wrote: »

Ezhh wrote: »

There is no other spammable in the game that can compare. It's not just about ST damage or any specific parses on PTS right now. It's an issue on live too and subclassing + an 8% base damage increase are inflating the issue.

That's because it's not a spammable per se. You can't just spam it, you have to build the crux first. A flail flail beam combination lands at ~1.76 Damager per Power. A flail beam combination lands at around 1.89 Damage per Power.
But to even use those you need another DoT runnning and for just flail beam the banner. And the stars need to align so banner doesn't hit before the DoT after consuming crux or you'll be down to flail flail beam instead (part of the nuissances of actually playing an Arca). Factoring in inspired scholarship we're at ~1.95 Damage per Power.
So for the 1.95 Damage per Power you are using 4 skill slots.

For comparison: the pre-nerf (U34) Jabs had ~1.58 for Jabs + 0.63 for Burning Light for a combined 2.21 and you could actually just spam that without keeping anything up. Cleave damage was half damage and it was melee, but in return you got a very strong self-heal.

Ezhh wrote: »

RlyDontKnow wrote: »

If you hate beaming that much, then don’t use it. It’s not like you’re forced to. Even less so with the new build options.

This is extremely unhelpful.

If you personally think imbalances are fine because "you don't have to play a certain way" then please try to understand that people might want good performance and the ability to play the playstyle they prefer at the same time.

I don't think imbalances are fine. But the discussion about Arcanists is not just imbalances. It's about how much worse an easier playstyle should be. I'm perfectly fine if beam gets turned down a notch. But this isn't what people are calling for. And the templar treatments in the past have shown that this isn't where it stops. So the question is: what is the actual issue here?

Let's take a look at live necro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GK69RxnGIY - particularly the alternatives setups past the actual parse.
The skills are all AoE. Even in AoE gear (which hits slightly lower dummy numbers) this performs around the same level as Arca in ST and Cleave. In turn you have to be melee and the targets shouldn't move around too much. Neither of those should be a major issue in an organized group. In return you get some target debuffs.

Apparently this still qualifies as "no alternative to Arcanist". So my question is: what qualifies as alternative? What exactly are you asking other classes to get?

Ezhh wrote: »

RlyDontKnow wrote: »

The only way that the existence of a simpler build that clears the bar of being good enough is not an issue according to your reasoning is if it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t need to be the best. As long as it’s good enough people will get further by being able to pay more attention and thus progress further. So the only option to fix your issue is to nerf the good enough build so hard into the ground that it’s not good enough, anymore.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

I don't care if arc beam is as good as other playstyles and can do the same content. It should be able to. What I care about is that it's so far ahead in almost every single scenario. (So we are very clear, a large part of this is due to the range and cleave on beam).

Someone getting the same damage numbers on a simpler build than me is 100% acceptable, since in that scenario I have chosen to use the more complicated build. What isn't okay is that there are many situations where someone can objectively play extremely well on another class/playstyle and it will be practically impossible for them to hold their own with an arc. (Again, ranged cleave is a big part of this. The design of recent trials has heavily focused on situations where cleave is really important. If there'd been more ST focused fights in recent trials, the situation on live would be different.)

I agree it's unfortunate that there's so much focus on cleave lately. I have to admit I haven't done that much of the most recent trials as I just recently got back into the game, but where exactly is there so much need for *ranged* cleave?
I agree that range can be an advantage in some cases, but most trials don't need range (especially not from everyone).

Ezhh wrote: »

RlyDontKnow wrote: »

So… just leave it around there. It doesn’t need the buff it got PTS week one. And if people agree it needs a slight nerf (say 5%), sure, go for it. I couldn’t care less. But don’t change so drastically it becomes useless (like turning it into direct damage, huge damage nerf, or other similar “just get rid of it” suggestions). It’s nowhere near that strong.

If you check some of my previous comments, you'll see I've actually pointed out the difficulties and issues with "nerfing" beam in a way that doesn't break the class and create the same problem but in the other direction (beam no longer keeping up with high CPM gameplay). What I'd actually love to see is simply some alternatives to beam that enable ranged cleave without a long channel time. Either way, to balance this isn't a simple issue and I don't envy the hole ZOS dug for themselves with this.

I don't think this will satisfy anyone, really. If you look at Templar U34 or even older you had a very similar build to what arca is today (simple rotation, good damage, etc.) with the following differences:
* 1s channel instead of 5.5s channel
* melee instead of range
* reduced cleave damage, but with self-heal instead of full cleave damage
* a self-heal during execute to rescue the day
* some other defensive passives (notably minor protection, extra armor, it paired well with high-elf which provides extra damage reduction while chanelling) that made it quite tanky
At that point there were plenty alternatives providing similar or better power and most fights were ST or with very little adds.

And yet: there were the exact same complaints about Templar. It's too strong, it's too easy, you have it - and it got nerfed so hard it never recovered.

But if you want some alterantives to the hard nerf hammer:
Take the beam's range away and make it 8x6m (jabs size) or something like that. It already qualifies as melee, anyway. So let it actually be melee.
Buff templar back to what it was, so we have a 1s channel alternative to Arcanist with different trade-offs.

But I'm pretty sure people will keep complaining about arcanist until it's so far behind other classes that it's just unplayable. Because as long as simple builds are good enough (say 5-10% behind others with no DPS checks requiring this extra damage), people will play them.

Skjaldbjorn wrote: »

Beam is, functionally, the core reason why Arc is so absurdly strong and so hard to balance. It requires little to no skill to actually pull competitive numbers. At least in the current meta, DKs, Cros and Templars have a lot of value. Their single target is much higher potentially than Arc, and there are fights where that is incredibly important. With subclassing, I feel fairly confident in saying those days are gone. Beam is just so absurdly powerful, got buffed by ~8%, now it gets ~15% on top from the mag BB effect, along with the passive from siphon, the NB ult, the list goes on and on.

RlyDontKnow wrote: »

Ezhh wrote: »

There is no other spammable in the game that can compare. It's not just about ST damage or any specific parses on PTS right now. It's an issue on live too and subclassing + an 8% base damage increase are inflating the issue.

That's because it's not a spammable per se. You can't just spam it, you have to build the crux first. A flail flail beam combination lands at ~1.76 Damager per Power. A flail beam combination lands at around 1.89 Damage per Power.
But to even use those you need another DoT runnning and for just flail beam the banner. And the stars need to align so banner doesn't hit before the DoT after consuming crux or you'll be down to flail flail beam instead (part of the nuissances of actually playing an Arca). Factoring in inspired scholarship we're at ~1.95 Damage per Power.
So for the 1.95 Damage per Power you are using 4 skill slots.

For comparison: the pre-nerf (U34) Jabs had ~1.58 for Jabs + 0.63 for Burning Light for a combined 2.21 and you could actually just spam that without keeping anything up. Cleave damage was half damage and it was melee, but in return you got a very strong self-heal.

Ezhh wrote: »

RlyDontKnow wrote: »

If you hate beaming that much, then don’t use it. It’s not like you’re forced to. Even less so with the new build options.

This is extremely unhelpful.

If you personally think imbalances are fine because "you don't have to play a certain way" then please try to understand that people might want good performance and the ability to play the playstyle they prefer at the same time.

I don't think imbalances are fine. But the discussion about Arcanists is not just imbalances. It's about how much worse an easier playstyle should be. I'm perfectly fine if beam gets turned down a notch. But this isn't what people are calling for. And the templar treatments in the past have shown that this isn't where it stops. So the question is: what is the actual issue here?

Let's take a look at live necro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GK69RxnGIY - particularly the alternatives setups past the actual parse.
The skills are all AoE. Even in AoE gear (which hits slightly lower dummy numbers) this performs around the same level as Arca in ST and Cleave. In turn you have to be melee and the targets shouldn't move around too much. Neither of those should be a major issue in an organized group. In return you get some target debuffs.

Apparently this still qualifies as "no alternative to Arcanist". So my question is: what qualifies as alternative? What exactly are you asking other classes to get?

Ezhh wrote: »

RlyDontKnow wrote: »

The only way that the existence of a simpler build that clears the bar of being good enough is not an issue according to your reasoning is if it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t need to be the best. As long as it’s good enough people will get further by being able to pay more attention and thus progress further. So the only option to fix your issue is to nerf the good enough build so hard into the ground that it’s not good enough, anymore.

Please don't put words in my mouth.

I don't care if arc beam is as good as other playstyles and can do the same content. It should be able to. What I care about is that it's so far ahead in almost every single scenario. (So we are very clear, a large part of this is due to the range and cleave on beam).

Someone getting the same damage numbers on a simpler build than me is 100% acceptable, since in that scenario I have chosen to use the more complicated build. What isn't okay is that there are many situations where someone can objectively play extremely well on another class/playstyle and it will be practically impossible for them to hold their own with an arc. (Again, ranged cleave is a big part of this. The design of recent trials has heavily focused on situations where cleave is really important. If there'd been more ST focused fights in recent trials, the situation on live would be different.)

I agree it's unfortunate that there's so much focus on cleave lately. I have to admit I haven't done that much of the most recent trials as I just recently got back into the game, but where exactly is there so much need for *ranged* cleave?
I agree that range can be an advantage in some cases, but most trials don't need range (especially not from everyone).

Ezhh wrote: »

RlyDontKnow wrote: »

So… just leave it around there. It doesn’t need the buff it got PTS week one. And if people agree it needs a slight nerf (say 5%), sure, go for it. I couldn’t care less. But don’t change so drastically it becomes useless (like turning it into direct damage, huge damage nerf, or other similar “just get rid of it” suggestions). It’s nowhere near that strong.

If you check some of my previous comments, you'll see I've actually pointed out the difficulties and issues with "nerfing" beam in a way that doesn't break the class and create the same problem but in the other direction (beam no longer keeping up with high CPM gameplay). What I'd actually love to see is simply some alternatives to beam that enable ranged cleave without a long channel time. Either way, to balance this isn't a simple issue and I don't envy the hole ZOS dug for themselves with this.

I don't think this will satisfy anyone, really. If you look at Templar U34 or even older you had a very similar build to what arca is today (simple rotation, good damage, etc.) with the following differences:
* 1s channel instead of 5.5s channel
* melee instead of range
* reduced cleave damage, but with self-heal instead of full cleave damage
* a self-heal during execute to rescue the day
* some other defensive passives (notably minor protection, extra armor, it paired well with high-elf which provides extra damage reduction while chanelling) that made it quite tanky
At that point there were plenty alternatives providing similar or better power and most fights were ST or with very little adds.

And yet: there were the exact same complaints about Templar. It's too strong, it's too easy, you have it - and it got nerfed so hard it never recovered.

But if you want some alterantives to the hard nerf hammer:
Take the beam's range away and make it 8x6m (jabs size) or something like that. It already qualifies as melee, anyway. So let it actually be melee.
Buff templar back to what it was, so we have a 1s channel alternative to Arcanist with different trade-offs.

But I'm pretty sure people will keep complaining about arcanist until it's so far behind other classes that it's just unplayable. Because as long as simple builds are good enough (say 5-10% behind others with no DPS checks requiring this extra damage), people will play them.