sarahthes wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

BananaBender wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Prionyx wrote: »

allochthons wrote: »

I'm one of the people who has benefited greatly from both oakensoul and arcanist.
Oakensoul allowed me to move into much harder content. Arcanist has allowed me to stay there. Yes, I can hit those high numbers on the other classes, but not for long before my hands give out.

Nerfing them only damages my (and many of my older friends) ability to contribute. Not all gamers are 18.

Nerfing arcanist damage by 20% will basically not change anything for you, you might not even notice it, but it will make game overall much better

Keeping the damage capped at 135-140k for yet another patch is another 1000 hours of running on the spot going nowhere.

You may want that, not everyone is of that mindset though, and it would definitely be noticeable; please don't talk to other people like they are 12.

140k while normal builds without fatecarver have 170k, that's the difference we have right now on live(20%), IMO it should be 30% but I know zos will not do this. In PTS there is like 3% difference but beam arcanist has has the advantage even in ST fights... There will be absolutely no point in playing any other class anywhere, not to mention that it simply shouldn't be this way by absolutely any logic, how in the hell is arcanist doing 175k dps will full aoe setup while ST builds have 170k and are also 10 times harder to play, it doesn't make any sence at all

Idk if highland null arca is full aoe setup, but that's what they're using for every single class, not just arcanist, for those pts parses.

But the skills were AOE, compared to the highest non beam parses which are pretty much exclusively single target skills. Also, there isn't really a difference between AoE and single target setups anymore. Azure was the only real AoE set in the game and it's just not worth using anymore. Depths and Aegis Caller are the only ones which are even close to being competitive and both suffer from the same massive downside of having a small AoE and stationary.

There is just no reason to ever play something that isn't arc beam. And before anyone says to just play what you want and not listen to meta, just because you don't care about any resemblance of build balance, that doesn't mean others shouldn't either. Any alternative setup comes with downsides, beam has none. Nerfing the beam is the only option unless they decide to implement even more power creep by pushing other setups to 200k+ ST range, which I don't see them doing any time soon.

They don't need to nerf the beam directly. They could just make GLS not buff channeled skills. Then arc drops slightly, necro isn't actually nerfed, and the playing field gets leveled out a bit.

Btw the first boss in the new trial is going to require everyone to spec into beam whether it's good or bad. New trial is very much a ranged cleave trial due to anti stack mechanics on the enemies - if they get too close to each other, and if too many of them spawn, the fight gets exponentially harder. That fight is probably the real reason why azureblight was nerfed - the set would trivialize the fight and remove any semblance of difficulty from it (and it's not exactly hard by any means).

Without GLS arc would drop slightly, yes, but it's so much further ahead than anything else right now that it wouldn't matter. And yes, the new trial is insanely arcanist favoured which just makes this whole problem so much worse. I don't think the second boss HM is even clearable without a beam stack (I know they are going to change it next patch, hopefully enough to give other classes even a chance).

The problem is that arcanist benefits the most out of any other class from subclassing, and nerfing individual skills from other classes simply doesn't address the problem. They have everything you could ever want on a DD in one single skill line, meaning they can freely drop he two other lines to get any possible buffs to boost beam, and on top of that they get two full sets of offensive passives. Every other class has to sacrifice something. Because every class has access to every skill line, the class which has to sacrifice the least to access that will always be best off.

Every recent trial has been build around AoE damage and now arcanist is clearly the only one who has access to it. Previously good AoE classes, like DK will have to drop Talons and Eruption, since those are the only two skills either of those skill lines has going for them (when talking about parse and not buff DDs), sure you get other skills in their stead, but you have to give up two really good AoE skills for it.

Necro is the only other class which is even close to arc, since you have most of your offensive skills in the same skill line, but the problem is that the whole necro class is reliant on Corpseburster or Azureblight, which of course will be a dead set next patch. Necro also has to give up Pummelling Goliath, which was the only reason which made it better than other classes in certain fights. CB on the other hand requires you to fully commit to using as many necro abilities as possible, meaning that instead of being able to pick useful abilities to complement your class, you have room for one or two buff skills and that is it.
Arcanist can also utilize necro passives much better than necro can utilize arcanist ones, since the strongest passive requires consuming and gaining crux, when necro passives only require you to have 1 or 2 skills slotted.

On top of all of this, Arcanist has BY FAR the best class script available, which means that they get the most out of banner.

So, Arc sacrifices the least from subclassing, it's the only real AoE spec available anymore, it has the best synergy with the strongest buff skill in the game (banner), it gets the most out of other class passives, it's by far the easiest to play and it's roughly 3% behind of the highest, perfectly executed pure single target parses. Either ZoS has to jump through a tons of hoops and alter skills, skill lines and all the other stuff, or they just simply HEAVILY nerf the beam.

I have a feeling that majority of people who are defending the current state of arc on PTS have not actually played the new trial as arc, and as another class. The difference is SO much larger than anything on live right now.

I'm not really defending it. I just think it needs to be handled with care because of the new content design, as well as more recent older content design. Basically arc needs to be usable and viable. The current extreme endgame balance of having a couple arcs and then stacking plars or cros or nbs or dks feels pretty good, with lower tiers of endgame having more arcs and other parse classes.

I agree, balance should be handled with care, but ZoS threw that out the window with how they implemented subclassing. Arcanist just slightly stronger than other classes, it's massively over tuned. To get back to anything that resembles the meta we have on live, arcanist needs to be nerfed significantly, or other classes need to be buffed by a lot. Though, arcanist has access to every other skill line as well, so buffing them wouldn't solve the issue.

Every buff you give to arcanist buffs everyone else, and every buff you give to everyone else buffs arcanist. Likewise any nerf to arcanist nerfs everyone else, and every nerf to everyone else nerfs arcanist.

The only way to balance, then, is to carve out exclusions.

Edit: also, cut everyone's class pen in half. Make alkosh great again.

Except a nerf to beam would only hurt arcanist, since no other class builds around beam, because they can't get access to arc class script.

Edit: I agree, bring back alkosh and EC

Except that content is balanced around beam, so it's still a problem and everyone's going to still be subclassing into it even if they pick a different base class.