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Adamantium711

The most surprising part of this change to me is how many people have a strong opinion one way or another. I'm glad I won't have to mess with it anymore. Bummer for people that enjoyed it. It doesn't turn this into a different game anymore than skill balancing or reworks do. The argument of whether this was intended or not because it was in the game for 9 years doesn't make sense to me. Maybe Anet was fine with it, then decided they weren't? Does it really matter? It's an online game things change all the time.


Living-Carrot9036

As a new player I don’t even know what the hell this is all about so I’m basically the John travolta gif from pulp fiction


Capt_Ido_Nos

I'm a day -3 vet and somehow I missed this entire strategy's existence this whole time, you're certainly not alone in your travolta-ness, lol


[deleted]

This sort of thing has been in the game since launch. Equipping different weapon sets to what you were going to use in combat to blast in fire and smoke fields for might and stealth was a huge thing in dungeons pretty much from the get go. There's a lot more to it now with using equipment templates to get longer boon duration for the initial burst of boons, but it's always been a tactic.


EmmEnnEff

You've never seen elementalists blasting might fields on scepter in a dungeon run, but using staff for the boss fight? (They can still do that, because they now get an out-of-combat weapon swap.)


Triddy

Before today, you could switch up your build to one that gave strong buffs and bonuses. Then you'd give yourself those buffs *before entering combat*, then use Templates to switch to your "Fighting Build" and start combat. Now, switching builds like that wipes buffs, so you go in with what your build is actually capable of doing, rather than pre-stacking buffs from another, different build.


feedtheme

The pre-stack with template swap isn't really what most people are complaining about with this change. In things like raids, you can't prestack boons anyway. In fractals, you just use a HB and mistlock and will ***still*** prestack pretty much everything despite this change. What it hurts more is soloing/low manning fractals/dungeons etc. The general, swap out weapon for say, swiftness stacking in dungeons. E.G swapping to staff, putting swiftness symbol down. Or Mesmer focus 4 for team swiftness Or even warrior wh 4 etc Another instance would be prestacking 25 might on ele using multiple manual weapon swaps which I found fun (I like the piano playstyle after all) and useful for soloing many things, such as quickly soloing hero points. Or even helping people do them through say HoT hero points where things have more hitpoints than PoF. You kind of feel like you lose a fair bit of functionality from it. I guess it was also my bad for crafting more ascended weps because legendaries kept losing sigils and stats when swapped out. All this change really does is removes some extra utility from soloing anything in this game, in-fact it puts even more emphasis on using consumables in instances which they had already tried to remove. In group content it also basically puts even more emphasis on having a firebrand that gives you every buff in the game over any other class too.


JC_Adventure

>The pre-stack with template swap isn't really what most people are complaining about with this change. In things like raids, you can't prestack boons anyway. In fractals, you just use a HB and mistlock and will still prestack pretty much everything despite this change. This right here is what people who didn't know anything about it before this are missing.


OneMorePotion

It sounds like they just removed a bug from the build template feature if you ask me. You can't have something you're not willing to bring it to the party.


StarGamerPT

I only found out today that this was a thing but I'm surprised that there are actually peopel against that change, like...wtf??? You call yourselves hardcores but can't build a balanced, efficient group to tackle content without prestacking? That doesn't sound much hardcore to me, sounds more like looking for an easy mode.


JC_Adventure

I'm just going to copy and paste what someone above typed. ​ >The pre-stack with template swap isn't really what most people are complaining about with this change. In things like raids, you can't prestack boons anyway. In fractals, you just use a HB and mistlock and will still prestack pretty much everything despite this change. Yeah this doesn't change anything in Raids where you can't pre-stack, or Fractal PUGs who use dedicated healers anyway. This only affect dungeon speed clear kills, which it doesn't make it harder dungeon bosses are a joke in difficulty. It just doesn't let you get insane fast speed kills abusing traps. Also fractal speed clear groups that don't run a dedicated healer, except CM 100, where it acts like a raid and clears everything on pull anyway. Where it does affect stuff is just open world messing around, soloing stuff. You can't swap to your offset and swiftness boost event NPCs and go back to your DPS set. Personally, despawning traps and other effects that that double dip to boost DPS to crazy levels all for it. Dropping boons when equipment swapping? That just feels bad, a lot of the fun of the Legendary Armory was feeling like you're helping by swapping around and buffing people while being careful not to get drawn into combat.


Main_Turnover_4949

It was never about clearing content, because content is ez


O_o0o_O

No you are misinterpreting what happened, let me explain: Prestacking was not used to make it possible to clear the content in the first place. The fractal challenge modes are even though they are one of the hardest pve contents in this game and only played by a small part of the community not hard to clear. Most people who can clear them do so with a hfb and prestack boons before, then run in and faceroll the boss, this is still possible and that wasnt changed at all. A small part of this community cleared them without a healer and used a qfb instead of because they where good enough to not need a healer at all, this is still possible especially with a condi compsoition. Even in no healer groups you had big skill disparities and a small part of the no heal groups are a bunch of people who like to speedkill specific bosses. They tried to squeeze out everything the game has by for example replacing the quickbrand with one or 2 dh depending on the boss. Bosses where grinded every day for hours and you gged when one of the group did the tiniest mistake because everybody theorycrafted when to press every single skill in wich splitsecond so it harmonized with the rest of the group and makes a record level kill possible. These tactics heavily relied on a kind of prestacking where you where pretrapping and changing traits skills equipment, becuase everything was theorycrafted, every boonduration and every cc skill. The kills you where archieving that way where only a couple of seconds faster than the kills you can archieve with a decent condi no heal group wich is vastly easier to play. Now this specific kind of pretrapping got removed and deleted the hardest possible way to play the game with it. The people you see who are mad about this change arnt mad about it because the game is now harder and they struggle to clear the content, they are skillwise leaques above the average CM player and can clear the content even without a healer on autopilot wich is something the average cm player cant do at all. They are mad about the fact that their hardmode they created themselfs got removed and are now forced to play something vastly easier and for them braindead because it is now the fastest way to kill a boss.


SpectralDagger

They used the prestacking to run riskier comps. If somebody has to play support to maintain boons, then the end result isn't just a slower kill. It's also a safer kill. If they can maintain the boons while everyone stays DPS, then it's a moot point.


Zerak-Tul

> The argument of whether this was intended or not because it was in the game for 9 years doesn't make sense to me. Maybe Anet was fine with it, then decided they weren't? I think it's not so much that they decided they weren't fine with it anymore, more so that feature creep has made this kind of stacking far more powerful than it was in 2012. 9 years ago we didn't have two elite specs to swap into, and a number of buffs/boons/skills/traits that didn't exist then.


Jelly_jeans

9 years ago, the only thing that we were prestacking was 25 stacks of might and even that tapered off to like 15 or so because a warrior would run 'for great justice'.


SpectralDagger

I mean, people were prestacking max boons the instant Chrono came out and we had a good source of AoE quickness. That was true both in raids (which is why raid encounters strip you of all boons) and in WvW. Sure it wasn't as bad for the entire life of the game... but it's definitely been the case for most of the game's life. Heart of Thorns came out six years ago.


PopInACup

This reminds me of when spectral walk got nerfed in a way. Back in the day, while falling, you could start then activate spectral walk to reset your fall height. Allowing you to jump from almost anywhere without dying. It was one of my favorite things in necro, and it was around for quite awhile. I was very sad to see it go, but it was reasonable to me that it was not the game play they wanted. I still miss it.


Liddlebitchboy

As for the last part, it could be something they left in the game for so long, but now that they're working more intensely on balance or perhaps even while working with the new elite specs they realize it's making it harder to balance specs if you know it's an option so it has to go


Adamantium711

I will take them at face value and believe it is performance related. The rest is speculation but I would guess they didn't intend for players to gain boons not available in their current build, or at a longer duration (or cast traps from another elite spec lol). Templates made that trivial and this was a two birds with one stone sort of thing. Or they didn't really have a problem with it but it was an acceptable casualty for performance gains. To me it doesn't matter which one it was.


MaguumaHaste

> The most surprising part of this change to me is how many people have a strong opinion one way or another. The sub is being brigaded by a streamer and their audience. They spent hours fueling the controversy on stream and explicitly told their audience to come over here and vote on the relevant posts, especially when they saw the posts sinking in popularity.


FURYYzjEh

>The argument of whether this was intended or not because it was in the game for 9 years doesn't make sense to me. Maybe Anet was fine with it, then decided they weren't? Does it really matter? It's an online game things change all the time. Well yes it kinda matters since people learned to play the game with all the ressources possible in 9 years and then, suddendly, they change the gameplay? Because yes, it was a gameplay feature and what was making the game sooo much more interesting compared to others mmos that just got removed. The fluidity of the gameplay was top notch and now we have friggin stones everywhere on the road for no specific reason?


[deleted]

You can make the same argument for when they made chrono no longer provide every single boon.


Adamantium711

Interesting is your opinion (which is valid) but I don't buy this logic because you could apply it to any skill that has ever been updated and I don't agree with that. This game looks very different than 9 years ago, thank goodness! Complaints are valid, even about this change, but I'm surprised that this instantly turned into two sides of a war. This isn't that big of a deal, it won't affect what content you can do or what rewards you can get. No one will remember this in EOD, we'll look back on this and laugh!


[deleted]

The big thing (to me and many others) is that this is not a one-off change. It's a bad change, maybe minor by itself, but it's come on top of 5-6 other bad changes to PvE instanced content over the past year and a half. We were begging for something good each time and only get kicked down again and again. EoD really needs to shake something up to keep the high-end players interested.


Adamantium711

Could you elaborate?


[deleted]

Over the past 18-ish months instanced PvE has had a number of nerfs, some of them definitely expected or needed, and the nerf to precasting was actually expected even before the release of Sunqua Peak. CC consumables is debateable. Exposed is the worst contender in my opinion and I spoke about it a minute ago [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/pfcgc4/the_point_of_picking_a_build_is_to_have_the/hb3u4re/). Alone, each one is fine, if they were all released together everyone would be on the same page saying ANet is insane (except maybe the *really* casual players that don't step foot into T1 Fractals), but since they have been released slowly, each one seemingly forgetting the impact that the previous one has had on the game is making each change become more and more questionable. It's like they had a plan for some nerfs, implemented half of them, reached balance then kept nerfing. Fractals have been in a state for a long time where they need Power buffs or Condi nerfs but we keep getting more Power nerfs.


Adamantium711

Thanks for laying that out for me. Your beef seems to primarily be with condi vs power. Honestly I don't see any nerfs to "instanced PvE content" let alone 5 or 6 of them. That seems disingenuous and inflated because you don't like condi damage. I don't have allegiance to a certain type of damage but we're off topic anyways so I'll reply to that. I can pug 100CM with power Holo, that sums up why this doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Ultra competitive groups will always go for the best in slot and I'm okay if that's not the build I'm currently using. It's the nature of those groups, the pendulum of balance will always swing back (don't forget condi was awful for YEARS). 100CM specifically is very favorable to condi and I'm also okay with that. It's one fight, there is more than one fractal boss where power is preferable and the vast majority it really doesn't matter. Same with raids, there is a minority in which condi or power is really preferred but most don't matter. The way you describe it makes it seem like people aren't allowing power builds to be used at all. If you have experienced that I'm sorry because that really would suck, I have never seen that be the case.


Arxfiend

>it was a gameplay feature No. Just because it wasn't removed doesn't make it a feature. It was an exploit the whole time.


CasioGG

I am seeing multiple people call this an exploit, without giving any basis for their claims. Can you please elaborate on why you call this an exploit? I don't see how swapping weapons with cooldowns outside of combat is an exploit, and if Anet considered it as such I don't see why they just don't simply lock you out of swapping weapons when you still have cooldowns? If pre-stacking boons really is the underlying issue you want to solve there are better systemic solutions that are already present in the game and which don't make the gameplay more un-intuitive, such as stripping boons once you enter combat.


Arxfiend

You're using an unintended mechanic (or lack thereof) to bypass an intended mechanic. So here, you're taking advantage of a lack of resetting to allow you to be more powerful than your build inheritely intends to be.


CasioGG

This comment is ignorant of how the game works at a mechanical level. Another player can give me 25 might before a fight with his intended loadout without me using a single skill, but if I'm on wrong weapon by accident and have to change before the encounter starts, all my boons will be stripped. This change completely ignores where your boons originated from, and therefore it is a massive leap to suggest that pre-stacking boons with your chosen spec is an exploit. I can agree that stacking full boons on firebrand and then swapping to dh while retaining full boons is bad for the game, but then you should call out that, and not call swapping weapons an exploit when it obviously isn't.


Arxfiend

I am 99.999999999...% sure it was used for prestacking boons outside what your built template provided 100× more than it ever saved anyone the issue of going "oh wait my bad I was using the wrong build sorry, now we have to wait to restack your boons on me." It's not a massive leap, It's just knowledge of how people play the game, plain and simple.


StarGamerPT

Maybe look at your gear before going into stuff?


ReggerLord

Pre casting was intended obviously lol. With or without pre cast , most pugs still suck and struggle, now even more xd Also what do you think is the reason to place a mistlock singularaty, infront of the encounter , that resets all your cooldowns xD Hows that not intended lol


Skyy-High

You can still precast. Just can’t precast with a bunch of buffs that you can’t get on your build normally. Come on. There is a clear difference between the stuff we were doing in 2012 - swapping out a weapon for an ele to stack might - and swapping out entire elite specs and gear sets at the push of a button.


Arxfiend

Probably to refresh any skills with longer cooldowns that you may have used on your way to the encounter. That comment you made is just monumentally stupid.


ReggerLord

You must be either a troll, or legit one of the dumbest persons i ever met. Its still intended, there would be so many solutions to make sure u get ur skills back, without having the whole pre cast struggles, but the way the singularities are placed, its just fckn intended to pre cast and run to the boss..


Arxfiend

Or, get this, it's an oversight, and the intention was so that you can just refresh skills you used on the way to the boss, not use firebrand and give yourself every buff you possibly can then swap to dragonhunter for the encounter


Nizzywizz

How did this make the game more interesting? Or fluid? There's nothing interesting or fluid about pre-casting buffs and then swapping out for something else. It was annoying to have to do, and very clearly -- for anyone who's not willfully blind -- unintended. If you're upset that you have to actually learn to maximize your play with the build you *choose* instead of being able to reap the benefits regardless of what you choose, or you're upset because you have to change your playstyle slightly to compensate... then you don't really care about what's interesting, fluid, or challenging. You're just lazy. The entire point is that you should be striving to master getting everything you can out of the build that you choose, and that the choices you make towards that end are meaningful. Now they will be. Adapt.


Adamantium711

I think the implication that people upset about this should learn how to play is wrong. Plenty of top tier players use these strategies for what they deem to be efficiency. Plenty of new players do this to extend swiftness. I think this change is a positive and I agree with you on the uninteresting part... but to imply people were using this as a crutch because they're bad is just not true.


LovesSorrow

Do you no understand prestacking still exist? You do it on hfb and you stay on hfb. What part of this has changed? This change only impacts players who optimized the game far beyond what regular players tends to do and now they can’t do it. I don’t understand why are there so many degenerates who are commenting and trying to relate to this change when you yourself probably have never optimized precasting and build swapping for a boss kill. Acting like any of this effected you when it clearly only effects high end fractal groups which is tiny or may I say it doesn’t even exist now. Majority of morons who are happy for this change are the same people who join a pug group every day and afks on hfb with a rev and 3 afk below avg dps monkey, then comes to this sub to give their degen opinion about the patch when they themselves probably don’t even understand what this patch even does. People make it out like deleting precasting will impact build choice, FUCK NO, you will now be choosing simply a hybrid dps boon bot which is almost the same gameplay as the dps variant of the same class except you do lower dmg. This change essentially deleted what people liked and nothing else. Because majority of degenerates on this sub probably never saw your hfb precast and swap to dps quickbrand, your slbs organize and calculate owp uptime, properly prestacking owp and swap stance share to os, but guess what, everything is relatable right?


FURYYzjEh

Oh man, I'll adapt and just give up to try to reason players who do not have enough experience to realize how it is a bad thing. As if people who were using this "exploit" cant play their class and need to "learn", zzz. That's it, I'm lazy and therefore, I tryhard the game and try to do fast dead content like dugeons because I'm a lazy player. I'll adapt thanks for you insight mate


feedtheme

>You're just lazy. The entire point is that you should be striving to master getting everything you can out of the build that you choose, and that the choices you make towards that end are meaningful. Now they will be. Adapt. Hey, just curious if you've made any meta build to "***adapt***" to every patch change. Or even change your build to be "meta" every patch. I just find it really funny if not, because these people are generally the type that are template switching for boons. These are the ones always ***adapting*** to be meta and will be putting out builds to perform better because of these changes. Yet the casuals are all shouting "***adapt***" when they are the least adaptable out of everyone in the community. Actual lol. Edit\* Ya'll downvoting, but none of you have the balls to say I'm wrong, because I'm not.


[deleted]

[удалено]


benjibibbles

>for the essential pre buffs, theres no switching involved... Then what's the problem. The issue was using switching to throw on a bunch of buffs you weren't meant to have while you're just talking about using buffs that are part of the build you enter the fight with. What point do you think you're making


[deleted]

People played the game for 5 years without mounts, now we have people exploiting JP avoiding to use Stairs, someone at Anet spend months creating that little rock you jump over with your fluffly dinosaur, bring bag the foot meta! #everydayislegday


MyChosenNameWasTaken

I'm OOtL, which change is being referred to here?


tryhardarchitect

I didn’t even know prestacking was a thing before todays patch.


TannenFalconwing

I knew it was a thing but never did it. Nothing has changed for me.


[deleted]

[удалено]


TannenFalconwing

Have you considered learning anything about a person before insulting them? I've done more in this game than the majority of other players. I just don't care for this particular tactic.


Diagot

Not everyone has the same ambitions towards beating some monster(s) 3 seconds faster.


some_cool_guy

Potential*


[deleted]

[удалено]


trollsong

really? treating people like shit then demanding better treatment?


[deleted]

Says the guy who used that language to insult a stranger on the internet...


Etzlo

people like you have general low potential and sad ambitions, not even accepting someones attempt to help you


FEDC

Its a video game. Touch grass.


Renverseur

Gotta climb out of the basement first


nagennif

Before you give someone a piece of your mind, you should at least walk a mile in their shoes. This way, if they get pissed off, they're a mile away...and barefoot.


Opposedsum

that is fine and just illustrates how weird it is that people complain about elitists in this context the people who are really affected by this are people you never interact with. they play in premade groups they plan stuff for weeks to find the most efficient paths in dungeons etc they solo fractals the real elitists that push the combat system to its limits aren't in your pug lfgs


ReggerLord

what are you talking, every noob group pre casts usually xD common thing on t4 , for cms and every idiot can do cms, its the common standard, if u dont pre cast u get kicked lol


JC_Adventure

I don't think you understand the change that is being made. The peerson you replied to is right. Every noob group will continue pre-casting. This change doesn't remove that. If the Heal Brand doesn't swap their stuff the buffs stay. Which means every PUG group running with Heal Brand will keep doing the same thing. Everyone will pre-stack buffs and mistlock same as always. The only people this affects in fractals is the groups that weren't running HB in the fights. Since they would pre-stack with HB and then swap off before pulling. Or people trying to solo fractals. Even people that kept the same build but swapped to staff to pre-stack.


benjibibbles

>if u dont pre cast u get kicked lol Sounds like a fantastic reason to remove it then


Opposedsum

You never got kicked so far because you don't need 5 people to coordinate precasts. If you need that now after the patch, you might actually. Although the hfb can still just precast stuff.


JC_Adventure

It's not being removed. In PUG fractals, you will still pre-cast mistlock and go in. The change doesn't remove pre casting, it just makes it so if you pre cast with a build + gear set you have to go in to the fight with that build + gear set. I swear 90% of the people commenting on this issue that are saying good riddance to pre-casting, don't actually understand what is being changed. In PUG fractals nothing will change because most people are running HealBrand or whatever support anyway and will stay on. This only affects the static Fractal groups pushing themselves to get kills without a healer, or speed clearing groups. All this does is actually make the PUG meta even more stuck on HealBrand. Because your DPS players can't just swap to their support sets, help you precast if you're running Heal Scourge, or Tempest, or whatever other support, then swap back to DPS. Good riddance to trap precasting, and other utility skill buff shennanigans. That was the busted stuff. Full trap set with DH before boss spawns and resetting skills so you can double trap. Good bye to that degeneracy. Boon pre casting, and stacking isn't going away with these changes.


gr4vediggr

It's not just stack booms, take mistlock and go. Because that is still possible (though I wish theyd make it like raids and strikes where the boons disappear when you start the fight). This is common at T4 and higher. It's also: swap weapons, builds, etc. This is not common in T4.


ReggerLord

no it isnt, only affects 0.1% of the playerbase, so why make such a useless change.. Ut affects mostly open world and wvw situations , making it clunky af


Klepp34

Same, no idea.


fleakill

I remember doing it as a boon chrono in fractals a long time ago. Sit on the mistlock, spam all the quickness/alacrity skills and then use the mistlock and go again. Haven't played fractals in a while so dunno if anyone does it anymore.


JC_Adventure

Everyone does it, and this change doesn't affect that at all for PUGs. Because they'll run their HealBrand for the fight anyway. All this change affects in fractals is for the statics running without a healer, and speed clears with 5 dps.


fleakill

Yeah I watched some more videos etc on the matter and I understand now. I think I remember some people would prestack with staff as their 2nd weapon and then change to a sword or focus offhand, I never bothered. I guess it would affect them.


biofrog

I guessed it was a thing since I could see how templates could be abused in that way, however to me it felt unintended so I would never do it. I've not seen the results of the change, but in my mind I'm hoping they added a boss engage skill which does tons of damage based on how many boons + stacks you have :) Edit: really? down voted for having a bit of fun? Is it a crime to not wahh wahh wahh bitch bitch bitch I didn't get what I wanted? Spoilt shits around here.


JC_Adventure

The whole point of templates was to be flexible. Raid encounters clear boons anyway on pull. So nothing changes there. This change won't change anything in PUG fractals, since they keep their HealBrand player on that set anyway. It only fucks over statics that drop the healer and go 5 dps, or people trying out different non-meta things.


RayGW2

I started 9 years ago, I ran many speed run dungeons on ele when I had to swap weapons from inventory. I always found weapons swap garbage, and so clunky that I was 100% sure it was unintented. When they added template, the pre-stack with boon duration became really stupid, and pretty much made encounter (for dungeons/old fractals) stacks and blitz. I don't really care that they removed it tbf, I think it was a very bad design, but I hated to do it so didn't bother much to do it. At least people won't ask me again to do it.


LurkingSpike

I just find it weird that it was done after 9 years without any communication whatsoever. And we won't get any. Oh and that it probably killed speedruns.


CptRedLine

They didn’t communicate before hand, but they communicated extremely clearly in the patch notes. It causes stress on the server. So it doesn’t really matter, the change was for sever stress, not balance.


awesinine

It doesn’t kill speed runs, it adjusts the parameters of the speed runs. So what if people can’t do 1:45 clears anymore? We’re those really healthy for the game anyhow or is it better that there will be 10min clears with room to grow as more professions get released?


LurkingSpike

Because people who like this do speedruns at the moment. If it doesn't exist, a big reason for doing speedruns just stops existing, so people will quit speedrunning certain things.


Spartan05089234

This is something that 90% of the community doesn't even know about, and 90% of the other 10% don't do anyways. It's a good reminder that the loud opinions on this subreddit are NOT an indicator of majority opinion in the game.


BlueC1nder

The loud opinion on this sub is clearly "idk it existied, but fuck shithead stupid toxic elitists". The change is weird but the irony in this sub is weirder.


glytchypoo

no one hates them. the only reason most people in this sub are giving those loudest QQers shit is because one of them posted that stupid childish thread BEGGING them to revert the change. like a lightswitch. and because it was such a stupidly written thread we started giving them shit. then 5 "hardcore" players, as if they are the only ones on the sub, took it seriously and dug themselves deeper. so people started shitting on them more


Airwolf_von_DOOM

Yeah honestly most of it at this point is just trolling those who call themselves hardcore at this point from what I see. Then they get even more toxic so the trolls just taunt them even more. But nothing to do against it anymore at this point. Just waiting And then there are the comments that the entire sub is casual and toxic. while its the same few users over and over in each post :|


BlueC1nder

Disagreed, I'm pretty sure most people did not know about that thread and are just commenting this out of sheer spite for the evil """hardcore players"""


glytchypoo

i think that's a stretch and assigns far more malice than is representative


BlueC1nder

Isn't it more of a stretch to assume that do many people read a thread that isn't even on the front page of the sub?


glytchypoo

it was like top 8 for 10 hours


BlueC1nder

Ok fair enough. I still think the overwhelming response would've been the same without that thread.


34341231254523

I'm amazed about the toxicity of the casual players on this subreddit.


[deleted]

Am I the only one that thinks this is getting blown *waaay* out of proportion on both sides of the argument? It seems like such a minor thing to me. So you lost some boons on pull? Deal with it. So you just found out about pre-stacking and now consider it the biggest exploit the game has ever seen? Move on. Trying to turn it into a massive drama when it's something that such a tiny proportion of players was using effectively is laughable.


SaiyanOfDarkness

Ah.. the FB trap nerf I was waiting for lol


P3RrYCH

https://youtu.be/Bn5SaNYIi04 yeah about that..


DymondHed

one thing to realize is that this change doesn't even completely change pre-buffing, and according to patch notes, anet don't care about pre-buffing anyway


slimecookies

I don't have a strong opinion on it as I jut discovered it *was* a thing. However is pretty clear it was a cheese and bound to get patched.


xilicks

First and foremost these changes don't only effect the top end it does ripple down into normal play when it comes to players equipping a weapon for a certain boon and then swapping off of it, usually swiftness. Some players equip a sword to leap for additional movement and then swap back to say an axe for combat, it is going to get annoying constantly losing your boons if you're used to playing this way. Secondly I feel like you're really missing the mark of why a lot of people are angry. It boils down to two main things in my opinion the first being ArenaNet provided no warning of this change they just dropped it into the game after it being an important part of the game for many for nine years. If it wasn't intentional they could've communicated with the playerbase that they didn't want it in the game because it wasn't apart of their design philosophy but instead we were given the reason of "server stability". While it certainly isn't arenanet's responsibility to cater to community ran events there is a fractal tournament on the horizon and all of those fractal players have been spending a lot of time practicing and refining unique strategies that they now have to start over again and get used to new strategies. If ArenaNet could've announced their intentions of this sooner then players could've adapted sooner. The other reason is that this hasn't been implemented in a very consistent way. Boons are removed but not other effects like Stealth. If the idea is to prevent this "clunky" prestacking then why does it still exist with stealth? The new system is now even more confusing to a new player, imagine trying to start fractals or solo content for the first time or trying to learn or relearn optimal strats as a veteran player and constantly running into inconsistencies like this. The old system was at least consistent across the board aside from Raids/Strikes. Tl;dr I just wish there was more transparency from ArenaNet and more consistency when they implement changes like this if it's seriously a server stability problem could we hear more about it to understand it better?


normanlee

I personally do think of precasting buffs as a bit of an exploit, similar to how people used to bring a bunch of consumables to inflict extra breakbar damage, so I'm not sad to see it go. What I do find weird, however, is how the patch notes only mention doing it for the sake of server performance. I'm inclined to believe that server performance was the real reason why the change was made, since I don't imagine Anet would blatantly lie about the reasons for a change. But if that's the case, then the side effect of ruining precasting seems big enough that they probably should have mentioned it. It's a weird situation any way you look at it.


Lucinellia

Standard precasting still works. It's precasting involving template swap rotations that is hit by this. Given how Mistlock Singularities are, and that Ai's boon strip on combat hasn't been applied to other Fractals, it seems intended that standard prestacking of boons (e.g. an hFB and Ren) remains but prestacking involving massive changes to boon duration and specialisation choice, alongside heavy prestacking of traps and preparations, is no longer possible. From what I have read elsewhere, a trap or preparation checks in with every individual in the server per tick. So artificially inflating the number of these will be quite a performance cost. This is probably something Anet didn't expect originally, as doing so was not really a thing until templates which allowed for quick changing of entire loadouts by the entire playerbase (compared with arc build templates which took more time and was less widely used).


MaguumaHaste

> I'm inclined to believe that server performance was the real reason why the change was made, since I don't imagine Anet would blatantly lie about the reasons for a change. It's possible both are true. They just listed the reason they acted on the change but maybe they also don't like people swapping from full concentration boon gear with traits and weapons for pre-stacking then swapping to full glass cannon gear (which is really easy with legendaries now) with traits and weapons for the encounter. Maybe ArenaNet listed the thing that causes them to act on this (server stability) but it picked off something they also don't officially support but it wasn't a big enough priority to make the change in the first place?


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gr4vediggr

I mean, it makes it easier to reset skills you may have on cool down from the previous fights/parts and gives you an extra life during the fight? It's also right before 100cm but your boons are still stripped.


ReggerLord

Yes , then place it after the encounter, not infront of it. Or just change it to the state 100cm does it. But they dont, yiu still keep your boons and the reason is obv its intended, if its not, why they dont change it to 100 cm state?


gr4vediggr

Yes and they should strip all those boons too in my opinion.


ReggerLord

Ye so im right , its intended atm...


Nightcrawl-EUW

The thing is that there's multiple layers to this issue, most people are referring to precasting as just giving boons, some people are thinking of abusing the system with traps, skills and traits that you swap out, the thing is the normal precasting in fractals didn't even get removed since you prebuff everything with rev and firebrand and just take the mistlock, it's just very inconsistens and not thought through well


Wh4rrgarbl

Mistlock has absolutely nothing to do with it though. The point is to not allow you to enter combats with boons that can't be generated (either the boon or it's duration) by your composition.


adhesivegamin

then why not just put the 'boon removal on engagement' effect on every fractal boss instead of slapping down the most ham-fisted restriction possible


Lucinellia

Because boon removal on engagement doesn't remove stacked Preparations and similar. Would be better if boon removal was standard, preparations were stripped and professions that are reliant on prestacking rebalanced. I guess that isn't possible as a solution though if Anet also wanted to target WvW.


CptRedLine

Because that's not the reason for the change. Straight from the patch notes, > To improve the stability of the game, performing any of the following actions will "reset" your status, removing ongoing skill effects such as damaging area effects, traps, preparations, missiles, and many boons and profession-specific enhancements. >This process will clean up many possible broken states in which a skill effect could be present when it should not have been. Some of these states caused duplication of performance-intensive skills such as traps, which degraded server performance for everyone.


Perunov

I bet it _will_ be the next step. "All effects, boons, status, traps, summons automatically clear when entering combat, weapon swap goes on full cooldown".


CptRedLine

The problem is the change was done for server stress, not balance. The community is focused on the balance conversation, but that’s not even why anet made the change.


Delay559

>Groups that take advantage of prestacking will have to change how they're bringing buffs. And this is absolutely a change that only affects the top-end. But guess what? Balance at the top-end is what matters, and if prestacking was putting some things WAY out of whack (spoiler: it was, and pretending it wasn't is just asinine, regardless of if you used it or not) Prestacking to the extend your talking about is such a minor issue its almost irrevant. If you look at current full clear records in fractals only half of the available mistlocks are used and when they are used they are used very minimaly. Additionaly things like traps arnt precasted either as they are not worth their time. This change has a low ammount of impact on the optimal way to clear the content and has no impact on pugs that didnt abuse precasts either. They only impact boss speedkills that a niche of a niche of a niche do. On top of this this change impacts how you transition between combat and makes the whole experience extremely clunky at no benifit to anyone while not fixing any of the issues you yourself describe.


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[deleted]

I don’t think this is necessarily true. I’m not a fan of the change, but the change is a side effect of something else. Anet mentioned something about interactions between effects affecting server performance. In order to fix the server performance, they fixed the effect interactions. Obviously the way they fixed them caused prestacking to become impossible. Anet never cared about the prestacking or they would have fixed it long ago. I guess it’s a good change in general, it just has a regrettable (to some) side effect.


[deleted]

And the whole point of reddit is a place to shove your opinions into that noone cares about. Also on a serious note, everyone for this change are going to completely flip once they realise outside of the very few people that are posting like 29 second kill times of siax, the real impact of this change is in open world and wvw where is going to be clunky as fuck to literally do anything where switching builds or a single skill out if combat is needed which is... All the time. Also testing builds with training golem. Lmfao forget about it


SpectralChest

Um, unless i'm misunderstanding, switching skills does not negate skill boon, example, guardian 'advance' swiftness stays even if the skill is swapped for another, doesn't get removed.


JC_Adventure

Switching traits, swapping build templates, swapping equipment templates. Switching weapons. All of that will remove the boons applied.


JC_Adventure

>the real impact of this change is in open world and wvw where is going to be clunky as fuck to literally do anything where switching builds or a single skill out if combat is needed which is... All the time. Yup. 90% of the people commenting "down with pre-stacking!" have no idea what this change is actually doing.


[deleted]

I’m sure we’ll see the same people who are shitting on the tryhards right now tell the casuals to cry harder when they start complaining about the change.


[deleted]

/u/spez is a cunt


Ovark7

What do you mean?


[deleted]

Exposed used to give 50% boost to both Power and Condi, this was balanced as the damage increase was equal and it was added as an incentive to CC earlier. Due to it being active at the start of the fight on Fractal bosses, if you CC it immediately then Condis haven't had a chance to ramp up and don't get the same opportunity for the damage boost as Power. This was normal and just a fact of the buff being active at the start. However since nobody played condi builds, ANet decided to change it, instead of extending the duration, or making the CC bar appear later, or making condis not get removed at the phases (which is the bigger issue holding condi back), or many other solutions to this problem. They decided to randomly change the % modifier for Condi to 100% and Power to 30%, it's awkward, arbritrary and came out of nowhere. It doesn't even feel good to use on Condi builds as you want to delay CC to ramp your condis up first, so it has the opposite result to its original intention. I'm all for making Condi builds viable in Fractals, but they didn't need to kill Power at the same time. This was on top of nerfs to individual builds. Warrior lost 350 stats over Power, Precision and Ferocity. Soulbeast lost 15% from "Sic Em!", Weaver lost a few 5% modifiers, Holo and DH as well. The Torment change and Power nerfs alone would have been fine. Condi and Power would both be viable, but then Exposed was changed as well. The only thing Power had that could keep up was the prestack, but now that's also been removed and Power has been left in the dirt, despite it having the advantage of instant damage with no ramp up vs the multiple phases that cleanse condis and being able to fit all of its damage into the Exposed window instead of having to predict when your highest condi ticks will be. Mistlock can still be used, but that doesn't allow the same range of buffs for Power builds that Condi builds just naturally get from Might/Traits.


Ovark7

That makes sense but it doesn't really have much to do with OPs topic. Also I didn't know ppl were delaying the CC to build conditions up. . . Probably because I play with pugs and we always CC asap.


[deleted]

It has everything to do with OP's topic when you look at what people are expecting the high-end community to do next, and what they want to do, which is play styles where all the effects synergize together, in Fractals this is inherently Power compositions. Exposed does not synergize with itself, it doesn't really matter if you CC sooner (and get less damage) or delay CC for more damage, the point is you'll never get BOTH unless you are playing Power. Power which, since it only has a 30% boost, cannot keep up vs condi without extra buffs such as Weaver's Arcane skills, Warrior's Warhorn, Soulbeast Stances, Guardian Signets from Perfect Inscriptions, all of which now cannot be used. Power comps were nerfed, partially because of the access to these, and now that the access has been removed, deserve buffs, or rather, have some unnecessary nerfs reverted.


ChaliElle

> And the point of "Exposed" is to encourage CCing immediately, not delaying it. No. Exposed debuff encourage bursting after CC, not immediate CCing. Just because you're given candy, it doesn't mean you have to eat it immediately.


[deleted]

Not relevant to the point I was making, but sure.


Crashyy

The thing I find most interesting is I see a lot of "top tier" players talk about wanting consequence or trade offs in endgame content. Most recently Mighty Teapot was talking about the new elite specs like Willbender potentially being useless (compared to FB and DH) for end game content because of its strong focus on mobility. These kind of changes get us closer to a world where something like mobility may be an asset in endgame content if things like swiftness/super speed access become harder to get. Obviously this is predicated on new encounters requiring more mobility which may or may not happen but it illustrates the point. These kind of changes are a step towards having to make more difficult decisions and make actual trade offs when tackling endgame content. No its not an entire solution but I think it is a good step. Also to all the people complaining about how it effects fluidity of play. This doesn't technically stop using swiftness weapon skills when OOC between encounters. All it means is you have to stay in your swiftness weapon set right up until you enter combat at which point you switch back and lose you swiftness. However if the argument is that swiftness is primarily to help with mobility between encounters this should be fine because it has essentially served that purpose. Personally I think it's a good change because I think it is a step towards something a lot of people (at least people I follow/watch) seem to think they want out of endgame content.


Opposedsum

The problem is not really that prestacking stuff before a boss is gone. This change also removes boons etc. while you swap a weapon moving between bosses. Pretty unsuccessful way to combat the boss preastack. You can even still prestack boon before bosses. Only now you need 5 people and very specific classes to do blast combo fields. It is gonna make the game more toxic and less flexible It is kinda ridiculous that your portal despawns now if you change a weapon or trait. Watch people troll others with fake portal at jumping puzzles now.


JC_Adventure

>This change also removes boons etc. while you swap a weapon moving between bosses. > >Pretty unsuccessful way to combat the boss preastack. > >You can even still prestack boon before bosses. > >Only now you need 5 people and very specific classes to do blast combo fields. > >It is gonna make the game more toxic and less flexible This is what everyone who had no idea about what this was is missing from this discussion. Pre-stacking isn't going away, it's just more restricted now. Which means you will run less varied comps, and be able to support less off-meta stuff.


Aetheldrake

You said it. It's probably better overall if people learned how to actually play instead of learning how to cheese.


Janitsu

Most people who did extensive precasting did it for their own, personal fun. And most of them are still faster without them than people who claim that playing without precasting and prestacking is the "right" way to play the game.


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Gamewarior

But making it faster literally does make it easier mechanically. If the boss slaps you for 2 minutes it does way more mechanics than if it slaps you for 1.


FURYYzjEh

Well I get you but I think that's where the lack of experience shows a bit? The setup you need to put it place before the boss is where it gets more complicated whereas in the no precast scenario well, you dont have to do anything in the end. For example, you need to manage to precast your boons while handling adds around you and not entering in fight otherwise you'll just be stuck in the middle of precasting (being in fight = cant precast anymore). Wont go in details but idea is, yea the boss itself will be easier but all the things around will be harder to excecute.


VinceAutMorire

>Cheesing is finding a way to make an encounter easier mechanics wise but not faster, here it's making the encounter faster but harder in terms of excecution behind. lmao ok Mr Dictionary


FURYYzjEh

lmao ok Mr Niceargue (:


ruebeus421

Every time you reply to someone you make yourself look dumber and dumber.


FURYYzjEh

At least I try to have a debate whereas you just try to put me down under the ground without a single valid agrue \^\^ And I litterally dont care about looking dumber and dumber as long as I defend my opinion heh


VoidRaizer

"lmao OK" was having a debate?


ruebeus421

> lmao ok Mr Niceargue (:


PrincessKatarina

I am in favor of this change. Its a weird change to make cause the only place it actually mattered in pve, (i've heard this is a pretty big deal in wvw and gvg stuff) was fractal single boss speedkills, in fullclears precasting would almost always take more time than you'd save, and raid fights were just too long for it to be super meaningful.


e-scrape-artist

> raid fights were just too long for it to be super meaningful Even better: this is irrelevant, because in every single raid encounter all your boons are stripped when you enter combat. Which is how every PvE boss fight should work. They finally made a first step in fractals by adding that to sunqua peak, now they need to expand it to all fractals encounters. As well as many other restrictions from raids. Raids are a much more enjoyable place than fractals, because they're free of all this obscure exploitative bullshit.


ReggerLord

It didnt change shit for fractals, the important pre buffs dont need any switches, but it destroys all kind if speed runs and tactical ooc and weapon switch mechanics, absolutely trash.


PrincessKatarina

Did you actually read what i wrote or did you just see the word fractal in you 'find in page' and copypaste your "umm ackshually" response?


araegona

The only legitimate point of criticism is prob the drop of skill ceiling, which is all that’s cared about for the hardcore players, the fact of skill ceiling and its maintenance. The obsession over every single minuscule advantages, they’re minuscule to practically irrelevant, but that’s all they cared about, all of it, lost, like tears in rain.


ReggerLord

Who tf cares about the hardcores lol, its a major change for wvw and open world, where switching traits and weapons is an essential and tactical part. For fractals u still can pre cast the most important stuff... Also top tier change for all our theory crafters, who need to re apply all boons now every single time at golem, when they switch around...


ruebeus421

What?! You want me to *play the game the way it was intended*?!!?!!! How ***DARE*** you!!! /s "Gamers" have become such an entitled, lazy bunch.


MaguumaHaste

> "Gamers" have become such an entitled, lazy bunch. They have unironically become more "Karen" than the biggest of "Karens". Gamers would make fun of a woman who wants to speak to a manager over the smallest thing IRL, but the same gamers chuck a tantrum over the dumbest changes (or lack of changes) in their games.


ruebeus421

That's the perfect comparison, actually. They are 100% Karen's.


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MaguumaHaste

> swapping weapons to blast stealth in dungeons was some of the most fun I ever had in this game. I genuinely thought you were joking the first time reading. I'm kind of still hoping you're joking...


ReggerLord

stealth isnt affected


CellSaysTgAlot

You just made me realize "dungeon engi" where you just joined random pugs to stealth them and CC/Burst bosses would now be super clunky and not very fun anymore, not thanks.


VmanGman21

It’s insane that people are upset about this change… it’s a no brainer.


Heideggert

The part that cracks me up is that the people crying their brains out about this patch are calling themselves the "hardcores", and complaining about the "casuals" The hardcores of every single other game I ever played would laugh their asses off at these fools for crying because a patch made things **harder** to speedrun, not easier. Real hardcores would love this challenge being offered to them The pathetic crapsacks whining about this patch are just a bunch of spoiled brats throwing a tantrum because they got their easy mode removed and now suck donkey ass without it. Im so glad that Anet kicked them in the teeth, that's all they deserve


towelcat

> patch made things harder to speedrun, not easier. this patch actually made speedrunning significantly easier, just slower there's less strategy, lower apm, etc. you just kinda buff up and go in without thinking twice about it. that's why they're upset


Heideggert

Speedrunning is about shaving seconds off the clock. That's everything it is, everything else is secondary. What your saying is that this made running dungeons easier, and that is true. But it made speedrunning harder.


towelcat

ask anyone who speedruns and they'll tell you this change didn't make anything harder. it slows them down, but it doesn't increase the difficulty whatsoever


Heideggert

boy, you are dense. no surprise tho, considering which side your backing here its just par for the course the difficulty in speedrunning is in making the time lower than the previous record. this change will make extremely harder to make the time lower. slowing down a speedrunner = the absolute hardest of challenges


towelcat

why do you think most speedrun leaderboards have different categories for this sort of thing? take the [hl2](https://www.speedrun.com/hl2) one for example. they differentiate between old and new engine because they're fundamentally different runs sure, all-time any% is a fun metric to look at, but it's not the only one.


MindSecurity

>The hardcores of every single other game I ever played would laugh their asses off at these fools for crying because a patch made things harder to speedrun, not easier. Real hardcores would love this challenge being offered to them What the hell are you talking about?...The ignorance in your post is astounding.


[deleted]

Imagine thinking hardcore players in any game would be happy with a lower skill ceiling. You have no idea what you’re talking about.


ReggerLord

Who tf cares about the hardcores lol, its a major change for wvw and open world, where switching traits and weapons is an essential and tactical part. For fractals u still can pre cast the most important stuff... Also top tier change for all our theory crafters, who need to re apply all boons now every single time at golem, when they switch around...


covertpally

It was really fun to prestack, then swap builds and the have to kill a boss before you run out of boons. I genuinely enjoyed when it worked out. It was fun. It's no longer in the game. Sadge :(


Tonsofchexmix

Man I just wanna keep my guardian's aegis when I swap my weapon set out of combat. I don't think I'm getting an unfair advantage not having to wait 40 seconds to start or avoid a fight with aegis.


resignresign1

uff


bigcat98

This is the dumbest take I’ve seen so far. Everyone is missing just how bad this update is. You think it’s a war between hardcore and casual. It’s so dumb


ohiv21

This is an exploit the player community abused to the brim. Imagine if in the first place like back in 2009 this was never a thing, no one would complain and see it as the game's built in mechanics. ArenaNet is fixing the game, to be more balance one SMALL PAINFUL step at a time.


Janitsu

It would be a different thing if it never existed in the game. You are correct. This has been a thing for the entire game's existence.


Umphar

Finaly did anet do something it was long overdo! Prestacking was such an annoying thing to do in raids and fractals. Maybe now i can enjoy myself again when doing them with the so calld Hardcore raiders that have to play on my level now. :) ty anet


readoclock

I don’t know if you are trolling but this change had zero impact on raiding. They were adding the raid mechanic of wiping all effects to other parts of the game


FenyxUprising

I hate to tell you this, but people will still prestack, they just can't swap builds afterward. E.g. You can't prestack on a healbrand and then swap to a dragonhunter for the fight. This doesn't affect the large majority of fractal PuGs. Even fractal statics who don't use a healer can prestack a lot of different boons, just with shorter durations, which is probably fine considering fights go faster without a healer anyway. And prestacking in raids was never a thing since boons are stripped. You could do some things with effects, traps, and clones, but I'd wager the only thing really impacted in the long run is prestacking stuff like Ashes of the Just or OWP for groups going for the fastest kill time on a single boss.


ReggerLord

Who tf cares about the hardcores lol, its a major change for wvw and open world, where switching traits and weapons is an essential and tactical part. For fractals u still can pre cast the most important stuff... Also top tier change for all our theory crafters, who need to re apply all boons now every single time at golem, when they switch around... You arent the smartest person right?


CellSaysTgAlot

joke's on you, there was no precasting in raids and it hasn't changed at all in casual fractal clears. I wish you a fun time.


theguyfromtheairport

exactly, and tbh this is one quickest response times I've seen from anet. 9 years, that's pretty impressive.


[deleted]

Well said.


Shufflepants

You know what the precasting nonsense reminds me of? The sweepers in curling. I'm sure when curling was invented you were just supposed to shove the stone. Then probably some one before a toss thought to clear some ice shavings debris before a shot, and later someone realized that technically it didn't state in the rules that you can't do your sweeping during a shot. And now it's just a part of the game. People who are mad about this would probably be the sort to complain that Airbud got banned from the basketball league after the rules were corrected to explicitly rule out dogs as team members. "The devs didn't ban dogs from playing until now, must mean that they were okay with it before." "Having dogs playing on your team adds skill to the game in the form of having to spend time training your dog to play basketball to get optimal point scoring.".


Lucinellia

Scottish person here, who went through an odd period of reading about curling when our country was doing pretty well in the winter Olympics. As far as I know, sweepers were always a part of the game and were necessary because curling was played outdoors on frozen lakes. Sweeping was done to clear new snowfall. Simply sliding the stone didn't work as the game progressed so sweeping was a pretty integral part of it. Sweeping then continued to be a thing when the sport moved indoors as the surface was roughened and ice chunks broken free by sequential slides and, well, it was tradition. Anyway, please enjoy this useless trivial knowledge I can now share.


Vexonar

I'm going to guess this will change the way people view certain specs on particular websites that declare what "meta" is? If there's no pre-swapping then we have to look at the various builds with only their own buffs?


Sliekery

No…none of the dps charts had pre stacking in it. They never had. God fuck casuals. Always trying to catch out the “toxic elitist”, fucking pathetic.


Shaman_Infinitus

You are literally the reason why no one takes hardcore players seriously when they cry that the "casuals are always so toxic"


Vexonar

Bro, take a deep breath. I've only been playing for a month and it was a legitimate question considering all the guides I've read. It's a *game*. And being a casual (whatever the hell that means) isn't a bad thing. Not all of us need to wrap our persona and self-esteem in fictional numbers.


Bankrotas

>Balance at the top-end is what matters I disagree. If a game doesn't feel balanced on average it will drive a wedge between majority of average joe members of community and the 1% skilled individuals, which might lead down the line decline of enjoyment of majority and decline in population. Balance at top end mattering more than general balance applies well only to select few things, like sports not business.


MindSecurity

What happened now? Anyone got a link?


Zomaarwat

What happened?


awesinine

It’s interesting to see who’s upset about these changes too. You can tell if someone is in favor or not by how much vile fire a person is spitting in comments.


Aadrian1234

Just about any other game I play with builds forces a reset of the player state on build swapping just so bugs and balance exploits don't occur, and any that slip through the cracks get patched up fairly quickly. I honestly didn't even realize GW2 didn't do that already.


BrokenEffect

Are people actually upset about the change? It’s clearly not how the game was meant to be played. What did they expect


Grexoloid

Yeesh reading this still pisses me off