User:Krschkr/Balancing

{{User:Vegetaledefender/Collapsible|content= WIP

Build context

 * Changing attributes or other skills to balance a skill without touching it itself.

Obstacles

 * Changing the obstacles players need to overcome. Often it's not a skill that's needed to be balanced, but other issues like foes which don't kite out of a [[Chaos Storm].
 * NPC builds.
 * NPC AI.
 * Environment.

Game mode objectives

 * Change what a player has to do, so he needs to adjust builds and tactics.

Example 4: Increased attack speed
For an overview on the underlying mechanics and the wordings I'm going to stick with, you may want to read this explanatory additional information first:

The impact of IAS and DAS
Skills which alter the attack speed have a large impact on the performance of all builds relying on weapon attacks. Attack speed has a noticeable impact on multiple aspects of a character's performance.
 * Average damage output over time (pressure).
 * Support skill triggering frequency (i.e. [[Strength of Honor]) and speed (i.e. [[Splinter Weapon] and [[Mark of Pain]).
 * Interruption latency.
 * Damage compression potential (spikes).
 * Effectivity of quarter-stepping.
 * Ability to perform certain combos, like quadruple hammer builds.

As shown the strength of IAS skills is greater than the tooltip indicates. The currently common IAS strengths of 25% and 33% result in an effective attack rate bonus of 33% and 50%. Improving a character's damage output by roughly 50% with a single skill is an uncommonly powerful buff in Guild Wars and integral to the effectivity of weapon based builds both in PvE and PvP.

This power is offset with negative side effects to balance them. In case of warrior IAS skills this is a very successful concept as most IAS skills see regular play in PvE and/or PvP where they fill their own niche. It can be seen that almost every IAS skill has a place in the game where it is the strongest IAS choice as the player is able to play around its weaknesses. The IAS of other professions didn't do as well and we shall take a look at them and their context to find out why.

Non-elite IAS skills
Warrior


 * Strengths :On demand 33% IAS.
 * Low recharge time.
 * No attribute requirement.


 * Weaknesses :Receiving 200% damage.
 * Heavy on energy.


 * The go-to IAS skill for many PvP purposes and also the favourite of many PvE players. The main downside can be countered by field awareness and the proper use of a cancel stance. In PvE you just need protective spirit. The energy cost can be tackled by using mainly adrenaline skills or fueling energy with a zealous axe. A frequently available 33% IAS on demand is crucial to perform good spikes in PvP or to exploit opponents' mistakes, such as kiting into [[Bull's Strike].


 * Strengths :Low adrenaline cost.
 * No recharge time.
 * 33% IAS.
 * Long duration.


 * Weaknesses :Adrenaline cost. Often you can't use flail at will. Some skills like [[Hammer Bash] interfere with your adrenaline management.
 * Long duration.
 * Attribute: Strength.
 * 33% snare. Due to effect stacking this can't be easily countered with IMS skills.


 * In PvE this is one of the most common warrior IAS skill choices. Most players make use of strength anyway and few foes kite, rendering the snare on self relatively harmless. If energy is a concern, this may be the best IAS skill choice. In PvP, however, opponents kite. Experienced players will immediately run away from a warrior who uses flail as they can easily make it out of his attack reach. That's why warriors pick this skill with builds that prevent opponents from running away: Hammer warriors. They have either [[Bull's Strike] or [[Enraged Smash] to punish kiting while still in attack range or can simply use flail after a knock down with [[Devastating Hammer]/[[Magehunter's Smash]/[[Earth Shaker] and then continue their attack chain with another knock down via [[Hammer Bash]. That also allows to perform proper spikes with accellerated [[Crushing Blow] and [[Protector's Strike]. During all the knock down time they can pressure their target without the snare on self having any effect. If, however, the warrior uses flail and fails to prevent his target from kiting, he's either stuck snared (time to collect adrenaline with a spear) or has to use a stance to cancel flail. Commonly PvP hammer warriors either have [[Enraging Charge], [[Sprint] or [[Dash].


 * This skill used to have a longer base duration of a few seconds, so rangers in PvP would make use of it to increase their attack speed without the downsides of a ranger IAS and without sacrificing their preparation. The snare was unimportant because of their bow range. Since the flail base duration nerf ranged use is only seen on spear warriors (1/2) during fluxes which support such builds.


 * Strengths :On-demand 25% IAS.
 * Low recharge time.
 * No attribute requirement.


 * Weaknesses :Only 25%, not 33%.
 * Short duration.
 * Extremely heavy on energy if meant to be maintained.
 * Reduces the weapon base damage.


 * The weaknesses of this skill make it pretty much unusable for warriors. For assassins, however, this skill fills a niche. They (basically) have no access to IAS themselves, so a no-attribute IAS is perfect for them. 25% IAS is better than none. The short duration is sufficient for knock down chains (1/), they don't even have to maintain the skill for high effectivity – and if they tried, it might well work due to their primary attribute. The reduced weapon base damage is hardly relevant since almost the entire damage of dagger attacks comes from attack skills, conditions and support.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * Weaknesses :High risk to end early.
 * Recharge time considerably longer than duration.
 * Attribute strength.


 * Not used in either game mode. PvE warriors could use [[Dwarven Stability] to circumvent the 50% uptime, however, the risk to end early is still a pretty nasty weakness, making other alternatives more attractive. In PvP this stance is likely to end within a second due to the current [[Shield Guardian] meta.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * Increased adrenaline gain. According to guildwiki the actual adrenaline gain bonus is 60% (40 instead of 25 adrenaline points, with 25 points = 1 strike). With the IAS this means you get 340% of the normal adrenaline/time compared to not using an IAS or adrenaline boost skill.


 * Weaknesses :Long recharge time.
 * Ends upon finishing to use a skill.
 * Attribute strength.


 * Ending upon skill usage is a hard weakness which makes this skill useless for PvE. And in PvP it still has to compete with 1/2), which allows to use [[Flail] right away to maintain the IAS.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * Weaknesses :Requires heavy investment into strength for a good uptime.
 * Removes all adrenaline upon end.


 * Warriors need adrenaline. It's what mainly distinguishes them from other melee professions. Their energy regeneration and base energy don't even allow to get away from the mainly adrenaline based concept – unless it's PvE and you have access to 1/2), allowing to push strength even higher. You know when your adrenaline is going to collapse and you can unload it before that happens, especially if your only adrenaline skill is [[Whirlwind Attack] or [["Save Yourselves!"].


 * Strengths :Potentially long duration.
 * Unremovable.
 * Heals the user noticeably.
 * Not a stance. Allows stance usage on top of the maintained IAS, such as [[Battle Rage], [[Rush] or [[Sprint] to make kiting hard for opponents.


 * Weaknesses :Long recharge time.
 * Extremely difficult to reach requirement for the skill to work: Dead allies in range.


 * For PvE this skill is out of question. However, in PvP people developed a way to make the dead ally requirement easy to meet to make full use of the decisive strengths of this skill.

Dervish


 * Strengths :Does not remove a dervish enchantment.
 * Weaknesses :Requires adrenaline.
 * A skill without downside, basically. Ideal if you don't want to remove your enchantments or want to keep them for better skills such as [[Pious Assault].


 * Strengths :Does not remove a dervish enchantment.
 * Better average IAS than [[Pious Fury (PvP)].


 * Weaknesses :Requires adrenaline.
 * Recharge time.


 * The PvP version adds a recharge time which prevents a permanent IAS, however, it's still the most commonly used dervish IAS because it provides best results on average.


 * Strengths :On-demand 25% IAS.
 * Weaknesses :None
 * IAS without downsides if you can afford to remove a flash enchantment.


 * Strengths :On-demand 25% IAS.
 * Weaknesses :Removes enchantment.
 * Long recharge time.


 * Used by few players over [[Heart of Fury (PvP)]. Mainly discarded because of the worse average IAS due to the recharge time.

Paragon


 * Strengths :Can be maintained permanently.
 * Unremovable.
 * Only non-elite paragon IAS.


 * Weaknesses :&minus;20 armour rating means receiving +41.4% armour dependent damage.
 * High activation cost. Unaffordable with DP unless using energy boosting equipment.
 * Long activation time.
 * Requires other skills to be maintained.


 * The only and therefore often used non-elite paragon IAS skill. If the elite skill is needed, there's basically no other choice than this. [["To the Limit!"] allows to maintain the IAS in either game mode. In multiple paragon setups [[Anthem of Weakness] can be used to free the secondary profession, i.e. for [[Power Spike] or [[Cruel Weapon]. The downsides can mostly be circumvented by using the skill outside of opponent range and then renewing it before it runs out.

Ranger


 * Strengths :On-demand 25% IAS.
 * Synergy with [[Enraged Lunge (PvP)]


 * Weaknesses :Disables non-attack skills.
 * Attribute beast mastery.


 * Only sees use in a few PvP builds which make use of 1/2). Since the non-attack skill disabling is not as bad an issue as it sounds the main point why this doesn't see more frequent use is being tied to beast mastery and requiring a considerable investment to have a proper uptime. The resulting attribute spread to 3 or 4 attribute lines makes this skill unattractive for attack damage builds and much more suited for pressure builds which utilize the IAS for condition spreading.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * 75% block chance.


 * Weaknesses :Attribute expertise.
 * Long recharge time.
 * Doesn't scale well.


 * Often combined with [[Dwarven Stability] for an uptime of roughly 66%. Usually only used because the other IAS skills aren't interesting due to their attribute or skill type. Only few builds use it because they want the blocking chance aswell ([[Moebius Strike] dagger ranger).


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * 75% block chance.


 * Weaknesses :Attribute expertise.
 * Abysmal recharge time.
 * Doesn't scale well.


 * One of the core skills of bow poison rangers, but only due to skill type and attribute alignment. While it's a useful side effect to block attacks and thus has some bar compression effects, the main point in using this skill is the IAS to spread conditions more effectively, to interrupt and snare with decreased latency, improving the success rate.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * Weaknesses :Ends when using attack skills, including pet attack skills.
 * Never used. It would fill the same niche as bestial fury, but due to the attribute requirement (pet) attack skills are integral for the builds to are effective. With them cancelling the stance it's useless.


 * Strengths :Unremovable.
 * 33% IAS.


 * Weaknesses :Preparation.
 * Limited to bows.


 * Best non-elite IAS option for non-AoE PvE bow rangers – so it's a bad pick for PvE. In PvP it sees rare use on the Turret Ranger, where it improves spiking capabilities and interruptions. In general [[Apply Poison] improves the pressure in PvP better.

Ritualist


 * Strengths :Short activation time.
 * Only ritualist IAS.


 * Weaknesses :Aftercast delay.
 * Short duration.
 * High energy cost.
 * Can't be used on allies.


 * Weapon skill of choice for [[Spirit's Strength] ritualists. The only other IAS skill they could use is [[Flurry] in a Rt/W variant, which no one plays. Sees rare use due to the niche position of this playing style. Useless for all other builds, except for ineffective [[Battle Rage] warriors.

Elite IAS skills
Elite IAS skills ought to be considerably better than non-elite IAS skills to justify using them, as they cost the elite slot.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * 75% blocking chance.
 * Attribute tactics.
 * Using [[Dwarven Stability] 3 tactics suffice for a near-permanent effect.


 * Weaknesses :Requires active shout.
 * Requires considerable attribute investment (15) for a permanent effect. 2 seconds downtime with 12 tactics, 3 with 10, 5 with 8.


 * When playing a tactics build having an active shout is not an issue – [["To the Limit!"] is too strong a skill to not bring it in adrenaline based builds when already specced. And a (near-)permanent IAS and 75% blocking chance without further downsides is mighty. So why does this skill see basically no play at all? Hero backlines and mesmer hero midlines are too powerful. Due to an abundance of protection and plenty of shutdown the additional defense is not required. Instead the player can pick a different non-elite IAS which has the smallest downside in his build and for his purpose and pick a damage elite skill for better overall effects.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * Attribute tactics.
 * Maintainable with 9 tactics.


 * Weaknesses :Requires shout.
 * Short duration.


 * Warriors will never find this IAS adequate because they miss their damage elite skill. 1) to avoid the &minus;20 armour from [[soldier's fury]. Still rarely played as normal melees simply provide more utility.


 * Strengths :Combines 33% IAS with 25% IMS.
 * Weaknesses :Receive 200% damage.
 * 10 seconds recharge time.
 * Adrenaline requirement.


 * In PvE the IMS is not required, so any other IAS (even [[Frenzy]) should be preferred to keep the elite skill free to pick. In PvP this skill was popular until the recharge time introduction, as it allowed to stay in primal rage until danger was afoot – and when the danger was gone one could simply reactivate primal rage. With the 10 seconds recharge time, which also disables adrenaline gain, this is no longer feasible. Without it the skill might see irregular play again and properly reward risky playing, as it's meant to happen.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * +40 armour (halved armour respective damage).
 * Attack skills interrupt.


 * Weaknesses :Attribute strength.
 * Twice as long recharge as duration. (PvE: Use [[Dwarven Stability])
 * Only works with a hammer.


 * The recharge time is a nasty issue for PvP usage. Reliable non-elite knock downs remove all adrenaline, so recharging the skill with [["On your Knees!"] is not trivial. In general, knock downs are more powerful than interrupts with the slowest melee weapon. All this adds up to this skill never being used. In PvE, however, it's a decently powerful skill when prolonged with PvE skills and combines offensive and defensive bonuses very well. I personally don't know why it doesn't see more use, as it's almost always to be preferred over earth shaker and considerably more survivable than the slightly more damage-heavy warrior's endurance hammer warrior. To be fair, no hammer warrior build is popular in PvE. [[Hundred Blades] and daggers probably just are too easy to play effectively, so no one bothers investing the required effort to properly play a hammer warrior.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS combined with 25% IMS.
 * Also affects the pet.


 * Weaknesses :Short duration.
 * Extremely expensive. (Therefore requires considerable investment into expertise.)
 * Requires living pet. (In PvP this costs two additional skill slots, in PvE 1.)
 * Attribute beast mastery.
 * IMS useless unless playing a secondary profession melee weapon.
 * Without further micro management you're balling with your pet if playing a melee weapon.


 * The issues of this elite IAS just stack up. The pet AI and required attribute split and bar decompression turn this into a dead skill. A primal rage for self and pet without receiving double damage is undoubtedly mighty, but the disadvantages are too many.


 * Strengths :On-demand 33% IAS.
 * Maintanable with high expertise investment.
 * Bonus to marksmanship.
 * Works with any weapon.


 * Weaknesses :Attribute splits hardly possible due to high expertise investment required.
 * As it works with any skill and requires much expertise for a long duration it's a good elite skill choice for energy based secondary profession melee weapon builds and sees regular play with them (mainly daggers). This skill's usefulness is only part of the reason why it sees play, though: For this purpose there usually aren't better damage elite skills available and other IAS options usually come down to just [[Lightning Reflexes] with [[Dearven Stability], which only provides a 66% uptime and consumes two skill slots. Bow usage is very rare ([[Volley] as a weaker [[Barrage]) despite the +2 marksmanship due to the weaknesses of bows.


 * Strengths :Maintanable with high expertise investment.
 * Weaknesses :Just 15% IAS.
 * Nerfed so hard that it's not worth the elite slot.


 * Strengths :On-demand IAS.
 * Maintanable.
 * Only assassin IAS.
 * Critical hit chance improvement (better energy management).


 * Weaknesses :Only works with daggers.
 * Relatively weak IAS.


 * In PvE the go-to elite skill for assassins as it perfectly fits into the easiest and most powerful dagger attack skill combo spam build. In PvP hardly ever used as said dagger combo doesn't work due to PvP skill versions and therefore more complicated combos with additional effects like knock downs and deep wound are favoured. The elite skill is then better used for shadow stepping. It should be noted that assassins don't have any other IAS and instead have a fix faster speed on plenty of dagger attack skills, which provides them with an artificial IAS which even allows to skip the second half of attacks, allowing for impressive damage compression if desired.


 * Strengths :Easily maintainable on-demand 25% IAS and 25% IMS with +25% adrenaline.
 * Weaknesses :Only useful for primary dervishes due to energy cost, attribute requirement and short duration, but not in the mysticism attribute line.
 * Doesn't support teardown well.


 * IMS is not required for PvE and the other two effects are meek. If adrenaline gain is favoured, one's better off with [[Avatar of Balthazar] and an additional IMS skill, as this frees up plenty of attribute points and works better with teardown skills. It even adds damage through burning. Teardown is strong, especially due to [[Aura of Holy Might], which makes non-teardown builds much worse in comparison. The few strengths of this skill don't overpower the weakness from not using teardown.


 * Strengths :On-demand IAS.
 * Improved adrenaline gain.


 * Weaknesses :Not easily maintanable.
 * Doesn't work well with teardown.


 * Easily outperformed by [[Avatar of Balthazar].


 * Strengths :33% IAS.
 * Long duration.
 * Improved adrenaline gain.


 * Weaknesses :Requires active shout.
 * Needs to be recast.
 * &minus;20 armour.


 * Best elite skill choice for PvE as it's the only 33% IAS for paragons and doesn't require a second skill slot for [[Dwarven Stability] like [[Soldier's Stance]. The adrenaline gain improvement is noticeable. In PvP, however, due to the larger attribute splits and therefore shorter duration and paragons being brought for support, not just damage (as noted melees are better at that and provide better offensive utility) the skill is not seen in use.

PvE only IAS skills

 * Strengths :On-demand IAS and IMS.
 * 33% with alcohol.
 * Permanent uptime.
 * Low energy cost.
 * No attribute requirement.


 * Weaknesses :Long recharge time (lower than stance duration)
 * Full potential only with alcohol.
 * Takes a PvE-only slot.


 * The only thing that could go wrong when using this skill is being hit by stance removal while it's still on recharge. Apart from that this IAS is, alcohol assumed, the strongest IAS skill and comes with the same IMS natively. Therefore it is the strongest IAS option in the game. The two downsides are how it can be explained why it doesn't see the expectedly widespread use: People are too lazy/penurious to use alcohol or they want to use their PvE-only slots for even more powerful skills.


 * Strengths :33% IAS.
 * Renews itself.
 * +25 armour.


 * Weaknesses :Tied to critical strikes (only assassins can use it properly).
 * Self-renewing enchantments can't be covered and are easily removed.
 * 1 second casting time is annoying.


 * Rare sight for dagger builds as people are content with [[Way of the Assassin]'s IAS and want to use more powerful PvE-only skills. Would be the go-to IAS skill for non-dagger builds if people played them in the first place. The only real downside is that this skill can be removed easily, but the aforementioned reasons are why it isn't part of every assassin build.


 * Strengths :No attribute requirement.
 * On-demand 25% IAS.
 * Maintainable.
 * Also affects pet.


 * Weaknesses :Requires pet. This means either having a useless pet or investing in at least 3 attributes.
 * High energy cost.


 * A PvE-only variant to [[Rampage as One] which suffers from the same issues in much less troublesome intensity. It's still an expensive skill, but affordable. It still wastes skill slots. It still forces a pet unto you. It still advocates a troublesome attribute split.

Consumables IAS effects
Essence of Celerity
 * Strengths :Permanent 20% IAS coupled with 20% IMS, 20% faster skill usage (an effect which can't be produced by skills or attributes) and 20% faster skill recharging.
 * Party-wide.
 * No attribute requirement.
 * No skill slot required.
 * No activation time.
 * No negative side effects.


 * Weaknesses :None.
 * Terrible balancing issue. Extremely powerful effects handed out without any downsides, attribute requirements or even a skill slot requirement.

Slice of Pumpkin Pie, Green Rock Candy, Blue Rock Candy, Red Rock Candy
 * Strengths :Permanent 15...33% IAS coupled with 15...25% faster skill activation (an effect which can't be produced by skills or attributes).
 * No attribute requirement.
 * No skill slot required.
 * No activation time.
 * No negative side effects.


 * Weaknesses :None.
 * Terrible balancing issue. Extremely powerful effects handed out without any downsides, attribute requirements or even a skill slot requirement.

Conclusion
Almost all non-elite warrior skills are the best choice for a specific playing style or game mode. They are powerful, but so are their downsides. Paragons use their only IAS skill despite its weaknesses since they don't have a choice. Rangers limit themselves to a single, quite bad IAS skill because all others require a savage attribute split or take the preparation slot. Dervishes only have too strong IAS options without downsides in PvE, which are badly nerfed for PvP but still strong as they don't have other downsides than a long recharge time. Warrior non-elite IAS skills are an example of well-done balancing, dervish non-elite IAS skills of issues arising from handing out powerful effects without downside and having to somehow contain them in PvP.

The elite IAS skills see somewhat rare play as their balancing of strengths and weaknesses is sometimes not in favour of the strengths, they suffer from the weaknesses of associated playing styles (non-teardown dervish, bunny thumper, ...) or non-elite IAS options have downsides which are easy to play around, so a different elite skill can be used for improved offensive abilities.

Two of three PvE-only IAS skills are extremely powerful and only don't see wide-spread use because people are too lazy to use them or they want to bring even more powerful PvE-only skills instead.

The consumables IAS effects are, from a balancing perspective, preposterous. They are extremely powerful without any requirements or downsides. Thus they make all balancing attempts on aforementioned skills appear in vain: Why bother with negative side effects of skill which require a skill slot and attribute investment if you can have the same or even better effects out of your inventory?

Buffs

 * Advantages
 * Disadvantages

Nerfs

 * Advantages
 * Disadvantages

The tools
}}