Guild Wars 2

I honestly think this elite skill has tons of potential that is going to waste. I’d love to use it if it were not so useless.

If it were up to me to take it upon myself to change the skill for the better, I’d start by doing the following:

• Increase movement speed by 10-25%.
• Decrease casting time of Punch.
• Decrease aftercast of all skills.
• Move skill Self Repair to the healing skill slot.
• Move skill Leave Suit to the elite skill slot.
• Move skill Whirling Assault into skill slot #5.
• Create a skill that pulls foes towards you and place it into skill slot #4.
• Allow movement while casting Gatling Fists.
• Remove active duration on suit (60 seconds) by allowing the suit to be in use until going into a downed state or exiting. This system would be more consistent with the Hazmat Suit. The cooldown begins once the suit is destroyed.

Damage: The damage seems to be alright, at least at level 80, as I was testing this skill on Risen mobs in Cursed Shore. I don’t think the attacks should be buffed themselves, they just need to be better adapted to lower levels, such as level 30 when you are first able to use it.

“This skill is meant to be dull”: Some of you may be saying something of the sort—arguing that racial elites are meant to be inferior to class elites. I do not argue against that, but I think the skill should at least be entertaining to use.

Comments? Something that could still be improved? Something too OP?

zach.1952:

• Remove active duration on suit (60 seconds) by allowing the suit to be in use until going into a downed state or exiting. This system would be more consistent with the Hazmat Suit. The cooldown begins once the suit is destroyed.

Totally agree with this point. Everything else seems to be too much work for Anet’s overworked programmers already. /sarcasm

I think the suit could immediatly be made more useful if it served as a second hitpoint bar. Most stuff in the game serves as a weaker analogue to another classes ability – ie.

Call Warband -> Thieves Guild
Take Root -> Supply Crate
D-Series Golem -> Shield of the Avenger
Norn Forms -> Rampage

etc.

The golem suit acting as a second hitpoint bar could be argued to be Op – but I’d argue that it’d basically be a weaker analogue to necro’s Death Shroud – the attack skills don’t have to be very good, the primary function would be to allow the pilot to soak up an additional amount of damage (Bonus poin ts if the suit also provides a shedload of extra toughness, so that it draws aggro away from the team)

As it stands, any damage the golem recieves goes straight to the pilot and if the hitpoint bar reaches zero, the pilot is downed too – even if the pilot ejects, his hitpoints remain where they were when he was mounted.

Actually D-Series Golem is arguably better than Shield of the Avenger. It activates the reflect bubble twice in it’s duration, and although you can’t control it, it can be devastatingly strong.

Norn Forms are also typically stronger than Rampage.

And Summon 7-Series Golem has an attack similar to volley that consists of projectile finishers (his fists are projectiles!)

Ryuujin.8236:

I think the suit could immediatly be made more useful if it served as a second hitpoint bar. Most stuff in the game serves as a weaker analogue to another classes ability – ie.

Call Warband -> Thieves Guild
Take Root -> Supply Crate
D-Series Golem -> Shield of the Avenger
Norn Forms -> Rampage

etc.

The golem suit acting as a second hitpoint bar could be argued to be Op – but I’d argue that it’d basically be a weaker analogue to necro’s Death Shroud – the attack skills don’t have to be very good, the primary function would be to allow the pilot to soak up an additional amount of damage (Bonus poin ts if the suit also provides a shedload of extra toughness, so that it draws aggro away from the team)

As it stands, any damage the golem recieves goes straight to the pilot and if the hitpoint bar reaches zero, the pilot is downed too – even if the pilot ejects, his hitpoints remain where they were when he was mounted.

The idea of the suit being a second hitpoint bar makes sense but does not fit with the other “suits” in game. For example, the Alpha Siege Golem and Hazmat Suit, when destroyed, also down the player. However, I think if they made SPS unique in this aspect it’d give a lot more importance to it and make it actually valuable as an elite skill, especially in PvE where soaking damage is important.

Esplen.3940:

Actually D-Series Golem is arguably better than Shield of the Avenger. It activates the reflect bubble twice in it’s duration, and although you can’t control it, it can be devastatingly strong.

Norn Forms are also typically stronger than Rampage.

And Summon 7-Series Golem has an attack similar to volley that consists of projectile finishers (his fists are projectiles!)

I can agree to that, and now that I think of it, the suit being stronger than some other elite skills doesn’t seem as alarming. Whether the class-specific elites are too weak or the race-specific elites are too strong is up for Anet to decide. I really hope they take a look at SPS, though, because it really is a fun idea.

I strongly agree and support the OP ideas. I was so excited for this elite before the beta, and all these months after launch I’m still very disappointed by it. I haven’t tested it recently, but I felt like the attack damage was lacking. Maybe if they did the suggested changes, they would be fine. I dunno. They definitely need to remove the massive aftercast delay and rooting. And for consistency they should move the “leave suite” to the elite slot. The only thing I’m not sure about is removing the duration, though they could at least increase the duration.

I’m optimistic about them eventually making some changes because they recently made some massive buffs to Mistfire Wolf.

I honestly think racial skills should be on par with others, if anything just give them (as most already do) an increased cooldown. They are fun skills but its a shame we cannot use them.

Honestly just being able to run around in a golem suit without a timer would make me happy, on top of those aftercast decreases because my god those are annoying.

I felt so bad once this mission was done and I realized that I would never get to pilot an actually good suit again.

It’s still a horrible skill, but I one shot (Skills with multiple strikes still count as a single attack. Don’t question it.) a level 80 guardian in WvW with it yesterday

The story here is I was running an all out glass cannon thief build, a 30/30/0/0/10 3 signet all zerker build with every possible damage increasing trait, and decided it’s time I got at least one kill with the golem suit, so I modified the build a little bit for the purpose and went hunting.

None of the fights were arranged, I simply ran up to someone, popped golem and attacked. A lot of bookahs did the smart thing and ran away, some called their friends and some were simply too tanky for me to take down, but finally I ran into what seems like a glass cannon guardian, possibly using green gear. I hit close to 15k on a single skill (usually around 10-12k on random mobs) and down he went

great to see this post, actually my first post on this forum was about the power suit (9months ago) i was so disappointed with the skill and still am, i just went back and read it lol, i was serious!

I know it’s an old topic, but since the asura forums don’t see much action anyway and I like shamelessly spamming my video on as many places as possible, here’s what the screenshot above came from:

(Power suit used in the intro and first clip of the dragon bash song starting at 4:34)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onzIWX-AQV8

Of course, what I didn’t show are the 3 (I think? I already deleted the clips so cant check) deaths and the couple of times when the enemy simply ran away after I popped a 240 second cooldown. Seriously, why on earth is it that long?

VOLTRON! Imagine 5 asura combining their power suits into something unstoppable.

Just keep in mind the damage from a full volley (7 seconds cast time) is about the same as a single back stab(1/4 second cast time from stealth). Actually getting a kill with that thing was one of my proudest moments in WvW so far :P

That being said, just reducing the cooldown and perhaps allowing movement during some of the skills would make me a happy asura. I can deal with it being weak, just let me actually use it!

More often than not the fact my enemies had never seen anyone stupid enough to actually use the suit scared them off, and since it’s not exactly an ideal chasing tool they could just walk off and leave me with my gigantic cooldown.

WyldKat.4712:

VOLTRON! Imagine 5 asura combining their power suits into something unstoppable.

And I’ll form the head!

Sad that a skill with so much flavor is so useless… especially considering that the racial utilities for Asura are bland to say the least.

Racial skills are meant to be useless -or at least, less effective than all the class options. This is to prevent one race becoming a requisite. If you’d like to improve the use of the Asuran racial, you’d have to likewise improve all the other racial skills for the other races.

I agree with the first post, they need to buff it ! Also to all the people saying "Racial skills are meant to be useless -or at least, less effective than all the class options. ": The other 2 racial elite skills on asura are much stronger then the power suit. I use the summon D-Series golem and it is much more usefull. Therefore the powersuit should at least match up to that and even be stronger since anyone can get into it not just asura.

Wantarta.8075:

I agree with the first post, they need to buff it ! Also to all the people saying "Racial skills are meant to be useless -or at least, less effective than all the class options. "

Who said that? What silliness!
>.>

Requiem.8769:

Racial skills are meant to be useless -or at least, less effective than all the class options. This is to prevent one race becoming a requisite. If you’d like to improve the use of the Asuran racial, you’d have to likewise improve all the other racial skills for the other races.

Yes, racial skills are flavor skills and fluff… however, they are not meant to be useless weaker but not useless. If they were meant to be useless there would be no reason for them to exist in the first place since they would have no use, hence useless.

Why is Summon Power Suit useless: because Hazmat suit is a consumable and much better at that, it being better is not the problem the fact that it is not a skill is though (and it is not tied to profession or race). The way racial skills should work is like Charr’s Summon Warband is essentially a variation of Thieves Guild. Not like SPS being a variation of a karma consumable.

It is already statistically and functionally (due to the 60s limit) weaker than what it is modeled after, so why it also has to be something that can only be used once in a blue moon. If I want to sacrifice my profession elite for a weaker fluff skill at least let me use it is I believe what most people are saying. Also it doesn’t help that Asura racials are all very samey (really why all the golems) or bland as in not very asuran (utilities).

Point: I see other races racial skills and elites used on frequent basis, but since launch I can count the times I have seen Asuran racial elites used with the fingers of one hand (it is hard to tell when an asura uses a racial utility skill, so can’t comment on their usage).

As keeps getting pointed out, they can be equal to class abilities, so long as they aren’t superior to them, and they won’t make any one race the goto race for a class, or better than the others. Certain options will be opened by bringing them in line with the class abilities, but they can be buffed without making them too shiny. This thread appears on the Charr board, too, and I’m fairly certain thakittens probably on every race’s board, though I don’t follow more than Asura and Charr. Honestly, if there is this much discussion about it here, there should be a response from a mod/dev already, even if just to say they’re looking into it and will announce something soon.

The only way to make racial abilities equal with class abilities is to give every race the same abilities with a different skin. Otherwise, they racial ability will have clear advantages and disadvantages in different situations, making the race go-to depending on what your doing.

If nothing else, I’d love to see the unnecessary roots and some of the delays removed, and the cooldown reduced. I’m willing to deal with the suit essentially being a self nerf, just let me actually use it!

The few times I’ve used it in WvW (yes, I’ve done that), usually the enemies would simply run away and leave me with the gigantic cooldown

Dustfinger.9510:

The only way to make racial abilities equal with class abilities is to give every race the same abilities with a different skin. Otherwise, they racial ability will have clear advantages and disadvantages in different situations, making the race go-to depending on what your doing.

sigh Really? With 8 classes and 5 races, you can conceive of a situation that you can manufacture where a SPECIFIC race/class combo will be optimal? Because I can conceive that ANet is smarter than that. They can make the racials equal to the class abilities to add flavor without making any race a goto. Of course, I can also conceive of ways they can royally kitten it to kitten and back. Case in point, the “gauntlet”. Total clusterkitten of a coding job. So you might have a point. Maybe Anet just isn’t up tot he task of designing racials that don’t suck.

Drakkon.4782:

sigh Really? With 8 classes and 5 races, you can conceive of a situation that you can manufacture where a SPECIFIC race/class combo will be optimal? ///

Really. It is common among many games and mid/maxers in those games. because any diffrence in variety will have their own benefits and draw backs. It’s universal law. So the only way for abilities to be different but equal is for them to be the same abilities with different skins. So that is exactly what a-net intended to avoid.

Dustfinger.9510:

Drakkon.4782:

sigh Really? With 8 classes and 5 races, you can conceive of a situation that you can manufacture where a SPECIFIC race/class combo will be optimal? ///

Really. It is common among many games and mid/maxers in those games. because any diffrence in variety will have their own benefits and draw backs. It’s universal law. So the only way for abilities to be different but equal is for them to be the same abilities with different skins. So that is exactly what a-net intended to avoid.

I reject your reality and substitute my own. Also, the term is “min/maxer” and difference has another ‘e’ in it.

I discredit your opinion by pointing out that game balance involves creating different options that are neither more powerful than, nor weaker than, each other. Taken to the lowest common denominator, it’s Rock/Paper/Scissors. A>B>C>A. Racials don’t have to be more powerful than Class abilities, they just have to be different. And they don’t have to be the same as one another, either. They just have to counter/buff/produce a different result than one another. They one thing they CAN’T be is reskins of one another. That would be unbalanced, which is pretty much what we have now.

Your limited concept of game balance would make completely irrelevant in all situations the choice of both race and class. Nothing would matter, in the slightest, because every class and race would just be reskins of one another.

Speaking from experience, as I have and play 7 of the 8 classes, they all play differently. They are most assuredly NOT reskins of one another. The fundamentals are mostly the same, as they should be, but they have distinctions that make them different and that adds flavor.

Now, the solution is to look at the racials from a “what does this add to ‘X’ class is someone chooses it?” standpoint. When the racials become part of the design process and are looked at as an option for every class, as they should be, one can begin to balance them so that they aren’t specifically good for one particular class over another, and that one race doesn’t become the goto race for a particular class.

It is worth noting at this point that there are goto races in the game already. Charr and Asura Engineers, Human Mesmers, Sylvari Necros, Norn Rangers and Guardians. These are just a few of the race/class combos that work REALLY well. I’ve seen more of them than practically anything else. Balanced racials might break some of these combos up.

Lol. if your gonna be my personal spell checker, your going to be REAL busy.

I was actually going to mention this in the last post but didn’t feel I needed to. the reason classes can be balanced (diffivult as it is already is) is because they have multiple skills that can be used to create that balance. trying to balance one skill for each that are unique and special is an illusion since so much is taken into account wen we look at balance.

So to look at “what does this add to ‘X’ class is someone chooses it?” is impracticle because you have to look at what it adds to every class. Not just one class. Now that showed a limited understanding of game balance.

Dustfinger.9510:

Lol. if your gonna be my personal spell checker, your going to be REAL busy.
I was actually going to mention this in the last post but didn’t feel I needed to. the reason classes can be balanced (diffivult as it is already is) is because they have multiple skills that can be used to create that balance. trying to balance one skill for each that are unique and special is an illusion since so much is taken into account wen we look at balance.
So to look at “what does this add to ‘X’ class is someone chooses it?” is impracticle because you have to look at what it adds to every class. Not just one class. Now that showed a limited understanding of game balance.

Not at all. Ultimately, when balancing anything in a game, you have to look at it on a case by case basis and ask, “What does this do for this aspect of the game?” Narrowing it down to one class view on a racial is only examining one part of the issue of balance, but it is both a part of that issue, and a necessarily one at that.

To claim that to be limited understanding shows how little you understand the entire process. The process is long, and one has to look at each racial in turn and say, “Does this act like a skill the class has already? Is it a slot skill or a weapon skill? Is it normal or Elite? Should we simply cut and paste the skill over so that the balance isn’t an issue, or should we change it enough to make it feel flavorful and diverse?”

Until you examine each skill carefully, case by case, class by class, you won’t get a real understanding of how the skills interplay. Balance is a complex subject, which is why so few games get it right. They don’t take a careful enough approach to the problem and just use a broad brush to paint over the issue, usually by gimping one type of skill in favor of others.

You may have a pulse on lore and other trivial aspects of the game, but you need a few lessons on game design before you lecture me about it.

Drakkon.4782:

Not at all. Ultimately, when balancing anything in a game, you have to look at it on a case by case basis and ask, “What does this do for this aspect of the game?” Narrowing it down to one class view on a racial is only examining one part of the issue of balance, but it is both a part of that issue, and a necessarily one at that.

To claim that to be limited understanding shows how little you understand the entire process. The process is long, and one has to look at each racial in turn and say, “Does this act like a skill the class has already? Is it a slot skill or a weapon skill? Is it normal or Elite? Should we simply cut and paste the skill over so that the balance isn’t an issue, or should we change it enough to make it feel flavorful and diverse?”

Until you examine each skill carefully, case by case, class by class, you won’t get a real understanding of how the skills interplay. Balance is a complex subject, which is why so few games get it right. They don’t take a careful enough approach to the problem and just use a broad brush to paint over the issue, usually by gimping one type of skill in favor of others.

You may have a pulse on lore and other trivial aspects of the game, but you need a few lessons on game design before you lecture me about it.

….

What just happened? MY point was that balance is a complex process. Which is why giving one strong skill to each race won’t be balanced in all situations, unless it’s the same skill. So, trivial or not, basic common sense is something I’m able to lecture on.

Which is exactly the reason that With 8 classes and 5 races, I can conceive of a situation/// where a SPECIFIC race/class combo will be optimal? Multiple combinations to balance is much more difficult job. Therefor the inverse of the difficulty to balance is that the difficulty to find the flaws in that attempted balance becomes exponentially easier. Which, as I stated above, is common and exactly what min/maxers do in plenty of games.

edit: we see that a-net has minimized the balance issue by not worrying about something like “Does this act like a skill the class has already?" by making that skill less powerful than the regular skills. then we see that you have endorsed exactly what I just said with “Should we simply cut and paste the skill over so that the balance isn’t an issue”. All in all, you seem to be arguing for my points, here.

As before, you are simply taking things said and reworking them to make yourself seem more clever than you are. Since you want to make it look like I’m arguing for your points in your little world, fine. I’m arguing for your points. I don’t have time to bother with you if you can’t even hold a simple conversation. Enjoy.

With that, I’ll just let the greater forum community read the posts and judge for themselves about which one of us is actually sticking to our points.

So the fear in making racial skills equal is that it could make, say a Charr warrior better than a Asura warrior?
Well I say, have no fear. From what I can tell the humans have the WORST racial skills but about 70% of the population are already playing humans, and of that 90% of them are playing females. So as long as they keep having boobs every one will play them regardless of how good or bad the racial skills are.

And lets be honest, the ship of racial equality sailed back when they made a race of 3 feet tall people in a game where the major Endgame is large scale PvP (WvW). They may have a name tag over their head but there still a much smaller target and therefore harder to pick from a crowd and harder to see their attack animations.

I would like to point out that i find Sylvari the goto class for mesmers, the mesmer suffers in pve combat due to clones dying after there host dies and mesmers are light on the armor. The sylvari hound elite skill is a 60 second summon (longest of all summons) with a relatively short cooldown, the survivability of the hound is also great. I pretty much exclusively use this elite over all the mesmer’s worthless elite skills.

All but the norns have a racial summon, for me as long as the summon lasts long enough and can survive long enough to run interference I don’t care if one does more damage than the other. They do there job just fine.

In the end I am kinda torn, on one side I can see people using only one race for one class because it has such a good racial skill for said class. but on the other side I feel picking your race should matter a little more than just regretting you didnt pick human because you cant see your weapon (asura) or no matter what armor you wear it looks like crap (charr).

I’m gonna go ahead and agree with the concern about the hazmat racial not being useful enough, but I have a question.. Where can you buy the karma combat consumable version of it?