Guild Wars 2

With ascended weapons becoming the new BiS, will we see a scale up of non weapon damage sources this patch?

Engineer kits, elementalist conjure weapons, ranger pet attacks, necro wells, guardian spirit weapons… None of these take their damage from equipped weapons, right? Will they be buffed to reflect ascended weapon damage ranges, or are non-weapon damage sources about to receive a relative nerf?

Anet will probably forget until people start complaining about these things being underpowered is my guess.

Kits are already nerfed, as their damage stats are somewhere between shield and pistol…

It’d be great, if this has been overlooked, to know they’ve started work on fixing it. I suppose patch notes tomorrow will give us an idea.

I really do hope so, I’m thinking about shelving my engineer due to the ascended weapon grind.. I want one, but I want the weapon to matter, which it really doesn’t on a kituser :/

Gibson.4036:

I suppose patch notes tomorrow will give us an idea.

It took more than 3 months after release until atleast sigils and additional weapon stats worked on engi-kits (like +power and crit-chance, -damage from berserker).

In the same patch kits received a fixed weapon-strength which was even a lazy fix as rifle-users still lost the higher weapon strength from rifle while on a kit and also 1 sigil-slot compared to p/p and p/s.

According to a SC on Dulfy an ascended greatsword has 1045 – 1155 weapon strength which should be +5 % up from an exotic.

This higher weapon strength on ascended weapons would be useless in the current system while using a kit as the weapon strength doesn´t apply to the kit.

Anet could increase the fixed weapon strength for kits (which I doubt they will do, atleast at the same rate as from exotic to ascended weapons) – and engi still would have no need for an ascended weapon when using kits.

“Engineers are one of the least played professions. We want to give them some love but you must understand that the warriors represent a much bigger, more vocal group.

Given time and resources we will give the engineers their due love."

There, I just went and wrote that up for them, saving them some time.

Talking about time:

hydeaut.1758:

No weapon-stats on kits will become even relatively worse with ascended weapons/better stats on legendaries.

This quote is from 2012.

But let´s see what today´s patch will bring.

There is evidence that ANet has been learning from past mistakes.

I hope this is one of those cases. I don’t expect to suddenly see non-weapon damage sources suddenly taking their damage from equipped weapons, but I have hope that we will at least see things like kits/turrets/summoned and spirit weapons get their internal damage adjusted upwards, if not this patch, then the next.

It took a long time for them to adjust kits, but they eventually did, and hopefully it’s now on the radar, so there won’t be such a long lag this time.

Honestly they should ABSOLUTELY all inherit their damage from equipped weapons.

Otherwise those damage sources get free top tier damage without gearing for it, which is sort of kitten ing on every ability that derives damage from the weapon.

Agreed, Pope, but clearly that is a big project that they are not tackling at this time.

Better that players get free top tier damage than get stuck with inferior damage whenever using non-weapon damage sources.

And the patch notes are out, and no mention of adjusting these skills. Perhaps it was done behind the scenes, and no notes, but more likely they haven’t been adjusted.

It would be nice to get a developer response on whether this is being worked on.

Anet,

Engi’s (and others) really need a response to this.

If you want this fixed you need to find a way that it negatively effects warriors. If you can’t do that then chances are it won’t ever be fixed.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

If you want this fixed you need to find a way that it negatively effects warriors. If you can’t do that then chances are it won’t ever be fixed.

I don’t believe this. What the dev said at PAX about the Charr issue was certainly a misstep, but to apply that mindset to every possible issue the games faces is likely an unfair assessment. Cosmetics != Class defining balance issues.

Though, at this point, Engi’s now face both issues with regard to legendary and ascended weapons.

digitalruse.9085:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

If you want this fixed you need to find a way that it negatively effects warriors. If you can’t do that then chances are it won’t ever be fixed.

I don’t believe this. What the dev said at PAX about the Charr issue was certainly a misstep, but to apply that mindset to every possible issue the games faces is likely an unfair assessment. Cosmetics != Class defining balance issues.

Though, at this point, Engi’s now face both issues with regard to legendary and ascended weapons.

lol how could you possibly not believe that? Warrior has received a major buff in almost every patch since launch. They do nearly 2x the dps as other classes in PvE. There is a reason so many people play them. They will never nerf them because most of their players play one and that would be bad for business.

Making engineers weaker indirectly is a win for them. Less warriors will be killed by engineers which means the majority of the player base will be happier, and when confronted with it they can say “oh woops it was an unintended consequence but due to technical issues we can’t fix it”

It might be naive, but I have always held to the old saying of:

“Never attribute to malice/conspiracy that which can easily be attributed to stupidity.”

Balance is always a tricky line to walk in any MMO. I would sooner attribute this to an oversight in a major revamp of the gear creation and usage system before I suspect that ANet is actively working against classes. How long has the two-handed sigil disparity existed? This certainly affects Warriors, and yet even with the fuss is still uncorrected due to technical reasons.

That said, communication and transparency about these concerns/issues is key to ensuring conspiracies don’t get any air.

Bumping. Would really like a red response.

Well the most recent reports on this subject is that ascended weaponry does not scale up weaponkits.

I did a personal little test between a lv16 white Rifle with 15 power versus the Predator, the Legendary lv80 rifle using a statcombo with 0 power.

The tooltip information on something like grenade 1 skill favored the lv16 Rifle slightly over the Predator.

Weapon strength of engi-kits obviously was increased to 1017 which is +5% up from the old value 969. This is according to the + 5% weapon strength from exotics to ascended.

Funny thing: the increased weapon strength on kits can also be seen in the mists´s spvp-lobby (open Hero-panel without a weapon equipped and compare to the power-value when using a kit).

These are good results for engis – except the spvp-part (assuming Anet continues balancing based on spvp where other classes didn´t get higher weapon strength).

Sigh, Anet… just… sigh…

“Fixed an unintended damage increase that caused engineer kits, elementalist conjures, and warrior banners to deal more damage than intended.”

Guess we’re intentionally screwed. Well, there goes any plans I had on getting ascended for my engineer. No more altoholicism :/

And not a single word on this, getting so tiresome >_< //whine whine whine

It’ll be nice if, much like sigils, you got the damage scaled based on your weapons.

digitalruse.9085:

Sigh, Anet… just… sigh…

“Fixed an unintended damage increase that caused engineer kits, elementalist conjures, and warrior banners to deal more damage than intended.”

Yeah, just read this in the patch notes.

I just don’t get it.

Perhaps the intent is to go live with that damage increase in a patch or two, once a significant portion of the population actually has their ascended gear?

Many of us are still waiting on some official word on whether this issue is going to be addressed, and when.