Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I give up. You’ve missed the entire point of “surplus”. Not every thing we do in the game has to have a reward in addition to the satisfaction of getting things done (not to mention the other rewards that we got while earning the point).

The point was NEVER to have extra points lying around for no reason whatsoever. The point was to have flexibility. Surplus was the means to that end.
And if that end has already been reached, surplus are worthless.

TL;DR: Is recognizing effort such a bad thing? I’m impressed by people with 80+ spare, having only under 20 spare myself.

Didn’t think this would spark up 50+ comments. Between having my kitten handed to me and people supportive about it, here’s what’s been said so far and my view on it:

“The shop would endanger the freedom of doing whatever content you wish to do to reach max masteries”
The shop (or achievement, or something along those lines) is only unlocked after that mastery cap has been reached.
If you think of it as an achievement, it suddenly becomes really simple to implement. No spending is necessary, yet the sense of reward is there.

“The shop isn’t necessary as achievements giving out mastery points already exist”
Think of it as a meta achievement like they did in the stories; yes you get the achievements for completing x challenge in the story, yet you get a big achievement with a big reward if you complete all of them.
Which brings us to the next argument:

“Adding value to extra points would only make people feel forced into doing/excelling content they don’t want to do”
To the pure PvE-ers: Do you feel forced into WvW where you need to get Level2000 to get Legendary armor just because it’s “cheaper than making a PvE set”?

Effort shouldn’t be discarded as irrelevant. Going out of your way to get mastery points takes time (This isn’t a personal thing I’ve done and feel entitled to a reward; I have under 20 spare mastery points, whereas some have ~80+).

Heck, those with 80+ should have a reward of some kind, even if it is only Achievement points. It doesn’t have to be “1 achi point for 10 spare and 100 for 100 spare”; a linear giveout of achievement points for an increasingly difficult acquisition will, by itself, stop players where they feel they have done enough.

“What if Anet wants to add new masteries to a category and you spent the points already on rewards?”
With each expansion bringing with it a brand new category of mastery points, there isn’t any reason to add new masteries to a category; they want to sell the expac to more peeps, so they add content to it. And as I’ve stated before, map location doesn’t matter: Maguuma masteries have been used in maps like Ember Bay and Bitterfrost Frontier.
The “achievement” route also doesn’t involve spending mastery points, making that point even less relevant.

Ayrilana.1396:

If you care about elite specialization weapons, you can max out exalted. That’s about the only reason to go further on the mastery line.

The last mastery for Itzel (adrenal mushrooms) are useful but won’t be in the new expansion most likely.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they added harmless things like those Adrenal Mushies to verdant zones in the second expac; they don’t affect gameplay enough (which is kind of a problem in and of itself) to be “banned” from the expac imo (as opposed to areas only accessible with gliding and required for the story, which would be 140% stupid).

My opinion on OP’s question? If you feel like Adrenal mushies would be worth your while, go ahead! It’s fun once in a while to notice you can double-up on an elite skill and long CDs ‘cause there’s one nearby, but except that lil fun part, I don’t really see the other masteries being THAT worth it.

killermanjaro.5670:

If a vendor offered non-essential loot then I can’t see the problem in being able to trade excess HoT mastery points for something. As long as the items offered were non-essential, and there were no items that gave an advantage or were exclusive to that vendor then it wouldn’t make a difference to anyone. (items like a rare, or bag of crafting materials, bag of HoT map currency etc). Wouldn’t put any pressure on people to go for all masteries, would just be a minor extra for if you have an excess of them.

The only thing I would have against the idea, is that I can’t see it being worth the time/effort to add into the game, even if it’s something that might not take long to implement.

I completely agree with you on that! I don’t know the time necessary to set-up and NPC (especially with those restrictions), nor the time to turn mobs/NPCs into Minis.

On another topic someone brought up, there are 216 mastery points you can get for HoT; out of which 113 are useable. So someone who goes that (almost insane imo!) extra mile to get those 103 extra points does it only for Completionist’s sake right now.

A variant of a shop could be a collection that unlocks after reaching max masteries in that region (devs have complete control over what the max is, so that point is moot), with achievements every few additional points you stack up. That removes the need for an NPC, and can give access to titles which are only given through achievements ususally, and any reward they deem cool for such achievements.

Edit: About the “another useless NPC once you buy all of the stuff” though… how many Heart-Quest NPCs are there in the game? Or just walking around not even talking. I don’t feel like a single NPC is really a big deal, but I’m the one who made the post, so what do I know!

This is why I’ve used specifically Maguuma Masteries as my example! As far as I know, it is the last time we will get new masteries for those regions.

Now before you tell me "what if they want to add a map outside those regions?‘, let us be frank: Bitterfrost Frontier isn’t in Maguuma, yet its mastery line is in “Maguuma Jungle” because it’s been released during HoT. If they want to add future maps with new masteries, they have the new expansions’ mastery points for that.

It would be a nice feature to “close up” an expansion to move forward towards another; a little extra reward for those who’ve gone the extra mile. (wink at the Expansion Announcement here)

Khisanth.2948:

That would be counter productive. The extra points available is to allow for flexibility in how/where people get the point. IF they wanted everyone to get all the points then there would only be exactly enough to max out everything.

That is my point exactly! They don’t want to do that, so they added extra. So can we get something out of those extras if they have no other use?

TL,DR: Leftover Mastery points used as a currency?

With Heart of Thorns ending, Maguuma masteries seem to be at an end;

However, mastery points have been spread out over the jungle to make sure people wouldn’t be funneled into doing EVERY specific thing to get the mastery points.
Now that we can not invest any more in that category (unless proven otherwise), those who’ve reached the max Mastery Points might have leftovers (I have 15 personally, and haven’t done raids other than Wing1 so missing quite a few).

Could a shop selling account-bound features be added to use those mastery points? (rare acc-bound minis, home instance features, etc.)
It would give an incentive to completionists to do Mastery-related content, or reward those who did already a bit.

Edit: The shop would only be accessible once you reach the max in all masteries of that type

I will soon post a video of myself doing SS in this post; video’s processing. I have next to no latency, so it might not be the best for your needs (Sorry Australian guy!), but at least it could give you a way to get silver. My personal record using that method is 1:54:something, with gold being under 2:35; hopefully, the 40seconds are enough to get through despite lag. Add even more time for Silver.
Cheers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLnPG85-un0&feature=youtu.be

PvP? PvE?
It seems like a fairly standard meta build, especially since you’ve only taken 1 spec line out of the 3…not much of a complete build to be honest! But yes, condi weapons with condi traits with condi stats do work.

Seems like you’re trying to sound more experienced than you are Kaishina…or be a troll, in which case I’ll take the bait:
DH traps daze, so you need a stun break to shadowstep out. In the case of the utility, it works…at a mere 4,5k hp cost from shadowstepping through Test of Faith, along with one of your only stunbreaks’ cooldown.
Also, the 1200 range of shadowstep makes for an easy True Shot while you’re Crippled and running away from said trap. Sure, SB 5 helps, unless….
Dragon’s maw. Along with the trap’s burst (+ test of faith’s activation damage of ~2k) takes a good third of your hp pool. But when you shadowstep/stunbreak/teleport out of it…
You get knocked down. Less than 1.2k range away. And there goes another third of your life from an almost unavoidable True Shot (unless terrain protects you, in the best case, which you should try to do.)

So worst case: 2/3 of your HP is gone, your only double stun break too…what for? Traps on lower CD than that very shadowstep? Even a sarcasm-ready person like you seem to be from the few posts you replied to should be able to realize the problem.
TL;DR: if you want to facecheck traps all day, do it, but don’t complain when others try to find an intelligent alternative.

As I’ve stated in my earlier post, “Seeing traps” isn’t necessarily be YES or NO. I’d even argue that it shouldn’t be: it is indeed an interesting niche capacity, be it as base thief or a trait in an elite spec or a signet or whatever else, and it’d probably even force mindless trap-spamming builds to pay more attention to their trap placement; wether or not traps should be buffed in effect and have their cast times lengthened is another (definitely interesting!) topic to achieve the same goal:
For Traps to be used strategically AS TRAPS. Not as invisible stronger Marks with a (barely noticeable) cast and arming time.

A few options to think about (just ideas from reading the thread):
1. Thief can see traps and deactivate them completely while in stealth (only self-given, or not, whichever feels balanced considering self-stealth is harder to get/requires personnal investment). That would give an obvious warning/tell to the trapper that a thief is around (cue for reveal/AoE/counterplay)as their trap just disappeared, as well as a nice niche.

2. Thief can see traps while stealthed (same as #1), and disarms traps he/she walks on while in stealth: they are disabled, but still on the floor, for 10 seconds. That would allow a counter to trappers without completely disabling their utilities like my #1. That would allow thieves not to get 1shotted while trying to use their stealth attack mechanic, while also creating a “kill or retreat before the time ticks out” high-risk, high-reward scenario.

3. Any of the 2 ideas included as a trait (Trapper’s Respite sounds WAY too fitting for #2!)
4. Any of the 2 ideas as a signet passive, as someone mentionned before me.

Life Steal still scales with Power, afaik… and not with Healing Power.
However, that build has lot of big weaknesses, as “assassin.7895” said.

Sword/Dagger would be useful for the Blue guardian in raids, to steal its boon (don’t spam it! Only use it to steal the boon!). However, you have no crit. chance nor crit. damage, making your Direct Damage less than optimal, not even speaking of traits.

Your second weapon set is suboptimal too: you are using D/D, which is used a lot for condition damage builds (I suggest D/P if you wish to use Dagger mainhand as a power build, using your Heartseeker from Pistol#5 to gain Stealth).

For a supporty thief, you could use another Weapon Sigil instead of weakness duration, as in raids, Weakness only works on Seekers (not even sure about that); the bosses ignore it and it is negligible in a Break-Bar scenario.

Biggest offender to me is the Trickery GM; you have 0 condition damage, yet take a condi-damage trait. They’ve recently changed the scaling of damaging conditions for them to be almost 100% useless unless having condition damage in your gear; therefore, that trait is useless.
(Also, take Swindler’s equilibrium instead of Guarded Initiation…by all means…you’re using a sword.)

-shamelessly raises topic back up-

Hi everyone,
After running DrD for a while, I’ve been wanting to use something other than “Unhindered Combatant” as GM.

Alas, I’ve encountered the same problem using the 2 other GMs, Lotus Training and Bounding Dodger (mostly Lotus Training):

Dodging in Stealth reveals you instantly if you were near your target while doing so.
The change I’m asking for is to make the GM dodges Lotus Training and Bounding Dodger NOT do their attack move if starting while in Stealth.

Wether the +10% Condi/Power should still be applied would be up to the designers, but using a Dodge when Stealthed is PUNISHING, damage/CC-wise, with those 2 traits, while the 3rd one (which most PvPers use already…) doesn’t have to problem. It’d help bridge the gap a little.

Yes, Daredevil isn’t “made for stealth plays”, but it is still an integral part of the thief’s utilities, weapon skills and specializations (No other class has a line as dedicated to Stealth as Thief, let’s face it; even Mesmer’s PU got nerfed).

While most argue that it isn’t viable, hybrid D/D builds would appreciate the change a lot (Lotus Training being the worst offender, and Backstab needs you to be close to the enemy), while any power build, imo, would prefer keeping it’s Stealth Attack and all other advantages Stealth gives you instead of a dodge’s worth of damage.

If any of you guys on the forum have other ideas to compensate for this (making that damage not remove you from stealth…maybe?), feel free! And please, (I’m asking for it by saying this, whatever!), no “Thief is dead, reroll” comments.

Edit: The damage not removing you from Stealth would be pretty good actually; using it properly would give you “free” damage, but watch out when you reappear, you don’t have any more dodges. <-Cost is already there.
Also, both Lotus Training and Bounding dodger don’t actually get their “bonus dodge effect” if you remove the damage element from them, while UC does, both in and out of Stealth (removing movement condis + swiftness)

A question to you all who complain about masteries:
Would you prefer:
1- The mastery system as we know it?
2- The classic MMO system (level cap increase)?

Masteries allow you to progress no matter which character you are playing.
They allow your character to become better without relying on “meaningless numbers” (some part of it being power creep)
Masteries do not invalidate your gear. Would you like raids to be gated behind BOTH leveling (like masteries, but CHARACTER-bound, so you’d have to do it again and again instead of just once) AND completely new gear?

Sorry, but I wouldn’t want to remake legendary weapons and full ascended armor sets just because “They’re not lvl90 so they suck”.
Masteries were made to allow leveling without invalidating gear, that’s all there is to them. Not to remove all gating. Not to create gating either (gating has been in MMOs/Raids since forever).

Please consider this before complaining.

Smokescale’s already been nerfed in 2 ways, 1 being the damage… down by 50%. Enjoy half-dying

Thanks for the info guys Here’s to hoping it’s like BWE2!

During the 3rd Beta Week-end Event, a bug was noticed that Colin acknowledged: the open-world, Verdant Brink in this case, had its difficulty drastically lowered for unclear reasons.
While Colin said the bug was definitely unintentional, because they preferred the difficulty of the BWE2, I was wondering if that bug has been found/addressed!

-Someone who liked BWE2’s difficulty too

Edit: Who else liked BWE2’s diff? BWE3’s?

Seera.5916:

TJgalon.5012:

Seera.5916:

TerminalMontage.5693:

I think what GW2 did is totally fair. Practically having a new class available right away would cheapen it. As you play the game you’ll unlock your new spec naturally.

But for alts, it will be a big task. Unless getting those new items in WvW is pretty fast.

It’s the timing that’s the problem. They waited until 3 days before launch to tell and if there had not been a thread asking, we may not have known until after launch. I think the timing has made the problem worse and understandably so. Especially since players were vocal about their intent to play the elites on day 1 and had been asking for the number of points for weeks now.

Though from what I read, Elite can be played day 1, just wont be able to have the entire line finish on day 1. Or maybe you can with the extra hero point earn in the world, some of it still in mystery and I am glad for that.

The elite skill in the picture posted in this post shows that the elite skill is unlocked pretty close to the end. How many raid groups will accept a player who doesn’t have their elite skill unlocked? What about dungeon or fractal groups?

Granted, I’m not sure how accurate that picture is. Daredevil isn’t in the list to the right and during the beta we were given level 80 characters so I don’t know where that picture itself came from and could have been edited.

Some players will want to play fully unlocked characters (and by unlocked, I mean all skills and traits, not the skins and weapons).

Considering you do NOT lose the ability to choose from your core class’ skills, nobody at lvl80 with an elite spec “won’t have an elite skill”; especially since to even unlock the elite spec, you need all other lines filled…meaning level 80, even with 0 hero challenges done.

What in “do 20 skill challenges through new awesome content” seems grindy to you guys with ALREADY WORLD COMPLETION? As if that didn’t take 100x more time…

As you mentioned “Only removed immobilize”, I’m thinking you’ve been using Lightning Reflexes; it indeed only removes immobilize at the moment of casting, but also removes the 2 other conditions at the end of your back-roll (it makes it a bit less reliable for fast condi-clear).
If it happens with other Survival skills, I encourage you posting it in the ranger bug thread!

I’ve started another thread about the smokescale itself, thinking to myself “Hey, it seems so much stronger than other pets, what’s up with that?”. Result? Forum Bashing.
However, thanks to the constructive users who replied to the thread, I think I’ve found a consensus between the differing opinions, and would like the devs to know it:

The AI of these new pets (despite some of the issues stated in the Druid feedback thread about F2 positionning), namely the Smokescale and Electric wyvern, feels WAY better to play with.
Why? Their reliability to get their few big attacks in, when you need them to, and without the usual delay most pet skills have. Instant activation definitely feels like it’ll bring up the skill cap for Rangers to make timely decisions in fights, and really fight alongside their pet.

And that, to the point of “Old Pets need to be able to fight this way”. Please make it happen!

Keep up the good work!
Cheers,
Mirage

kiwituatara.6053:

Mirage.6754:

I’d love to see a post/info/link/video/anything that shows ANet saying it’s supposed to be 30%, as I haven’t found it anywhere else (I know the weapons’ DPS is about 30% lower, but where else?)
If the 30% is true, then what I calculated should show EVIDENTLY that the pets’ DPS is NOT HIGH ENOUGH across any and all pet species, and that even the smokescale’s average (~18k in what I calculated) doesn’t reach the full 30%. The first post in a forum is important, yes, but with this info, we could say without a doubt that other pets NEED A BUFF.
To any dev who stumbles upon this post, please, let the maths speak, and change things; make the pets important, more than “Press F4 then F2 to interrupt with a taunt”. 30% might seem huge, but our weapon skills are kitten by that huge 30%. Make us pet owners proud of having a valuable ally, as the ideology of the class is, and has been since launch.

I think I’ve seen they specify a % themselves somewhere a long time ago, but that requires a lot of digging. I do, however, found this:

“The only reason Rangers lose damage is because the AI is not currently what it ought to be. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we should completely redesign the Ranger and get rid of the pet.” – Allie Murdock

If you read through the actual conversation. A player was asking why our class mechanic takes 30% of the ranger’s overall DPS away while classes like warriors gets a 15% bonus DPS from actually using their class mechanic.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/page/46#post3732248

Thanks a lot for the research! It sure seems like they want to solve the problem of the pets’ AI, and therefore I too think we should wait and see what happens with that.

PS To SpitAlot: Please take these personnal attacks out of the forum. This is a feedback thread of sorts, so, to quote the devs, Please Post CONSTRUCTIVE feedback here.

I’d love to see a post/info/link/video/anything that shows ANet saying it’s supposed to be 30%, as I haven’t found it anywhere else (I know the weapons’ DPS is about 30% lower, but where else?)
If the 30% is true, then what I calculated should show EVIDENTLY that the pets’ DPS is NOT HIGH ENOUGH across any and all pet species, and that even the smokescale’s average (~18k in what I calculated) doesn’t reach the full 30%. The first post in a forum is important, yes, but with this info, we could say without a doubt that other pets NEED A BUFF.
To any dev who stumbles upon this post, please, let the maths speak, and change things; make the pets important, more than “Press F4 then F2 to interrupt with a taunt”. 30% might seem huge, but our weapon skills are kitten by that huge 30%. Make us pet owners proud of having a valuable ally, as the ideology of the class is, and has been since launch.

You seem to be forcing upon me the idea that “I want nerfs despite whatever else”.
Yet if I take my own stats, the “lowest” for a smokescale would be ~12,5k damage over 26seconds; taking 10% off (1,25k) brings us to ~11,25k.
11,25k average vs the ranger’s 60k average: 18,75%. THAT is in line with my 15-20%.
And in subsequent posts, I’ve been talking about a 5-10% nerf; a 5% nerf would bring it very close to the 20% mark, which was my “max” amount.

Therefore, mathematically, 5-10% DOES bring the smokescale in line with my own 15-20% statement. Don’t force ideas without calculating, doesn’t add anything to the conversation. I wanted to respect the limits I set myself, therefore I put in the appropriate numbers.
I care for balance, therefore “over 20%” was over my high limit; “OP”. I’m not a game tester, I can not test these changes myself and have all the exact numbers. Bear with that fact.
Now before this post goes 100% into self-defense, I’ll reply to the constructive part of your previous comment:
1) Since this is what I proposed, ahoy! Let’s hope this happens.
2) Definitely a possibility. However, I think they balanced the smokescale this way for 2 possible reasons:
a) Compensate for the Druid’s staff lack of DPS and to allow it to go in more supportive gear without COMPLETELY gimping it’s DPS (the bad result being that Ranger CAN use the pet too, and therefore SHOULD in order to deal the most DPS)

b) Simply to be useful in the expansion, as the monsters ARE stronger than what we are used to. That results in a power creep, no matter how you look at it.

My conclusion? If ArenaNet wants DPS-Pets to still be taken seriously, they need to bring them in line with the Smokescale (and the 5-10% nerf is if they really think the Smokescale is TOO OP OMFG NERF PLOXX like the forum threads against rangers usually say ;P)
I LOVE the smokescale, the reliability is something we’ve simply never had before. The lightning wyvern’s F2 responsiveness is high up there in reliability, too, which makes me happy that it’s not just an exception. The other pets just need to offer that same reliability, without stupid things like 3 seconds of cast time for 5 stacks of might (Looking at you Jungle Stalker).

Gotejjeken.1267:

Please tell me you are not complaining in a PvE context (the screens have me concerned). I’d like to see all that crazy math and see the Smokescale hit in a PvP context (WvW would work).

As if Anet starts balancing around PvE…we have serious, serious issues.

Don’t worry; I have only chosen PvE to be able to use the 2 pets, seeing at the Smokescale (and all the new pets) can’t be used in PvP! I took the same enemy type in the same zone to compare apples to apples :P
Therefore, I’d love to do that PvP math with the smokescale…but I can’t ;(

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

i’ve seen it enough in Pvp to know people don’t Avoid it or keep a eye on it for its Stealth effect , and yes it does require set up the target needs 25Vun and with in 750 yards plus consistant Mobility CC to allow those attacks to hit so even if the first does hit and cause that Opening strike 6-10k first strike the rest are Equal to normal damage 2-3k which would then total its 15+k , the whole point of HoT too was to introduce Unavoidable Attacks to make dodge that little less effective too .

No, you don’t need vuln, cc, opening strike or whatever (Of course it would increase the dmg further, but it is not neccessary). And where did they said, they want to introduce unavoidable dmg in PvP?

and this is why we need Screen shot Evidence not just a combat log pick from some random guy that claims it needs a nerf or even suggests a Nurf..
and yes they do warroir beserker unblockable attacks ect its not clear to see but these slight changes are effecting the Meta moving away from all out Damage + active defences or else why would of they improved support through healing specs or these boon changes , it makes Glassy play styles more risky.

ps it was more unavoidable damage for HoT , HoT is the Game and that means every mode .

Here goes the Screenshots, both against Jungle Boars in Verdant Brink.
I am including a screenshot of my specializations, unchanged through the best. Also including the right side of my bar to show that no buffs were used.

As you can see, the damage difference is obvious for all attacks.

On an added note, I don’t see what else can convince you that my “wish for nerfs” is mostly to balance pets out, seeing as a buff to all damaging pets (which is also one of my wishes) to equal a smokescale – 5~10% is a wish for a HUGE buff. If you still wish to hide behind the fact that “I do no post often”, “I am a random guy asking for that”, then I won’t try to convince you otherwise any further.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Mirage.6754:

myOwnPost

well how was it tested so far we only have Results for active combat use , most likely including 25Vun and atleast 20might on the pet so ether way its compairable to Wolf even if it managed to crit 10k on its first then 2-3k on its 2nd and 3rd with “buffs”

if the smoke scale Turns around to face you at any direction than i’d count that was hard to avoid or impossible to avoid but its got the same base mechanic for all pets , a 45degree Aiming arch left to right with Aiming time at the end of the cast it will attack the appointed direction so if you dodge too early it will still aim at the location where you finished the dodge because of that 2second cast .

so its fine unless someone finds hard Evidence that a Smokescale with “Buffs” equal to pets with the Same STATS, is more than 20% stronger than a Single Wolf charge so that would mean a Smoke scale would have to deal more than a total of 12k over 3 hits vs a single hit over all for active combat use one simple dodge will stop that still , just like how people dodge a wolfs leap KD though they have a 2second window to avoid it.

when balancing there is a Margin to meet and the margin is no where out of the window compaired to other pets so its not OP unless we have that Hard evidence proving its stronger with “buffs” than a Wolf with “Buffs” a single attack vs a 3 hit chain of equal damage or slightly higher due to its cast time because a longer cast time is easier to avoid no matter what people say.

I’ve done my test to test it without might/vuln, as I stated in my post; I HAVE reached 15k+ damage easily on a target with 25vuln, and without having too much might (with my smokescale) ; my point was that I have NEVER, EVER seen my wolf leap at someone for over 6k damage without any buffs. To my discredit, maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention; however, I have had my smokescale (in Aggressive-mode) instantly teleport around and and do 3/4 of a normal enemy in PvE…when that enemy stroke it from behind. No start-up time, only a 2 seconds of invincible channel. Barely had time to shoot an arrow that the smokescale killed it.
A wolf would’ve stood there, immobile, for 1,5s before attacking, and potentially missing because the enemy was moving (a hylek of some sort).

If all that difference in power is due to the AI/cast-time on pets, then by all means, correct our old pets! I want to have my pet be the mobile, reliable skill user to be…exactly that, instead of missing every few attacks simply because the target was moving.
I would much rather Smokescale be nerfed by 5-10% and other damage pets brought in line (be it through AI or Power buffing, preferably both), than to have to tell every new ranger player “Use _______ for DPS, the rest is worthless”.

So not being a frequent forum poster immediately makes any feedback I give worthless?
Really?

On-topic, I created this thread because as a Ranger, the sheer damage difference between the smokescale and other pets felt huge. As much as I’d love for things to stay the way they are FOR THE SMOKESCALE, I believe such a high damage shouldn’t be exclusive to one pet. I said I was fine with the a 10% nerf, FOR THE SMOKESCALE.

I will also state, right here and right now, that this power level is something I would like for all “Damage Dealer” pets to be able to achieve.
Not a nerf without anything else in return; Rangers DESERVE nice things, and to me, a Smokescale-like damage (-5 or 10%, MAYBE) on damage-dealer-focused pets would be like a birthday present from someone I didn’t know: unexpected, but incredibly appreciated (though kinda creepy in that scenario ;P)

(TLDR at the end)
As many rangers know, pets are meant to be a rather significant part of the ranger’s DPS; that is made clear when comparing the weapon skills we can use compared to the other classes’. In itself, I feel that is a really good concept for a pet that’s our profession mechanic!
I do not remember the exact % of our damage they are supposed to represent, but I will take a guess that it is around 15-20%.

With that number in mind, I’d like to have you take a look at one pet in particular, the new Smokescale pet. Most rangers I’ve talked to felt that the pet did a LOT of damage.

But is it really THAT much?

The main offender is without a doubt it’s Unrelenting Assault, the same skill Revenants get. Indeed, it doesn’t take much testing to realize that it can deal 8-12k damage in that single multi-hit attack.
That attack, however, has 24 seconds cooldown, with a 2 seconds casting time (I’m assuming the CD starts rolling after the skill ends, but would require additional testing).
Another characteristic is the multi-hit part of the attack, which divides it’s damage between multiple targets if there are multiple available. It stays true to the single-target-dps nature of the Ranger, while also being able to hit multiple targets for lower damage (think “Lead The Wind”, to make arrows pierce; instead of being lower damage, it is just harder to line them up with the arrows).

An easy comparison would be “Rapid Fire”, Longbow 2 on ranger. It has a 10 seconds cooldown, dealing 6-8k damage without Might, depending on critical hits (Marauder amulet in PvP on a light golem). Which means 18-24k damage in 30 seconds. With Quick Draw, however, it is possible to do that skill about 5 times in 26seconds, with another weapon in the 2nd weapon slot. That skill alone therefore can reach 30-40k damage in 26seconds. In average, that is 35k Damage with that skill alone.
Adding the damage of auto-attacks in-between (or Barrage, LB5), it adds up to around 40-45k damage for the longbow in that 26seconds period.
Adding with the other weapon’s damage (I’ll assume 3-4k/2seconds for 10seconds using a Mainhand-sword’s auto-attack), we reach a total of 55-65k damage in 26 seconds, for an average of 60k on a SINGLE TARGET, which CAN be moving.

Adding the pet’s auto-attacks during that period, which are about 1.5k/2seconds, as long as the target isn’t running (we know how much pets miss their targets when they move); assuming 1/2 attacks actually hit, that is 1.5k/4 seconds on a moving target, for ~20seconds, so 6,5k. On a stationnary target (when does that ever happen in PvP? And even in the little raid time I’ve tested, enemies were moving around a fair bit), we could assume it is 13k.

TLDR:
ALL OF THESE ARE WITHOUT MIGHT CALCULATION
Smokescale vs a Single Target over 26seconds:

6-10k Unrelenting + 6,5-13k auto-attacks/other skills
Total: 12,5-23k damage, depending on target’s movement and crit. hits

Ranger player vs a Single Target over 26 seconds:

40-45k longbow + ~15-20k second weapon (sword Auto was used for that number)
Total: 55-65k damage on single target, regardless of movement

Smokescale therefore does ~22.5% of the ranger’s DPS in that same time. With the 15-20% number I’ve estimated, the Smokescale could afford being nerfed by about 10%, but anything more than that would land in the “excessive nerf” zone.

EDIT FOR THE COMPLAINERS, COPY-PASTED FROM MY 2ND POST:
On-topic, I created this thread because as a Ranger, the sheer damage difference between the smokescale and other pets felt huge. As much as I’d love for things to stay the way they are FOR THE SMOKESCALE, I believe such a high damage shouldn’t be exclusive to one pet. I said I was fine with the a 10% nerf, FOR THE SMOKESCALE.
I will also state, right here and right now, that this power level is something I would like for all “Damage Dealer” pets to be able to achieve.

2nd Edit:
To be able to achieve, not in the best-case-scenarios like 25might +25Vuln AND TheEnemyIsn’tMoving, but off-the-bat, like those numbers I wrote about the smokescale.

After equipping a smokescale and an electric wyvern in PvE, I went to PvP with some friends. Couldn’t use them there. However, when I got back to PvE, my pets were now stowed and impossible to unstow. Couldn’t change them, obviously, because when stopped that option vanishes too.

Ehecatl.9172:

Mirage.6754:

Am I the only one seeing the Druid transforming her left arm (by using her right-hand/staff to do it) into a treant/root arm?
Body-part shapeshifting?

Looks like her hair to me.

I guess it does, too! But it doesn’t look much like Sylvari hair, as opposed to the leaves directly on top of her head…! I can hope ^^

Am I the only one seeing the Druid transforming her left arm (by using her right-hand/staff to do it) into a treant/root arm?
Body-part shapeshifting?

I wanted to go with a “Knight” theme, who suddenly reveals his Reaper nature when transforming into Reaper Shroud. As a Sylvari, with a rather limited choice of armors, I was delighted the see the new Outfit given to us, as it allowed a Light-armor class to LOOK like it is wearing heavy armor. So here it is! (Couldn’t take the helmet off in the Preview, sadly. Imagine White hair/leaves, no helm)

Forum bug, begone!

nekretaal.6485:

Bosses needs to be able to burst through projectile blocks/reflects too. With 10 people in a raid, it could be trivial to chain reflects.

At least one of the bosses we’ve already seen seems to be able to do so, while also bringing “a lot of small/medium hits” that people have been talking about.

That is, the giant female boss wielding a flamethrower. Based on existing flamethrowers (engis), the flame auto-attack is neither a projectile, nor restricted to 5 players (unless it was a bug that was fixed without me knowing), while also dealing multiple small/medium hits before the burning “burst” at the end.
Sounds like good news in that aspect!

Random idea here to minimize the unwanted knockbacks from Puncture Shot: Make it apply (once per 8 or 10seconds) with True Shot or Deflecting Shot.

True Shot, with the “once per x seconds” tech you’ve developped for Chilling Nova (reaper trait), would make it that much more dangerous for enemies, adding a knockback to a high-damage shot. The nature of the shot being STRONG fits well with the knockback at close range aspect you want to incorporate.

Deflecting Shot, on the other hand, wouldn’t need an ICD (its cooldown being already the 10s you want for the trait). Adding the KB to that skill would create a choice-making situation: “Do I want to knockback the guy who’s coming straight at me or do I want to keep it for an eventual projectile reflect?” or better even, reflecting a melee-range Point-Blank shot from a Ranger while knockbacking him even further with the shot itself!

Now that Berserker has been revealed, it’s a bit late for speculation, but I’d like some Warriors’ feedback on this idea I’ve had!
It isn’t much, but if there are any ideas you like about it, players or devs, it could be adapted to existing game content, be it traits or the mechanics themselves!

Enjoy, bash, QQ or Laugh, feel free!

Hello! I haven’t played much of the guardian’s elite specialization in the Beta, yet I noticed that Longbow 1 on Dragon Hunter, (tested hitting a Mordrem Mender first) ricochetted on an “Insect Swarm”, thrown by a nearby Hive Fiend, despite there being another enemy it could’ve ricochetted on. Thanks for looking into it!

That is my point exactly. Some get it “just because”, while others actually get a big revamp, and some are not getting anything (which is yet another inconsistency.)

Warning: Wall of text ahead!

Hello everyone! This is my second post on the forums, despite reading from a variety of subforums for quite a while.

I’ve decided to finally post as, with the incoming (June 23rd) changes, I’ve come to notice a few glaring inconsistencies design-wise. While some are justifiable (“to fit the theme of the skill more”, “to make it actually feel like a Trap”), some cross-class comparisons have arisen that I cannot help but notice, and cringe at.

For clarity purpose, I am a PvE player (Elementalist/Ranger being my favorite classes) who enjoys occasional sPvP and WvW; a “casual” player as some might say. Yet, seeing as how ArenaNet is trying to make the game simpler on many levels for “us casuals”, my opinion IS biased. However, as a student in 3D animation and game design, I will try to be as objective as I can towards this game I love.

Without further ado, here is the first one I have noticed. All skill facts are copy/pasted from the forum post “June 23 Specialization Changes”:

Assigning TYPES to utility skills which lacked one

Elementalist vs Necromancer:
E:
Ether Renewal: This ability is now a Cantrip. The recharge of this ability has been increased from 15 seconds to 18.
N:
Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

First up is the shared cooldown increase of these skills. That part is obviously for balance purpose when coupling with their associated traits. Therefore, it is, in my eyes, completely justified.

Second, though, is a problem with the nature of the skill types being applied unequally; Cantrips are (wiki quote) “Defensive charms which activate instantly”, whereas Corruption skills apply a condition on you when using it.

As both skills are healing skills which affect conditions, I can assume they will be treated on almost equal footing. Ether Renewal’s weakness is it’s cast time, while Consume Conditions’ weakness is its recharge time when compared to Ether Renewal.
Wether those weaknesses are equivalent, I will leave that to theory crafters, but they feel balanced enough pre-changes.

Yet Consume Conditions is being changed to add 10% damage received for 4 seconds after cast, lowering its usefulness as a healing skill drastically, for the sake of making it an actual “Corruption” skill.

Ether Renewal, on the other hand, simply becomes a “Cantrip”, without sharing its characteristic of being Instant-Cast. While in this skill’s case it would be a pretty significant buff for it to simply cast instantly completely, in the case of Consume Conditions, it hasn’t been said that the heal amount will be adjusted to compensate, leading me to think there is No Compensation At All.

Why wasn’t Ether Renewal CHANGED, like Guardians’ Tomes or Mesmers’ Moa Transform, into a different skill with the same ideas behind it?

Idea I had while writing this, ignore if you wish:
Casting the Ether Renewal (instant-cast, to fit with the Cantrip theme) could give an Effect/Charm that negates the next few conditions received while also clearing a few conditions already applied on you.

While I am not against a general “Nerf” to make the game actually harder, for a leading sPvP class (eles) to receive Neutral changes while Necromancers, one of the most underrepresented classes in high-level sPvP, get, in this case, the very short end of the stick, irritates me slightly.

Without calling names, I’d say the Devs, while agreeing to give utility skills a type, haven’t consulted each other in how exactly it should be handled. As a matter of fact, I LOVE the fact that Consume Conditions, becoming a Corruption, gives you a condition after its use. Why? Because it fits the theme (As the developers have mentioned they WANTED the skills to become) of the skill type.
While 10 vulnerability stacks feel a bit over-hyped in that direction, it simply feels like some developers wanted the skills to stay the exact same, while others decided to change them more drastically.
Which of these two choices is the best? I couldn’t say! Yet I feel it SHOULD all go in the same direction. Even if that means changing all affected skills, or keeping them all. All or nothing.
Uniformity, for a lack of better word, is what, according to me, should be the basis of the changes; Logical, equal changes.

I appreciate the time anyone has spent reading this wall of text, and would love feedback/bashing on what I’ve written!