Showing Posts For MrAptronym.2846:
I think the only reason anyone would assume power is wishful thinking. Is there any precident for it being power? I would like to take Deathly Chill, but I don’t have a good grasp on how the damage is, it is thematically fun, but power reaper looks to be a more effective option.
Sadly, from what I see, zerker reaper still seems like the best option.
I am not a big fan of big weapons usually, I make an exception for this one. For one, it is thin and made of darkness/magic, it doesn’t look like you are carrying a 400lb weapon. (Unlike say, most greatswords) Secondly, the reaper skills vary in range quite a bit, but are often above what normal melee gets. You need a larger weapon to make the range evident in the animations. Finally, it gives the reaper a distinct silhouette. Its hard to differentiate between shadowy lunps, but no one is gonna mistake a reaper shroud for a normal death shroud.
That’s probably a better overall build offensively. I am kind of just eager to drop zerker if I can, and that’s probably affecting my choices. The might, faster attacks and burn in DS will be a nasty combo. I may swap over to something more akin to your build, but I really want to make something non-berserker work alright. (A high vitality build also has a slight advantage with more life force… but life force drains at a percentage rate, so not as big a deal as I hoped)
I will probably be going with wells, but I may try and work in a shout for fun’s sake. Probably ‘You are all weaklings!’ since its a stunbreak weakness and might all on a 25 sec timer. I am not sure I will be a fan of blood magic even with the potential buffs.
I am trying to decide what trinkets to go for on a build like mine, since Valkyrie doesn’t exist. I could stick with Berserker for manageable base crit, but I feel like the whole point of Death Perception + Decimate Defenses is to drop precision from gear. Cavalier or possibly even soldier seem nice.
I think its a risk. If so its not the reaper’s fault though, its an issue of synergy between the other 6 spec lines. Power Necros make up the majority of players it seems, and they really didn’t have a third line that called out to them, reaper is that line.
Now, that said, they are changing up blood a bit. If that becomes viable then it should be less of a problem.
Even with Deathly Chill, reaper doesn’t seem like the best condition option so conditionmancers will probably want to stay away. I think at first we will see nearly every necro become a reaper, but once the shiny newness wears off, it will be a mix again.
You can use any weapons you feel like. Its just that only reapers have access to GS.
I’m looking forward to a full cavalier necro with the traits to get free crit chance, we have one of the highest hp pools out there, so I think toughness will give us more effective hp.
That is true, but you also lose out on power as a result. If you are taking blood magic, or otherwise trying to maximize healing, it would definitely be preferable.
I am not the best builder, but how does this sound for a reaper in either full Valk or Cav:
Spite: Bitter Chill, Death Shiver, Close to Death
Soul Reaping: Unyielding Blast, Vital Persistence, Death Perception
Reaper: Chilling Nova, Decimate Defenses, Deathly ChillI think you might be better off with Reaper’s Onslaught instead of Deathly Chill in a power build. 15% faster attacks is pretty kitten potent. That’s how I would spec anyways.
I typed up a big thing on utilities but the forums logged me out and I lost it. ;_;
I agree that 15% faster attacks in Reaper Shroud is probably the better overall boost to DPS. I personally find chill damage cooler (Pun intended!) as well as more visible to myself and more consistent. That is probably a sub-optimal aspect to the build I will deal with just for fun’s sake.
For stats, I am thinking full Valkyrie with Superior Rune of the Ice. For Sigils, more chill seems like it may be overkill. Frailty might be a neat option thanks to the crit trait but otherwise I will probably go with the generically good ones. None of the Utilities jump out at me, but I love the voiceover so I may play with them a bit.
I was hoping for a good excuse to drop Lich Form (which I do not find very fun), but ‘Chilled to the Bone!’ doesn’t seem terribly viable for PvE. Lich form is just too legitimately powerful to take off bar for now.
I’m looking forward to a full cavalier necro with the traits to get free crit chance, we have one of the highest hp pools out there, so I think toughness will give us more effective hp.
That is true, but you also lose out on power as a result. If you are taking blood magic, or otherwise trying to maximize healing, it would definitely be preferable.
I am not the best builder, but how does this sound for a reaper in either full Valk or Cav:
Spite: Bitter Chill, Death Shiver, Close to Death
Soul Reaping: Unyielding Blast, Vital Persistence, Death Perception
Reaper: Chilling Nova, Decimate Defenses, Deathly Chill
Honestly I am kind of glad we don’t have blasts. I know how useful they are, but I’d like for them to find a different way for us to be viable. Just giving everyone blasts isn’t very flavorful or, for some of us at least, fun.
For PvE I am wondering about armor. With Decimate Defenses and Death Perception, you can get potentially 100% crit. Since teams I am on usually have some serious vuln stacking, It would be neat if I could take Valkyrie (Or even cavalier) armor in with me. It seems fun, and I feel like chilling force is just overkill on the might if I am taking reaper’s might.
I kind of just want to not have to be berserker, I’d love to have a bit of defense, and with the potential critical gains here it seems like a good time. I wonder how reliably I can get vuln onto people myself, seems like there will be some decent tools for that. Ideally I’d like to see a chillomancer work though.
I was sure I was gonna be main-ing my mesmer as a chronomancer, but reaper just looks fun. However it turns out, chillomancer just looks fun. I love the idea that damage doubles when they are under half life.
They certainly got the inescapable serial killer flavor down.
I like reaper, but That image was hilarious.
Why are there non-mesmers in here giving their feedback on how the traits we are getting are too strong? This is dumb, isn’t it common knowledge that one way to identify a player as not knowing what they are talking about is them claiming mesmers are OP or fine as is? Nothing in this trait line is over the top, it’s crazy people are complaining about the 25% movement minor. It just allows mesmers to run something other than travelers. Given the state we are in griping about that minor is ridiculous. Or are there people who actually main mesmers complaining about that trait?
Its not just Mesmers VS non-mesmers, players would like to make sure things are balanced, not just mesmers vs other professions, but within Mesmer trees as well. Mesmer players don’t necessarily all want a super powerful trait like this, or at least as a minor. Being a chronomancer means instantly getting a solution to one of the Mesmer’s major issues, while not being a chronomancer means being stuck slow or with a specific runeset. Accusing people voicing one opinion of not plying the profession, or of trying to sabotage mesmers is a bit absurd.
That said, I personally think the trait is fine, but wish maybe inspiration got a speed option. I’d like to see a way for non-chronomancer mesmers to deal with this issue, otherwise the appeal of this trait could be bad for mesmer build diversity.
I mainly play phantasm mesmer, but I’m not hyped for Chronophantasma. Yes, I do shatter when convenient. I believe the trait is more interesting for a shatter mesmer than a phantasm mesmer.
You’re risking by using CP (Chronophantasma), because your phantasms will go in a melee range where AoE and cleaves kill your phantasms. Most of phantasms are at range when they finish their animation, except Defender, Desenchanter (depends) and Warden. Berserker and Swordman are in mid range and can, sometimes, be in a safe spot. Warlock and Duelist are at range.
Now, your phantasms or clones need to not die before shatter and if they do, your trait is useless. If they didn’t kill your phantasms yet, they are now in melee range and at mercy of AoE and cleaves. That’s why I believe the trait is superior to a shatter mesmer than a phantasm mesmer.
Depending of your weapon/phantasm choices (Warlock, Duelist), the trait is not good. I will try Chronophantasma trait for sure, but I’m not sold yet. Yes, it gives you an opportunity to do more damage, but at what cost ? I believe they won’t let your duelists/phantasms fire a second time after just shattering it. Just thinking at the spike : phantasm attack, shatter, phantasm attack. It’s making traits like Phantasmal Haste and Alacrity useless. If it stays the same (attacking after shatter), I will of course use it.
As for me, I will go Domination/Dueling/Inspiration for pure raw damage. If I want to do a more support oriented phantasm, I’ll go Domination/Chaos/Inspiration. Chaos and Inspiration works well together, they have traits synergy (Perma regen and protection, Chaotic Persistence + Illusionary Inspiration)
I have been thinking about this. I mostly PvE, I love my phantasms and I love the idea/lore of Chronomancer so much that I want to make a phantasm Chronomancer work. I think the best use for Chronophantasia is with /sword, if they keep the instant refire on phantasms up then the fencers will instantly pull themselves back to midrange. Of course it would also work pretty well with warden or berserker. I think you are right that chronophantasia users are going to want to steer clear of pistol.
I am also looking at longer fights, like many of the fractal bosses, and how possible it might be to stagger chronophantasia and full phantasm deaths with phantasm skill recharges. Its not uncommon some places to find myself with 3 phantasms out and their skills off cooldown: gaining shatters, alacrity and potentially an instant re-attack could be appealing. Though you are going to have to lose 2 at certain points in the cycle, Signet of Ether or a simple weapon swap could fill this in. It seems like something that would be worth doing if you are in one of those positions where phantasms are surviving decently and its a long fight. (I know that’s a specific situation)
As it stands though, I think you are likely right, Chronomancer seems likely to be a bit sub-optimal for phantasm builds. (I’ll have to choose which appeals more to me)
I actually carry all off-hands with me in dungeons, and swap between fights. I use focus when melee is completely safe or projectiles are an issue (its often my default, and I keep it traited), sword when melee is too dangerous for phantasms and pistol when AoEs (especially mid range PBAoEs) are rampant or I need a reliable interrupt. I even break out torch from time to time when I could use a couple extra seconds of stealth.
The cap removal is set to land before HoT I believe, as are specs. Its nice, but the bigger problems with condition builds are scaling with stats, and build up time. It takes a staff build too much time to cap out its damage dealing in most contexts. If you really want to run conditions /pistol is actually pretty impressive at stacking bleed. I sometimes run Scepter/pistol and staff with a shatter and condition focus for soloing in PvE the defensive abilities and rapid clone production make it hard for anything to ever fight back, but its terribly inefficient at dealing damage. Its a fun thing to run occasionally, but I would not run it when I am with other people.
I mostly do PvE, with occasional WvW excursions. I for one am pretty excited for wells. Generally speaking, the people I talk to in game have been as well. I am sure their delayed stationary nature may make them less useful in PvP, but I see plenty of opportunities to use them in the modes I play, and I am excited to get a bit more support.
Right now I am thinking of running Action and Recall, while Precognition may be the kind of thing to swap in for certain fights.
I have to say I am impressed, with the possible exception of "All’s Well that Ends Well’ (But I love that name). I am very excited for wells, but this seems like it will appeal to only the most hardcore Wellmers (What do we call well mesmers? I like Wellmer.) When you could be running five wells, it does seem to be a constant stream of condition removal, but the 3 second delay means it will be hard to use tactically. It seems like the kind of thing that will just happen and hopefully sometimes at the right time.
This trait wants you to run 5 wells, or as close as you can come. As you scale back, it quickly loses efficiency. If you have just one or even two wells, you will either see little benefit, or need to plan ahead to use it. Casting a well early because you anticipate a condition just doesn’t make sense, its not a big enough benefit. Waiting 3 seconds to cleanse a condition also seems a bit lackluster. I don’t think that this trait, or the wells themselves, justify a five well build really, and with less than 3 this trait seems very lacking. At 3-4 non-elite wells, the trait does seem fine, but it still isn’t exciting, and for the one well trait, that’s a little sad.
But one trait out of 12 seeming unimpressive is really very impressive. I like where this is going, but I am torn between my love of phantasm builds and my excitement for alacrity. Chronophantasia seems like the crux of builds I am looking at, but a lot is going to depend on how viable the shield phantasm is for a phantasm build.
OUR DAY OF SALVATION HAS ARRIVED!
I’M SO EXCITED THAT I CANNOT EXPRESS IT WITHOUT A CHILDISH USE OF CAPS-LOCK AND RAND PAUL!
That’s Ron Paul! Get your fringe conservative candidates straight!
Also, I like the change, and I like the grenade bundle, but that bomb kit looks terrible.
Yeah in pvp I never used lingering curses. I’ve been surprised to see that there has been such a reaction to it on the same level as terror, but I suppose it is important for pve.
Lingering curses has been the linchpin of my PvE condition build. PvE conditionmancer needed some help, and I just don’t see anything significant in the specs. The decisions we do have don’t seem exciting like they are for other classes. Dhuumfire doesn’t even look like it will be worth it for a scepter condition build.
The three grandmasters I see as most interesting all fill the same slot. (15% parasitic contagion could be neat in PvE, but not lingering curses level)
BIGGEST DISAPOINTMENT
- No real core / QoL improvements like
- Healing in DS – traits working AGAISNT OWN mechaninic
- 0% DS at start
- ALL healing numbers are still low, should be 2,3-5x higher
Medium disapoint
- HUGE CLEANSE BUFF to most others – shoutbow/thief will extinct condis
- Devs bored “ugh, same, still bad, next please” – no vision or sense of direction
- No finisher
small disapoint
- Long ICDs
- No weapon improvement
The lack of a cohesive vision is what gets me. They had clear visions for what other classes should be, how the skills work together for a cohesive class. Necro feels like a bunch of pieces, nothing cohesive ties the class together. The parts don’t work together to make something greater than themselves.
Blood magic and DS would be the classic example, but there is a bigger problem where it doesn’t feel like the specializations have interplay between each other.
I just came to the mesmer boards to ask about this. I am a bit down on my condition necro right now and the new confusion stuff looks like a lot of fun. I just snagged a set of Perplexity runes in preparation. The mesmer traits have great synergy, it seems like it could be a fun build.
Dhuumfire is exciting.
Blood magic still sucks. Much more conflicting with DS now since deathly invigoration heals when you enter so you receive no benefit from it.
I think they messed up with the skill fact, because currently how Deathly Invigoration works is you heal when you leave DS. Though new Dhuumfire looks really good imo.
No, that is correct, its a team heal. You do not get healed because you will be in DS. Yes. Really. Yeah.
Another thing I forgot to add in my last post. Why do we not have a power grandmaster trait in Curses? I want Banshee’s Wail and Target the Weak, but getting forced into a useless grandmaster.
I honestly think they need to spread the condition and power traits a bit. Separating all of condition into one tree and then adding general use in there is a weird choice. I think it hurts both power and condition builds
I mostly PvE and play a condition necro because its what I find fun. Not much looks to be changing for me. Dhuumfire is cool, like really cool. I like the new target the weak. I guess I will go Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping?
Still for condition necro it doesn’t seem like there is much variety or change here. Well, I am assuming the +100% duration on Lingering curses is wrong because if not, holy smokes. Otherwise, I guess I will have a bit of burning now and no longer have any life steal because of the placement of parasitic contagion. I can’t really say doom because I don’t know all of the condition changes going on, but honestly it doesn’t even look like they tried with necro. As I am now, my character limps along, I don’t see that changing. If I am not missing something, I’ll probably be shelving my necro for a while.
Minions are getting a boost, but I don’t like playing minions. Blood still looks astoundingly bad, vampiric rituals looks like the only thing of any interest to anyone there. Power necros get some neat toys so I guess that is good for them.
Without the trait bonus that we get from Spite before, which was 30%, this really isn’t as big of a change as you think. Before we had a flat 63% while using it. This is really only a 27% buff to duration. Not as impressive as you think. But we also lose allot of condi duration if we don’t. A flat 30% loss just from the changes.
That is true, I mean it is something. The biggest buff is that it effects all conditions now, not just scepter ones.
They keep touting that this new system is to give players meaningful choices, but I don’t see anything interesting about building a conditionmancer here. Little synergy, straight forward choices. I cannot stress enough how low effort the necro changes feel next to the other classes I play. Even hearing specific nerfs, I found the mesmer and engineer changes really interesting and I could see what they are thinking. I don’t get that here.
I mostly PvE and play a condition necro because its what I find fun. Not much looks to be changing for me. Dhuumfire is cool, like really cool. I like the new target the weak. I guess I will go Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping?
Still for condition necro it doesn’t seem like there is much variety or change here. Well, I am assuming the +100% duration on Lingering curses is wrong because if not, holy smokes. Otherwise, I guess I will have a bit of burning now and no longer have any life steal because of the placement of parasitic contagion. I can’t really say doom because I don’t know all of the condition changes going on, but honestly it doesn’t even look like they tried with necro. As I am now, my character limps along, I don’t see that changing. If I am not missing something, I’ll probably be shelving my necro for a while.
Minions are getting a boost, but I don’t like playing minions. Blood still looks astoundingly bad, vampiric rituals looks like the only thing of any interest to anyone there. Power necros get some neat toys so I guess that is good for them.
Hey, I too am an ex-engi. I have been playing a necro as my main for a couple months. Death shroud is like the best kit in the game, and necro underwater skills are more fun. Only thing I miss is supply drop, none of the necro elites do much for me.
I think long cooldowns and a lack of mobility are kind of key features of point defense skills like turrets. Sadly, this is a huge draw back in a game with such swift combat, but I think it should stay. Turrets aren’t meant to be mobile. What I think they should do is do their job better. Defend an area.
All summons are currently squishy and mediocre at damage, but to be frank necromancer minions have better traits, more damage than turrets, are mobile and people still find them lackluster. At least Anet sees the issues, they have been slowly buffing summons for a while. Its better that they do it slowly and iteratively than do one big patch and then overpower or ruin them completely.
So, I’ve decided to try out a build with Pistol/Shield, Elixir gun and Bomb kit. (20/0/30/20/0, I don’t like how KR works with multiple kits) I am a little nervous since it seems bomb kit relies on power while elixir gun and pistol focus on condition. I am in mostly apothecary gear for now, I will see how I feel about bomb kit after fractals tomorrow and possibly replace it or swap to cleric’s, soldier’s or Knight’s gear.
In either case I will post my results here tomorrow night! I am happy other engineers are doing fractals as well.
So, my guildmates and I are doing fractals every night, working our way through the thirties and coming close to 40 now. I am currently using a might-stacking grenade kit build and I do pretty well, but its a little bland and honestly I feel like I am not adding a whole lot to the team in terms of utility, just damage. Are there any builds out there that have a bit more utility and control while keeping survivability up? I see tons of posts about tPvP and WvW builds, but I don’t do much of that.
Bomb Kit looks promising, the new kit refinement clumps mobs, is the healing from Elixir Infused Bombs worth it? Does it scale with healing power? I am worried that melee range would not be very pleasant versus bosses, Would keeping grenade kit (and thus Grenadier) at the same time be worthwhile?
If something like this can be made effectively what stats should I focus on? Are there other builds you guys use that you can suggest to me? Any help is appreciated!
I don’t think we need a change to turret traits other than to change auto-tool installation which is just about completely useless. I don’t see why someone should be able to take all turret traits at once, its more interesting if you have a variety of builds. I suggest taking a few turret traits and some other traits as well. I am using turrets, tool kit and static discarge and doing alright. Haven’t tried high level fractals yet.
Abilities that destroy projectiles work on siege, reflects do not, because that was abused in beta.
I used it when I was running SE before the changes to it. I had to do a LOT of SE for armor. It could fire across the gap at the beginning before bridge comes up, and took out the walls pretty well. Mainly though, for path 1 I could get under the first boss, use my grenade kit to hit him and give the mortar to a warrior or whatever to help with the boss. Beyond things that blatantly exploit ground targetting? No, it is awful. A joke.
I think a big problem is that it is available permanently and thus is supposed to work about as well as a normal weapon. Firstly, it doesn’t, even for AoE it isn’t very good. But I also think that elites should feel big and special. I recommend making it 60 sec up, 180 sec recharge. Battles rarely leave the thing along that long anyway. This way it could be a time of powerful AoE destruction. I like how big the effects are, but fix the jamming and make the attacks hit harder.
While we are talking about bad elites, can we get some help with Elixir X too? Yes, we get two effects at a smaller cooldown, but they are weird and feel forced. I take a potion… and either turn into the hulk or a tornado? Tornado? What? I actually use elixir X and I like the tornado effect, if I get berserker I just hit the stomp attack and exit out. In theory they both fill similar roles of making you effective in melee for a short time, but they just feel random and stolen. Mostly because they are. I would like something that feels unique to engineers. Change the forms up a bit to make them feel more potion-y.
I have been trying condition mesmer builds lately for the simple reason that I don’t enjoy Greatsword, sword or focus on mesmers. Sadly I have have to agree with everyone here that it is certainly less effective (And after 20g of equipment too.)
In PvE we really suffer from confusion’s mediocrity. With condition duration as maxed as possible it is pretty easy to keep a few stacks on an opponent, but it is usually irritatingly bad. Most enemies seem to do a skill every 5 or so seconds and a small few -never- trigger it. (e.g. Gunpowder Morgan) It is hard to overstate how irritating it is to see an opponent rampaging across your team and see a single mediocre confusion tick. Confusion is supposed to be the enemy defeating themselves, in PvE it just feels like a randomly occuring condition. Making it even worse is Phantasmal mage, who has a longer cooldown and attacks more slowly than almost every other phantasm. Doesn’t do very good damage either.
So yeah, I learned to more or less ignore confusion (Sadly, because I was pretty excited by the idea of it) and use the staff. Staff may not provide great offense, but it does have an excellent defensive toolset. So, I am building more towards that. I keep Scepter/torch in my offhand for it’s use in WvW where confusion is actually pretty nice. For skills I use Arcane Thievery, Feedback and Arcane Disenchanter. Good condition removal, and it is surprising how useful feedback can be. When conditions aren’t common I swap out Arcane thievery for Signet of Domination.
I hope that Anet will make confusion tick on every attack NPCs make in the future, I would be okay with a lowering of confusion damage a bit to accompany this, but not quite the 50% that sPvP has. Confusion isn’t great there either. Also, give Phantasmal Mage a huge buff. He is one sad fellow.
I would say that minions are certainly a bit weak right now, but I do not like most of these suggestions. I think they would make the minion master far too powerful. I do not think the core mechanics here are an issue. I would say the only real issue I see with minions is how easily they die to AoE
Every build should have weaknesses, but minions fare worst in the situations where being effective actually matters. Many dungeon bosses will one-shot all or most of a necromancer’s minions, and most do this every 15-30 seconds (Subject alpha in CoE far more so) against some of these bosses I don’t even summon minions anymore. This is not one or two battles where a build takes a back seat, this is almost every path in every dungeon. Similarly, in big WvW battles minions are generally ignored and mopped up by rogue AoEs. If minions fail whenever the game gets challenging then they are really not useful at all. I sincerly hope that when AoE is looked at our minions will get AoE resists of some kind. This would go a long way to making them usable.
I think minions should die pretty often though, just not all at once. minions are expendable, that is why they have fairly low cooldowns and several abilities sacrifice them. Necromancers will even comment on how expendable they are when they die. The problem comes when they die so quickly they have no effect before dying.
I would also like to see the abilities you can activate when they are up made a bit more powerful and skill based. As it stands they seem clunky, I try to immobilize a foe with my bone fiend and instead he just sits there for a second until my enemy is out of range, then immobilizes himself. Not cool. I rarely bother with the shade’s blind except when he decides he doesn’t want to attack anyone until I do. The blast finish on bone minions is great and useful, as is the flesh golem’s charge. Bone wurm is a pretty niche minion, and not worth leaving on my bar for the possibility of stun break. I would like to see the healing minion get a stun-break when sacrificed.
Minions also need some help underwater. One of the most frustrating things about playing my necromancer is staying away from water, because even a quick walk through a stream could instantly kill my flesh golem. This is beyond annoying. Its pretty aggravating in general that my only elite skill underwater, the only one in existence, kills all my minions on use. On top of that, I lose access to well of blood, mark of blood, and life transfer, my three best minion heals. All I am left with is rapidly entering/exiting death shroud.
I would be for this as well. The return on investment for healing seems a lot lower than any other stat. Even with it traited and geared it will not make much of a difference for many players. A “Full-on support” Build has to give up a whole lot of damage, but many skills and traits that heal do not scale at all (Necro lifesteal for instance) and it is ambiguous as to which these are. Often times that investment of hundreds of healing power will only net a player a heal a couple hundred points better. That is pretty sad when you are running around with 20,000 health.
The fire boss in one of the fractals shoots a flame arrow at you that ignites you and repeatedly stacks fire for a short amount of time while also causing agony on you. You can absorb this and send it back at em doing quite a bit of damage and even inflicting agony on the boss, although the agony quickly dispels from him though,
My god, I never tried that. I think I am going to have to experiment with this skill now. Its these kind of tricks that make me love mesmers.
I tried to run him for a while, but as others have said, the damage is lacking, and confusion is a bit iffy in PvE. Against some enemies, it will often do no damage at all, against a couple it is amazing, but usually you get one hit from the confusion on PM.
When I ran it, I would summon him, let him attack once and use shatter for more confusion. I personally like to keep phantasms though, so I switched out, it just wasn’t my style.
I would like to see torch buffed a bit. Scepter as well.
My engineer is so bad, his best weapons are a mean stare and a bottle of amphetamines.
My engineer is so bad, his PvP team is accused of throwing bouts.
My engineer is so bad he duels mesmer illusions… and loses.
My engineer is so bad, he drinks to forget, but just gets swiftness instead.
My engineer is so bad, I had to buy a custom mouse for his attack chain.
My engineer is so bad a team with four warriors told him “Well, we already have an engineer. Sorry.”
Deniara Devious is kind of identifying what I am trying to say. The game has come down to burst and bunker builds and not a lot else.
The engineer doesn’t fit either of these roles as well as other classes, and I see a lot of posts making fun of how useless our “Versatility” is. What I am suggesting is that the problem may not be engineers, but that everyone else fits into a very static metagame in a way we do not. The answer may not be to make us tougher or give us bigger, faster damage, but to tone other professions down in these same respects. (Of course they would probably need other things in return)
I am not trying to say the state of things is great now, or that AoE is evil in some way (I use a flamethrower and dual pistols) I am not even proposing any specific changes. I am merely stating that I do not think any of the other classes represent a balance to strive for. I should also note that I do not do sPvP. At all. It does not interest me, and I cannot claim to know anything about its metagame. Based on what we have been told, it doesn’t sound like the changes are because of anything in sPvP anyway.
Hearing the news of coming AoE changes reminds me of my time playing the game City of Heroes. Around the time of the fifth and sixth major updates for that game, a series of incredibly far reaching and debilitating nerfs hit that game. Skill improvements were given diminishing returns, a few very powerful skills were changed completely and there was a massive reduction in the power of AoE effects, especially control effects.
There were a lot of cries against it, I myself threatened to leave the game in a rather childish fit, but the truth is, that game was better because of the changes.
Very much disagree with this. It was better in some respects, worse in others. It didn’t become funner as a result of these changes and a lot of people did leave. I13 was a subsequent round of far reaching nerfs that pretty much destroyed pvp in that game. I would hope that Anet would regard COH’s approach as a case study of what not to do.
Nerfing aoe is the kind of lazy balancing that I associated with COH.
I am mostly talking from a PvE standpoint here. City of Heroes had PvP as an afterthought, it was neither well received by fans nor well supported by developers. Arenas and PvP zones were empty, very often literally. That is certainly not something to emulate. However, I think a good job was done balancing PvE in that game. It wasn’t the most balanced game by any stretch but it did have a large variety of possible working builds. I played from i2 to i19 and honestly I think the game was better off from the i5/i6 nerfs. Controllers were no longer able to indefinitely lock down an unlimited number of enemies. Tanks could no longer hold aggro on literally dozens of enemies. (Without worrying about their health) The game was in a degenerate state before then, where only a few powersets were usable, and those builds were so absurdly powerful that the game was lacking in any dynamic.
Further, the set of systems put in place during these nerfs were not a mere lowering of numbers, they changed the way things worked. This made it so that new systems could be introduced later (inventions in particular) that would have been unthinkable in the Pre-“Enhancement diversification” world. Far from a lazy change, it was the first step of a very elaborate plan to fix a very flawed system.
I see a bit of the same thing in GW2 today. Balance is a lot better in GW2 than in CoH, but I think some of the problems are the same.
To Kardiamond: I am not saying anything about sPvP, but I didn’t make that very clear. I am not saying that AoE is evil. I fully expect that AoE isn’t the issue in small team PvP, I think it is creating some issues in WvW. I think that high burst damage and bunkers are bad for balance in general. However I think what people are whining about usually isn’t a good indicator for what needs balance.
I also think that, for understandable reasons, the community is a bit sore and is lashing out about changes that haven’t even been specified yet. The developers went out of their way to say they don’t want some kind of blanket nerf to AoE but are trying to fix what they see as problems with the way AoE is currently dominating some environments.
Well I am not suggesting engineers get nerfed again really, I am asking if the engineers right now are a better vision of balance in the game than other professions are right now.
I agree AoE should be better in mass battles, but the issue is, is it too okay in small battles? Are they getting by in all situations while single target builds get punished in larger ones?
I also agree thieves are probably a big issue.
Hello my fellow working men and women, too stubborn to follow the easy way out with magic and sword. I want to pose a potential view of the engineer profession and it’s role in the balance of the game. To preface, I want to state that I will not be considering our profession’s numerous bugs as balance issues. They are handled differently by developers and bugs are not considered a part of the game’s “vision of balance” beyond the fact that they shouldn’t exist. That said:
We all know the engineer isn’t looking very good next to… well, anyone else in the game right now. But what if the engineer was in fact the measuring stick by which the game’s balance was to be set? We all know that game designers for MMOs often make changes with future changes already in mind, they work in far reaching ways that often cause issues with the day to day gameplay. What if the problem isn’t that the engineer is awful, but that everyone else is not working as intended?
This may sound facetious, but I am being serious, and I do not harbor any ill will to other professions, I play Mesmer and Necromancer, and love those professions. I am just going to ask the question, would the game be better if everyone were in line with the engineer? Nerfs are never popular, especially large and far-reaching ones, but they are also the most useful tool in maintaining game balance.
Hearing the news of coming AoE changes reminds me of my time playing the game City of Heroes. Around the time of the fifth and sixth major updates for that game, a series of incredibly far reaching and debilitating nerfs hit that game. Skill improvements were given diminishing returns, a few very powerful skills were changed completely and there was a massive reduction in the power of AoE effects, especially control effects.
There were a lot of cries against it, I myself threatened to leave the game in a rather childish fit, but the truth is, that game was better because of the changes. I believe Anet is concerned about similar problems in GW2. The metagame of GW2 has, in many areas, stabilized into bunker builds and AoE spamming. A degenerate, small, metagame is a very bad thing for any game. For it to fall on the side of defense is especially boring, as are “Blind fire” tactics. These reduce the impact of skill in the game and favor boring stalemate situations.
In large battles, especially in WvW, but also during events such as the lost shore, this becomes more obvious. Whatever your class may be, your best options are to either make yourself unkillable, or join your party in stacking area of effect attacks. AoE naturally scales better to such situations, but it does create a problem for builds that may perform fine in small engagements. Large battles in GW2 do not favor reactive gamplay, they favor fool-proof gameplay. One of the issues with the engineer in my opinion is that with all of our AoE, we have already been balanced in accord with these large encounters, leaving us neutered and ineffective in smaller, more intimate ones.
So, what if everyone payed the price for versatility? If other classes were brought in line with engineer damage, would the game be more fun to play? What if guardians and elementalists couldn’t bunker forever, and thieves really were high risk for their high speed? I am genuinely interested in knowing if a slower, less safe game would be a better option.
When GW2 was being developed they told us they wanted to capture that moment in the combat of other games when you are scrambling to fix what went wrong. I think that hectic state is where engineers live, but not where other classes are. This is obviously wrong, but should engineers be more like everyone else, or should everyone else be more like us?
I am a tanky support guy. 0/30/0/30/10 I keep Elixir H/Elixer B/Flamethrower/Elixir gun and use dual pistols (But have been considering pistol/shield. I just love blowtorch too much) I focus on stacking buffs, AoE damage and not dying. Its a hectic build, switching between a lot of skills, but I enjoy having answers to a lot of problems and I often find myself to be the last one standing on the battlefield, picking up my teammates off the floor.
I don’t do very good damage, but two blinds, knockback and a lot of regeneration see me through.
I hope they don’t nerf flamethrower. I use it as part of my build, but the damage is really pretty mediocre. As Redslion said, it may list a pretty big number, but that is oer 2.5 sec of channel. It also requires you to be far closer than the rifle.
As for bomb, it isn’t really being used offensively, its more that you can stand there and bunker, using it to spam heals on yourself. It is an awful weapon for going out and attacking someone, as it should be I suppose. (Though having a bomb kit as a primary source of healing seems weird too)
I have optimism that engineers may be left largely unscathed here, but I have no real logic to back that up, all the signs point to “Nerf”. AoE is about as central to our class as anything. We literally do not have enough non-AoE skills to form a basic attack chain.
Vote for Icas.3860
Great song and a great video to match it.