Showing Posts For Sholef.6580:
Entry 13: Crimson Plateau stalled. Legendary symbol is present and Champawat’s health bar shows, but no tiger spawns.
As an engineer main, I was super excited to get my hands on this elite spec. I’ve put a lot of time and gold into getting ascended gear and collecting the materials to craft Juggernaut so that I can have it the moment I finish the mastery/collection for the colossus precursor. After a weekend of playing pretty much nothing but scrapper, I can give my review.
First, the great.
Hammer
- I love this weapon. I’ve wanted it since I started playing vanilla GW2 and now we finally get it! The abilities give a great balance between offense and defense and none of them feels so gimmicky as to be useless.
- Auto-attack: Great. Feels unique and the buffs/debuffs synergize well with the engineer’s kit. I’m not a fan of the recycled hammer animations, but I will live with it.
- Electro-whirl: Also great.
- Rocket charge: Also great.
- Static shock: Conceptually the ability is fantastic, but I am noticing some serious animation/hitbox desyncs. Sometimes I am able to block before the actual shield animation is up and sometimes I am able to block far after the animation has disappeared. This is a serious issue seeing as this is the scrapper’s key defensive skill on hammer.
- Thunderclap: Great ability with excellent kit synergy and hard CC.
Now the not so great.
Gyros
- Overall, gyros are conceptually cool, but terribly executed. The gyros fail to keep up with fast moving party members in the best of situations and get quickly nuked by AOEs in the worst of fights. They cannot stay alive long enough to be useful and are too gimmicky to really replace kits as an engineer’s primary utility skills. Gyros need a fundamental redesign to make them fit into the current gameplay paradigms while still remaining useful. The other issue is that some of the gyros rely on AI to control when they perform their tasks, which takes away player agency and often gives the impression that the gyros aren’t doing anything.
- That said, all of the gyros’ toolbelt skills are excellent and I only wish that their core utility skills were as capable.
- Medic gyro: Right now nothing will replace engineer heal turret unless you are running a dedicated HGH/FT might stacking build. This problem gets even worse with a gyro that takes away control as to when the engineer dispenses healing.
- Suggestion: Add player agency and additional utility. Make the medic gyro a summon that hovers near the engineer until instructed to activate. The active ability is a GTAOE heal pulse that does not cleanse conditions, but leaves a water field that can be blasted to give healing. This allows the engineer to give targeted support while still giving the heal turret a niche to provide close range condi cleanse.
- Purge gyro: Situationally useful, but has a lot of trouble keeping up with anyone that has swiftness or super-speed. Again, they are also susceptible to AOE nukes.
- Suggestion: Increase gyro movement speed and HP.
- Blast gyro: An unblockable knockback is cool in concept, but not terribly useful in practice. Bypass coating is also weak in that it only provides 3sec of super speed in contrast to slick shoes’ AOE knockdown and stunbreak/5sec super speed on demand.
- Suggestion: Turn blast gyro into a seeker missile killbot of doom. High AOE damage, high launch, unblockable. Increase toughness but keep the movement speed to make it a huge threat on the battlefield that can be countered with excellent reflexes and a keen eye. Alternatively, the blast gyro can be made to inflict debilitating conditions on the target like weakness, cripple, and vulnerability to give it some debuff utility. Bypass coating needs a duration buff to 5sec or so to make it useful as a team buff. Slick shoes’ toolbelt skill can remain as a stun break to differentiate it from bypass coating.
- Shredder gyro: Of all the gyros, the shredder is probably the most functional currently. It is absolutely devastating when dropped in a fire field right in a crowd. The issue is that it cannot deal any serious amount of damage or contribute any utility on its own, which again makes it inferior to kits and gadgets.
- Suggestion: Increase base shredder gyro damage and damage radius, making it an actual physical hazard on the battlefield that can be used to provide temporary area denial in addition to just being a whirl finisher bot.
- Sneak gyro: Still has trouble keeping up with anyone that has swiftness. Otherwise a solid stealth utility.
- Suggestion: Perhaps have a lowered aggro radius on sneak gyro for AI mobs?
- Function gyro: A cool concept, but super gimmicky and not terribly useful in practice. Activating a function gyro requires you to target a downed teammate, which can be difficult during heavy combat and even then will only target a downed teammate, not a fully dead one.
- Suggestion: Allow function gyros not on cooldown to at least partially revive fully dead allies. Actually there’s more that could be done with this, too. What if a function gyro could do things like lift supply crates and carry them for the duration of their activation? That would give them some unique utility outside of the ability to remote rez or humilitating an enemy with a bot stomp.
- Universal gyro suggestion: INCREASE DURABILITY AND MOVEMENT SPEED. Make cooldowns begin cycling when single-use gyros are summoned rather than when destroyed/expended.
Minor Traits
- Function gyro notes are included in the gyro section above.
- Decisive Renown is situational and doesn’t feel like it fits with the rest of the engineer’s kit or the Scrapper’s theme.
- Suggestion: Rework to Master of Automatons. Make the master minor trait a passive gyro cooldown reduction. Applies 3sec of aegis to gyros (or some other buff/boons) when first spawned. This will incentivize gyro use and give them some degree of survivability in combat.
- Impact Savant is good, though I would like to see a larger bonus, perhaps 33%.
Adept Tier
- Recovery matrix is garbage. It doesn’t do enough for what you have to give up to get it. I suggest turning it into 10% damage resistance while undergoing healing.
- Shocking speed would be situationally useful except for the fact that super speed is globally capped at 5sec and cannot be stacked with anything else. This cap needs to be addressed before this trait becomes more useful.
- Stabilization core is again situationally useful but will inevitably save your life or the life of a teammate when activated. If the function gyro has its capabilities expanded to include other duties, then this trait will see more use.
Master Tier
- Expert Examination is fine, though I would perhaps increase the durations of the weakness and vulnerability, seeing as there is a limit to how much daze/stun one player can apply.
- Rapid regeneration is also good, though I often had trouble telling if it was active or not. I would suggest adding a buff icon to show when you are under the effects of rapid regeneration (also backpack regenerator).
- Mass momentum is great and synergizes well with other specs. Overall, a good trait tier.
Grandmaster Tier
- Adaptive Armor is easily the most powerful trait at first glance, but it is not without its problems. For one, it activates when the engineer is struck, so it is reactive rather than proactive. If you get one-shot by a boss or elite’s burst attack, then a little extra toughness is not going to save you from the next incoming attack. I suggest making adaptive armor stacks build up when you gain might (similar to how Necromancers gain corruptor’s boon by inflicting conditions). This encourages you to stay in melee range and provides sustain for close-combat builds. I would also make the 20% condition resist keyed to stacks of adaptive armor to incentivize this playstyle rather than making it a permanent reduction.
- Final Salvo: Garbage. This trait keys entirely to gyros and is far less useful than the other grandmaster tier traits. This should be a passive effect (roll in with Master of Automatons) and another trait should be developed in its place.
- Perfectly Weighted: Great! Rewards good evasion with stability, prevents chain stuns after dodges, and also synergizes with mass momentum. Great for hammer users.
TL;DR – Hammer is awesome. Traits need tuning. Gyros need overhaul.
Reaper feels way better than it did during BWE1. Just a few more tweaks and this could be the melee monster we all wanted.
Skills
GS2: Gravedigger Something feels weird about how this skill gets queued. I’ve had instances where I activated Gravedigger and had a significant delay in having it actually trigger. In some instances, I would activate Gravedigger, have it not trigger, mash the button for it, attempt to use another attack only to have Gravedigger trigger twice, the first time hitting the enemy (very low health, thus killing it) and the second time completely wiffing the attack and wasting a cooldown because I was not expecting it.
GS5: Grasping Darkness does not feel solid. I am not confident in the power’s ability to actually perform as advertised and drag the enemies to me when triggered. Much like Spectral Grasp, enemies get caught on terrain and fall down but are not pulled to me or end up being missed entirely when the attack occurs nowhere near them. I would very much like it if Grasping Darkness was made a GTAOE like the Warrior’s whirlwind attack.
GS4: Nightfall I like not being rooted by Nightfall, but I don’t agree with making it drop at your feet like a mine. Dropping at your feet seems to imply that it’s an anti pursuit tool, but this clearly goes against the Reaper’s theme as being the one pursuing and punishing. Shouldn’t Nightfall’s dark field continue to follow the Reaper like a Berserker’s Flames of War fire field? Or if it’s intended to be a pre-emptive strike tool to blind and cripple a target as you close in on it, shouldn’t it be GTAOE instead of a static PBAOE?
RS2: Death’s Charge As others have noted, targeting with RS2 is buggy and inconsistent. A spinning scythe does not a helicopter make. That was not how I wanted to end my time in Verdant Brink. I think that Death’s Charge is also a good candidate for conversion to a GTAOE like Whirlwind and Deflecting Shot. That way it could be used as both a closer/pursuit ability as well as a means to rapidly reposition (ie: flanking or retreating). Ground targeting would make the ability more consistent as well as giving the player more overall control of how their abilities are executed and how they are used.
Heal: Your Soul is Mine! The heal coefficient is still too low. It is moderately useful to supplement life force generation, but unless the healing is improved or the cooldown is reduced to ridiculously spammable levels, this shout is utterly useless at providing any form of healing whatsoever. My suggestion: increase healing coefficient with a bonus healing given when life force is low. This makes it extremely dangerous to corner a Reaper, as at any moment they could turn on you and go back to slaying.
Elite: Chilled to the Bone! The ability is cool as hell (huehuehue) and synergizes with trigger on elite traits such as Krait Runes. As it is, the cooldown is too kitten long for what it does. 120s is far too long for mediocre elite damage, a 2 second stun, and 12s of stability. Either reduce the cooldown to ~90s with the ability to trait down its cooldown to ~72s like other 90s skills or give it more special properties such as leaving an ice field or giving the reaper and allies within the shout radius frost armor, etc.
Other Notes
Greatsword Hits like a freight train and handles a hell of a lot better than it did during BWE1. Not being rooted for any of the abilities makes the Reaper control a lot better and feel more responsive overall. GS3 feels a lot more consistent now that its hitbox is synced up with the actual animation.
Synergy From both a flavor standpoint and a gameplay standpoint, Reaper is looking better than ever. Pairing up with a Herald running naturalistic resonance, a might-stacking shroud knight with fury and swiftness can be absolutely devastating against groups. I spent hours this afternoon gleefully slaughtering mordrem in both Verdant Brink and SW with my guildmates. Fighting hordes felt fantastic. I never felt hopelessly overmatched no matter the number of enemies arrayed against me because it always felt like with proper play and good reflexes I could carve up every modrem in front of me and still have might stacks left over to punch Mordremoth in the mouth. I love this class and I look forward to seeing it tweaked to perfection so I can slay like a boss in the live build of GW2.
GTAOE Abilities? GS3,4,5 and RS2 all could potentially be converted to using GTAOE targeting in the same manner as the Warrior’s greatsword whirlwind attack. While this may be more difficult to code, it will make the abilities more consistent and allow for creative tactics to be used such as skillshotting invisible enemies using the drill, launching an opening strike against a distant target with Nightfall, grappling that sneaky thief or mesmer with grasping darkness, or using Death’s Charge to close gaps and rapidly reposition.
Currently running Soul Reaping and Spite with a hybrid might-stacking and condition build utilizing Dhuumfire.
Reaper Shroud is awesome. The scythe looks ridiculous, but I love it. Attacks hit hard, inflict tons of condition stacks, and synergize really well with the rest of your kit. Reapers in shroud will definitely be something to fear on the battlefield.
Greatsword I am less excited about.
As EvesDesire said, the damage per strike is low for how slow it swings. My guildmates and I agree that a possible solution would be to speed up the first two attacks in the AA chain to help alleviate this. Alternatively, if the timings are to be kept, the damage per swing needs to be increased dramatically to compensate.
Gravedigger I had no issues with.
Drill attack I agree could be flashier and could also use an effective range increase. I’ve fallen short quite often when I try to use it against stacked opponents for life force gain.
I love using the shouts. They really add great flavor and functionality to the necromancer class and go along with the vicious melee combatant theme of the Reaper.
My one objection lies with the Chilled to the Bone shout. At the moment, it is a short duration stun with an extremely long cast time and an absurdly long recharge. The effect is not substantial enough to warrant the extreme CD or cast times. By comparison, the Shiro Revenant’s Jade Wind skill stuns for 3 seconds, casts much faster, and also recharges faster.
Chilled to the Bone needs a CD reduction, a cast time reduction, or an effect duration increase. Alternatively, an additional self-buff (such as frost aura) could be added to compensate.