Showing Posts For Thanerion.3721:
Due to this discussion I’d like to post a suggestion.
My suggestion is based on the assumption that lack of rewards (especially loot) for people focusing on supporting as much as can be done within current game construction that participate in Events is not an intended development path to force people to build as much AoE damage as humanly possible.
I don’t know if the system should work to force people to balance their builds to deal damage, survive and support with no focus on one or the other. I would like to believe that it was intended for builds focused as much on support as possible to be needed or desired in team environments.
If I am wrong, my point is moot, as the current system does force people to focus on both survivability and damage with one or two support utilities if and when needed unless there is a massive wave of people that just obliterates everything (in which the only valid thing to do is aoe tag stuff) and the only required thing is for DEs to scale with more people than currently.
In the off-chance that support play is meant to be viable and not penalised by game mechanics, I’ll explain the issue.
As stated in the thread I’ve linked, it seems to be that people focusing on support during DEs or WvWvW get no rewards for aiding their allies. Instead, they have to “tag” monsters or players to be included in the loot roll and gain enough contribution to get medals. Many people brought these issues up but I didn’t find any suggestions thread about it via search tool.
My suggestion what to do with the fact that players playing support oriented builds feel penalised in DEs and WvWvW is as follows:
Loot based on contribution would solve many issues. If after an event we could get a “Chest” (similar to what we get after area completion) or even a ground item along the lines of “Gathered Loot” that includes rewards from the event similar to is possible to obtain currently via killing and looting monsters that are the target of the events it would clean up a lot of gameplay and help in rewarding players who participate and gain contribution in other ways than damage. It would also greatly help those who do not have AoE tagging abilities. These rewards would need to be tied to performance in said events, not completely random or inadequate to player contribution. Say top contribution would result in rolls for ~80% monsters defeated (could be 75% as well as 85%, it’s a minor thing), and could scale down from that.
This would also mean that monsters that spawn via events don’t drop their own loot at all. This would also mean that people get a less random way of getting loot (which may or may not be desireable).
This would not only help to appreciate support players, but also clean up DEs and Wv3. It would:
1. Resolve issues with people running around pushing F all the time to get their loot in DEs and Wv3 (and as a bonus – no shining corpses to “F” through till you can revive someone, less graphical glitter, more focus on the battle, less incentive to just AoE tag everything instead of helping the team),
2. Impair more simple bots that autoattack-spam all possible targets in range and get to loot them even if their autoattacks don’t earn them any contribution,
3. The need to develop another system to promote support play and not make people focusing on support feel penalized for their efforts to help others,
4. Being forced to build a certain way to participate in DEs and WvWvW, which many people (including me) don’t enjoy at all.
I don’t miss them.
I think games can be challenging without harsh game play that essentially kicks you in the nuts.
I like games to be fun and I’m not a masochist.
I tend to think that the number of people who actually like miserable gameplay like camp and grind, xp loss on death, FFA PvP with looting, and that kind of thing, are the extreme minority, and trends in game design, purchasing, retention, and population would tend to support this.
That said, I do think many games tend to be overly easy these days, way too many players can’t handle even the simplest of challenge and aren’t willing to try to figure out even the simplest of content, and due to the push for mass appeal and big numbers, the median bar has been lowered to accomodate people who probably should be doing coloring books rather than playing video games.
That is true. I also don’t miss the death penalty or grinding. I miss challenge though. And I 100% agree that the game become less and less challenging to be more and more successful. That can be seen in GW2 not only in how easy it is to play or do DEs which can almost never be failed, but also in many racial quests. Many of them are simply childish. It all shows the same trend. Not much we can do about it though.
@Azjenco:
I’ve already proposed a solution above. I think loot based on contribution DE-style would be better. Instead of running around to loot every single mob/player you would just get a chest or “gathered loot” groundspawn that you would open and get loot that is directly tied to your contribution, not the ammount of mobs / players tagged. This would solve many more issues (as stated above), not only the “penalty for support” or “AoE tagging for the win”.
I think it would be awesome if we got a dev response on this matter.
I, for one, would be really glad to know if the current state of things is a result of much higher-than-anticipated number of people participating in DEs and oversight in Wv3 or if this is intended by ArenaNet to force people to mix their playstyle and never go full-support.
If we knew if it is a “bug” to be fixed or an intended design we could make much more informed decisions.
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Yeah aside from loot being based on contribution in DEs and Wv3 that can be taken from a chest or some single point on the ground instead of running around “F-ing” stuff, contribution needs a serious update. Right now support spells, healing, reviving, peeling, aiding in kiting does nothing for you and discourages you from helping within first 1-2 bronze/silvers. And when I employ faceroll from 1-5 with a ranged weapon yahoo, I got gold… If I would like dps that’d be neutral, but I dislike dpsing. I like helping via support spells, boons, heals, control maybe, not by dpsing.
Edit: suggestions moved here
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the system really needs some adjustment, I find myself using skills I usually don´t like much exclusively to loottag in zerg events (flamethrower in my case, which lets me AOE-tag continously), I bet it is the same for many players. When people have to switch to skills that are neither effective nor fun for them just to have a chance for loot, it seems wrong.
Yes! Exactly! Other people and I have been saying this right along. I remember being in the Bloodtide Coast event with the frog guy gathering eggs and dedicating myself to heals and slowdowns (because the ice field slowdown is useful for these mobs who love to run around and scatter), and only got bronze for it (and only got a medal at all by using icicle of armor reduction) -_-
That is my gripe too. Why not reward support play? Heck, I wouldn’t mind it being equal to dps (like getting assists on mobs etc.). But any degree of supporting is penalized so hard it’s saddening. The only thing that matters is dps – as much of it as possible – best if it’s AoE at the same time.
If you don’t have swiftness + aoe ranged attacks forget about getting too much out of events.
I am a casual player nowdays (little time), but even for me a complete lack of any challenge makes the game boring. Even in tetris I can loose.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean exp or item loss on death. Not at all. But even in games that can be played casually you can be defeated. Only place I can be defeated in is PvP. And when I don’t feel like PvPing, it would be fun to have some even moderately challenging PvE content that has to overcome with wits and strategy. And Events sorely lack this. One doesn’t feel his contribution even matters – it’s just whack’n’slam, rinse and repeat.
But that is not the game design issue imho – it’s that Events don’t scale properly with the ammount of people currently doing them. Maybe they would be hard if like 10 or 20 people were there – I wouldn’t know, cause most of them are overrun with 30-40 people at a time, if not more.
I must confess that the issue is much larger than no loot imho. It’s that Guild Wars 2 penalizes support play. Every character has to dps, tank and support on their own. Instead of having 3 people play the trinity, we have a single person playing the trinity. The whole idea of trinity, instead of being removed, was moved inside your character. You can’t play what you like – you have to play everything with your single character and it always matters when you get to hard content (which there is very little of).
If you focus too much in either direction you are penalized (not in DEs if you go pure damage mind you, but in overall PvE and dungeons). If you get too much offense and low defense – oneshot. If you get too little offense – no loot in both PvE and PvP.
Overall, you can’t give your team more with any kind of support than you can by just bringing more dps to the table. Again: you are forced into “trinitizing” (is that even a word?) your character. You can’t play what you want – you play everything.
Support is generally not useful at all in neither PvP nor PvE. The best thing to do is to reach an equilibrium of support/defense/offense that allows to both dps, survive and add a bit to the group to overpower the other group in teamfights (in case of PvE, that’s not even needed, but can be useful in dungeons to increase overall power). That means: neither focus on support nor pure survivability or pure defense is viable in any sense of the word in any game type or mode.
For me, a deditacted support player in all types of games, it means that I have to be like everyone else: support—bruiser—dps all at once (not to say healer-tank-dps). All I can pick is how much of each I want to do – and if I go just a little too far with what I want to do – bam – no loot, no badges, little contribution.
What in turn this means is that GW2 has replaced a trinity among characters with trinity inside the character – one has to be his own tank, support and dps and paddle his own canoe. And that is not good.
I can’t fight the notion that this model of gameplay actually kills teamplay instead of encouraging it. Yeah you won’t die if the healer drops the ball. You won’t die if the tank loses aggro. But if you’re not dependent on anyone with anything, who benefits? You? The Team? Noone. People as just as much dependent on team performance as they were in the days of holy trinity, but they can’t impact their ally performance too much without imparing the team with their own too-focused build.
Reasonable people incorporate some support in just about any build they make because some abilities are fine on their own and helping the group is just an added bonus. But it’s not the focus and it can’t be the focus. Even organised tPvP teams don’t sport a fully support-focused role because it is just not efficient to do so.
What in turn this means is that whole is rarely greater than the sum of it’s parts in GW2. Everyone does a bit of support so everyone’s ok with it, but if you like to support, you can’t do it without impairing yourself and being penalized.
What it means that you can’t play what you want – you must play a mix of dps/surv with a bit of support if you want it (usually you do, there are many strong skills that have the added bonus of group support). If you don’t do that – you are penalized.
Seems kinda off with the motto of “play what you want and how you want”.
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I only find the events weird. Is there any real way to fail them aside from 1 or 2 people doing them? All I’ve seen is that there is no real challenge in them. In cases of big bosses I just move not to stand in red circles and… that’s that. Gold medal, reward, yaaay. No feel of challenge, no feel of acomplishment. Just move on.
Meaningful in-world PvP with objectives like castles in Lineage II were awesome. What wasn’t awesome is the grind model in conjunction with xp loss on death. It should either be one or the other. But maybe the fact that 98% of the server wasn’t at max level and had no guarantee to stay at max level gave the game staying power.
Now WvWvW and PvP in general feels detached from the overal experience, PvP moreso than WvWvW. Yet I find WvWvW meaningless – only people on 80 would bother with it realistically not to get oneshoted, but why? What do they gain? Title? No. Temporary “Master of Castle X” title? No. Achievements? No. Raid benefits? There are none.
It’s simple – stretching the “end-game” across all 80 levels means that level 80 is a game over. You can farm a bit for dungeon or karma cosmetic gear, but you don’t have any motivation to do so (at least I don’t). Where would I show it off? In Wv3 zerg that I have little motivation to participate in aside from an hour or two similar to why I play counterstrike? To own a couple of people, get owned a couple of times and move on?
I am sentimental towards the old times, but I know they ain’t coming back. GW2 isn’t the game to have these. There is no point in expecting that to happen. It’s just a different kind of game. Think Counterstrike or League of Legends but with more solo PvE content and feel of continuity on your character.
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I checked this out, done a bit of research on my own and it seems support is generally not useful at all in neither PvP nor PvE. The best thing to do is to reach an equilibrium of support/defense/offense that allows to both dps, survive and add a bit to the group to overpower the other group in teamfights. That means: neither focus on support nor pure survivability or pure defense is viable in any sense of the word in any game type or mode.
For me, a deditacted support player in all types of games, it means that I have to be like everyone else: support—bruiser—dps all at once (not to say healer-tank-dps). What in turn this means is that GW2 has replaced a trinity among characters with trinity inside the character – one has to be his own tank, support and dps and paddle his own canoe.
I can’t fight the notion that this model of gameplay actually kills teamplay instead of encouraging it. If you’re not dependent on anyone with anything, who benefits? Noone. People as just as much dependent on team performance as they were in the days of holy trinity, but they can’t impact their ally performance too much without imparing the team with their own too-focused build.
I’ve talked to some people on my server that seem to know what they’re doing (lvl 80 ele, lvl 80 engi and lvl 80 guardian with some tPvP, sPvP and WvWvW experience under their belts (PvE obviously too)) and they all seem to agree that support is lackluster and completely not rewarding both in terms of fun and from mechanic standpoint.
Reasonable people incorporate some support in just about any build they make because some abilities are fine on their own and helping the group is just an added bonus. But it’s not the focus and it can’t be the focus. Even organised tPvP teams don’t sport a fully support-focused role because it is just not efficient to do so.
Sadly, it seems this is just not a game for me.
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I think Scepter Power should make our projectiles homing similar to what Engineers get underwater with their attack. Or they could be homing from the get-go and the trait could increase projectile speed.
The real issue however is that the Scepter is only a mainhand, which some people brought up. There is no real off hand that makes sense with it. Focus would be good, but it’s second defensive ability makes no sense for scepter. Torch is useless because it’s outranged (but can be good for AoE tagging stuff in DEs along smite) and Shield doesn’t fit in any conceivable way.
I honestly think that this cannot be resolved in any other way but to switch Scepter #1 (alongside making it homing and/or faster and/or a small AoE) with Staff #1 and possibly also switch Smite with Orb of Light. That way our support weapon gets us range which solves tagging issues and the need to go Scepter / Something and Staff if we want to support in WvWvW with Staff’s Empower, Symbol and Wall.
And Scepter could become our mid-range AoE weapon with a heal attached to it, which would make it synergise a lot better with availible off-hand weapons such as Torch or Focus.
That would be, in my humble opinion, the most simple solution possible and it would solve three issues at once.
support works if you’re in a good guild. solo, not so much
I don’t even consider running a support solo ;-) Even in a good guild, I need to tag players. It’s just hard to figure out which support actually works. Healing seems to be lack-luster, as it scales poorly (even more so on the turret) – boons, combo fields and conditions seem to be the way to go. But the fact that Elixirs need people to clump up is very undesireable in PvP. That is what bothers me. If I’m forced into slotting at least 2 elixirs in my utility skills, that doesn’t leave a lot of room to do anything to even get on par with classes that simply have a weapon-switch.
That’s the reason I’d like to hear some opinion from someone much more experienced than I am.
I mostly agree with the feedback throughout this thread, so I thought I’d offer some of my own. Some of my opinions on storylines are not exactly too positive, but bear with me please.
I first started playing as a Norn Guardian because the celtic / nordic aesthetic was pleasing to me. Unfortunately, my character from the get-go felt like a dumb child with huge ego issues. He was like Thor in the movie, only less witty and more blurry. I thought: well, this seems heavily based on Thor, maybe he’ll grow out of it. The “I become a hero at level 1” actually made me try another story arcs (I later came back to him, so I’ll continue on the norn). After completing all the story arcs, I think they all feel insignificant, disjoined and boring. The biggest thing my character achieved throughout his whole life was becomming “The Slayer” at level 1 (which I presume enables NPCs to talk to me without using my name – I understand the intent, but execution is really poor). My character hasn’t grown up. He’s just as childish in his actions and desires as he was on level 1. I tried different stories and from all of those I must say I only remotely enjoed the lost heirloom arc. It sounded at least remotely as something I’d really want to do instead of being Eir Stegalkin’s second pet.
So I tried human. Well, these were a bit better, but the “level 1 hero syndrome” in which all you have achieved in your whole life was on level 1 was still present. I disliked the noble storyline as it was poorly written, disjoined and it felt more like “Logan can’t do his job so I’ll do it for him”. That may be due to poor voice acting on human male, but I also had the notion that this story was intended for children. No meaningful decisions, black and white clear-cut villains and heroes four-colour superhero style. I liked Countess Anise – mostly because I knew what “Exemplar of the Shining Blade” means. So I tried the “Streetchild”. That story arc felt so much better, like it was written by an entirely different team. Logan was much cooler, choices were meaningful (I spent a few minutes thinking if I want to save Quinn or stop the poisoning). It had a clearly-cut villain, gray characters (Riot Alice) and was overall a much better experience. But then it ended and I moved into “your unknown parents” storyline. Noone knew them, yet White Mantle could find me. My parents were spies, but noone bothered to look after me. I know that this arc was ment to fit all three origins with significant social class differences (low-life streetchild, a commoner and a noble), but the execution was really poor. If I were a noble, it’d fit better (friends of parents put me in a noble family I guess), but I never considered making a noble of uknown heritage (isn’t nobility a trait to be born with?). But hey, if my parents loved me so much and their friends looked out after me, why did my character end up on the streets. To be protected? That failed – White Mantle found me easily.
Now, moving on to something more positive – the Charr. Well, this story is simpyl great. The “title placeholder” for your characters name feels good, the “1st level hero syndrome” is not felt that much and the story is cohesive, well-written and interesting. I played all three legions with all three father stories just to see them because they were so well done. NPCs were awesome, each in their own way (Ryloc being voiced by Urdnot Wrex helps a lot). I felt my choices mattered and that I was really in command of something.
To sum up: I can’t fight the notion that Norn and Human stories (aside from Streetchild arc) were written for children. Not 14-16 year olds (I played Fallout I when I was 14 and I enjoed the story) – I think the target demographic was more like 9-12 yo or even less. On the other hand, Charr storyline (and Streetchild arc) were radically different and much more mature.
I never considered playing a Charr before that – but the norn story made me hate my character for being so childish and egoistical (even for an archetypical nordic / celtic guy) – and he didn’t grow up at all. I also couldn’t really feel the human because he was being so generic and blurred – I didn’t think I’ve acomplished anything at all. On the other hand, I grew to love my Charr because of his story.
So I think the human story is ok – if you play a human for his generic looks in armor it can be fine to just skim through the story and be ok with it. On the other hand, norn story can make you hate norn. Charr story acomplishes it’s goal – it makes you enjoy your choice of race and origin.
I hope my post doesn’t come up as too negative, it’s just the disparity in quality of the racial stories is … astounding, to say the least.
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Staff #3 – 5 are well thought out abilities that synergise with the idea of guardian support. #2 seems a bit “well, it has to have 5 abilities, no? ok, let’s slap something with light and healing. ok”. And the reason #1 works like it works is clear: guardian didn’t have any ability to tag mobs while supporting, so they slapped it on staff’s autoattack.
It would be much better if the autoattack was actually range 900 and bouncing or 900 range exploding on impact. This would both help tagging and make staff a viable ranged choice.
The issue I found was that in PvP most engineers I’ve watched don’t use any kits at all (except for the medkit from time to time), just use elixirs + pistol & shield. The only utility kits I’ve seen in those many videos seem to be bomb kit for bunker engis and an occasional tool kit. Mostly they just run Elixir S, C and B / U. And if I would be forced into this kind of playstyle I would definitely take something else.
I find Lyuben’s build quite fun and promising, but I wonder if it would prove viable. I can’t fight the notion that the kits are quite useless, with the sole exception of med kit in PvE/PvP and grenades outside of PvP. This may however get better as I level up.
I would just test both professions in PvP and find out myself, but both have a steep learning curve and I don’t really have time to master both of them enough to really find out which one performs better overall.
I’ll insert TL:DR up front just in case: it boils down to – I like complicated classes with multiple options. I love combo fields. I can’t decide between Elementalist and Engineer but I’m leaning towards Engi and I need advice on how good he is in support role in both PvE and PvP (sPvP, tPvP & WvWvW).
The longer version:
Hello, as the topic states, I’m quite fond of support gameplay. I only ever played tanks and healers in other MMOs and from the get-go I have noticed that GW2 is quite different in the support department. When I learned that most support is done via boons, combo fields for allies, a bit of healing and quite a large dose of control, I have tried Necro and Guardian with the intent of being a PvE bruiser/support and PvP support. I really grew to love combo fields, as they are a “visible” support and I can see that I’m helping, unlike some shouts / boongiving utilities. Personal preference, I know the difference from numbers standpoint and I also know that combo fields are less desireable than boons / control. They are a neat addition though.
I also know that support currently is well … not supported by game mechanics. Any DE or WvWvW is a tagfest. That is also an issue I take into account, but it doesn’t discourage me (I hope that ANet fixes this until I get demotivated).
I can’t say if I liked necro because bugs really make the class hard to play. I liked the Guardian, but his complete and utter lack of any ranged options made him a pain to play even in early levels – and nothing improved as the levels went on. So I made an Elementalist and an Engineer and leveled them to mid 30’s. I really like their playstyle that is much more complicated (yet not rewarded, but that’s another topic) and I find it cool because it isn’t boring. Even if it is not properly rewarded, I intend to stick with these classes (they will be balanced and fixed someday). I lean towards Engi though (for reasons stated below). I chose to post here because of this (and the fear that in Elementalist forum this post would be derailed into “ele is weak” vs. “L2P” flamewar).
Both classes have what I like: fun and challenging playstyle, combo fields and support abilities. Both also have what I need: range and AoE tag abilities that also help the team (like grenade kit #5). I can’t decide between the two though and I don’t really have time to level them both up without my friends outleveling me significantly. I like the Engineer better from an aesthetic point of view (but only a little more than Ele), but it seems like in PvP I’ll be forced to run either Elixir S or R for the stunbreak, Elixir C for condition removal and that leaves me with a single utility slot of my choice. Without the weapon swap, I will only have 5 weapons skills + toolbelt + my utility of choice (which may or may not be a kit – Elixir Gun seems like an obvious choice, but each Kit has something cool that is hard to pass up).
Considering that the healing from the Healing Turret overrides other regens for it’s duration and doesn’t scale at all, and the fact that it’s toolbelt is only a regen buff, not a heal, I’ll probably have to stick to the Medkit, which heals only me from it’s toolbar (and has the nice addition of condition removal and a buff on #5). That leaves very little room to provide any meaningful support, or am I wrong?
I like Engineers survivability when compared to the lowest-tier HP / lowest-tier Armor Ele (though armor doesn’t matter as much, 5k of base HP does, that I figured out).
I also don’t like how Elementalists are pigeonholed into vitality/toughness build (even if I would run one anyway) and how their traits are made. For a class that has to switch between it’s atunements very frequently, Elementalists have too many traits focused only on a single atunement. I like Engineer’s traits though – they are much more streamlined and there is more synergy between them (even if not all of them work properly).
If I could get a civil response in the matter of how engineer is doing in the support deparment and if it’s still as interesting as it is to solo with him, I’ll be grateful. It’d be even more awesome if someone with experience in both high-level Elementalist support and Engineer support could lay down the pros and cons of both choices.
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@Kiraki
25 stack cap doesn’t help, true. What is even worse is that getting good medals on big events (Shatterer anyone?) is hard as it is without top gear. Adding to that the crazy ammount of bots which improve faster than ANet is getting rid of them and the problem is getting out of hand. It’s not an exclusive necro issue – but how should people know this? Most necros I know don’t have any other characters near 80 lvl and they think that bugged traits, skills and lack of synergy are the only contributing factors. They are not, but they make life even harder.
Edit: these apply to PvE only obviously. In PvP, there are different issues (minion AI, DS incompatibility with working builds, overnerfing before release etc.). But in case of PvP the only thing I can say is that there were always cycles of nerfs and buffs and necros just landed on the bottom during release. Pity, but I guess it’ll be better. Cycles have the innate property of turning.
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In case of DEs, there are more oversights than that: when I encoutered a DE with more than a couple of people doing it, I switched to supporting / healing etc. That gave me gold usually, but … almost no loot from monsters. Generally, support is penalized by lack of loot (no mob-taging), so there’s only damage – lots of direct AoE damage to be precise. That is what’s rewarded. Some classes have easier support because of it (as their support abilities are large AoEs that do damage at the same time – see Chaos Storm, many ele AoEs, few of guardian’s consecrations etc.), some have a hard time (namely necro and engineer). Wells can be nice to tag, but are extremely unreliable when most professions have various AoE displacement abilities that can throw anything outside of wells before they tick and the cooldown is too long to throw another. Marks would be cool, but casttime can be a pain. DS #4 is cool, but the cooldown is a bit long to rely on it in DEs.
Necros don’t deal too much direct damage, let alone much AoE direct damage (and will rarely be Power specced in PvE – I haven’t seen any power specced necro in PvE ever – this is not to say they don’t exist, only that they are very rare, at least on my server). I’ve seen many people complain that they can’t even tag mobs in damage builds because they are AoEd to death before any casttime finishes. That may be an exaggeration, but it is truly hard to tag a lot of mobs with condition damage when they can be dead before conditions tick enough to tag a mob.
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Scaling with weapon equipped, detonate Flamethrower #2 and some damage on #3 would be enough. #4 could be bigger for all I care – it isn’t too useful aside from being a combo field. But the knockback and blind are vial to close/mid range survival.
Flamethower has a really good kit (aside from #2 which isn’t too great aside from PvE), but the lack of scaling is why the damage really suffers.
Well, I also love the class. SFX of it, to be precise. Most people do – otherwise they wouldn’t sit here waiting for bugfixes etc. The idea for “how a necro should work”, more or less, suits what I wanted to get. I like how skills work (or how they should), I like how they look. This is what most people mean by “loving the necro” I think.
What I don’t like are numbers behind it – and I think this is a common concern. It’s not that necro is inefficient – he can be, many people proved it. The real issue is that necro doesn’t have many ways to be efficient and lacks variety. People get tired of using the same build over and over again for hours and hours on end.
After that, risk : reward and effort : reward ratios seem to be off. I like to work for what I get and I enjoy a “hard class” (as opposed to a "mash two buttons repeatedly class) – OP is probably the same kind of person. Necro is not an easy class and most people find it challeging and thus – fun.
The discrepancy between “loving the class” and general consensus that necro is subpar is not really that great. Many people assume that necro players are complaining because the class sucks. It doesn’t. Most of complains are towards bugs, invability of many builds and incompatibility of class mechanics with few of the builds that work. That is why people are complaining, not because they don’t like the class or are “emo kids that would like to rework it”. The “rework” ideas concern the Death Shroud, which is a good mechanic and can be liked, but only as far as one’s build improves it. It’s not a mechanic that suits all builds, and that is the problem many people have with it. We all know that DS was initially a “downed state” mechanic for necros and it mostly stayed that way – we don’t see our UI in it, we can’t see our hp, boons, conditions, can’t use our build – only the 4 skills we were given with it. Many poeple don’t like that – especially those who like their necros built towards minions or conditions and are seeing DS as a mechanic which impairs their build (which it does).
I wouldn’t call those people “whiny emo kids” as spoink did. I think they have all the rights to expect a class mechanic which works with every build, not only DS-centric builds. I also liked DS because I built towards it. But then I wanted to try something different and … it’s either making DS viable or doing what you like. As long as both work toward the same build it’s ok. But if not – you start thinking if DS could be designed better.
Most of the people (aside from trolls) would only like to get what they were promised: a couple of varied, viable builds, a class mechanic that works with each of them (not with one or two), bugfixes and proper Risk : Reward and Effort : Reward playstyle compared to other classes (it either has to be High Risk : High Reward / High Effort : High Reward or Medium / Medium or even Low : Low – but not something like High Risk : Medium Reward). That’s all.
Edit: well, and maybe a few combo finishers. These would be cool ;-)
(edited by Thanerion.3721)
My suggestion for reworking the Necro's Profession Mechanics
in Necromancer
Posted by: Thanerion.3721
I would also refrain from forcing necromancers into pet playstyle – we already have plenty of that in Ranger and Mesmer. There is little room for necros to shine here.
Minions would be good SFX-wise as spell effects (spawn a minion that does one thing, then disappears and even doesn’t have a healthbar).
My ideas were voiced here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Thoughts-about-the-state-of-necromancers/first#post215516
It would be great if we had a class mechanic that works independent of build choices.
To eliminate the need to track the above thread, let me paste my thoughts:
Make „Dark Path” a F2 skill, make it cost Lifeforce (a small ammount) and allow it to teleport to a location even if it doesn’t hit anything (similar to how Ride the Lightning works for Ele, or how it should work when fixed). Let this skill cost a certain ammount of Lifeforce. Don’t switch it underwater. Could be made a leap finisher.
Make „Doom” a F3 skill, make it cost Lifeforce, scale the duration of the fear with how much Lifeforce necro has (from 0,5s to 3s, or even 3,5s max). An argument can be made to replace the effect with that of Wave of Fear from Underwater DS.
Make „Life Transfer” a F4 skill. Let it heal HP when Lifeforce is full. Could be made a whirl finisher, but I guess I would avoid that. It can be scratched entirely and some of it’s effects could be moved to dagger skills. It could be replaced with a skill that hits a target and adds lifeforce scaling with the highest of: conditions on the target (like Mace #3), damage you deal with it (scaling with power) and minions you have alive (possibly damaging them). Options are plentiful.
When Death Shroud is activated, the primary health bar is replaced by Lifeforce. This is a stunbreaker that grants a short stability buff, gives some stacks of Might and quick Protection or maybe a non-boon based increase in damage and protection the more Lifeforce the necro has left. This are subject to change of course. This could in fact work as a „survivability spike” then. Most „glass cannon” builds would use it for a short time and turn it off quickly not to waste Lifeforce (so they would benefit from damage but little survivabilty, as they would get „zeroed” in lifeforce by a single skill or two), and tanky builds would gain some damage off of it (because they can stay in it longer) and it would aid their survivability. Win-win. This would need to be balanced of course, but we are not talking numbers – we’re talking ideas.
Traits could grant additional effects (useful to builds that have them), but that would be it. You retain your weapon skillbars, your utilities, your necro is free to do what he was built for.
Why that? Well, we all could use a movement ability (ranged builds would use it to escape, melee builds would use it to close the gap) as mobility is something we sorely lack and I don’t think this is a balance choice. We all can use CC – because well, who doesn’t? Life Transfer I have mixed feelings about. It’s nice, but only for few builds around Blood Magic. Why would I want these skills to be taken out of Death Shroud? Because then they can be balaced with our profession as a whole. Right now DS is a strange mix of survivability buff that gives you a package of 4 skills that may or may not fit your build. You can’t use utility, or your weapon skills. You can enter DS to use skills, but then you have it on cooldown. You can enter DS for survivability, but then you are forced to use skills that may not even be good in your build. We can’t be given an „elite-like” profession mechanic that tries to be „catch all do all”, because it will either be Overpowered or suck at all it does. Survivability aspect and Utility aspect of DS must be separated and balanced separately or they will never be good. Profession mechanic has to be build-proof – we’re stuck with it. We can’t change it. It must be useful in each and every build.
(edited by Thanerion.3721)
My idea is as follows:
Make „Dark Path” a F2 skill, make it cost Lifeforce (a small ammount) and allow it to teleport to a location even if it doesn’t hit anything (similar to how Ride the Lightning works for Ele, or how it should work when fixed). Let this skill cost a certain ammount of Lifeforce. Don’t switch it underwater. Could be made a leap finisher.
Make „Doom” a F3 skill, make it cost Lifeforce, scale the duration of the fear with how much Lifeforce necro has (from 0,5s to 3s, or even 3,5s max). An argument can be made to replace the effect with that of Wave of Fear from Underwater DS.
Make „Life Transfer” a F4 skill. Let it heal HP when Lifeforce is full. Could be made a whirl finisher, but I guess I would avoid that. It can be scratched entirely and some of it’s effects could be moved to dagger skills. It could be replaced with a skill that hits a target and adds lifeforce scaling with the highest of: conditions on the target (like Mace #3), damage you deal with it (scaling with power) and minions you have alive (possibly damaging them). Options are plentiful.
When Death Shroud is activated, the primary health bar is replaced by Lifeforce. This is a stunbreaker that grants a short stability buff, gives some stacks of Might and quick Protection or maybe a non-boon based increase in damage and protection the more Lifeforce the necro has left. This are subject to change of course. This could in fact work as a „survivability spike” then. Most „glass cannon” builds would use it for a short time and turn it off quickly not to waste Lifeforce (so they would benefit from damage but little survivabilty, as they would get „zeroed” in lifeforce by a single skill or two), and tanky builds would gain some damage off of it (because they can stay in it longer) and it would aid their survivability. Win-win. This would need to be balanced of course, but we are not talking numbers – we’re talking ideas.
Traits could grant additional effects (useful to builds that have them), but that would be it. You retain your weapon skillbars, your utilities, your necro is free to do what he was built for.
Why that? Well, we all could use a movement ability (ranged builds would use it to escape, melee builds would use it to close the gap) as mobility is something we sorely lack and I don’t think this is a balance choice. We all can use CC – because well, who doesn’t? Life Transfer I have mixed feelings about. It’s nice, but only for few builds around Blood Magic. Why would I want these skills to be taken out of Death Shroud? Because then they can be balaced with our profession as a whole. Right now DS is a strange mix of survivability buff that gives you a package of 4 skills that may or may not fit your build. You can’t use utility, or your weapon skills. You can enter DS to use skills, but then you have it on cooldown. You can enter DS for survivability, but then you are forced to use skills that may not even be good in your build. We can’t be given an „elite-like” profession mechanic that tries to be „catch all do all”, because it will either be Overpowered or suck at all it does. Survivability aspect and Utility aspect of DS must be separated and balanced separately or they will never be good. Profession mechanic has to be build-proof – we’re stuck with it. We can’t change it. It must be useful in each and every build.
Other minor stuff:
- Axe #1 and Axe #2 should have small AoE effects like most melee weapons do.
- Unholy Feast (axe #3) should be a blast finisher.
- Dark Pact (dagger #3) should be a gap closer and a leap finisher that applies it’s debuff when it hits.
- Feast of Corruption (mace #3) could be a blast finisher. Instead minor damage scaling on ammount of conditions, it should have it’s cooldown increased and consume your own conditions for direct damage (this could also use the conditions that do not apply damage due to „stack limits”, if the game knows they are there but doesn’t apply their effects). It should not deal even half as much damage as if the conditions were left to tick on their own, but it would provide an option.
This, combined with fixes, could actually make Conditionmancers unique in their ability to „burn” conditions for some effects.
Well, I was actually thinking about sharing my ideas with you but the ammount of „omg do something with necro” threads is abyssmal. Nevertheless, I have some ideas. I have voiced my opinions about status of necromancer profession before, but I’m afraid the thread was closed and I can’t access neither it’s previous nor it’s current link. I didn’t think I needed to save my posts from that topic, but They are hashes might have them, as he said he saved at least one.
But to briefly state where I stand in the question of necro balance, I think there are three major issues that necros for certain have:
1. Bugs (as obvious as it is, it needs to be said),
2. Lack of variety in weapon skills and trait synergy,
3. Death Shroud mechanics which benefits few builds, not the profession itself, and feels like a „downed state for demand” with a token attack, token quick fear to interrupt execution, a good movement ability and a token „hlep!!!” button that drains life AoE unless specifically traited for.
4. Weird Effort : Reward and Risk : Reward mechanics and ratios compared to other professions – necromancers seem to right now be on the bottom of the nerf-buff chain. They rocked in beta, but were overnerfed. This can be remedied when bugs are fixed and we can see what the numbers look like when necro works as he should.
What I think is not an issue:
1. Lack of raw efficiency (we don’t know that because bugs are not fixed),
2. Not using Death Shroud properly (sorry, it’s too funny not to say it),
3. Lack of potential in the profession.
Death Shroud seems to be a big issue. There were many, many ideas how to change Death Shroud. Most, I think, were posted from a view of a certain build (make it more useful for minion master / conditionmancer etc.). Take note however, that I don’t like to talk numbers – I am a number-junkie theorycrafter, but bugs make any calculations nigh impossible. So I’d like to talk ideas, not numbers. And about ideas we can talk freely because we have the data needed.
I think we can agree that Death Shroud in it’s current form does not benefit many builds. We are stripped from our picked skills, and forced into 4-button mechanic that someone thought was cool. Some poeple like it, some don’t. Most however agree (I think), that DS, unless traited for, is a luckluster class mechanic.
What I think we need is a profession ability that benefits all builds, not one or two. How can this be achieved?
What we need is bonuses for actually comboing and mixing different skills together, more than just combo fields. where you actually deal more damage when you mix skills. Proc special effect which are triggered when doing certain things such as dodging having a certain debuff on you or a certain debuff on your enemy. Thief has some of the most uninteresting gameplay ever. You should be rewarded for mixing different skills and noticing changing battle conditions. Special effects could be anything from snare, stun, initiative return, poison, endurance gain, etc, literally anything. it would help to add more synergy to some load outs since their could be multiple proc conditions based on what type of skill you use. you don’t need a resource system for comboing. arena net could learn some things from games like league of legends where skills change based on use and combo off of each other, or have passive and active effects. the reason league of legend limited skills work is they pack so many calories of game mechanics in each of them. a lot of guild wars 2 skills are very one dimensional in comparison.
That is true. This is not the issue that is thief-exclusive, but it applies. There is little reward for actually doing anything. Most weapon skill sets have a single skill that is “catch all, do all” and most other skills are just so inefficient that they will only be used in rare, specific conditions. Stacking various effects like CC or damaging conditions is good – it promotes variety and awareness, but when it comes to damage, it’s just like “here, have this, you use this to deal damage”. Which in turn leads to mashing one button, which most people (including me) see as boring.
I like the comparison to League of Legends – this shows how “quality” over “quantity” wins every single time. With the thief we have many weapons, many skills, with a different skill depending on main hand – off hand combination, yet we aren’t really rewarded for using any of them. If my gap closer is also my dodge move and my highest damage move and I’ve got no cooldown on it… why shouldn’t I use it exclusively unless outside conditions force me to react with something different?
you should not be penalized for spamming. creating penalties just makes the thief gameplay even more uninteresting. rewards add gameplay, that is how the problem should be solved. other problem is arena net has stuck to cliches which just make the thief even more bland. I wish they would actually think up of some interesting skills than sticking to cliches such as poison, smoke, and blind. Designing mechanics around lore always make for boring gameplay. better to design something interesting and fit lore around it.
Agreed. Can’t think of any rewards that could actually be implemented. I like your ideas, but I can’t fight the notion that even in the off chance a Dev would read what we write and agree with our points nothing would change towards that direction because it’s complicated to implement right now. Thus I was sticking more to “simple math” solutions.
And I’m afraid thief devs have an allergy to giving thieves “comboing moves” due to that other game.
I deleted my charr necro when I went to visit cultural armor vendors and was like “what the heck is that, do charr armormakers even know that they leave our necks naked to be chopped? And why does this look like I’m wearing a carpet”. Then I went to youtube, seen charr light armor sets and bam, deleted.
Pity, as charr were actually my favourite race and I love their flavour, society and quests.
As a side note, medium armor on charr doesn’t look better – hats don’t scale properly, necks are also left open, all head armor in general looks ridiculous. Heavy… well, it looks meh, but much better than light or medium. At least that’s my opinion – some people may like it though. Except for the tail / horns clipping issues and weapons disappearing in the armor with parts sticking out – these are just bad.
My idea is different in that it will probably encourage variety in skill use and will make thieves both more interesting and more resistant to whine about how easy they are to play. It may even decrease the number of thief QQ and promote more skillful play.
It goes as follows (take note: my numbers are a bit vague because I don’t have all the math behind skills or time to find out Cost : Effect effectiveness of each of them):
- Decrease the ammount of initiative each move costs (20% would be a good point to start testing) or increase damage of each move that costs little initiative already by a bit (again – can’t give numbers – would be a guess-game without data we don’t have),
- If a single move is used more than once in a short span of time (like 3-4x Global CD, but this is a vague number), the initiative cost increases for each time it is used – a single use will cost less than it currently does, but if it is the only move used, it will quickly cost a lot more. If the skill isn’t used for the same time the “window of increased cost” lasts + 1sec, the cost refreshes to normal value (it may gradually do so over this time).
Some skills may even have their effect decreased as the initiative cost changes (these would certainly use an overall buff before such “diminishing returns” on skill use are applied).
This should also lead to better PvE experience for newbie thieves (they would benefit from the scaling while roaming in the world unless on a boss or big target – then things would only change in favor of variety).
This system, along with tweaking abilities to have better cost:effect ratios will lead to more player decisionmaking in the process of using skills – “is the current cost of this ability worth it in this situation?” instead of “it is always worth it in any situation unless I really need this one or two other abilities that don’t deal damage but have other effects I currently need”.
So, I hope somebody made it this far and maybe my idea will be a good starting point for a discussion about Initiative, it’s pros and cons and how it may be changed to promote variety in skill use.
TL;DR: Initiative in it’s current state encourages spamming the ability which gives most damage for it’s cost, this decreases variety and fun because other abilities are only used when they have to be.
Lower the cost or increase effect for skills, apply an effect that increases their cost if they are used in a “short” (subject to discussion) window of time. This should increase variety and ability to make plays without going against thieves design.
Hello,
I’ve been lately thinking about thief class and Initiative in general, checking some stuff, doing a bit of math (I’m a number junkie addicted to theorycrafting, what can I do) and I think I there are a couple of inherent flaws in the thieves Initiative system. Bear with me.
We all know how it works, but for those who do not, a quick description: Each weapon ability a thief has costs a set ammount of Initiative (Init) that must be paid to get a certain effect (fire up the skill). In turn, thieves have no cooldowns on their weapon attacks.
What this does, is it sets a constant Cost:Effect relation which is the same for a certain skill in a certain build (some builds may increase the effect of some skills and thus change their Cost:Effect relation). In case of damage skills, this leads to certain abilities that have the highest Effect for Cost rewards being used constantly because of the lack of cooldown.
This, in turn, leads to spamming these abilities and only these abilities. And honestly, why should a thief not spam them? They are directly penalized by not spamming high Cost-to-Effect ratio abilities by not doing as much with their initiative as they can. This is the reason behind Pistol Whip-spam or Heartseeker-spam builds. These are builds using the initiative to it’s fullest. But they are also the reason behind whine and flame that thieves are “one trick ponies” or “single skill gimmick” type of class.
These builds are also the reason for frustration among some thives that they are penalized for using a variety of abilities instead of spamming a single, most efficient one.
So, did noone suspect that giving a class a resource that substitutes for cooldown will lead to spamming of high Cost : Effect abilities unless something else is sorely needed to apply a certain condition or movement effect? I guess noone did.
What can be done about it? I wouldn’t have come here (a forum which I deem to be extremely friendly and constructive compared to many others) to write this wall of text if I didn’t think I might know the answer, wouldn’t I? ;-)
Take note however, that my proposal for a “fix”, as I may call it, won’t do any good unless skills will have more or less balanced basic Cost:Effect ratios. For now, this is not the case. I don’t know if Heartseeker or Pistol Whip are too strong (hard to compare raw numbers in a game less than a month old, when the only more or less bug-free, well thought-out class with a working melee-damage build of similar damage:support:control proportions is a warrior and he deals no less than a thief if not more, with more survivability), but other abilities are certainly weaker – at least quite a large portion of them.
To apply my suggestion, abilities would need to be better balanced across the board – otherwise we may restrict what is right now the only reasonable thing to do. Have this in mind while reading further.
Before I give you my thoughts, let’s see how do other games do it.
Well, our Initiative system is similar to an energy-based system. Instead of relying directly on cooldowns, these systems employ a secondary resource to limit ability use. At it’s core, such system is made to promote smart ability usage instead of keyboard bashing to use all the availible cooldowns to deal damage (in GW2 case: use up all you’ve got smart, switch weapons, use up all you’ve got smart again in a window of 10s in which you cannot switch weapons, switch up, loop). This core idea doesn’t seem to apply right now – it doesn’t promote smart ability usage, it penalizes it by making thieves “waste” Initative on suboptimal moves. Unless we assume that “smart ability usage” means “spamming the ability with best Cost:Effect ratio”.
So, in general game mechanics across the board, we have:
1. “Gated” energy systems that decrease regeneration rate of the resource with it’s usage. So if you have 50% energy, it regens a lot slower than if you had 75%. This is not a good system – it doesn’t increase variety – it just promotes spacing of ability use in time. Solves “spamming” by “not doing anything but auto-attacking”, but doesn’t really encourage you to push other buttons than the effective one.
2. We have “combo” systems that rely on yet another resource which forces the player to use different abilities to accumulate “combo points” to fire up other abilities. Why this sucks we all know (at least those who played Rogue in that other game) – this doesn’t increase variety – it pigeonholes the player into using “the only right” combinations that devs layed out for him, +/- some proc-based effects.
3. Last, we have a semi-cooldown system that prevents abilities from being overused. This may be good, but it kills the energy design and is against the idea ANet has based the thief upon. Let’s look further.