Guild Wars 2

Is this bug still happening?

Sifu.9745:

Condition only, double pistols are really good for a core spec, probably one of the best non elite specs in the game.

Really? Only that?

What are the traits and rune set, utilities?

I’m a returning player after 2 years. Trying to get back on my Engi and replay old Engi builds I used to run (Non-scrapper)

I feel like a wet-noodle. Not sure if base engi has been nerfed overtime

I’m more focused on WvW, what’s a really good core engi build right now?

Found this on the Tube, kinda amazing the details missed by the devs.

So it says it reduces your damage by 33% as your minions attack.

Do they just straight up absorb 33% damage until the minions die or time-out?

Do they need to be ATTACKING, as in hitting something, for this to work?

This skill isn’t very self-explanatory nor visual represented well enough to tell the effects. Can someone explain?

The COUNTER Fighter.

We have the Sustain, the Pressure, and now the Counter.

The whole point of the Spellbreaker/Counter Fighter is to PUNISH people with a cheese or niche build and counter it.

If you are a boon spammer, the Spellbreaker can rip you apart and counter it.

If you are condi trash, Spellbreaker has Revenge Counter trait to punish you for it giving your conditions back to you.

If you are stealth ganker, EI Thief, DD, or Druid invis/snare, Magetether he or she won’t let you get anywhere without being seen and goodluck trying to get away.

And if you think you can burst him/her down, Full Counter, it’s main mechanic, he/she is just waiting for you to come at him only to take advantage of your offensive position.

So what’s the catch? The Spellbreaker can’t counter everything at the same time.

It can counter everything, it is anti-cheese/niche, but it can’t counter all at once.

Fighting the Spellbreaker forces you to adapt, if you can. If you are running pure condi cancer and he/she can directly counter that, YOU BETTER THINK OF SOMETHING DIFFERENT. Or in a group fight call in a friend you know he can’t counter after seeing what he/she is doing.

Anet… If you can nail all this down. Core Warriors the Sustained Fighter, Berserkers the offensive animal as a Pressure Fighter, and Spellbreaker the calculated Mayweather-type Counter Fighter.

Us Warriors will be SUPER HAPPY with the options and variety we have to bring wherever we go in your wonderful game.

The changes to Core Warrior are great, with Might Makes Might, and etc.

But make the Pressure for Berserker worth WHAT IT COSTS in order to go Berserk, apply Berserking via Primal Bursts. Therefore maitaining and respecting the identity of the Berserker, being still onpar with Core Warriors and Spellbreakers.

If what we spend is not worth it, why play it?

Thank you and I hope an Anet dev receives this well and takes affirmative action.

Love,

A Warrior

Here’s why: Identity.

What made Primal Bursts great is maximizing the potential of bursts skills, what they can do, and allowing warriors to be creative in that area who love the concept of bursting and applying tons of pressure.

By changing Primal Burst to only count as ONE bar of adrenaline, you not only removed the synergy of Primal Burst to other traits and abilities, but you ruined the IDENTITY of Primal Bursts and THE BERSERKER as a whole.

Let’s start with the basics: Core Warrior.

The base of what a Warrior is – It’s not gonna go down without a fight. It’s a fighter who is well built, in good shape, can take hits just as much as it can deal em.

It’s a Sustained Fighter.

It has strong passive abilities such as Stances like innate conditioning of a fighter, strong Physical moves to control the opponent, and the mastery over weapons resembling different styles of each warrior’s preference.

Fighting is the name of the game, it knows how to stick around and hold it’s ground.

The tactic for opponents is to know it’s moves, fighting style, and feint the fighter to make it waste his passives and innate fighting capabilities to compromise the Warrior to take it out.

Now – The Berserker:

The PRESSURE Fighter.

The Berserker again, is designed to go further with The Warrior’s Burst Skills and maximizing it’s potential with Bursts in the form of PRIMAL BURSTS.

This Warrior, is a kittening animal, period. It’s about constantly applying pressure to your opponent, giving it no room to breathe.

(which is visibly signified by the Ascended Torch Weapon with animal figures around the Flame)

With short CD utilities like Headbutt to CC, and a CC clear on 10 second cooldown, allows it to be reckless and keep the pressure.

If you are trying to cast, forget it, if you are trying to run, forget it, if you want to heal or block, forget it, anything you try to do the Berserker is always on your tail.

With the addition to the Torch, the Berserker has the added Unique use to apply burning to further apply this pressure on it’s target. And LORE WISE, this makes sense during it’s introduction against the fight against Mordremoth, A PLANT. Hence the burning.

The key to Berserker is that it can CLEAR PRESSURE off of itself in order to APPLY IT.

With Primal Burst synergizing with Cleansing Ire, Berserker’s Power, and Adrenal Health for example. This allows Berserker’s to BERSERK.

(And if you look at the Torch for example, burns and does damage, while clearing condis simultaneously. A key characteristic of the Berserker.)

Now, by making Primal Burst count only as One adrenal bar spent, you are destroying the identity and ability for the Berserker’s to apply pressure and being able to clear pressure off of itself.

It takes THREE, I REPEAT, THREE WHOLE adrenaline bars to get Berserk to activate in the first place. But when it’s used, it is only worth one adrenaline bar each primal burst use… so you are saying it shouldn’t be worth the amount we spend?

Bull.kitten.

Applying Pressure, and Clearing pressure off oneself is key to a pressure fighter and as a Berserker. We want to go BERSERK.

This is the golden principle, what we SPEND is what it is WORTH. You have nuked this in a way that is not healthy and poorly justified.

I’m gonna give possible solutions to this problem in a moment, but let me wrap this up and we’ll move on to the Spellbreaker which I feel is important to cover complimenting the current issues with Berserker that need to be addressed.

So how do you beat a Pressure Fighter, Berserker? The issue with Pressure Fighters and real animals of this nature is that they are predictable. They are going in only one direction, YOU. Trying to destroy you and take you out, the key to to lead the Pressure fighter to where you want him to go, he/she is always coming towards you therefore the trade off is now you have an opening to take advantage of that, tire him out. And make him/her trip on their own feet.

Here are the solutions to the Berserker Primal Burst problem:

1. Make Primal Burst worth 3 bars again. If it costs 3 bars to get into Berserk Mode, the use of Primal bursts have to equalize that in spades.

2. OR this is my solution, when you trigger Berserk mode, THIS ALSO TRIGGERS 3 bars worth of any burst abilities or traits. So with Berserker’s Power or Cleansing Ire, going into Berserk mode clears three conditions and grants you 3 stacks of BP, along with the one adrenaline bar worth of subsequent Primal Bursts to apply pressure.

What’s cool about this, Berserk Mode is a lot like a full 3 bar burst skill, that DOES NOT require you to land a hit. Because it’s a “Mode” not an attack.

This will make WHAT WE SPEND EQUAL TO WHAT IT’S WORTH, and bring the IDENTITY of the Pressure fighter back to the Berserker.

Finally, let’s get to the Spellbreaker.

This is such a huge problem.

I have the target tab-targeted click Plague Signet, and does nothing and I die from conditions because the skill from My only decent condi cleanse DOESN’T work.

Do you have to constantly CLICK on the target for it to work? Or is tab-targeting supposed to work with Plague Sig?

This trait seems rather underwhelming.

Most of our issues as a Necro is dealing with disables from afar.

From what I understand, this trait is not even a stun break…and if you get a disabled from afar, like Thief off-hand pistol or skill 4 longbow Ranger, this trait doesn’t fear them at all…

It’s a really dumb trait. It should just inflict fear to any target directly that disabled you no matter where, and also provide a stun break.

I don’t understand how this trait works, can someone explain?

Hesacon.8735:

Dawdler.8521:

Rangerdeity.5847:

Remember Anet wants necros to exist solely in WvW. In every other game mode we can kitten off. Oh hi scourge are you PvE viable? No not really? PvP viable? sorta kinda huh? Ok bro see you in WvW with the reapers and vanilla necros.

Hahahahahohohoho vanilla necros in WvW, lol… next you’re gonna tell me that power is still viable compared to a deathly chill reaper.

I roam, havoc, and zerg on a base power necro all the time. It is still quite viable, unless you run into a warrior. If you run into a warrior 1v1 you may as well /sit.

The build will consistently beat most other classes, with varying degrees of difficulty. For example, thief is all about timing and if you screw that up you’re done, power Druid can hold you out of range if you fight in an open area, but you’ll always beat revs and most guardians.

What is your full build?

Definitely try the Scourge elite spec for the Necromancer.

It’s pretty much closest thing to copy paste Ritualist in a GW2 version landscape in functionality.

It just takes a different name, theme, and motivation.

Whoever started this post needs to calm down.

Things being powerful is not a problem. That’s the whole point in a fantasy game.

Number 2 – This hasn’t been released yet. Let it play out for 3-6 months at most and the determine course of action balance wise.

You remember what happened to core necromancer AT RELEASE just after the beta in 2012? Yea, kittening got overnerfed to the ground.

And it was themetically stiffled because “it’s not supposed to have stability” for some odd reason other than theme. The class became very inefficient and was just stupid design without creative forethought to understand what the profession is, while still allowing creative fun ways to compensate and maintaining it’s power despite it’s limitations

This is what the Scourge does, LET IT PLAY OUT. If anything, Scourge doesn’t need attention.

The core necro needs buffs FIRST. They should leave Scourge as is, let it play for 3-6 months tops, buff core necro if they decide to nerf Scourge.

Think about how dumb it’ll be to nerf Scourge, after the Reaper Nerf, and the subsequent lack of forethought with core necro.

Thank you. lord…

After playing more of the Holosmith, and how much I love it.

I can’t help but feel this is what the Reaper should have been.

Holosmith has multiple ways to mitigate dmg through use of heat, and reduces recharge of skills through its photoforge.

Reaper, I wished it more functioned like this, but its crappy and inefficient in comparison.

Stress test = Everyone logs in the demo, has to make a core necro.

This is bs, I reked as Spellbreaker, you reflect condis and totally shutdown boon spammers

Targets affected by Chill cannot Stun, Daze, or Disable you. You are immune to these CC effects attempted to be inflicted on you otherwise, unless they cure themselves of Chill, or resist it via Resistance boon.

Your welcome.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Holosmith%27s_Sword

bump, i agree, this is so true

I’ll rank them in terms of Well-done, half-way there, and needs serious reconsideration and why.

Well-done:

Spellbreaker, Deadeye, Firebrand, Scourge, and Holosmith.

Some strengths and notes for each. Spellbreaker’s traits are the most polished and excellent among all specs, great synergy, and very well thought out.
*My only complaint is dagger burst, dagger 2, and dagger skill 4 is way too slow. IT’S DAGGER, needs to be much faster leap and attack speed for those skills. 1/2 a second is too long, it should just be instant
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/It-s-AMAZING/first#post6705457

Deadeye is fun, but has broken mechanics that can be exploited and need to be looked at. Deadeye can boonfarm, where it can reset its new steal mechanic with trickery daze to steal boons, CONSTANTLY, why building Soldiers/Mara armor. So Deadeye becomes a broken Rev/Warrior/Necro all in one. It’s crazy.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Deadeye-Rifle-Reflect/first#post6709987
Also deadeye rifle shots don’t reflect properly.

Scourge is a completely new playstyle and I love it. But the Sand Shade skills are awkward, I REALLY WANNA TO RESLOT THEM. I want to move them around for my convenience.

Firebrand – I’ll leave a post at the bottom of my indepth review. But quickly, I love the caster old school healer feel of the Firebrand.

The core issue is the traits, there are some traits THAT NEED TO BE MADE BASELINE. They will be taken all the time and everytime. which is the ones to Increase Pages, and Reduce cooldown of tomes.

This is so obvious you need to take its not an option not to. Firebrand itself on the field is great, again, love the feel and take of classic MMO Healers and Supports. Please make those traits mentioned baseline.

Half- Way there-

Renegade, and Soulbeast. Soulbeast Dolyak Stance WAS NOT WORKING the entire beta, huge dissapointment. How can we give feed back if it completely doesn’t work?

Renegade I thought was probably designed for PVE, but in PVP/WVW no one will run it, Herald is so consequential and effective with proxitmity boons over spending 5 seconds to place a not-so-strong area of control, in WVW you just kite away from it.

Only in PVE (Which i assume was the design purpose) will this be in play. Castimes need to be looked at.

Reconsideration -

Mirage and Weaver

Via my post below

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Two-Elite-Specs-need-serious-reconsideration/first#post6708050

I also gave a review on firebrand here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/A-secretly-complex-elite-spc-deep-dive-review/first#post6708980

There is also a discussion here about soulbeast. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Need-to-be-able-to-switch-while-in-Beastmode/first#post6710630

I mentioned how we need to be able to Switch pets WHILE IN BEASTMODE, being needed to switch out of beastmode, then switch pets, and into beastmode again is A. A lack of commitment as designers
B. Defeats the purpose of playing a new playstyle, its only half a playstyle. If we want to run with pets, we’ll just play core ranger.

Those are my general thoughts spread out through different posts.

With Scourge on the rise, I’ll have a fun condi build to play with.

But I want to play in WvW sometimes using a Power Reaper spec when I’m bored.
(Roaming mostly, and less often zergs. but at least zerg dive.)

What’s the best Power Reaper spec you guys have in mind?

Runes/gear/traits/ etc.. etc..

Want to learn more about mesmers, and thinking of playing one myself.

Referring to his Chronomancer in the beginning of the vid.

Lol spellbreaker is amazing in pvp, no clue how you are playing this class

This is my personal reaction when playing with and against Mirage-

“Huh, the Core Mesmer can do this already, arguably do this playstyle better as core, might as well stick to that.”

With the Mirage, Core Mesmer already did Condi Spec super well and efficiently, Mirage adds nothing and rather just makes running the same type of spec inconvenient to begin with and subpar traits (Weaver has same issue, I’ll get to that in a moment)

In regards to Ambush and The Mirage’s dodge mechanic. These at best are nice cosmetic changes. There is SOME potential, which is controlling clones to change different targets.

Playing against this class, it’s just a condi mesmer with an awkard dodge mechanic with a visual difference, but the playstyle is still virtually the same.

When i fight against a Firebrand, Scourge, Spellbreaker YOU FEEL THE DIFFERENCE, both playing it, and fighting against it. This is important. And they clearly do something the core prof could not do.

Suggestion -

Again, it is NOT a Concept issue… it’s WHAT IT DOES.

Right now it doesn’t have enough Clone generation for the whole Mirage mechanic to matter. And the dodge is inconsequential to the point Core Mesmer was equally more deceptive and illusive than Mirage already is. It’s just a Mesmer in the desert, does nothing different.

A lot like the edition of Continuum Split from Chronomancer, the Mirage gets something new in its Mechanic bar. TWO New CLONES

So when you look above your shatters, there are 3 circles representing the amount of phantasms/clones you have present. NOW you have 5!

With the Two Mirage Clones represented by this Diamond Shape.

How does this interact differently? When you click any of your Shatter skills, Three of your core clones/phantasms shatter, but NOT your Mirage clones (which are generated by your dodges alone)

What this does you have Two extra clones, not designed for damage, but for DEDICATED DECEPTION.

Emphasis on Dedicated!

What this does you have extra TWO clones at all times that can be used to delude and deceive your enemies, trying to guess which one is which.

This is a playstyle Mesmer don’t have, Mesmers always at some point have to shatter their Clones/Phantas to get the most use out of it. If you gave us extra two Mirage type clones designed for deception specifically via dodging. It would DO something different as intended.

bumping this, its sunday morning and still deosnt work, common anet

Yea, Shield Mastery for Warrior’s Shield doesn’t reflect Deadeye-Rifle shots, but for everything else it does.

The only thing I can reflect the shots are my Spellbreaker Dagger 5 skill, but rifle shots are bugged and not reflecting back with me Shield (traited) as intended.

I reviewed this new elite spec together with the Weaver on GW2 discussion. I felt like they shared the same issue overall.

Link is here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Two-Elite-Specs-need-serious-reconsideration/first#post6707995

I reviewed this new elite spec together with the Mirage on GW2 discussion. I felt like they shared the same issue overall.

Link is here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Two-Elite-Specs-need-serious-reconsideration/first#post6707995

Suggestions -

Again, it is NOT a Concept issue… it’s WHAT IT DOES.

Mirage.

Right now it doesn’t have enough Clone generation for the whole Mirage mechanic to matter. And the dodge is inconsequential to the point Core Mesmer was equally more deceptive and illusive than Mirage already is. It’s just a Mesmer in the desert, does nothing different.

A lot like the edition of Continuum Split from Chronomancer, the Mirage gets something new in its Mechanic bar. TWO New CLONES

So when you look above your shatters, there are 3 circles representing the amount of phantasms/clones you have present. NOW you have 5! With the Two Mirage Clones represented by this Diamond Shape.

How does this interact differently? When you click any of your Shatter skills, Three of your core clones/phantasms shatter, but NOT your Mirage clones (which are generated by your dodges alone)

What this does you have Two extra clones, not designed for damage, but for DEDICATED DECEPTION. emphasis on Dedicated! What this does you have Two clones at all times that can be used to confuse and deceive your enemies, trying to guess which one is which.

This is a playstyle Mesmer don’t have, Mesmers always at some point have to shatter their Clones/Phantas to get the most use out of it. If you gave us extra two Mirage type clones designed for deception specifically via dodging. It would DO something different as intended.

WEAVER

If you really want to make this Ele up close and personal, the issue is not damage or statistics, Eles already do tons of damage, condi and direct damage alike. That’s not the issue. ( Yes sword has huge lack of damage in that department, but that’s a smaller problem compared to this)

It’s what it does when it gets up in your face. Weavers should be centered around:
A. Evading
B. Parrying
C. Blocking
D. Dazes/other interrupts

Dual attacks need to be built around this in spades.

ALL available on the Weapon bar, not utilities, but interactively via sword and dual attacks. Barrier is not interactive enough, its passive too similar to auras, we need something where we can INTERACT differently to our world and environment as an unclose bruiser, not just a new variety of passives (barrier).

Here are some skills from other professions as examples.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Serpent%27s_Strike

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Counterblow

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protector%27s_Strike

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Counterattack

As you can see, the purpose of bringing Weaver in this direction with it’s Sword and Dual Attacks would be to allow it to ACTUALLY go toe to toe in melee range, you are NOT just doing damage “one step closer,” you are blocking! parrying! evading! and so forth.

All of which Ele’s had very little off. The ONLY way Ele’s could block is through passives through boons and auras, but not ACTUAL physical blocking like warriors, rangers, or guardians. That’s what allowed them to melee when they did.

Hope this reaches to you well guys and gals!

I would have posted this on either of the profession forums, but there were two who shared the same problem, so i brought it to Gw2 main discussion

The Mirage and the Weaver.

Here’s Why -

I’m gonna tackle this from multiple perspectives.

1. playing as the spec. 2. Fighting against the spec 3. The overall purpose and design concept. All in no particular order.

The primary issue with both these specs is that when it comes to the feel and playstyle, they both add nothing new to the core profession whatsoever, it comes across more cosmetic than anything.

On the contrary example, The Spellbreaker, Firebrand, and Scourge are given playstyles the core profession NEVER GOT BEFORE drastically changing the mindset and playstyle we need to learn and play, giving a fresh take on the current class.

The Spellbreaker is the Anti to all that is meta, it rips boons, warriors can never rip boons.
Firebrands are so much like Cloth-wearing Casters from classic Priests in WoW, or Mercy from Overwatch. No longer playing like Frontline Paladins, or Deadly Vanguards (referencing dragonhunter).
Scourge straight up lose a mechanic we’ve been so used to for a completely new one. It’s obvious and in-your-face changes. And you can feel it.

Now let’s get to the Weaver and Mirage. In both forums: reddit, here, and my own play experience. Both the reactions were this:

“Huh, the Core Mesmer/Elementalist can do this already, arguably do this playstyle better as core, might as well stick to that.”

With the Mirage, Core Mesmer already did Condi Spec super well and efficiently, Mirage adds nothing and rather just makes running the same type of spec inconvenient to begin with and subpar traits (Weaver has same issue, I’ll get to that in a moment)

In regards to Ambush and The Mirage’s dodge mechanic. These at best are nice cosmetic changes. There is SOME potential, which is controlling clones to change different targets.

Playing against this class, it’s just a condi mesmer with an awkard dodge mechanic with a visual difference, but the playstyle is still virtually the same.

When i fight against a Firebrand, Scourge, Spellbreaker YOU FEEL THE DIFFERENCE, both playing it, and fighting against it. This is important. And they clearly do something the core prof could not do.

The Weaver has a more glaring problem in my opinion and I’m gonna challenge the justification of the devs on this one. One of the devs said “The Elementalist never really had a playstyle where it can fight up close, the Weaver is an aggresive bruiser/brawler”

AHEM cough cough. This come across as shortsighted, have you not seen CELE ELE D/D?

“Yea but its dagger, and it’s in between close range and mid range, not melee exactly..”

Ok, so let’s look at the Weaver class and what it adds to the Elementalist then with that in mind.

“I can fight one step closer with a Sword than I did with a Dagger.”

THAT’S IT. FOR GOD’S SAKE THATS IT! Literally this entirely Elite Spec is based on fighting ONE STEP (Two steps, giving the benefit of the doubt) than I did before. But it’s the EXACT SAME PLAYSTYLE.

“Yea but Weaver can weave two elements at once” Regular Attunement Swapping was just fine. Again Weaving elements DID NOT change the playstyle, it’s a cosmetic change at best.

Weavers don’t do enough damage to matter, the traits are all sustain tank based, WHICH the Ele does super well already. Have you seen Water/Earth lines?!

I want to chart this out further to illustrate my point. When looking at an Elite Spec there two components, THE CONCEPT and WHAT IT DOES.

You can have a CONCEPT that’s new and different, BUT, It does exactly the same thing.
OR you have a concept that’s poor and distasteful but it does things differently in a new way (haven’t seen this since the Dragonhunter, which is one example)

So lets chart this out.

CONCEPT – Spellbreaker. Counters Mages and Magic, it’s the Anti-Mage.
WHAT IT DOES – Rips boons, Counters Stealth and Kiting.

Again different concept, and does things completely new a Warrior could never do.

CONCEPT – Firebrand. Uses the Knowledge of Lore to brand and smite enemies
WHAT IT DOES – Becomes a Caster Focus Spec. No longer supporting just through buffs and passives around you through proximity. But spells that DIRECTLY Cast upon your allies and enemies. Using tomes simulating kit-like mechanics and ammo usage through pages.

CONCEPT – Deadeye. It’s a Sniper.
WHAT IT DOES – Instead of Stealing, moving in, moving out. You snipe from a distance and long ranger, and focus on damaging multiplying rather than taking/stealing.

CONCEPT- Scourge. Using Sand Shades and losing your Shroud to manipulate the death from the very ground beneath you.
WHAT IT DOES – Battlefield control and Area manipulation.

Those are some strong examples. Let’s go to the Weaver and Mirage.

CONCEPT – Mirage. Through Mirror images and magic imbued in the desert ala mirages, cloak ones movement to deceive enemies.
WHAT IT DOES- It does Condi, a blur for a dodge instead of a roll, and new 1 skills as ambushes.

^ These are visual/cosmetic differences. but WHAT IT DOES is the same. It’s still a dodge, and you do condi, which mesmer already did just as well.

CONCEPT – Weaver. Weave and combine two elements together and simultaenously.
WHAT IT DOES – Fight up close as a “Bruiser/Brawler” and get Dual Attacks when combing two elements.

Yea this isn’t looking too good, at no point ever an Ele said we were lacking this. D/D did the job just fine.

Yea, a lot of people wanted a sword, but we wanted to do something different too. And Dual attacks ARE STILL ATTACKS, it needs to interact differently with the environment around it, which it doesn’t do compared to core ele, just gives different passives…

I disagree entirely with this post. I think this is muddled with your subconscious opinion of what you usually play to make it suit your experience.

We all do it without realizing sometimes, but when you review things like game mechanics and classes, you have to go through other people’s experience and embody a well-thought out consensus of not just your thoughts, but thoughts of players, AND the Designers themselves.

(This especially includes damage statistics and numbers, which is not really the feedback they need.)

This post is like “I don’t like my experience, change it so it suits me”

I gave a post about the Firebrand, looking at the design, the way its played, and observing the intricate theme closely from the developer and player perspective, and shared my suggestions and criticisms through this lends. I encourage you give it a look.

This.

If I want to be in Beastmode with my other pet, I need to > Get off beast mode > Switch pet > WAIT for cooldown of Beastmode > Then go beastmode again.

I disagree with this process entirely. It’s tremendously awkward.

We should be able to switch while in Beastmode, needing to switch OFF beastmode everytime ruins the playstyle entirely.

“Oh but we want to encourage you to still use your pet” WE’VE BEEN USING OUR PET FOR 5 YEARS. If we wanna have a build with our pet out more often, let us just use the core Ranger, that’s the whole point right?

Let us commit fully to this new Meld/Beastmode playstyle. Not a half-version of it.

The boons that are supposed to proc, don’t.

Please fix, otherwise no point playing Soulbeast at all this demo.

That’s all it does, at least it seems to me. Not a very interesting spec.

Anyone care to enlighten me otherwise, or anyone share my sentiments?

Curious what everyone thinks

I don’t see why it should get a nerf, it’s super easy to counter, has nothing against CC and easy to reflect back and mitigate.

As Spellbreaker, I just full counter, stun, and it dies.

1. To understand this Elite Spec better, one important thing to note, the name very poorly describes what this spec does and what it’s designed to do.

The Firebrand is a lot like a Priest from WoW

OR

A lot like Mercy or Lucio from Overwatch.

Get it now? Immediately after seeing those analogies, you instantly get what this spec is about.

If you try to play the Firebrand like Core Guard or Dragonhunter, you are already doing it wrong.

I started out doing this exactly, slotted in radiance a few mantras and shouts thinking I can charge into battle like a Guard/DH…no no no. Very quickly it felt clunky, odd, and out of place. The Tomes/traits and skills available didn’t match the playstyle I thought I could do.

I started playing around with the tomes, switched to Meditation trait to use the tomes more often, used Honor instead of Zeal and went more supportive route. HUGE DIFFERENCE.

I was literally the difference between pug zergs dying, and pug zergs surviving! The Firebrand is a Support Healer Caster in it’s truest form from classic MMO archetypes.

Firebrand’s are Mid-Range, Mid-Line Support. Core Guardians are Front-line support, and DH are straight up long-range to close ranger damage dealers.

All in all, this feels super rewarding if you ever played a Mercy in Overwatch or a WoW Priest, that sense of healing your allies and you bringing in all that HP juice goodness, you will love the firebrand!

Also you will get super kittened when friends and allies don’t rez you are protect you, because guess what, if they don’t, they die too (especially if they are pugs). I got so mad soo many times for teammates ignoring me, until they see the value and whole point of the Firebrand.

Otherwise, an amazingly complex and intricate support/healer spec, with supplementing mid range dmg mix condi/dd. Very nicely done.

2. Feedback and Criticisms
Switching and Activitating the tomes themselves feel very odd and clunky. The 1 second castime to use a tome and to another just doesn’t feel smooth.

Not only that, I see: Archivist of Whispers- Minor Trait and Loremaster – Grandmaster trait MANDATORY, you need to make these baseline. Otherwise the cooldown is way too long and too short of usage for the essential skills to be of any use.

3. Suggestions and Solutions.
Right now, it’s a kitten caster with a kitten core guardian. COMMIT, make a full amazing support caster in all it’s glory. Here’s how.

With the tomes, make it function like Engineer tool kits in terms of toggling and switching/ or Ele attunements. Quick and easy to switch around, will be nice and smooth

“But wouldn’t that be OP? You get to use these skills all the time?”

NOPE! and here’s the catch, you see the cubes right beside the tomes?

MAKE THEM FUNCTION LIKE THIEVES INITIATIVE!!!!! So you have the smoothness and switching of Engineer kits, but make each skill of the tomes recharges be spent and used like Thief initiative skills.

This way, one it’s easier to balance with more control (I.E. how fast the cube pips recharge, and the cost for each tome skill) with the added benefit of feeling smooth to use for the player switching between each tome smoothly. And encourages a playstyle to enjoy the tome usage!

4. Final thoughts

Firebrand is 90% the way there!!! It’s a really good spec, with a lot of intricacies and thought put into it.

I can see this competing with Druid in Raids, and highest Mid line Support in WvW Zergs

Hope this reaches an open-minded dev!!

People complaining in this subforum have no clue how to play.

Literally Spellbreaker is the Anti-cheese spec of GW2.

whether it be condi spam, stealth gank trolls, boon spammers or kiters. Spellbreaker counters all of them. (But not all at the same time)

Very well rounded. Berserker is great for PVE, Spellbreaker is great for PVP/WVW.

Brilliant. I had an amazing time as Spellbreaker, literally everyone I fought was in utter shock how powerful I was.

People who complain about Spellbreaker are absolutely clueless.

I like how I can choose what I want to counter, do I want to counter condi spam, or focus more on countering stealth ganks, or punish those who dish out boons.

I cannot counter all, I have to be specific with my choices. Hats off to Robert Gee, really great spec!

Also I like how I DON’T HAVE TO SWITCH WEAPONS, Dagger/Dagger is amazing for self-sustain in 1v1 and zerg fights. (People seem to forget the burst skill for dagger is…UNBLOCKABLE! Which makes up for what Dagger/Dagger lacks compared to other weapons, really good balance!)

What I do is build Bulls Charge, Berserker Stance, and Feather Foot Grace.

BTW Feather Foot Grace is the new berserker stance, and probably better statistically on a ratio.

All in all, THUMBS UP!

in the title above

Question about on critical hit sigils.

If I have the same sigil on another weapon set, does the cooldown apply to both?
Or the cooldown applies to the one that triggered, and if I switch to the other weapon set, that one can trigger again with it’s own cooldown?

Lets say I have Two weapon sets, my first weapon set a have a Sigil of Generosity and if I switch to the second weapon set I have a Sigil of Generosity of that too.

If the sigil triggers on the first set, does it trigger a cooldown for the sigil on the other set too?

Question about on critical hit sigils.

If I have the same sigil on another weapon set, does the cooldown apply to both? or the cooldown applies to the one that triggered, and if I switch to the other weapon set, that one can trigger again with it’s own cooldown?

Lets say I have Two weapon sets, my first weapon set a have a Sigil of Generosity and if I switch to the second weapon set I have a Sigil of Generosity of that too.

If the sigil triggers on the first set, does it trigger a cooldown for the sigil on the other set too?

Turk.5460:

Even though this is quite clearly a L2P issue, and I can guarantee this person lost 1v1, rather than “I saw them in a zerg” – I’ll humor it for a few of the more L2P points until I lose interest.

“-Vault using 5 initiative as an extra form of dodge. with Trickery used up to 3 times including dealing damage WHILE Evading (which is invulnerability)”
-No. It does not do damage while evading. It evades until the peak of the jump, then before landing and applying damage, it is vulnerable. Actually unable to do anything at that point except finish the attack. Can’t regular dodge, can’t steal, can’t even swap weapons. This is the only attack in the game that you cannot swap weapons/stow if I recall.

Same thing with Bounding Dodger. Damage not applied before evasion ends. For both of these cases, if the end of their dodge lands in some red circles, there is a high probability that those red circles will affect the Thief. If those red circles happen to be hard-CC fields – damage will not apply and the Thief will be hard-CC’d.

Bounding dodge isn’t a blast finisher. OK I’ve lost interest.

It’s attitudes like yours where this issue doesn’t get resolved.

I wish I recorded it because it was a gorgeous thing to behold, ridiculous yet very funny.

After my zerg left, I decided to chase down the Daredevil to try duel him. It ended up a stale mate, he was harmless, couldn’t really do damage afraid I’ll catch him.

So it was a stalemate until his friends came along and ended me.

Again, this has happened to me before with bunker Ele’s and Guardians, this isn’t new, the difference is that same bunker Ele/Guard will eventually die in a zerg if around it for too long.

Daredevils ARE NOT OP. Let me make that clear. The primary issue is that they have No risk, and No cost with constant regenerating returns.

There needs to be cost/benefit relationship. And I know the damage comes immediately after the dodge and not during, at no point I specifically said that.

Also https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vault : its a combo Finisher, STILL a finisher, so when it last in smoke field it goes into stealth, that is my point.

And you still haven’t addressed my main questions.

What is the trade-off from using a Daredevil from a core Thief?

Zoltreez.6435:

Dawdler.8521:

Necro OP

I love you, that J Jonah Jameson meme is on point.

I literally saw a Daredevil dodge around in the middle of a 20 Man zerg.

It was absurd, funny for a moment, then questioned the Elite spec, the objective of the spec and what this does for the game.

But seeing it do that, I was like “Wtf is this?”

I thought the whole point of the Daredevil was High Risk, High Reward.

It seemed more like No Risk, No Reward, No worries.

He might as well been an Elementalist with perma-Obsidian Flesh but do zero damage, or spectator mode.

Even the most bunky or stalemate-y type of characters (Guardian/Ele) will eventually die in a zerg.

They have infinite amount of Endurance rotating through all these Endurance regen mechanics, I’ll list them out.

Here are some things to note:
The extra Dodge
Signet of Agility(30s)
Channeled Vigor (20s cd)
Shadow step (50s cd)
-Vault using 5 initiative as an extra form of dodge. with Trickery used up to 3 times including dealing damage following the Evading (which is invulnerability)
-and Superior Sigil of Energy, with plus dodges from each weapon swap. (once every 10s)
This includes Bandit’s defense (15s cd) used as a stall to get endurance back and cooldown for endurance gain-back skills, which are on low cooldown as it is.

In a span of 30 seconds you have multiple ways to get full Endurance, and still have other skills to regain/build endurance within the next 30s after, including the dodge with Staff vault.

I think this is poor design, Evasion = Invulnerability, people need to understand this.
This is not the same as Death Shroud, DS is damage mitigation, they still take damage and susceptible to effects.

Some questions, what is the trade-off between a Daredevil and running core Thief, hm?

And how it is “High Risk, High Reward” if Evading (Invul to dmg) deals damage on EVERY occasion after the dodge is complete? I.E. Vault/Bounding Dodger.

You get to evade AND deal damage?

I’m putting to question the whole point or design to this spec as a whole, it’s borderline absurdity and I’m quite critical of it, yet I see the fun in it.

My vision was, Thieves as Daredevils use less stealth and focus more on dodging, and focuses on Charging into battles being upfront, not being sneaky and backstabbing. They are being DARING, they are putting themselves at risk to get more damage in while be more seen, visible, and too close for comfort

It turned out to be more like a bouncing ball that bounces everywhere.

I think the block from Bandit’s Defense is out of place and needs to go, its a stall and removes the risk the DAREdevil is intended to be. I suggest it gets Retaliation when used and knocks back opponents when struck, no block. You have to rely on your dodges and evades as intended.

And I don’t think Bounding Dodger should be a blast finisher, simply because if you are gonna dodge around and do damage, you better commit! (you can’t blast into a stealth) There is no escape and better get it done.

These changes are intended to really weed out the cheese players ftom and in favor of the players thieves/dd who have ACTUAL skill.

If the Daredevil is gonna have a focus on dodges and dodge around, make them commit to it, that is the trade-off if there is any. Blocking should never be available, thematically it doesn’t fit, and mechanically its a cheap stall, and stealth takes some effort.

Also PVP cost of Vault should be unsplit from SPVP to WVW/PVE costing 6 initiative, which currently costs 6 now in sPVP. It just seems more consistent.

And that’s it, everything else get’s left alone.

With the recent August 8 patch, people were QQing about Warrior/Zerk nerfs, meanwhile it wasn’t a nerf, it buffed the core slightly and changed the interaction between Berserker bursts to certain traits, making it a clear trade-off between using Core warrior vs Zerker elite spec. Same includes for Revenants, more incentive to use Jalis/Retribution.

Similar was done to a smaller degree to Tempests. And Yet they completely failed regarding the Necromancer (seems they’ll never get that right.)

With the Deadeye coming out, THE TRADE OFF, is apparent, no more steal, and you get Malice/Target multiplier instead.

If people who play this class for a long time could enlighten me and share me their perspective between core Thief and Daredevil that would be great.

I literally saw a Daredevil dodge around in the middle of a 20 Man zerg.

It was absurd, funny for a moment, then questioned the Elite spec, the objective of the spec and what this does for the game.

But seeing it do that, I was like “Wtf is this?”

I thought the whole point of the Daredevil was High Risk, High Reward.

It seemed more like No Risk, No Reward, No worries.

He might as well been an Elementalist with perma-Obsidian Flesh but do zero damage, or spectator mode.

Even the most bunky or stalemate-y type of characters (Guardian/Ele) will eventually die in a zerg.

They have infinite amount of Endurance rotating through all these Endurance regen mechanics, I’ll list them out.

Here are some things to note:
The extra Dodge
Signet of Agility(30s)
Channeled Vigor (20s cd)
Shadow step (50s cd)

-Vault using 5 initiative as an extra form of dodge. with Trickery used up to 3 times including dealing damage following the Evading (which is invulnerability)

-and Superior Sigil of Energy, with plus dodges from each weapon swap. (once every 10s)
This includes Bandit’s defense (15s cd) used as a stall to get endurance back and cooldown for endurance gain-back skills, which are on low cooldown as it is.

In a span of 30 seconds you have multiple ways to get full Endurance, and still have other skills to regain/build endurance within the next 30s after, including the dodge with Staff vault.

I think this is poor design, Evasion = Invulnerability, people need to understand this.
This is not the same as Death Shroud, DS is damage mitigation, they still take damage and susceptible to effects.

Some questions, what is the trade-off between a Daredevil and running core Thief, hm?

And how it is “High Risk, High Reward” if Evading (Invul to dmg) deals damage on EVERY occasion? I.E. Vault/Bounding Dodger.
You get to evade AND deal damage?

I’m putting to question the whole point or design to this spec as a whole, it’s borderline absurdity and I’m quite critical of it, yet I see the fun in it.

My vision was, Thieves as Daredevils use less stealth and focus more on dodging, and focuses on Charging into battles being upfront, not being sneaky and backstabbing. They are being DARING, they are putting themselves at risk to get more damage in while be more seen, visible, and too close for comfort

It turned out to be more like a bouncing ball that bounces everywhere.

I think the block from Bandit’s Defense is out of place and needs to go, its a stall and removes the risk the DAREdevil is intended to be. I suggest it gets Retaliation when used and knocks back opponents when struck, no block. You have to rely on your dodges and evades as intended.

And I don’t think Bounding Dodger should be a blast finisher, simply because if you are gonna dodge around and do damage, you better commit! (you can’t blast into a stealth) There is no escape and better get it done.

These changes are intended to really weed out the cheese players ftom and in favor of the players thieves/dd who have ACTUAL skill.

If the Daredevil is gonna have a focus on dodges and dodge around, make them commit to it, that is the trade-off if there is any. Blocking should never be available, thematically it doesn’t fit, and mechanically its a cheap stall, and stealth takes some effort.

Also PVP cost of Vault should be unsplit from SPVP to WVW/PVE costing 6 initiative, which currently costs 6 now in sPVP. It just seems more consistent.

And that’s it, everything else get’s left alone.

With the recent August 8 patch, people were QQing about Warrior/Zerk nerfs, meanwhile it wasn’t a nerf, it buffed the core slightly and changed the interaction between Berserker bursts to certain traits, making it a clear trade-off between using Core warrior vs Zerker elite spec. Same includes for Revenants, more incentive to use Jalis/Retribution.

Similar was done to a smaller degree to Tempests. And Yet they completely failed regarding the Necromancer (seems they’ll never get that right.)

With the Deadeye coming out, THE TRADE OFF, is apparent, no more steal, and you get Malice/Target multiplier instead.

If people who play this class for a long time could enlighten me and share me their perspective between core Thief and Daredevil that would be great.

Come to the Dark Side

This will do several things:

One- Training for the actual 10 Man- Raid Mechanics, with everything tuned down and virtually all the same mechanics.

Two- Easier to form a party and not deal with the elitism culture if your goal is to only experience the content and story, so it’s not exclusive to a small oligarchy of players

Three- The Catch is No Rewards, at best you can get exotic weapons and armor
that generic and possibly get crafting mats.

So all in all, incentive for Anet is that this allows players to EXPERIENCE the content they created, learn the mechanics, and incentive for players to say “HEY! I know how to do this now, I WANT TO DO THE HARDER ONE FOR ACTUAL REWARDS!!”

Boom, this addresses many of the issues currently surrounding this re-emerging issue.

And more importantly, this keeps actual 10-man raids, HARD, which they are supposed to be.

When we create a demo character, and the demo ends for the weekend. Does that demo character reserve/own that name?

I used a demo character with a name a really like and wanted to use it. But it says that name is already taken.

I can’t delete the character because the character gets removed when the demo is over.

2nd question, will demo characters we created during the Path of Fire 11-13 demo weekend return for the next demo? or will we have to recreate new ones?

I found Strength runes work better than what I had, Melandru’s, and Durability seems to be a contender as well need to give them a shot at some point.

Not sure between Durability and Strength. May have to wait for Spellbreaker to come out to determine.

Thanks for the posts guys, this helps a lot for a returning GW2 player after 2 years.

I was trying to swat flies in my room recently, and all of a sudden I Mr. Miyagi’d myself and realized fighting Thieves/Daredevil’s (Mostly DD) was like trying to swat a fly.

Anyway, I dueled a few thieves and crafted a better build with some helpful Warriors who’ve been playing more often recently.

Really it’s not so much Thieves that are the issue, it’s Daredevil’s, the extra dodge and ways to get Endurance back get’s them all over the place it’s absurd. Like a fly, gotta swat em and maintain the energy and strength to continue the swatting till they go splat.

Now….about mesmers..

The amount of teleportations the thief or I think Daredevil has is ridiculous.

They dive back and forth between stealth and teleporting somewhere else it almost feels like hacking.

I play warrior and sometimes it’s downright absurd.

If a skilled thief can explain to me how this works, I’d like to know.

Essentially I want to learn what the build is, since it’s so common and cheese, their weapon/utility skills and general rotation.

Solo and Group Roaming specifically.

I tried Melandru’s, it’s ok, but I noticed Durability seems more popular.