Showing Highly Rated Posts By Vagrant.7206:

Wait until Holosmith is out before hating.

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

I have been following the information and release, and I know the skill information has been released to some extent. Still, shouldn’t we wait until we get to test it(which is only a few weeks away for those that didn’t hear) before we claim that holosmith is trash and that this class is doomed. Anet is a good studio and they have been working on this expack for a while, so we should give the benefit of the doubt.
Tldr: give holosmith a chance

I’m willing to give it a shot. I’m just not hopeful, considering we’ve been virtually written off for the last two years.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

The Engineer Injustice

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Hi everybody!

I wanted to start a post documenting the longstanding issues with the class. I’m bored and I feel like ranting about something, and this has been bothering me for a while.

I’ve mained engineer since the launch of GW2 — and even in the betas before GW2 officially launched. I’ve put in close to 3000 hours with engineer alone. I even have pictures!

http://i.imgur.com/1JAr7Vp.jpg — My character when I first started playing in the early access beta weekends. Yes, she is jumping while sitting (a fun glitch in the beta)
http://i.imgur.com/3vu37ha.jpg — My character now

Inb4 cry moar


Preface

I’m starting this thread with the intention of documenting the longstanding injustice against engineers committed by ArenaNet over the length of the class. This thread will start with the general issues, and narrow down to the specifics.


The Class Origin

The engineer class is perhaps the only class I know of unique to Guild Wars 2 — with revenant and mesmer coming in a close second. Most MMOs do not have an analogue to the engineer. This is a good thing. Hell, this is a great thing.

But there’s a problem. The class started partly as a joke. The commando, while not responsible for the origin of the engineer (the idea started earlier than that) did play a large role in some of the skills we see today — in particular grenade kit, mortar kit, and orbital strike.

The class was also an afterthought — it was the last of the original 8 to be made, as documented in this interview.

Jon P: I wouldn’t say they were assured, but some were more likely. The ranger was on the fence as we split it into two things, and those merged back together. When we had twelve professions there was actually no ranger, but when we went back down to seven, the ranger came back. The reason I keep referring to seven professions is because for a while we thought that was going to be the final number. The reason why we went to eight was because the engineer was not part of the final seven.


Aesthetics

  • Armor

Engineer was originally slated to be a heavy armor class, and was later changed to a medium armor class. This noticeably affected the armor styles available to the engineer in the early game, and even to this day. In fact, there was very little armor that was clearly designed for an engineer before it was added later via the gem store. Most of the medium armor present in the game is clearly designed for rangers and thieves, with little thought given to engineers.

Today, we still don’t see much in the way of armor design for engineer. The new outfits and gemstore armors don’t fit an engineer’s aesthetic. Minor nods have been given to us, such as Magitech armor and the Gas Mask, but by and large we don’t see much armor design given to engineers.

And this shows. The new “legendary” armor precursors hint at what the finished product will look like. While the Envoy armor doesn’t really fit any of the three medium classes (looks more fit for a necro), it REALLY doesn’t fit an engineer.

  • Weapons

We also didn’t see weapons designed with engineers in mind. Notably, the first rifle and pistol legendaries were clearly designed for warriors and thieves respectively. The Predator is a sniper rifle — but the engineer’s attacks fire from the hip. Quip is a troll/joke weapon and clearly fits the thief’s aesthetic more than the engineer’s.

Throughout Guild Wars’ Living Stories, when new weapon skins were added, they typically didn’t include pistol or rifle, the engineer’s only weapons pre-HoT. The notable exceptions are the Aetherblade weapons and arguably HOPE.

Speaking of which! Our weapon kits don’t display legendary weapon effects and aren’t visually customizable. Every engineer has the same flamethrower, the same bomb kit, etc. Why are we the only class that gets screwed visually?

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

Engineer needs some love in PvP

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Warrior, Guardian, and Necro have the most diversity, Rangers and Thieves are limited to only a couple of builds, and Mesmer, Elementalist, Engineer, and Revenant are limited to one viable build.

Thus why I said just about all, seeing as only 3 of 9 professions have any real diversity in viable build choices.

But the majority of complaints in OP’s post is about core Engineer, which is a universal problem across all core professions, not just the Engineer.

Yeah, but the problem is compounded by the fact that engineers only have a few weapons to pick from — we have the fewest weapons available of any class. With 3 out of 4 weapons kitten… we really lack build diversity. With the addition of the projectile hate, many of our core skills became utterly impractical. There simply isn’t any counterplay for the engineer to deal with the problems.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Just browsing over this forum, everybody is talking about HoT costing $50 to pre-order.

Arguments against the price are:

  • The preorder includes the base game, which is at least a $10 value, yet veterans aren’t given a discount for already owning the base game.
  • The preorder does not include character expansion slots (at least none mentioned)
  • This is an “expansion” which only seems to add 3 maps and a few features.

Arguments for the price are:

  • We don’t pay a subscription fee, so ANet needs to recoup money it would have had with a subscription. Additionally, ANet has added new content to the game for free (Living Stories 1 and 2).
  • We have no idea how complex/intricate the new maps and features are, as our knowledge regarding the material is limited.

Here’s why it doesn’t matter what the price is:

  • Pre-order sales are a bad business practice to support. Any person who has played games for long enough should know better at this point. Since this is a game that is digitally delivered, there aren’t limited numbers of copies. Don’t support pre-ordering, as it is an inherently anti-consumer practice.
  • Veterans and newcomers alike should wait for the reviews to HoT like they would for any new game. Since the current pricing suggests it is a new game, treat it like one. Reviews from multiple sources provide valuable insight to the true value of the game. We don’t have the knowledge necessary to make an informed opinion yet, so don’t leap before you look.
  • Demand more information before you cast your opinion. ANet has been incredibly tight-lipped about a lot of the practicality of release of HoT. We don’t know if extra character slots are included, what bonuses are available to veteran players, or what the practical effects of any of the new content (especially the revenant) will have on the overall gameplay. Some of these questions can be answered by ANet (but they choose not to or don’t know yet), and others cannot be answered until HoT launches. Wait to buy the game.
  • Ultimately, if the price bothers you, wait for a sale. Some features of HoT are being added to the base game without actually having HoT. It also seems likely that at some future point ANet will include an “upgrade” package.

TL ; DR : Preorder price doesn’t matter because you shouldn’t preorder.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

The Engineer Injustice

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Core Gameplay

Engineer is possibly one of the most complicated classes to play and learn, next to elementalist in terms of complexity. Previously, there were simple engineer builds that were viable, but they have gotten nerfed into oblivion, or power creeped into obscurity.

Also notable is the fact that the Scrapper, the Engineer’s current elite specialization, is the only elite specialization that seems entirely designed for PvP. All the other elite specializations commonly see use in PvE and are viable outside of PvP. The scrapper, however, is underwhelming in raids, fractals, and solo play. Most PvE builds of the engineer use exclusively core traits and skills.


Weapons

Engineer has only 2 mainhand weapons available to it, and one offhand weapon: Rifle, pistol, and shield. Scrapper adds the hammer to bring the total to 4.

Currently, we only see viable play out of pistol and scrapper (in PvE and PvP respectively). The other two weapons languish in obscurity, as kits outstrip their damage and utility. Projectile hate plays a large part of the problem as well.


Utilities

Engineer, of all the classes, actually has some of the most engaging potential play. We’ve got silly gadgets like the portable battering ram and rocket boots. We’ve got fun toys like flamethrowers and turrets. We can even switch “weapons” rapidly.

The reality, however, is that many of these “fun” skills are useless or underwhelming. For a class that has a lot of fun stuff, many of the fun skills and utilities we could use are underwhelming when compared to their practical counterparts. They have either been nerfed to oblivion or power creeped out of relevance.

Here’s two examples:

  1. Personal battering ram, a completely silly but somewhat interesting gadget that does knockback. It does moderate to weak damage and sends enemies flying. The problem is that its damage was weak when Guild Wars launched, and has only gotten weaker since. On top of that, the Flamethrower 3 skill (air blast) has the same effect, a lower cooldown, and more potential DPS.
  2. Turrets were, for a time, the meta engineer build. They became as ubiquitous as the tank eles we see today for their ability to bunker. Because the vocal opposition became loud enough, both turret damage and health were nerfed into oblivion. They became even weaker with HoT’s release, which saw more AoE skills introduced. Turrets were literally a selling point of the engineer, and are pointless now.
The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

I don't understand the logic of Map completion/jump puzzles in WvW

in WvW

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Before you guys cry, “Go back home carebear,” hear me out for a moment. I don’t care about your PvP. I don’t care about your WvW. If I could leave it alone, I would.

Not long ago, I was stuck at 92% map completion for the world. The other 8% was stuff in WvW. I spent a lot of frustrating time in queues, dying to people who take themselves too seriously, and generally getting steamrolled by about 20 people. I’m not resentful for getting steamrolled, it’s part of PvP and WvW.

What I am resentful for is that the achievement of getting 100% world completion, which is primarily a PvE accomplishment (note: 92% PvE to be precise), requires me to be in a scenario which I do not enjoy, and frustrates the hell out of me to complete. 8% of the game ruins the other 92% for me. I know ArenaNet promised to make games less about griefing, and more about the fun. This is where I really came to question some of their design decisions.

Now I hear your cry “WvW is part of the map!” Well, not the normal world map. It’s an entirely separate map in the mists, and the achievement also ignores sPvP points of interest as well. It’s completely inconsistent.

Now, it’s interesting to point out that tomorrow they reduce the ability of people to transfer worlds. Because guess how I resolved all my problems with WvW? Quickly transferring between worlds to ignore the issues caused by the world completion requirements — some areas my server was just never going to capture in a hundred years. Rather than waste countless hours trying to capture a point, I made it a matter of minutes. Abusing a feature of the game was my only respite to get around the abuse the game was giving me.

Similar problems arise as well under the “Explorer” achievement tab. Exploration is my favorite past time in any game, including GW2. To get all of its achievements require me to enter WvW, which I’m not entirely against. Sure I have to repeat the same jumping achievement 3 times against a bunch of a homicidal idiots, but whatever. What manages to get my goat though, is the absurdity of the obsidian sanctum. All 3 teams have entrances to this jumping puzzle at any given time (unless one server is dominating). Standard WvW practices apply inside this jumping puzzle (no surprise, I can hold my own). Problem is, the “defenders” in the jumping puzzle get massive advantages — traps that can kill people, and firing positions that make it impossible to pass/fight back.

ArenaNet, I ask you, what is your logic for qualifying an achievement as “explorer” when it’s truly not an exploration achievement, but a WvW/PvP achievement? It’s frustrating to people such as myself who enjoy the exploration, but are OCD about completion. I don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to shoot somebody in the face because of the irritation of the whole charade. Please consider making some kind of change in the future on the issue (I have no simple answers, so I leave that to you).

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Pre-Purchase Community Address

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

This community can never be pleased.

It is standard MMO practice for any expansion that adds new character classes to also include at least one additional character slot by default. See: WoW, Guild Wars 1, etc.

The problem with this “clarification” is that you ONLY get this benefit if you pre-purchase.

In other words, you are expected to pre-purchase for a “bonus” that is seen as normal in almost every other comparable game out there. It’s like buying a plane ticket at the gate, and finding out the seat is not included, since you didn’t order your ticket well in advance.

Pre-purchasing as a practice is inherently anti-consumer. We are literally paying for a promise. We have no guarantee as to the quality of the product, or if we’ll even get the product (if ArenaNet goes under before release, for example). This move strongarms people into pre-purchasing if they want that slot

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

I dislike the new staff

in Queen's Jubilee

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

How about a freaking pistol? We got even less this time around, the sovereign pistol is freaking ugly and that’s all we got for pistols.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Thanks Wooden Potatoes!

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

He spent over half the video explaining just how poor the engineer’s traits, skills and weapons are implemented, things we’ve been saying for well over a year now.

Question is… will the devs care?

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

ANet: Engi needs some love

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Game Modes

In PvP, there’s only one viable build. Everything else will either get you killed or is extremely situational.

In raids, most people prefer condi necros to condi engineers, because it’s harder to screw up condi necros. Engineers need perfect rotations to match a much simpler to play class, and we have little to show for it.

I can’t speak for WvW because I don’t play it, but I haven’t heard much good for engineers there either.

Fractals are the one endgame I’ve seen where engineers can do well… if the npcs sit still long enough. Otherwise, necros outdamage us, because we can’t achieve perfect rotations. We have slightly more utility, but not always enough to counter the DPS drop.


Weapons

We have 4 weapons to pick from: Rifle, Pistol, Shield, and Hammer.

Shield is a flat-out joke. Haven’t seen any decent engineer use it since launch.

Rifle is woefully underpowered and suffers from trying to do everything, and accomplish nothing. In PvP, you’re going to shoot yourself more often than hit the enemy. And its DPS in PvE is pretty weak compared to hammer.

Pistols are in an acceptable state in PvE for their condi power, but suffer the same issues as rifle in PvP — you end up shooting yourself because of the projectile hate.

Hammer is in an acceptable state for PvP. Maybe a little powerful on the defensive side of things. In PvE, it’s acceptable for questing, but generally not that useful in Fractals or Raids.


Kits

Let’s talk about kits. Kits are one of the “draws” of the class, because they offer weapon swapping with virtually no cooldown. The drawback is they are necessary in virtually every engineer build if you want optimal damage output. This means we have to devote at least one (if not more) utility skills to something that other classes get the tilde key (~) for. Many utility skills are non-viable purely because the power of the kits outweighs them.

Grenade kit and bomb kit are not viable in PvP whatsoever. Bombs are woefully underpowered for the amount of effort that goes into proper placement. Grenades suffer the rifle and pistol problem that all projectiles face. These same kits, however, are mission critical in PvE if you want good condi damage. Why is there such a disparity?

Elixir kit is great for hammer PvP builds, but otherwise not that useful.

Flamethrower is good for all condi builds. No changes need to be made to it, IMO.


Traits

If you look at the current meta PvP builds for engineer, almost all of them feature alchemy. Specifically, mid-mid-up. In PvE, every meta build has explosives, specifically down-mid-mid. All other traits are specific to whether you’re a condi pistol or power hammer.

As designers, you should be concerned when every build is doing the same thing. That means that either that particular setup is overpowered compared to everything else, or everything else is woefully underpowered compared to that setup. In my opinion, the latter issue is the problem. All other traits are meant to address a meta that no longer exists, a meta before HoT. A meta that is irrelevant.


Quick Summary

Engineer is in a bad way right now. People prefer other classes for most PvE endgame situations. In PvP, we have only one viable build.

For the amount of skill the class requires, we don’t see an equal or proportional return in damage output. This is frankly frustrating, because the class is otherwise great fun. Please do something ANet, before the class is relegated to complete obsolescence.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

The Engineer Injustice

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Representation

Most classes are represented throughout the storyline of the game — both in personal story and the larger living world. But engineer has almost no representation showing. The only major representation engineer had was killed off pretty early, and there are none that spring to mind:

Heavy

  • Warrior: Rytlock Brimstone, Canach, Warmaster Forgal Kernsson, the Vigil membership, and many smaller examples
  • Guardian: Braham Eirsson, Logan Thackeray
  • Revenant: Rytlock Brimstone. There is a story reason that revenant does not have more representation, however.

Medium

  • Ranger: Eir Stegalkin, Rox
  • Thief: Caithe, the Order of Whispers membership
  • Engineer: Tybalt Leftpaw and Scarlet Briar, both of whom are dead.

Light

  • Mesmer: Kasmeer, Queen Jennah, Lady Wi
  • Necromancer: Trahearne, Marjory Delaqua
  • Elementalist: Snaff, Zojja, Magister Sieran, The Durmand Priory membership

Misc: Taimi (We never observe her directly in combat, it’s only Scruffy. It’s implied she’s a golemancer, which is typically an elementalist)


Traits

As Wooden Potatoes recently documented, our traits are a mess. Many are designed for a meta that doesn’t exist any more, or has never existed at all. They have not been revisited in a very long time, and are in desperate need of reworking.


ArenaNet’s Behavior

Compounding the aforementioned issues is the fact that ArenaNet doesn’t seem to have a main engineer player on their balance team. Almost every balance patch we see a nerf or some sort of tradeoff. The latest patch, which saw a slight buff to engineer’s condition damage has possibly been the only good news we’ve seen in a long time.

In addition to this lack of representation from the Dev team, we also see a lack of representation from the moderating team that visits the forum. Excluding the most recent cleanup of our forum by Gaile Gray, we haven’t seen a developer or ArenaNet employee on the engineer subforum since the beta of Heart of Thorns, well over a year and a half ago.


In Conclusion

ArenaNet, I know you don’t have unlimited resources to devote. You almost always seem to focus on the warrior and design everything else from there.

But it seems like engineer is always an afterthought. We keep getting relegated to the sidelines and ignored. The class is quickly becoming irrelevant, and if major changes aren’t observed with the next few balance patches or next expansion, I may not have a reason to continue playing Guild Wars other than loyalty to the brand.

This thread was also posted on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/65a8u3/the_engineer_injustice/?st=j1ha0hot&sh=c679620b

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

[Meta] This can't be it for us, can it?

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Here’s the thing: We know they are aware of the engineer’s problems. I’ve seen multiple dev comments where they point out that rifle is underwhelming, that kits are simply way more useful than most of our other skills, and the traits are a mess. There’s other issues they are aware of too, like legendaries and kit interactions. They have seen our complaints. They are aware of the issues.

And yet they have done nothing to address these problems in the past 2 years. This last “balance” patch for engineers looks like it was cobbled together the night before they implemented it. Whatever their team is doing, they’re not devoting the time they need to fix these issues. It honestly feels like engineer is an afterthought in their minds — we were the last class to be added to the core game, and we were the last (rushed) specialization added to HoT. They continue to demonstrate that we’re last in their minds.

My hope is fading extremely fast. I’m not a naturally pessimistic person, but I find myself growing angrier and less interested in playing Guild Wars every day (I only log in for dailies now). Unless they do some serious balancing before the next expac, I’m not sure I’ll want to buy it.

I’ve documented many of the issues in my post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/The-Engineer-Injustice/first . I didn’t bother telling them how to fix the issues because it’s their job, not mine.

Many people seem intent on arguing that our DPS is meta, but I would argue that they’re equating the weather with the climate. The winds have been temporarily kind to us, but history has shown that we almost always get nerfed in the harshest ways possible. Take turrets and gyros, our two big selling points. Because they were seen as “OP”, they got nerfed so hard that they’re significantly less useful (if useful at all). There’s no gentle nerf stick for the engineer. We get the nerf mace. And then the skills are left in obscurity until they inconvenience someone on the dev team.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

The Trouble with the New TP: Ergonomics

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Why do people not like the new TP? It’s ergonomically unfriendly.

Let’s examine why!

Selling Issues!

The first reason is that all the tabs of the first TP have been reduced down to one tab. At first glance, this shouldn’t seem like an issue.

http://i.imgur.com/I01nej7.jpg

What one fails to realize is that the previous TP had a separate tab for selling all your goods. Selling goods on the TP in the past took a single click. Now it takes at least two clicks. If you do this multiple times during a dungeon run, this literally doubles your clicking.

The next issue is the number of items on the sell list. Previously, about 20 items were shown per screen, without any need to scroll. Now, we only get 9 items shown per screen, and we need to scroll down to see the 10th and beyond.

http://i.imgur.com/5a3RB7P.jpg

On the buy list, we get 8 items before we need to scroll.

http://i.imgur.com/LJ8itxl.jpg

The other additional factor in buying is that the “pages” no longer exist. While in theory this is good (it does reduce overall clicks), it makes it more difficult to keep track of your place when looking through a large list of items.

Moving on, let’s see how the actual buying and selling of items has been… unimproved.

Let’s say I want to sell an item instantly. In the past, you clicked a single button and poof! Everything sold instantly to the the person paying the most money, until the order was fulfilled. Do it again until items are gone or orders are filled.

What happens now is you have to first click on a buy order in order to sell instantly. (+1) click.

http://i.imgur.com/58w9Vo4.jpg

Afterwards, a screen pops up saying to pick up your coin. Hitting “Ok” or “Close” do the same thing, functionally, which is confusing. Additionally, hitting these buttons is another click, and although that was in the previous TP, it was almost exactly next to the sell button, which made it very quick.

http://imgur.com/58w9Vo4,G1E5XBA#1

Then when you click the button, it automatically puts you at the next sell instantly order. This is good! Automatic is good. What isn’t good is that the system by default doesn’t put the slider on sell all instantly — this is generally what people want, and what the system did by default previously. This adds another click (+1 click).

http://i.imgur.com/E0Snw7E.jpg

The issue of automatically including all items also pops up when listing the item, instead of using the buy order system. Listing the item makes the slider, by default, only sell 1 of the item. Most people don’t want to list just 1 item. Most people will, by default, want to list all items and reduce from there. This requires an extra click and drag to correct (+1 click).

http://i.imgur.com/AMHcxDN.jpg

Now imagine doing this after a dungeon run. If we assume the new patch made it take 6 clicks to sell items, instead of the previous 3 clicks it took, then you have effectively doubled the amount of clicking it takes to sell all your loot. This starts to wear on people’s patience.


Buying Problems

Let’s say I want to buy 250 Ancient Bones instantly, instead of placing a buy order.

On the old TP, I would simply enter 250 into the quantity slot, and the TP would automatically go through all available listings until my desired quantity was fulfilled. I can’t do that any more. Entering 250 on an item without 250 available in the first listing will only fill until the first listing is nullified.

http://i.imgur.com/khqda0B.jpg

I have to first check multiple boxes for available listings and make sure that at least 250 Ancient Bones are available in those listings. I then have to enter the quantity (250) and hit buy. As before, I also have to pray that somebody doesn’t buy at the same moment I do and cause the listings to change. As you can see from the image below, I actually have to start scrolling through listings and checking to reach the required 250 Ancient Bones. This is INCREDIBLY tedious, especially when considering the number of buys some people need to make.

http://imgur.com/khqda0B,CpQOnbA#1

Now let’s say I say “Screw that!” and want to place a buy order. This has been simplified over the previous iteration of the TP, but it’s confusing to newcomers. Now I have to click on the left side of the screen, enter my quantity and desired price, and list the item. This part is done fairly well, but not very clearly to newcomers.

http://i.imgur.com/nR4mpj1.jpg

However, I ran into a snag while doing this. I tried to place a buy order at the same price as a listing. The system automatically shifted me over into the instant buy section. This was not my desired goal — I wanted to place a buy order at a specific price and quantity, not buy instantly at variable prices and variable quantities. Now we’re back to the aforementioned issue of instant buys!

http://i.imgur.com/woE7Tnm.jpg


See more in Part 2!

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Hanlon's Razor and Pre-Order Strongarming

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” - Hanlon’s Razor

As most of you who read the forums know, ANet botched the pre-purchase information by providing veteran players with nothing for pre-purchasing (except a meaningless title), while new players got the core game as a bonus.

ArenaNet has now attempted to correct the problem by providing an additional character slot if you pre-purchase.


Is there really somebody at ANet’s executive level that is this incompetent at understanding how this works, or are they genuinely malicious?

Pre-purchasing is giving ArenaNet your money on a promise. Unlike pre-ordering, where one puts a small amount of money as a down payment (which can be refunded) for the full-game at release (in order to reserve a place in line), pre-purchasing is paying the full price without knowledge of the quality of the product.

As it stands, the amount of information on Heart of Thorns is disturbingly sparse for ArenaNet to ask $50 of us. We don’t even have a release date. Yet, with this recent attempt to placate the fanbase, ArenaNet execs have blurred the line from incompetence to maliciousness.

You see, the fine print of this announcement clearly states you only get the additional character slot if you pre-purchase. If you buy on the day of release or later, you lose that potential benefit, because ArenaNet wanted that money earlier.

As a gamer, I’ve been burned by pre-purchases in the past. I no longer trust pre-purchases, and reviews that are independent and thorough rarely come about before a game is released. This new “clarification” puts me in a bind. Do I risk being burned again in order to get something that should be seen as standard like it would be in any other MMO, or do I hold to my convictions and experiences and lose the benefit for peace of mind?

ArenaNet, the additional character slot should be available to anybody who is a veteran, regardless of pre-purchase or not. It is demeaning to gamers to strong-arm us like this. Please prove to me that you just didn’t think it through, or prove to me that this is malice.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

Season 5 Class Balance Thread

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Platinum 1700+ right now. I tend to play engineer or guardian, although I occasionally dabble with thief.

  • Ele tanks are in every match. They slow down everything and make groupfights slow and unfun. Combine that with the massive rezzing abilities people have AND NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. Please reduce their self-healing. Right now they have it both ways and it makes the fights miserable. As it stands, whoever has the most ele tanks wins.
  • Three classes have the same problem — Mesmer, Thief, and Revenants. If those classes are being played by high skill players, they are OP as hell, becoming nearly impossible to kill along with their high damage. But if the player is anything less than perfect, these classes are underwhelming.
  • DH is in an ok place at the moment. Their groupfight presence is still too strong, 1v1 they’re not too hard.
  • Rangers… I almost never see them any more except as healing druids. They just don’t seem viable in high level play.
  • Necros seem to be in an alright spot. When they backline they’re devastating.
  • Warrior is in a strange spot. Their burst damage and ability to ignore damage is devastating to classes without sustain, but they are wimpy to classes that kite and can sustain well.
  • Engineers are still suffering from the lack of build diversity. There’s simply no viable alternative to scrapper hammer, especially at higher levels. This build suffers from an inability to chase fleeing foes and flee itself.

sPvP being so focused on point capture, traps need some sort of delay or limiting mechanic on use, so the mindless DH stack with trap spam isn’t such broken.

GW1 had such a method. Traps were easily interruptable — any damage and your trap laying was interrupted.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

No!!!!!!!!(spoiler)

in Living World

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

I find it weird that they just left Belinda hanging.

Ba dum tish!

And it is absolutely for character development. Belinda as a character had no meaning to the story other than her relation to Marjory. We didn’t even know what she was like personality-wise — Neither does Kasmeer.

Rox, Braham, and Taimi together are more interesting personality wise than Kas and Marjory. I’m guessing this is some way to shoe in a bit more personality.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Holosmith: The Problem

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

I pray that somebody at ArenaNet will read this, but I doubt that. They haven’t addressed any of our longstanding concerns in the last two years, why start now?


Holosmith is going to land just like Scrapper did. ArenaNet doesn’t seem to acknowledge this, but I’ll address the elephant in the room. Here’s the crux of the problem with Holosmith: Our core trait lines, weapons, utilities are still bungled. Holosmith does nothing to resolve these longstanding issues.

For those cheering on the new elite spec, remember: Holosmith is only one specialization out of three trait lines you must choose. The other two traits lines you pick will be predetermined based on whether you’re power or condi, PvP, PvE, or WvW.

Allow me to explain:

In General:

  • All new utilities must compete with the power of kits. As it stands, kits still reign supreme in most game modes when compared to other utilities. How do the new utilities stack up?
  • Only hard light arena seems unique enough to be worth consideration in PvE.
  • Spectrum shield seems to be the only one worth consideration in PvP, and will be used to replace the bulwark gyro.
  • Laser Disk is virtually identical to Procession of Blades, but it doesn’t compare to bomb kit, and will not see much use.
  • Photon Wall is approximately Shield of Courage without the stunbreak, and a shorter cooldown. This only seems to be valuable for WvW.

In PvP:

  • All engineer builds for PvP require Alchemy currently. That is because it is our only traitline that features any defensive capabilities. Only one trait in the holosmith line addresses this issue. If you are running a power build, this will be your primary minor trait.
  • If you are running conditions, I guarantee you will be running Firearms and Alchemy as your two side traits, and there will be almost no exceptions.
  • If you are running power, you will probably still have grenades on your utility slot and you will be running Explosives and Alchemy. Nothing in the new profession matches the damage grenades still present.
  • Enemies will still be able to run circles around us unless you are in the Photon Forge mode.

In PvE:

  • Current PvE builds will likely remain as the top competitors.
  • For power builds, sword will not present enough of a damage boost when compared to the bomb kit. That’s right, you’ll still be playing Bomberman if you’re a power engi in PvE. Photon Forge will grant access to some variety, at the very least.
  • For condi builds, sword does little and we’ll still be using P/P. We’ll see our rotations become more complicated thanks to the burning of photon forge, and it’s pretty likely that we’ll be playing an even longer opera (assuming the burning is worth the time).

And I don’t know enough about WvW to say, but it looks like holosmith doesn’t resolve the issue of ranged AoE damage that engineers are still lacking. At least it fixes the mobility issue to a limited extent.

Meanwhile:

  • Turrets and gadgets (and associated traits) will continue their long descent into the irrelevant abyss.
  • Potions (and associated traits) will still remain situational and prone to random chance.
  • Rifle (and associated traits) will remain underpowered.
  • Glitches with the class will still be unaddressed. (Don’t see your legendaries now? You won’t in Photon Forge either!)
  • Other QoL issues will not be addressed.
The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

Undocumented changed downed state color

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

I’m disappointed by this change. I no longer notice when my friends get downed.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Female human model changed?

in Human

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

I just noticed this too. Strange to go from chicken wings to a masculine run.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Mario Kart has better PvP than Guild Wars 2

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

As a preface: I’m at legendary rank, prestige 1. The game keeps putting me tantalizingly close to prestige 2 and then I get a massive string of losses. I solo queue.

I’ve played a lot of games that are “competitive” in nature — Call of Duty, Mario Kart, WoW PvP, so many Half-Life deathmatch mods and Team Fortress. I enjoy playing competitive games at their core. And Guild Wars PvP is no different to me.

But there comes a point when the game ceases to be fun. Those moments are obviously when you keep losing, but also when you keep winning. Facerolling people is only a slightly slower way to lose interest than to keep getting facerolled.

Most competitive games learned this problem long ago. Call of Duty gives you some boosts when you’re on a death streak. Team Fortress has short matches (so if you do get facerolled, no big deal) and randomizes the teams every game. Mario Kart gives better boosts to the people in the back, and less useful boosts to the people in front.

What does Guild Wars 2 do? Absolutely nothing. In fact, it almost seems like it revels in exacerbating the problem. Among other legendary players, it’s almost a running joke that the system already knows who’s going to win the match based on whatever stat the game keeps hidden from us.


I hear you trolls shouting: “So what? Working as intended. Stop being a carebear” And you may be right.

But the way the system is designed is the best way to discourage people from playing. It drives them away. Last night I got pitted against a team that had #1, 2, and 3 on the leaderboards against my team. Needless to say, we lost.

What reason did I, or the rest of my team, have to continue playing the rest of the night? We knew the system would do it again. The result is the game gets abandoned by the very people you need to keep it interesting, and queue times get longer. Have you noticed that queue times at the beginning of a season are often short (<30 secs), and by the end of the season, queues can take an excess of 10 minutes? The reason is that people stop playing, because the game stops being fun.

Yes, I am aware that GW2, being an MMO, has a much more complicated system to balance the ranking/matchmaking system. But there are simpler short-term solutions even if you do nothing to change the matchmaking:

  1. Don’t let people backslide down tiers, regardless of rank. This is a very nice feature at lower ranks, but disappears later on. If the system already has a predicted winner for a match, it is humiliating and insulting to keep backsliding against a predetermined fate. Putting in the safety net stops the worst part of high level PvP. People who are exceptional will still rise to the top, and the rest of us won’t suffer for it.
  2. The system should grant partial credit for a match well played. IE: If scores are within 100 points of each other, instead of penalizing you. Currently, losing a match 494-500 gets treated the same as losing a match 0-500. They’re simply not comparable.
  3. If the system has predicted the match outcome with relative certainty (IE probability of 75% or higher) it shouldn’t penalize the losing team a point.

And if you include refinement of the matchmaking system to stop producing matches where the winner is already predetermined, you end up with a system that is a lot more fair and lenient to players who may simply be getting a bad hand.


/rantover

For now you’ll find me in unranked, where the matches actually seem to be more balanced, for whatever reason.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

MMR or Pips. Pick one ANet.

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

I’m tired of being jerked back and forth in place for 10+ matches ANet.

I want to earn achievements that are tied to pips. But I can’t do that when MMR is what determines your matchmaking instead of your pips. On top of that, we can’t even find out what our personal MMR is anywhere, so we’re subjected to mysterious forces.

Please pick one or the other for matchmaking ANet. This is really frustrating.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Official Episode 5 Feedback Thread

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Oh, I just want to add:

Balthazar should have some extra dialogue if you’re a human and use one of your racial skills. I summoned hounds of balthazar during balthazar’s fight… and it just worked normally.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Balance patch - turret change

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

The choice is you can take advantage of an overloaded turret immediately or keep them up … you didn’t have that choice before. If you think the turrets are useless, then you have decided to use your turrets that way …. a CHOICE you make. Maybe you shouldn’t assume everyone thinks as you do to pretend this isn’t better than the way it was.

I mean, are you going to tell me the old way was better or that this new way is not? I think that’s clearly not the case. It might not be the improvement you were looking for, but it is an improvement.

I’m ok with the overcharge off the bat (and not using up a toolbelt skill for detonate), but here’s the problem with your logic:

The turrets are made objectively weaker by this decision. Instead of using them to defend a position (like they were intended), they’re now most useful if you place them down and then detonate them after overcharge. This change actually gives us fewer options on how to use the turrets (despite how weak they were, and still are). At least before, you could overcharge a turret MULTIPLE times before its timer ran out. Now, you get the one and done.

It wouldn’t have been difficult for them to simply make the turret overcharge on its own timer repeatedly. Yet they failed to even do that.

Additionally, this affects our most useful turret too, the healing turret. Before, it could overcharge heal teammates in an area on a semi-regular basis. You could choose to do that or the healing bomb. Now, they’ve virtually guaranteed that it’s only a healing bomb.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

Remove the timer on match ending pls!

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

That question at the end?

Why the hell is the option for “no” always grayed out? I don’t want to join them.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Mesmer and Engineer Left Out of Balance Patch

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Why? What’s the reasoning?

Also, can we point out this juicy tidbit from the patch notes?

Mark Katzbach

In this update, we have taken a look at a few underperforming weapons for the warrior: rifle and torch. […] The rifle lacks in sustained pressure because three of its abilities focused on utility.

People have been complaining about engineer rifle for over 2 years (We only have 3 core weapons), but it’s warrior rifle that needs updating.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

WvW no longer required for world completion

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

The problem with WvW being part of map completion is multifold:

1) It’s in the Mists. This is established lore. Thus, it is not Tyria and should not count to Tyrian map completion, in the same way that Heart of the Mists and sPvP maps do not count. It’s a little mind-boggling why ANet considered it part of Tyria in the first place.

2) For some reason until this point, WvW was required map completion, but dungeons have never been. This is counterintuitive.

3) Getting WvW map completion for people who do not enjoy playing WvW is not a challenge, but a time sink — wait a week for the rotation to change, and pray that certain points are open when the rotation occurs. If not, wait another week. Not every player enjoys WvW, and should not be expected to. My fiancee and I both despise WvW, so we have both employed the “Wait a week” strategy.

4) Prior to the current setup, when server changes were free and instantaneous, you could complete WvW map completion in a very short time period (maybe an hour) by swapping rapidly between servers. This benefited older players and punished new players who can’t take advantage of rapid server changes.

5) For everybody getting kitten about this reducing the amount of players entering WvW — this has never hurt sPvP. Both have been around long enough that curious people will investigate, as they are talked about frequently in guilds and map chat.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

Conditions!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Anet should put this info in the game somewhere. Because this is just plain not how conditions work in every other MMO. It runs counter to what most people assume coming from any other game.

If you played GW1, you might realize that this is how conditions have always worked in the series. They ignored most evasion/block skills and persisted through invuln skills. Just look up 55 monk if you’re bored some time. I don’t even have to Google to point out that not all MMOs work the way you insist.

To other points though: conditions are designed (at least in theory) to be a ramp-up style of damage. It would be kind of pointless if you could wipe them perfectly clean with an invuln skill, because ramping up takes much more time and effort than direct skills. As it stands, there are plenty of tools to deal with conditions in PvP, and you need to learn how to use them.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

ANet: Engi needs some love

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Every class is in the same spot (to a certain extent).

We’re playing a game with hundreds or thousands of skill and trait variations per class and we’re stuck with 2-3 builds being used per class since a lot of the skills and traits are severely underpowered.

Anet need to properly revamp a lot of stuff to make build crafting more enjoyable and get some much needed variation back into the game.

It’s a little ironic that they added a new traitline, skills and a weapon per class and we’ve ended up with less builds being played than before they were added.

I agree, but engi is probably the most hamstrung at the moment. PvP is virtually restricted to one weapon, and PvE another. Variations are highly discouraged given the current meta. It’s ultimately boring.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

I just cant do the jungle with the engineer

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

First oft, i play since the beginning. My first 80 was the engineer. I love the concept. But after a long break i hit a brick wall with hot.

I am dying left and right. I am one, two shotted by everything that moves.

I tried full vit and tough scrapper. I couldnt outheal the damage. I couldnt escape. I couldnt distract with anything like necro or mesmer ofc.

I tried full condi pistol pistol. Damage didnt kill fast enough, couldnt outheal the damage.

Full power feri scrapper, all the same.

Please enlighten me how to engineer. I just love the class too much to quit it for my necro or mesmer (who just kitten the mobs in the junge, even Champions).

Blinds baby, blinds. The enemy can’t hurt what it can’t see.

Pistol 3 + Bomb 4 + Mortar Kit 4 + Grenade Kit 3 + Flamethrower 5 = enemies are nearly permanently blinded unless they are champs or higher, in which case you shouldn’t try to solo them.

And that’s just if you want to play defensively. If you want to play more offensively, you should be up in their face making them miss all their attacks.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

Engineer gripes about the balance patch

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Does anybody on the ANet balance team remember this from about 2 months ago?

We’ve been making some gradual changes to pistol and rifle, hoping to bring them a bit more in line with hammer. As for Jump Shot, it’s difficult to land both the first and second attacks consistently unless you’re cleaving a downed player. To address this, we’ve moved some of the initial damage to the end of the attack, making it easier to spike. The total damage done by the skill will be the same.

  • Blunderbuss: The damage of this ability has been increased by 10% at all range thresholds in PvP only.
  • Jump Shot: The damage of the initial jump has been reduced by 56%. The damage of the landing has been increased by 28%

Hi balance team! It’s been months since you suggested improving Pistol and Rifle in PvP and PvE. The changes we got back then were relatively minor, and really didn’t do anything to help the overall situation for these weapons.

Today we got some improvements to kits, which is great for us condi engineers in PvE.

But pistol and rifle still suffer horrible issues in PvP, making them non-viable. Why has it been months since ANet acknowledged the issue, and they STILL haven’t responded with anything meaningful? The class is suffering badly from a lack of build diversity, and this balance patch does little to address the issue. Engineer needs some love, particularly in PvP.

Case in point: The changes to blunderbuss. Rifle has always been power-based weapon, not condition-based damage. Its main DPS comes from its autoattack. The other skills are utilities. So why does the balance team insist on giving blunderbuss more bleeds? This solves a problem no rifle engineer has. What gives?

Does the balance team not understand the class or its weapons? Do they not realize the issue with projectile hate right now? Do they not recognize that most of the engineers main weapons (and some of its kits) are projectile-based?

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

"Leaked" Engie Spec

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Err…i think you understand something wrong here people.

The Trait Wheel in the leaked picture is RED and thats the color for the Warrior. So Holosmith=Warrior Elite in the upcoming EXP. It was also said on the leaked post that warriors get daggers and the Charr in the pic is clearly holding a dagger.

The engineer wasnt leaked yet but there had been a post saying they get maces.

The wheel looks kinda orange, which is our color, but it is very hard to tell.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

The Engineer Injustice

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Honestly the only way I see Engineer to get out of its position as bottom of the barrel is for Anet to give Engineer a very good Elite Specialization that can finally remove the demand to depend on kits for 90% of the Profession’s gameplay.

As nice as kits are majority of the builds and gameplay style of Engineer has been put too much focus on the Kits instead of Engineer’s main weapon.

Part of the reason kits are so necessary to engineer builds is because our default weapons are mostly underwhelming and kits have been the only part of the engineer class that hasn’t seen too much punishment from the devs.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Upcoming Changes to Skills

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

This entire “balance” patch is a BAD joke when it comes to engineer rifle. It seems the developers do NOT understand the game at all nor the engineer profession.

People choose hammer over rifle, because of the utility it gives. I haven’t done any tests, but I think the damage between rifle and hammer is roughly the same, but hammer has far better utility. You can reflect and black and do good damage at same time with hammer. Hammer has 1200 range AoE stun, blast finisher, lighting field etc. A mere 10 % damage buff to bluderbuss isn’t gonna make it break or break it. And why the change is just pvp specific? Rifle engineers are rare as hen’s teeth in WvWvW, so they would even more require buffs in WvWvW. Hammer is much more common there as well.

If Arenanet would have wanted to buff rifle, they would have been adding functionality to rifle:
- make blunderbuss (rifle #3) a blast finisher
- add evade frame to jump shot (rifle #5) and make the animation tiny bit faster to make it a viable movement skill (now immobilize in air really ruins it)

I would leave overcharged shot (rifle #4) as it is. High risk and high reward. And yes, I would shave off hammer a bit, it has too many goodies going on at same time.

It is really sad that Arenanet doesn’t seem to get “it”, when it comes to balancing engineer. They added some damage to rocket boots, which is was another stupid change. People do NOT choose rocket boots for the damage, but for the utility. At the current form most gadgets are sorely underpowered compared to kits, elixirs and gyros. A better to way to make them more viable is to add some functionality e.g. make rocket kick a stun break and/or lower the cooldown.

Not to mention Arenanet destroyed medkit when they turned in into “toss” skills. Medkit really needs attention. Why an earth still medkit #1 doesn’t heal the engineer himself and has so small cone it is really utterly useless skill in the game (compared to druid staff auto attack and ele water staff #1, which both do damage and heal at same time).

*The lack of viable healing skills for many professions is a serious issue e.g. almost all warrior’s use healing signet for obvious reasons. *Arenanet could have made some other healing skills viable e.g. reducing the cooldown “To the limit!” to 25 s and lowering the healing amount accordingly or reducing the activation time to 1/2 s.

The lack of diversity in viable builds is one of the biggest problems in spvp and I don’t see this patch much fixing it. The deletion of many amulets + HoT power creep was the last straw for me.

And that’s on top of the other issues with rifle and pistol — all the projectile hate makes those weapons virtually useless in pvp or wvw. Combine that with some of the condi hate for pistol, and it’s plainly obvious why most engineers eschew the two in favor of hammer builds.

In terms of damage, engineer pistol condi damage is extremely high. But good luck landing any skills and having them stick. Rifle is just low damage, low chance of hitting, and severely underwhelming. Improving some numbers won’t fix the crux of the problem.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

so...you managed to make turrets worse.

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

(obviously they’d have to give healing turret a tinker since its main use is to spawn it, overcharge it and blow it up, removing detonation would make that impossible.)

Honestly, if they plan on keeping this change, healing turret needs to be changed into healing bomb.

Because that’s what it functionally is now. At the very least have the honesty to admit it.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

UPDATED Elite Speculation: The Geotech

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Reads like an earth ele mashed with a warrior.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Playing a toon of the opposite gender?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

If you’d never kill, then in a world like Tyria, you’d just be a helpless citizen who likely would be dead or live sheltered lives among two-faced aristocrats that have no perspective of the world.

Even if you are just a farmer or a merchant, you still would have to protect yoruself and your goods from thieves, murderers or just the wildlife itself. If we’re going to be speaking about aspects that divide us and our characters, the willingness to kill isn’t one of them, at least for me.

It’s all good to consider diplomacy but to have such options, you need power. Nothing you mention of your true parallel in Tyria indicates that you would have any power at all thus when trying to talk down someone that is willing to kill you for whatever reason, you negotiate on the terms of the individual with the power.

What does that have to do with anything I said?

See highlighted sections.

Your argument is predicated on the idea that a normal civilian needs to kill other people to survive in “wild” conditions. There are two problems with that idea:

  • It’s not supported by historical precedent. The Wild West was actually relatively peaceful, and it only became unstable as the Union Army started to wage war and claim territory belonging to Native Americans. Additionally, as it moved westward, it changed existing local laws, causing instability.
  • There’s a strange disconnect in GW2 between the number of visible “peacekeepers” in any city/province and what they can field as an army. DR, LA, the Grove, etc. can actually field very large armies, yet they can’t keep the areas on their front doorstep civilized.

The only logical conclusion is that this is an MMORPG, not real life.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Storyblog: Interview with the queen

in Living World

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Sounds more to me like a modern politician trying to keep the charade running. Read very much like House of Cards.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Input request - To Quip or not to Quip?

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

If you want a purple glowing effect from Quip, use it in your offhand. Otherwise, HOPE is generally better IMO.

(I have both. I use Quip in the offhand, HOPE in the mainhand)

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Balance patch - turret change

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Bravo ANet! “Fix” a single, long-standing glaring issue with turrets (that only affects raiders, mind you), nerf the PvP meta (because we’re doing so well), add a meaningless buff to a skill nobody realistically uses, and we’ll call it a day.

What about some real balance adjustments? Rifle and shield have been languishing in obscurity. Our traits are a mess. Most of our utility skills are underwhelming. This is what has taken the balance team so long to come up with? Does anybody on their team play engineer?

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

Wraith Masque + Celestial Eyes = Priceless

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

See the attached image.

“I HAVE SEEN SOME THINGS.”

Attachments:

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

ANet: We need to talk about the engineer.

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Fricking seriously?

Post gets moved to the graveyard within hours of being posted, despite explicitly pointing out that this is a graveyard.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Balance patch - turret change

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Bravo ANet! Fix a single glaring issue with turrets and call it a day. Nerf the meta, and we’re golden.

What about some real balance adjustments? Rifle has been languishing in obscurity. Our traits are a mess. Most of our gadgets are a joke. This is what has taken the balance team so long?

What came to my mind today is, they have made some time ago a looong, long list of possible balance changes. Now all devs are working on the next expansion, so there’s no HR for real balance team – they just pick some stuff from the list.
3 months later from now, with the next balance patch, we’ll see adjustments to Turrets toolbelt skills, to make them viable with the change they introduced today.

Seriously though, this game needs more frequent balance patches, made by people who actually play the game, at least one person per one profession

What I’m seeing (and this is obviously my opinion) is that they’re balancing for raids and PvP only. The changes to engineer clearly reflect this — raids were affected by the turret issue (despite really not being a big issue), and the nerfs to the pvp meta that made us tankier (and the scrapper worthwhile). These changes don’t realistically affect WvW or the rest of PvE at all.

Meanwhile, they ignore that the whole class is languishing badly with very little as far as different ways to play, in all areas of the game.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

sPvP Racial Skills

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Bad idea. Some races have decent skills, others are pointless. There’s no balance to them. The other thing is you can’t change your race, so you can’t change those skills.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Holosmith: The Problem

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Wait till we can test the spec. You may end up loving it.

I’d love to believe that, but unless they make a major balance pass soon that fixes many of our outstanding problems (which I doubt they’ll fix), I don’t see how holosmith will really improve the situation.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

condi qq

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Oh, yes I have.
Blocks and invulns may affect you condi users in the short-term, but conditions STILL go through them. With cleanses and resistance, there are costs and sacrifices to your build to get use out of them JUST to survive. If you’re focused by two reapers, no cleanses and resistance are going to help you! Sometimes conditions can even seep through resistance! When the effect pulses, there’s an instant when a condition can be applied. Conditions can also be appllied through sigils, passive and active traits and runes.

Most condition attacks can be blocked/blinded. Only a select few are unblockable, and those are typically AoE condis such as wells (which can be avoided). And power builds have their own unblockable attacks too, which are often CC’s.

And the whole point of condi is it continues to deal damage over time, not that it instantly disappears the second you use some kind of temporary invulnerability skill.

And your complaint about sacrifices to your build? Yeah, we have to do it for power builds too. Part of running any build that lasts longer than a few seconds is you have to counter other people’s attacks — that includes both condi and power. I don’t take elixir S or Tool Kit for my entertainment. The current war power meta (Axe/Shield and GS) is an example of a power build that requires a crazy kind of counter to have a chance to stand against (chained CC, high damage bursts, quick getaways). How is that not more unbalanced than your typical condi build?

condi seem easy but good players need to learn and watch the timing as in power build. when to burst and to use key skills combo. especially when condi are ticking and not burst direct dmg in 1 sec. you need to learn the enemy cd’s and if you fail to do so you wont be able to kill just to put some condi on your enemy when in 2 sec his cleanse are ready to use…

This. So much this.

An effective condi player requires good timing. If I dump all my condis on a necro with transferrance, I’m as good as dead. If I dump my condis on a berserker stance war, I’ve wasted all my damage. The only time I see condi dumps work well is when an enemy’s cooldowns are active or condi dumping on thieves. Otherwise, I have to watch what the other player is doing and time my conditions appropriately, as well as mitigate their damage in the meantime.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

Engineer needs some love in PvP

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

The scrapper is in a good place right now

So to make matters worse, not only is the engineer currently pigeonholed into a singular build with slight variations at most tiers, but the build itself just isn’t all that desirable to others and, to be honest, isn’t very fun to play. 1v1s feel like they drag on forever, even when we’re advantaged.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but I really do miss the days when we ran grenades.

The biggest drawback is that our “catch up” skill doesn’t do much to catch us up. Enemies can by and large run away when they want to and we can’t do much about it.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Upcoming Changes to Skills

in PvP

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

We’ve been making some gradual changes to pistol and rifle

Mentions only rifle.*

Uhhhhhhh Gaile?

Also, the only way to make rifle and pistol viable in pvp is to reduce the projectile hate. It is near impossible to fight with either weapon without a kit because of the projectile hate. Engineer is the only class with this many projectiles that cannot do anything about it.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

The Trouble with the New TP: Ergonomics

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Part 2


Shifting Gears

In the previous iteration of the TP, filtering items and searching was front and center in the TP. You couldn’t miss it — it was right at the top. Now searching is off to the top left corner, as is filtering. Additionally, while there are new filtering categories (thank you for that ANet!), the filtering system is only accessed through a tiny little gear icon, which most newcomers may not see.

http://i.imgur.com/FERnIo9.jpg

The filtering and search system is VITAL to making the TP experience pleasant. Don’t relegate these items off to the side!


Misc. Issues

While I personally don’t spend a lot of effort speculating in the market, some people do. Having a statistics page like in the original TP post was useful for people who wanted to know what was happening in the market.


The Good News — AKA What Was Done Right

This isn’t to say all the changes are bad. Some of the changes are wonderful.

The most important beneficial to the TP, in my opinion, was being able to sort by class restrictions. My fiancee and I have had this gripe about the TP since beta, and I’m glad to finally see it fixed.

Secondly, I have seen the TP speeds greatly improve. This is wonderful. The TP before was sluggish and unstable, and the new version seems to be much faster and more stable.

Thirdly, the transaction log (currently buying, currently selling, bought and sold items) is easier to navigate than before. This is a good ergonomic change.

Fourth, and perhaps least importantly, the dang thing looks prettier. It was an eyesore before. However, this new form needs to be functional too.

Which is why we should talk about…..


Suggestions!

  1. Fix the aforementioned ergonomics issues — if I want to instantly buy 250 items, make it so I go through all necessary listings to reach that 250 items. If I want instantly sell a large number of items, it shouldn’t take twice the clicking!
  2. Make entering quantities manually easier. Right now we have to click on the tiny quantity box, delete the number that’s currently present, and then enter our desired number. What should happen is that clicking the quantity box should instantly remove whatever quantity is currently in there already and allow us to instantly enter our desired quantity. The click and drag thing takes more time and effort than should be necessary.
  3. Allow players to customize how many items they see per viewing pane.
  4. Provide an additional statistics page for people who like to play the market.
  5. In future feature packs, allow players to playtest changes first in order to discover these issues before they become available to the general public.
The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

(edited by Vagrant.7206)

holosmith in pve

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

Bomb kit, obviously.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.

Does the balance team care about engineer?

in Engineer

Posted by: Vagrant.7206

Vagrant.7206

You mean they ignored an underwater skill? The outrage, surely it’s just to spite engineers!

Nah, just that they implemented a change without remembering any other class that might use said skill.

The great god Lagki demands sacrifice.