Showing Posts For Zaphael.8694:
I crafted a set of Berserker feathered armor which I believe are Masterwork (green), none of them counted to my monthly Master Crafter. =(
To say the least, I have played this shatter build for more than 2 months now and I really love it. I team up with a condition mesmer in wvwvw and usually can tie down a disproportionately larger force. I do have a problem with thieves that “one shot” me before i can mw and sword2 him though.
I also found the mirror healing skill useful despite its lower healing power. The one second of reflection can up the damage a bit more when dealing with ranged enemies.
A question though, does the trait for illusions to deal 15% more damage affect mw?
I can’t understand how nerfing AOEs will stop zerging. Arguably, it raises the risk-reward calculus in favour of zerging because the amount of damage running through a hail of red rings is going to be low. The more painful AOEs are, the greater the penalties of clustering up.
Anet, please stop all this nerfing-buffing of this and that. Work on new content, work on new expansions, classes etc. I will gladly pay to buy the expansion if its fun. Introduce game elements that make the classes unique and special, instead of adjusting their firepower and defenses all the time. Its just painful.
I hope Anet devs and people with some business sense reads this. I sincerely hope that this is viewed as constructive criticism.
All these nerfs, and re-balancing chips away at players’ patience because every time one comes, it forces them to re-optimise an existing character instead of exploring the breadth and depth of the game. Constant nerfs and re-balancing do NOT generate any fresh appeal to the game.
This is not a smart thing to do in 2013 because of all the upcoming MMORPGs that are coming up, that can easily draw away these players. Although GW2 does not earn subscription based revenue, a smaller player base also chips away from all the gems purchase.
When it comes to nerfs, re-balancing etc, Devs need to take a more holistic view of the situation and not just have knee-jerk reactions to QQs. With the number of nerfs I’ve seen, it appears to be the latter.
Ultimately, players who play MMORPGs want to feel empowered, to take on the world or Tyria. Nerfs do the OPPOSITE of that, and that detracts from the players’ experience.
On the more holistic view, devs need to take a long hard look at having a policy that guides when something needs to be nerf. That bar HAS to be higher than just forum QQs, and has to answer difficult questions what caused it and whether it breaks the game. It cannot be reduced to just branding it as either OP or UP.
Any MMORPG will have class balancing issues. There will never be a perfect balance, and there will never be an end to QQs about not achieving that balance. Instead of searching for that holy grail that does not exist, game designers should consider focusing more on what makes a class enjoyable and special; the player exerience.
GW2 had been doing well in this regard: Engineers have kits; Mesmers have clones; rangers have pets; necros have skeletons in the closet; and etc. But now, it seems that GW2 is trudging down that same destructive cycle of buffing and nerfing, which I reiterate, detracts from player experience.
So the questions I have about the AoE mechanics nerf or any nerf: Does the present situation break the game? And to what degree? And how do you address the player experience if you do nerf it?
My 2 cts as someone who had been playing MMOGs since the days of text-based MUDs.
I quit playing diablo 3 because of all the nerfs that happen every other month. Everytime a nerf comes, I have re-think and re-optimise my builds. That takes time, money and patience which players do not necessarily have.
I wouldn’t say the acid bomb is unreliable. As you rightly attributed, it does a lot of damage to people in it. Maximising the damage potential therefore relies on keeping people in it, or making sure they are unaware of being in it.
To caveat, I mostly play in wvwvw where I run the engineer as supporting skirmisher. Thanks to changes to the grenade kits recently, I was forced to explore other kits and found a gem in the e-gun.
Back to the acid bomb. In most wvwvw situations, winning or losing the skirmish depends on controlling. Engineers have glue shots, elixir f from the e-gun, etc, to cripple and slow frontline skirmishers. To maximise the damage from acid bomb also relies on control. Smacking them with an Elixir F, then dropping back with an acid bomb helps to keep them in the pool longer (bread and butter). Likewise for glue shot, though I dislike the shorter duration and the switching.
As for CC break, yes, acid bomb doesn’t help you get out of those. So yes, you are forced to pick your fights. If I cannot drop an acid bomb, rocket boots out of dodge.
Apart from damage, the E-gun also provides AOE healing! You have the Super Elixir which has a 20 sec cool down and lasts for 10 secs. You have the healing mists that grants regeneration to allies around you. And on to of that, you have your usual healing slot skill. Pick a turret and you can even AOE remove conditions.
The E-gun engineer provides an amazing amount of support abilities, especially for wvwvw. I just wish there were more of them around.
After the changes to the nades, the E-Gun and Flamethrower are the best kits i run with. Yes, it is a skirmisher but it drops amazing amounts of condition damage when you swap properly, to a tonne of people. Between the two (not forgetting your dual pistols), you have a good lengthy periods of bleed, poison, weakness, vulnerabilities, fire, cripples, immobs, heals.
I’d say its a healthy amount of damage.
Scepter – focus are pretty good at sneaking damage in at narrow choke points. Target a cluster of folks there and loose an i-Warden with crit buffs. As soon as the blokes start pulling away to kill the warden, drop a feedback on them (on top of warden’s feedback) and lol. May result in sudden haul of badges.
While retreating from an attacker, stack illusions and shatter confusion on him.
The delay is a major problem when network latency is compounded. From Asia, I believe the latency is about 150-250ms. This is my understanding of how these networks and programmes works, so maybe Anet’s Asuran engineers can correct me if I’m wrong.
So, it takes about a quarter of a second for a player from Asia to click “4” to summon a zerker to reach servers in the US.
Then it takes a quarter of a second of “delay” for the zerker to spawn and stand around, assuming the servers process instantaneously.
Then it takes another quarter of a second to for the server to relay that zerker has spawned and is standing around for another quarter of a second back to player asia.
All in all, a player in Asia would observer a lot more delay as a result of any non-zero second delay.
As the players have reiterated, if the phantasm’s attacks are attacks, then its AOE effects will require every player in its affected radius to dodge its attacks. That would be congruous with what the other classes get in their primary attack skills. Yet, a phantasm would not spawn because of a single missed or evaded attack, and this really cripples the mesmer’s fighting ability in a massive brawl (esp. in wvwvw). It is a big problem for mesmer players who use it in wvwvw.
By the way, does anyone else have a problem with teleporting (possibly when blind) lately? I was getting swarmed on a couple of ocassions last night and I noticed my blink wouldn’t teleport me. Then when I was down, I noticed I couldn’t teleport and stealth as well. Possibly because I was blinded, I am not sure.
So that was what happened. I was wondering why my beserker was taking so long to attack. It frustrated the heck out of me when I was in dungeons. With AOE splashes around and all, I wasn’t able to land hits on a lot targets before the berserker disappeared. Until I read this thread, I thought I had lagged out and I missed the damage; which is very unusual.
I agree with the forum here, the delay time is just wrong and it affects not just pve and pvp gameplay.
In fact, equally disturbing was the fact that I can no longer send a berserker up to smash a burning oil cauldron or cannon. I find it very very very hard to believe the ability to do so was unintentional. That ability was probably observed in WvW since BWEs and its surprising that it is only now that something was done about it?
It was a good ability and I am not just speaking from a mesmer’s perspective. I played an engineer and was on the recieving end of such attacks while lobbing nades down and laughing. I thought it was an ingenious way of giving the mesmer class something to do in a keep assault scenario! Then it gets taken away… Was it broken? No, but it was sure deadly if defenders on the walls don’t keep their eyes peeled. If spotted, its not easy for the zerkers to do much damage, especially with the defensive advantageous.
The mesmer was an excellent and versatile class until the recent patch (now that I learnt about it). How a person traits its and equips it, defined its role and it could excel at that role when played correctly. It epitomised that class versatility that gw2 was touted to have. Please remain true to what GW2 was supposed to offer. The mesmer was good and balanced as it was and frankly, it really required no nerfing.