Showing Posts For dirtyshame.1863:
This mechanic favors melee far to much. Ranged classes have no ways to break roots without a cleaving mechanic. You cannot shoot or damage a target to free yourself because will immobile your character cannot even turn around.
You force ranged to blow vital CDs or take shots that melee are not forced to take simply because we cannot turn around. This needs to be fixed.
Even PVE runs in TA can become super hard for classes without a cleave. Namely necro and Engineers. At least engineer can use rifle 5 if you have it equipped. There are a lot times in this game ANET favors melee way over ranged. Immobilize often punishes the ranged more than a melee. I was running in TA exp today and the only way I had to get out of the roots because you can’t dodge them all way to blow CD and utility just to get free of something with 200 HP. Any melee class simply hits number 1 twice on the root and they are free.
First, dirtyshame, I want to congratulate you for being able to take a critical look at mesmer powers and giving valid feedback on why you have formed an opinion. Even better, you have stated your reasoning in a very understandable and polite manner.
That being said, I disagree with you.
Let’s take a look at each power individually.
Mind Blast has one huge, glaring issue: confusion. While it’s arguably useful in pve as any enemy that downed us is likely to keep attacking, they don’t attack fast enough for confusion to make much of a difference. Now if it could be traited to stack 3 with
each cast, I would be spamming the hell out of it, even if that didn’t speed up the attack. In any pvp setting, it means jack! If you get a mesmer or any player down, you’re more likely to go for the spike because it’s, faster, more epic and has bragging rights attached. Confusion won’t stop that from happening.Deception, I will admit, is highly useful in pvp settings. Anyone trying to spike us will have to resort to counter measures ahead of time or essentially spike us twice. This has saved my life quite a few times but I don’t feel it’s overpowered for 2 reasons. First, it can be countered because it needs a target to work. Going invisible, blocking, losing line-of-sight and blind will stop it. Second, we can’t choose where we teleport to. In pve it might as well be named seppuku because it’s more likely to teleport us into a far more dangerous situation. I would say between 80 to 90% of the time, it teleported me right under the ballsack of whatever monster downed me. As for invisibility, it’s outright broken What always happens is I port, my clone uses Mind Blast attacks and I’m made visible again by game mechanics so I might get 3/4ths of a second of invisibility. Not once has it EVER saved me! This is why most Mesmers say this power is crap.
I will proudly admit that the iRogue hits like a mac truck but the balance is you can’t use it right away. Like others, I rarely get the chance to use it. Even when I do use it, it rarely makes a difference. Anything I haven’t been able to kill before it’s active has little chance of dying from it. In PvP settings, I’m usually able to get spiked, a second time because Deception has its awesome moments, before this power is anywhere near ready. Even if I do get it off, the best it can do is down the person after me, which won’t get me back on my feet. From then on it’s a war of attrition and because I went down first, I’m already losing. It could help in that situation but only if I stay alive long enough for it to attack again. The odds are still against me so I don’t see how it’s OP.
Now onto illusions. They are the mesmer mechanic. If I am able to spawn them before I go down and they’re not taken care of, why shouldn’t I use them? While they can make an impressive difference, it’s only when a mesmer is traited to take full advantage of them. My character is traited for them to give conditions on death. A shatter may take a decent bite out of anyone trying to spike me but it won’t stop a spike.
The only other mesmer skills that will stop a spike are shatters that use the Illusionary Persona trait. With it F3 will grant distortion which will have to be well-timed but will avoid a spike. F4 will daze and that can be highly useful in stopping a spike. So why do I feel this is still within balance? Because Illusionary Persona is a Grandmaster trait. For 30 points, it has to be this epic!
So, in my opinion, the mesmer downstate isn’t over powered. In fact I think Mindblast either needs more confusion stacks or an entirely new gimmick. Deception needs a target reticule to work and the shatters require a trait deep within a trait line. That seems pretty fair to me.
In pvp situations, I will still continue to disagree with you. I have played many hours on a mesmer but mostly only spvp, so not being able to find a target with #2 was a problem I was not aware of. That does weaken the spell some, but I would tend to think unless you are fighting a thief, you should still be able to execute the ability.
I have never seen much of a responsiveness issue from #3 but, if the damage were to go down and the reactiveness go up… that seems like a fair trade.
I would tend to disagree with you about the core mechanic of mesmers, but that is another arguement. I am not a fan of how they were implemented in general. I do, however, appreciate the tone and constructive feedback. I will go back and further assess how I play.
Mesmer’s have to have the strongest Downed state in the game outside of ranger underwater with successful pet lick or possibly the elementalist near a friendly tower door.
Phantasmal rogue is the hardest hitting of all the abilities in downed state. Hits harder than the giant bomb placed by engineers (although single target).
Your illusions and phantasms pre exisiting will still attack, though illusions are minimal dmg, they will be interrupting.
You will be confusing the person trying to recover/kill you.
You get to disappear for several seconds.
I know it is easy to find the right mesmer, but point for point, the mesmer is a little too strong against another player.
I think the clones should disappear on downed, and the phantasmal rogue’s damage should come down a little or be only 1 attack before going on CD again.
I also think ranger pets should stop rezzing if you manage to kill them in the process as well.
It’s not a “i win” button or anything. I just think it’s very powerful compared to most classes.
You will have to save the fear for the pet heal if you are both downed. Use your number 1 on the ranger because killing the pet will not stop the healing that I am aware of. Just focus on the ranger for skills 1 and 3 and hope the fear is well timed. Wait to hit your fear until the pet is actually starting the rez, there will be travel time between getting to the ranger the first time and then pathing back after the fear. Most rangers will blow the interrupt early, so do not make casting fear the first thing you do. But odds are if you weren’t last to go down, you will not be able to beat a ranger downed state.
I would say that down vs down and having equal skill play, most likely to win on land will be mesmer, warrior, ranger, guardian, necro, ele, engineer (up close), thief, engineer (out of range of bomb).
I was recently pvping more and more with my necro and realized it is very hard to stack conditions other than bleed. Most do not last much longer than double the cast time animation. Dagger OH is the only fast one and the actual projectile of number 4 takes 3 days to arrive via ground mail. Trying to spread any real conditions to others via epidemic is almost impossible. And using the focus you will have to use at the full traited 1200 range to use it on a decent melee. Otherwise a smart one will just dodge most of our attacks as we flail our arms into the air to start an animation.
Necro has to be the slowest casting class in the game. I do not understand why mesmers can instantly pop a clone right on top of you or port themselves to do massive dmg and go invul, but a necro can’t cast a spell in less than a full second or 2. We apply chill better than any class, but it looks like it’s cast on us as we attempt to apply it.
Our projectile speeds and cast times are in need of a vast improvement in order to land spells at competitive levels.
I saw some people mentioning in another topic that they get loot bags like crazy in WvW. I was just wondering what weapon set to run on my zerker necro for zerg on zerg. I usually run Axe and Focus but the cast time of Focus and the channel of Axe 2 can cost me. I was thinking scepter MH and dagger OH since they both come with AoE skills of their own.
Any suggestions?
Again, I have breezed through a majority of your points.
… Just let me know when you log in and I will proceed to watch you I guess to learn how I need to be playing.
Minion Masters should not be forced to spec out of spite simply because you don’t like it. We want to stay specced into the spite tree, so that’s out.
so you are saying my personal preference =/ your personal preference so you win?
Chilling darkness is incredible, and your change would completely break that amazing ability. No one would ever take the ability with your change.
Explain to me how it is so great as it is? I find little use for it aside from well and OH dagger.
I stopped reading after you said piercing should cleave, at that point I realized these weren’t quality of life improvements, but rather ways to make the Necro OP or complete changes to the mechanics and play style of a class.
Well one suggested change doesn’t reflect them all. So if you feel that a sentence gives you an excuse to stop reading the rest of a post then ok. This suggestion was universal across all classes with piercing projectiles. Often the piercing effect does little when 2 units stand side by side. You cannot always flank and often cannot flank your opponents based off terrain. I do not suggest the angle be as wide a greatsword, but at least wider than it is now.
Would be nice to see any damage taken feeds life force, and any damage in DS regains HP. You could still kill us but you would be forced to get us between DS cooldowns. Would go a long way against being zerged to death while others walk off with their shields or roll away.
I would say at least any direct damage, and make it proportional the amount we are taking so that we are not unkillable to one target, but several people ganking a necro would actually increase his lifespan. Same result as 10 people blowing attacks on a 3 sec invul.
(edited by dirtyshame.1863)
TRAITS
more to come
Spite
Reaper’s Might – signet CD is very long, if they are left unchanged, the might should be 5 stacks for 20 seconds with an internal CD of 20 seconds to prevent massive stacking.
Spiteful Marks – Move to CURSES tree and increase duration and damage of conditions instead of front end damage of mark.
Training of the master – should be in the Death or Blood magic at the same trait level since most power builds do not require the minions for damage.
Axe Training – move down one tier.
Spiteful spirit – Move to top tier trait and make it last 10 seconds, or possibly add protection and leave in same position.
Death Into Life – move to curses tree and base it off of condition damage.
CURSES
Furious Demise – move to SPITE and make it the grandmaster minor trait, move siphoned power to master minor trait.
Chilling Darkenss – We have little access to blind and I have suggest many increases to chill. I would say make this Crippling Darkness which applies blindness when we cripple vs blind gives cripple. If this changes goes through I would change Locust Swarm and Plague to increase cripple duration but also the time between reapplying. Currently this spell really just makes well of darkness shine.
DEATH MAGIC
Death nova – losing a pet is a big deal if built around them, getting only a poison cloud for 3 seconds is not worth a grandmaster trait. Adding a 3 to 5 second chill or weaken to the poison would help drastically.
(edited by dirtyshame.1863)
UTILITY SKILLS
Corrosive – this set of skills debuffs the cast in order to also buff or create a stronger debuff on the target.
Blood is power – is using a target to cast the bleed on both yourself and target, the damage ratio is fair but the duration of the bleed is often too long to make it a fair balance. The bleed time should be across the same 10 seconds as the self bleed.
Epidemic – lower cast time to .5 seconds. Many conditions are short lived and by the time a full set of them is applied you will not have as many to apply to other targets, so any improvement here would help maximize usefulness.
Corrupt Boon – self poison is a strong debuff at the wrong times. A self bleed or vulnerability would be less cumbersome to the caster since many of our trait lines and skills are meant to take life from another. Confusion may even be acceptable.
Corrosive cloud – long self weakness considering there is nothing to hold the target in the area of effect.
weakness to me should be changed to make CRITS (instead of non-crits) into glancing blows. This would put the burst in this game in a much more controllable fashion. The crit can still proc other skills but would be drastically reduced.
Minions – I do not use them much, but for the most part are ok. I ask only that they heal out of combat like ranger pets if they go on CD with death. I know you can change your uility out of combat to reset one or use DS traited to heal, but there is no reason to have them not heal out of combat at the same rate as a player.
Signets – The CD like the ranger are very high, making them often not worth using. I would suggest lowering them all by 50%, except locust (maybe only 25%).
Spectral
Spectral armor – lower CD to 60 seconds or increase the duration by 5 seconds, although I think lower CD is better option.
Spectral wall – allow it to reflect projectiles or even nicer allowing it to work like a solid wall and knock down opponents as they try to pass, still possibly applying the vulnerability.
Spectral grasp – great skill, would recommend slightly lower CD or allowing it to grab all targets either in a line or in a certain range of target.
Elite – Plague – Strong ability already but:
Pestilence – possibly chill instead of cripple, same duration
Darkness – increase blind to 2 seconds (would not shut down fast attacking class but would make sure, mostly in pve, that the AoE blind prevents more attacks).
Withering – increase duration of bleed.
These are some improvements and quality of life changes I think the necro needs. I feel the class is/was supposed to be a condition master (not always damage) but I am able to put far greater conditions on more than one mob with my other two mains Ranger and Engineer and I can do it without even having to debuff myself. I would like to see some overall increase to the idea we are cold hearted death dealing machines… emphasis on cold. Chill should be an even stronger condition we bring to the table. These are my opinions, if you disagree I ask only you do it constructively. I tried to look at the overall picture when bringing them up and I do not mean for all to be implemented, maybe just some.
WEAPON SKILLS
Death Shroud
This comment I believe should happen universally to all projectiles when they are set to pierce because ranged in this game is very weak to compared to melee at taking on more than one mob or a very mobile mob. I find it personally very difficult to hit good players because the ranged mobility versus the melee mobility in this game is a little backwards. Greatsword warriors are more mobile than slotting for kiting on ranger. Therefore, if the piercing projectiles are allowed to “cleave”, players would hit more targets than just ones dumb enough to be in a line or stack right on top of one another when rezzing. When fighting two targets even in PVE, if one stops to cast or gets its speed hindered, it will be far more difficult to line them up. 2 mobs will be right on your face and as a ranged player you aren’t able to hit them both nor are you designed to have them on top of you. Your ranged is your CC and is often only going to hit one target. But cone shaped or wider attacks would help alleviate some of the pain.
Life Blast – Projectile wider or cone shaped (at close range).
Dark Path – Since it has a cast animation already with it, the teleport should be directly to the target without a travel path as to prevent other mobs from getting in the way. If someone dashes in front of them last minute or say trying to finish off a player running back to the safety of the zerg, the caster should not end up directly on top of the intervening character.
Gathering Plague – (underwater) should also siphon like the ground version of the spell.
Staff
Necrotic grasp – is the main attack and should have a much faster projectile speed. There is already a wind up cast. The projectile needs to be faster since it also pierces to get successful attacks off more often. I would say it needs to be a minimum of 50% increase.
Chillbains – this is the trademark spell and most useful to necro IMHO. The CD for this spell should be 15 seconds and 12 seconds traited.
Axe
Rending claws – add some CC such as cripple to the first attack or improved damage by roughly 15 to 20% of the AA.
Unholy feast – this ability should chill the target instead of cripple.
Scepter – this obviously is meant to be our condition giving weapon but really doesn’t have that much it can do. The skills do about as much direct damage as condition.
Blood rending – both of the first two attacks on number 1 are very slow lowering the usefulness of sigils, traits, and applied conditions. The bleeding stacks and the cast time animation should be increased. Shortbow ranger can stack faster and higher than the necro by far with only AA. The poison on the third attack should last to 4 seconds by default.
Grasping dead – the cast time for this ground targeting spell could be lowered to ½ second instead of ¾ and/or chill effect instead of cripple.
Dagger
Dark pact – lower CD to 20 seconds and/or lower cast time animation.
Focus
Spinal Shivers – strong ability but can be difficult to cast on smart players and especially if you are trying to shut down boons. Cast time speed decrease to ¾ of a second.
Warhorn
Locust swarm – Wider range of cripple and/or adding a bleed or siphoning during durations. Nothing to strong on the damage scale but there should be come applied damage.
Spear
Deadly catch – lower CD in order for use to use other skills effectively more often, down to 20.
Dark spear – Every time I use this skill I get a small self stun upon landing that should be removed. And according to wiki can use Reaper’s Protection if specced for it, which could either be good or bad, but I feel a self stun on an ability to put yourself in melee range is a bad idea.
Trident
Frozen abyss – lower cast time to 1.5 seconds or 1 (one may be a bit OP).
(edited by dirtyshame.1863)
You give all your melee classes instant abilities for the most part that cleave anything near by and then give them ports and evades that make them almost uncatchable or unfleeable. Mesmer’s get the only instant attacks and they don’t even have to worry about projectile speed b/c most of the clones are created right on the target or they can easily instant pop on top of you and burst you to death while you can’t do anything because of the 6 seconds of daze.
Mesmers, Elementalists, Guardians, and Warriors rule the land in wvw. You guys keep nerfing the underdogs and leaving what you broke to begin with.
Mesmers—— really, I don’t want to hear a single one complain. If you aren’t rocking the zone, you can’t play one right. Losing my target everytime they disappear. Having clones trigger or eat full on attacks that take you 30+ seconds to wait on and the mesmer makes 3 more clones every 5 seconds? Then you waste your AoE caps eating one of their 100 hp clones that will just return on a quick dodge since most run that spec.
Elementalists—- Take some of the healing down already on this class. I was leveling mine the other day and just sat in water melting things and healing up to full constantly. It was easy, to easy, I was bored. For a game with no holy trinity, this is one self sufficient killer healer.
Projectiles that penetrate need to “cleave” in a sense that the projectile is wider, either in a cone pattern close to melee range, like 450 or twice as wide as they are now at full range. Really either all attacks should cleave or none. Having to run in a circle trying to get more than one mob/enemy in line especially if they aren’t stuck at different speeds or an animation for an ability. Meanwhile melee just cleaves it down, hitting at twice the speed of a projectile/ranged class because somewhere people think, well ranged can’t be tough up close because they are meant to stay away, yet melee just stays right on your face with no real way to get them off.
You are thinking about AOE problems all wrong. Zerging should be punished if it’s not smart. AoE should be limited to how much a single target can take from AoE damage, and then increase in power with more targets hit. This will keep people from bunching up as a school of fish and just button pushing tiny groups to death.
Melee needs slower casting speeds on some of their attacks. Ranged needs just as many evades as they do in this game and much faster casts.
Necro gets death shroud which is easily eaten through in a zerg escape… compared to invis on mesmer/thief and invul on guardian/ele. You give nothing to the same 3 classes that have been behind since launch. Engineer, Ranger, Necro. Ranger can do more condition damage than Necro which doesn’t seem right. Engineer has to work 3 times harder than any other class. Necro doesn’t have the brunt force to back up its weak mobility.
I am sick and tired of watching 1 mesmer dance around 3 opponents because target lock doesn’t stay on them, and this game is on average far too fast to be switching targets looking for the one moving correctly. Besides you are stuck running from the mesmer as well as 3 mobile bombs with various side effects.
Guardians teleporting and Warriors using greatsword like bullet train punching get out jail free tickets. I’ve seen warriors out run zergs like crazy and then your ranged classes just get eaten. And poor Engineers being stuck medium range when you actually mean you can use half of your skills up close and the other half is meant for 1,200 range. But they are the only classes with no default 25% speed increase to get in and out of this medium range… unless you wanna spend the 10pts and the slight GCD to switch to a kit (hope you run at least one) every 5 seconds to obtain it.
Ranger and their awful pets. I can tell you failed from the beginning allowing pets to even be able to be targeted by Agony. Try the harpy fotm, the dredge fotm, or the ice elemental fotm. All of these, you can’t get your pet to where it needs to be or out of the way fast enough to prevent death. F3 needs to immediately port the pet back to the feet of the ranger, and I mean “feet” not 250 distance beside me to where it still gets hit/cleaved and not when it has time to jog back over. F3 should perma stow the pet, then the ranger can hold the pet out of the way since it can’t dodge until trouble has passed. Either that or you go the way of WoW and let it take 90% less AoE/cleave damage. You expect the pet to be at least 30% or better portion of damage but you cannot save that thing w/o speccing deep into BM and watching it more than you or the target. Pet AI is horrible. Fix it or just make the pet do no dmg and give whats missing back to the ranger. We can use them for utility and a few control skills.
Because berserker gear offers too much benefit to worry about it right now. Why condition when you can do twice the dmg in half the time with crit gear showing 70% crit rate and 100% crit dmg increase?
They should definitely fix conditions and lower the burst damage from berserker gear.
Would rather the damage of confusion scale better with condition damage, but when you cast a spell it removes one stack of confusion from you instead of waiting out duration.
Retal is a good idea to prevent people from mindless spamming but it was poorly implemented because people just mindlessly apply it. It again encourages the zerg. Internal CD would make sense but would ruin 1vfew tactics. I think prioritizing to make sure you only take damage from one retal every cast should work. So just cap the damage. A person with retal up getting hit by a ranger barrage should be able to damage that ranger every single hit.
FT is much better than it was. 2, 3, 5 are good skills. 4 I only use on downed players I don’t have time to stomp. Number 1 is still bugging on targetting and just lacks condition or damage. If number 1 stays same, the others need a slight boost. Number 4 on FT should be a round cirlce around engineer, not the line.
Turrets are still awful. Not enough HP for a long CD, non mobile skill. The uses on turrets are fine. But they really need some sort of defensive traits. AoE netting, cripples, dazes. Some solid ground control like the reflective wall or something.
All in all, go grenades if you have macros or the FT HGH combo and stick with PVE. FT HGH is strong in PVP, but I think most other classes do better. It’s a “fun” class, not really a competitive class. You may see 4k to 5k FT explosions which look awesome until you see a 15k necro axe attack.
IMHO, the game was fun. A lot of great ideas, and I can see they wanted to be original with their style of MMO, but they failed in implemetation. No class should have be a “jack of all trades”. Class balance in this game is vastly lacking but that has a lot to do with hard hitting bosses you just kite versus actively engage and WvW being zerg fests. Nothing wrong with sticking together, but there needs to be more mapping in the game to force bottle necking, spike traps or pits, buffs to outmanned groups. Forcing low number zergs to hide in a keep until they can hopefully fight off a mindless zerg back and forth all the live long day is boring to me. Spvp is great but maps are too small which provide too much benenfit to faster classes. Speed boosting should be relative to combat only. Also condition damage takes a huge nerf bat compared to the return you will see on crit damage. Often in this game, regardless of a mechanic, steamrolling the dungeons because an easier, safer, quicker practice. You just beat the mob to death before really having to deal with the attacks. Harpies on +10 FOTM for example.
I use 0/30/0/30/10 build.
I focus on crits and crit dmg. Conditions on FT are really lackluster as you will mostly get only a little burning and some bleeding from crit. I stack might and use the Human racial to keep up retal and fury, half the time I can maintain perma swiftness.
I use rifle for control, but mostly my MH weps are stat sticks. You can trade out the reduce cooldown to rifle/pistol trait for swiftness on crit to keep it going in battle and then trade to the gain vigor on swiftness trait in alchem for extra dodge.
Lately on my Engi I have been running Grenades again. In PVE, they are very powerful.
I run full zerker gear (rifle, but you could use 2 pistols or p/s for 2 sigils). I use Sigil of Fire. My build is based around survivability and dps, using MH weapons for control/conditions.
http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=-V70;2Z-Vg0k5FQkw0;9;4TJ-J-16A24;201P
I use 30/20/0/20/0
It’s not a maximum dps build but it has some real staying power. For reference w/o link:
EXPLOSIVES — I am setup for explosions cause bleeding, 10% more dmg from explosions, and extra grenade and distance. (for control fights, you can use reduce cooldowns).
FIREARMS — I use swiftness on crit, and vulnerability.
ALCHEMY — Using vigor when gaining swiftness, reduce elixir CD.
Skills are Elixir H, U, B and X. U can be replaced with S, R, C.
I maintain almost permanent vigor, mobs have several stacks of invulnerability to help out group. Although for solo running I would put 10 more in alchemy from firearms and run HGH.
This is just my personal build that carries all the points I think I might need to change out without worrying about boon stacking.
I also use a 0/30/0/30/10 build for flamethrower that is semi-tanky and allows for 25 stacks of might. I use the 10 in tools to be able to buff with toss elixir more often and for the extra dps from static discharge, and it has the most valuable minor trait out of the 3 other lines I could put my 10 into.
I will say the down side to running HGH is you will constantly be tossing elixirs for buffs of might instead of uses of elixirs to maximize dps. Which generally means you will lose some DPS during the fight as the casts for toss can add up quickly. I try to keep myself buffed by burning all elixirs and tosses between fights. And as a human I often run FT, elixir B, and Prayer to Lyssa for the AoE buff/condition. Often I get retal or fury procs. I wouldn’t say you are a main dps with this build in PVE, but it works well in WvW for me.
(edited by dirtyshame.1863)
You’re assumptions are incorrect if you assume this is only a DPS loss. Many of the stealth attacks and the process of being in stealth is part of the utility of the thief. Example: s/d will allow you to daze a target, extremely strong in against vets and players.
I never said it was only a dps loss. Quite the opposite actually, if you look at all my posts. I also clearly agree, this is a significant nerf to the class.
I’m just disputing the “33%” dps loss figures getting tossed around.
People are complaining about the wrong things. Instead of complaining about perceived massive dps losses in PvE rotations, people should be complaining about losing utility and survivability, and ability to safely deliver damage.
Noted.
I would say they are correct in saying it is a 33% reduction in usability of stealth skills only. Smaller numbers across the board however.
So my question is if stealth was really the problem and people are mad they can’t see the thief while doing damage. Then get rid of stealth… bare with me.
How about you just give us a ghostly image and everyone can see us during “stealth” but we get to use all of our stealth abilities without having to wait for a debuff anymore. Sounds fair to me, it’s either the damage or the stealth that’s the problem right? You can’t take away both or we just become a dead ranger pet limping across battle fields. So go ahead and get rid of debuff and stealth invis and give us back to back CnD backstabs while being seen, and proccing all of our Shadow Arts traits during the duration. Ghostly image “new stealth” characters will remain off aggro tables for duration.
Now the people saying I never saw the theif that killed me will say I clearly was able to identify the thief that killed me. This issue isn’t a L2P for current thieves, it was a L2P for people dying from them. I made one and leveled it to 80 for this very reason: to learn to fight one, and I learned how.
News @ 11 – Thieves can no longer kill people on the outskirts of zergs, but Eles can dive right into middle of them and wipe them out.
*warning: may contain sarcasim
Spending initiative for anything else than C&D is wasting DPS.
Agreed. Aside from Dagger 2 and Shortbow 2 and p/p 3, most of our weapon sets 2,3,4 are aimed at utility not damage.
Every trait you have got nerfed by 25%, so did your damage and survivability.
Neither 25% or 33% is remotely accurate unless a player lives almost solely in stealth which pretty much nobody does.
This combo is just as viable with just as much damage: Steal/Mug, BS, HS, HS, HS.
Sure there are thieves that live in stealth but those are primarily griefers. All they did was add 1 second of out of stealth damage when coming out of a stealth attack. It will have an effect but not nearly 25%.
99% of thieves who play use stealth.
Holy hell… 1 extra second on the reveal absolutely cannot effect a thief by 25% or more. Period… cannot be done and under any circumstance. Do people here think for that one extra second a thief is standing still not using some non-stealth attack/skill or that most thieves constantly spam some in-stealth attack?
Only players who stay in semi-perma-stealth by spamming CnD or the like the entire time will notice a significant drop in DPS.
It does have an actual 33% affect on long term dps of several builds. One example is a 10/30/30/0/0 build that uses a CnD BS followed by full AA chain for poison then CnD again to repeat combo. If I don’t need to heal or purge conditions you won’t even notice me go into stealth because I keep positioned at the side or back of the target. This nerf kills that Rythm and lengthens the time between repetitions by 33%. So does it do anything to a single burst? Not at all but long fights against bosses and large groups will definitely feel the effect.
It reduces the stealth rotation by ~33%, but the additional space in the overall rotation gets filled with #1 spam or something better. That addition mitigates the 33% down to something more palatable. It would take a bit of math and some assumptions to figure out what that number actually is – at least offensively. It’s hard to quantify the part of being more vulnerable and even how that affects real-world offensive capability.
In terms of hard math though, 33% is definitely erroneous.
You’re assumptions are incorrect if you assume this is only a DPS loss. Many of the stealth attacks and the process of being in stealth is part of the utility of the thief. Example: s/d will allow you to daze a target, extremely strong in against vets and players.
(edited by dirtyshame.1863)
The amount of damage on MUG was never the issue. Allowing the ability to be off the GCD so that you can cast CnD, MUG, allow CnD to finish and backstab. Put steal (when traited for MUG) on the GCD and alot of this will go away. Possibly move it to a tier 2 to make people happy. It hits about as hard as heartseeker at 50% with double the range. The cooldown is fairly substantial already.
MUG isn’t the issue as much as crit dmg/crit is rewarded far too highly in this game versus conditions, heals, and armor. I can kill just the same with my static discharge engineer and more often as well as hitting more than one enemy. rifle, toolkit, rifle turret, goggles, medkit… full zerker and blamo. Again because half of those abilites are off the GCD.
Duration reduction + circle notification was a bit harsh. I guess we can just stand in them and let other classes just range us now. At least they will bleed while stomping us if it takes less than 10 seconds.
Where’s mobility told to be on weapons other than shortbow…? =\
Shortbow will mostly likely become the thief answer to Zerg now. Sit in the back and wait for the cluster bomb to hit at 1200 range every 10 seconds waiting on the projectile.
Number 1 will be useful but remember, its only 900 range. Not even traitable to 1200.
Every trait you have got nerfed by 25%, so did your damage and survivability.
Neither 25% or 33% is remotely accurate unless a player lives almost solely in stealth which pretty much nobody does.
This combo is just as viable with just as much damage: Steal/Mug, BS, HS, HS, HS.
Sure there are thieves that live in stealth but those are primarily griefers. All they did was add 1 second of out of stealth damage when coming out of a stealth attack. It will have an effect but not nearly 25%.
IMO we should be happy as I figured mug damage was on the chopping block and reveals between stealths were going in. Both of these are probably still on the table once they see how much culling changes effect thief playability.
If stealth attacks are used back to back after revealed debuff, then yes it will be 33% direction damage/use reduction those attacks. Not neccesarily making us 33% less effective.
I apologize, I am going to double post from a thread I made, but I believe it should have been added here to begin with.
Do you realize that you have done far more than just make a thief disappear less often?
One second extra on the revealed debuff does not address the problem that most people are having with thieves in WvW and PVP. A burst thief still exists and will still most likely one shot you, the only thing he can’t do is go back to stealth as quick to stomp. Culling was a large reason thieves were able to move around packs in WvW. The instant burst problem was allowing steal to remain off the GCD when MUG is traited. Make it where when using MUG stops other animations or has to wait until others are finished.
Adding 1 second to a 3 second buff is putting many abilities on a much longer cooldown without allowing any damage to make up for it. This also increases the cost to damage ratio of CnD and any stealth ability.
Shadow Arts is an entire trait line dedicated to a skill that obviously is loved/hated by the community, but in many ways is our best/and only support ability. Thieves already take a huge dps nerf waiting in stealth in both pvp and pve. Now the abilties that harmonize with it will suffer. In PVE especially stealth is our saving grace, and now we will easily be the brunt of more attacks. We only get so many dodges. Are we just supposed to GS warrior everything?
Traits:
Now shadow protector cannot be used in such quick succession (not a large loss, but no healing compensated here).
Shadow’s Embrace being one of our main ways of removing reapplying damaging conditions to our already low HP pool. Making S/x our best way of removing conditions anymore which can be very initiative heavy or prevent use of many other skills).
Infusions of shadow will now obviously proc less often, lowering the overall dps of CnD.
Cloaked in shadows recieves a huge nerf. Now only being able to proc every 4 seconds instead of 3. Over any lengthy fight, this can be a very big deal.
Patience and Shadow Rejuventation also will be Healing/Regen Initiative less.
Hidden Assaassin will now lower might stacking for the build (although the potency of using it in shadow’s refuge will still remain strong).
Most of the shadow art’s trait line has just suffered several nerfs from 1 problem.
Hidden Killer also comes in, taking away more guaranteed crits from builds that rely on it and stealth to prevent having to stack precision.
Fleet Shadow, small nerf to mobility. I found this talent extremely useful with my S/D build.
Weapon sets.
S/D builds will daze 1 second less often.
P/D will now have to wait longer to keep bleeds stacked and dps nerf as skill 1,2 can be lackluster.
D/D obviously will not be able to backstab as often, dps nerf.
D/P small nerf to dps using combo field, although speccing heavy into initiative regen builds that may use this to blind often will suffer more.
————————————————————————————————————————
So far I see nothing to compensate the thief for being exposed more often especially after having an entire trait line and several weapon sets that seem dedicated to the idea of being elusive. If you want thieves to be seen more often then corresponding skills should have been buffed and tweaked to keep their effectiveness.
Stealth was also one of our powerful “dodge” mechanics. I think most would agree this class must dodge to survive more than many others, while having half of our weapon set be in melee range. At the very least the dodge bar for thieves could have been increased to 3 or 4 instead of 2, and the stealth weapon skills could have a damage/duration buff.
I just fill this is a very very bandaid fix on top of a culling issue.
Do you realize that you have done far more than just make a thief disappear less often?
One second extra on the revealed debuff does not address the problem that most people are having with thieves in WvW and PVP. A burst thief still exists and will still most likely one shot you, the only thing he can’t do is go back to stealth as quick to stomp. Culling was a large reason thieves were able to move around packs in WvW. The instant burst problem was allowing steal to remain off the GCD when MUG is traited. Make it where when using MUG stops other animations or has to wait until others are finished.
Adding 1 second to a 3 second buff is putting many abilities on a much longer cooldown without allowing any damage to make up for it. This also increases the cost to damage ratio of CnD and any stealth ability.
Shadow Arts is an entire trait line dedicated to a skill that obviously is loved/hated by the community, but in many ways is our best/and only support ability. Thieves already take a huge dps nerf waiting in stealth in both pvp and pve. Now the abilties that harmonize with it will suffer. In PVE especially stealth is our saving grace, and now we will easily be the brunt of more attacks. We only get so many dodges. Are we just supposed to GS warrior everything?
Traits:
Now shadow protector cannot be used in such quick succession (not a large loss, but no healing compensated here).
Shadow’s Embrace being one of our main ways of removing reapplying damaging conditions to our already low HP pool. Making S/x our best way of removing conditions anymore which can be very initiative heavy or prevent use of many other skills).
Infusions of shadow will now obviously proc less often, lowering the overall dps of CnD.
Cloaked in shadows recieves a huge nerf. Now only being able to proc every 4 seconds instead of 3. Over any lengthy fight, this can be a very big deal.
Patience and Shadow Rejuventation also will be Healing/Regen Initiative less.
Hidden Assaassin will now lower might stacking for the build (although the potency of using it in shadow’s refuge will still remain strong).
Most of the shadow art’s trait line has just suffered several nerfs from 1 problem.
Hidden Killer also comes in, taking away more guaranteed crits from builds that rely on it and stealth to prevent having to stack precision.
Fleet Shadow, small nerf to mobility. I found this talent extremely useful with my S/D build.
Weapon sets.
S/D builds will daze 1 second less often.
P/D will now have to wait longer to keep bleeds stacked and dps nerf as skill 1,2 can be lackluster.
D/D obviously will not be able to backstab as often, dps nerf.
D/P small nerf to dps using combo field, although speccing heavy into initiative regen builds that may use this to blind often will suffer more.
So far I see nothing to compensate the thief for being exposed more often especially after having an entire trait line and several weapon sets that seem dedicated to the idea of being elusive. If you want thieves to be seen more often then corresponding skills should have been buffed and tweaked to keep their effectiveness.
Stealth was also one of our powerful “dodge” mechanics. I think most would agree this class must dodge to survive more than many others, while having half of our weapon set be in melee range. At the very least the dodge bar for thieves could have been increased to 3 or 4 instead of 2, and the stealth weapon skills could have a damage/duration buff.
I just fill this is a very very bandaid fix on top of a culling issue.
(edited by dirtyshame.1863)
Skills and improvements
Toss/consuming elixirs now creates an AoE cripple and bleed on all enemies not wearing shoes when the bottle hits the ground. To compensate, Engineers will be billed 1 silver littering fee for every bottle dropped.
Turrets health and damage output have been doubled. The turrets are now heavier give themselves stability when deployed and to the engineer when stowed. However, the engineer experiences a 25% loss in overall speed movement for each turret stowed. Careful if you’re holding 4, you will be the unmovable statue.
New Turret: Tripod Camera: allows enemies to create screen shots of themselves after they successfully stomp the engineer.
Trait line improvement for tools. Scattered Toolbox: As your fumble around looking for parts, the engineer creates 3 seconds of fury and 3 seconds of self inflicting confusion when toolkit is equipped.
Pistol #1 no change, but a little flag comes out the end saying “Bang”. Pistol #2 has been fixed. It now misses with every shot as intended.
Weapon stats now effect kits which means the overall damage output of kits must be tweaked to compensate.
Grenades now have pins to pull making cast time 2 seconds and if caught by enemy player may
be thrown back at the casting engineer.
Flamethrower works under water (yay just like elementalists who can still attune to fire underwater) creating extreme heat and boiling water around enemies. Enemies are relaxed, regain HP, but are too lazy to actually attack you.
Flamethrower #2 is now a targeted AoE, but instead of exploding hands out sticks with marshmallows to all in range. Flamethrower #1 now causes fuel leak igniting the engineer on fire allowing for those with cooking of 325 or higher to cook marshmallows on engineers burning body.
Bomb kit explosions now can be traited to work 75% faster, but they can damage the casting engineer and allies.
Elixir gun #2 has been replaced with Snot Rocket covering the enemy in a green sticky ooze. Enemies flee in terror for 3 seconds. Engineer is forced to /laugh for 5 seconds after cast.
All elixirs now have same 30 second CD and create random abilities. We don’t even know what they do, we closed our eyes and just coded blindly on this part. Have fun.
Static discharge has been changed to compensate for the extreme burst. After each cast the engineer gets a 10 second stack of “Charged”, at 3 stacks the Engineer becomes fully charged and all enemies are pulled to the engineer and cannot be removed without jumping in water.
Gadgets now have passive skills. Goggles allow the engineer to see the enemies without any armor. Rocket boots now play “Rocket man” constantly in the background. Slick shoes now give you the appearance of Data from the Goonies movie. Battering ram turns into a small mechanical ram that can be ridden (50% movement decrease, 100% fun increase).
Found some secret Patch notes from Devs
Skills and improvements
Toss/consuming elixirs now creates an AoE cripple and bleed on all enemies not wearing shoes when the bottle hits the ground. To compensate, Engineers will be billed 1 silver littering fee for every bottle dropped.
Turrets health and damage output have been doubled. The turrets are now heavier give themselves stability when deployed and to the engineer when stowed. However, the engineer experiences a 25% loss in overall speed movement for each turret stowed. Careful if you’re holding 4, you will be the unmovable statue.
New Turret: Tripod Camera: allows enemies to create screen shots of themselves after they successfully stomp the engineer.
Trait line improvement for tools. Scattered Toolbox: As your fumble around looking for parts, the engineer creates 3 seconds of fury and 3 seconds of self inflicting confusion when toolkit is equipped.
Pistol #1 no change, but a little flag comes out the end saying “Bang”. Pistol #2 has been fixed. It now misses with every shot as intended.
Weapon stats now effect kits which means the overall damage output of kits must be tweaked to compensate.
Grenades now have pins to pull making cast time 2 seconds and if caught by enemy player may
be thrown back at the casting engineer.
Flamethrower works under water (yay just like elementalists who can still attune to fire underwater) creating extreme heat and boiling water around enemies. Enemies are relaxed, regain HP, but are too lazy to actually attack you.
Flamethrower #2 is now a targeted AoE, but instead of exploding hands out sticks with marshmallows to all in range. Flamethrower #1 now causes fuel leak igniting the engineer on fire allowing for those with cooking of 325 or higher to cook marshmallows on engineers burning body.
Bomb kit explosions now can be traited to work 75% faster, but they can damage the casting engineer and allies.
Elixir gun #2 has been replaced with Snot Rocket covering the enemy in a green sticky ooze. Enemies flee in terror for 3 seconds. Engineer is forced to /laugh for 5 seconds after cast.
All elixirs now have same 30 second CD and create random abilities. We don’t even know what they do, we closed our eyes and just coded blindly on this part. Have fun.
Static discharge has been changed to compensate for the extreme burst. After each cast the engineer gets a 10 second stack of “Charged”, at 3 stacks the Engineer becomes fully charged and all enemies are pulled to the engineer and cannot be removed without jumping in water.
Gadgets now have passive skills. Goggles allow the engineer to see the enemies without any armor. Rocket boots now play “Rocket man” constantly in the background. Slick shoes now give you the appearance of Data from the Goonies movie. Battering ram turns into a small mechanical ram that can be ridden (50% movement decrease, 100% fun increase).
I did this same thing…
…but it leaves you with absolutely no stun-breakers.
In a build that’s already a glass cannon, I really don’t think you can get away with running around without one. At least, I always have a terrible experience without one.
I have recently decided to go back to having the 10 in alchem for the invinc potion or the swiftness procs vigor. The up time on my burn proc hasn’t been all that great lately, when I lasted check it… however this was PVE (took a break from pvp).
Lack of stun break actually didn’t cripple me like I thought it would. Getting knocked down but warrior shield bash, I will switch kits (which you can do while stunned) and pick up my tool kit and spam 4 until it works. Burst thieves and mesmers with stun MW spam are the only real problems I have any more in that case. And stun breakers would help but I see them less often than I would be able to effectively use my stun breaker. I tend to try to keep my distance at all times anymore until I am ready to rifle 5 and 4 on someone.
Going 2v1, I find ram more useful so I can prevent rezzing while I work the other down.
They already did communicate …
Engineer
The Engineer is a highly versatile class. While it doesn’t have the long range capabilities of the Ranger, or the melee capabilities of the Warrior or Guardian, they are comfortable at medium ranges in most fights. They have a lot of control, and use their boons to keep themselves (and allies) alive in a fight. They can use different kits based on the situation, but this extreme versatility comes at a cost in damage on their main hand weapons.
Ele
We see the elementalist as the king of versatility. The skill ceiling for the Ele is exceptional, as the ability to leverage all four attunements at the right time is crucial for understanding the elemetnalist. The Ele boasts some of the best team support and control abilities in the game, as well as some great area of effect damage.
This told me everything I needed to know about their views on the Engineer.
This .. This … 100 times this. I personally would like them to just give up on the boons idea and make us kings of toon controls. We either manipulate where enemy toons will be or are able to massively move ourselves around. Catapults that shoot ourselves or disabling rocks at enemies, that kind of thing.
I believe every class but Ele and Ranger have negative or downsides metioned right in Anet’s class description. Only allowing for skill ceiling on elementalist to be the down side. If you get passed that… enjoy the ride… on the lightning.
(edited by dirtyshame.1863)
Hmm. I’ll have to try Ram. I know Casia, and some others, advocate Rocket Boots, but I’m not a fan of the very short range on the toolbelt skill. I can see the merit, but I don’t think it would work for me.
Goggles serves as a stun break, fury, and even though the toolbelt has no direct damage, it does have 1,200 range, applies the discharge, and applies stacks of vulnerability. A nice way to open burst is with Goggles, Goggles toolbelt, rifle, throw wrench.
You make a compelling case for Ram, though, as the extra knockback, along with cripple and direct damage on the toolbelt, could definitely come in handy.
I can see the usefulness of goggles over ram, but on target dummies I can get the ram to hit alone for 2k, adding 10% damage over a short time doesn’t beat the 2k overall. You would need 20k of damage to equal that one hit on the single target and several more seconds to reset it. I have fury up 50% of time with medkit, I’m getting better at changing over. Not as fun as just clicking goggles mind you. Best part of goggles has to be stun break and immunity to blind. Also I should mention it is of GCD toolbelt as well. But again, mine is for PUG sPvP. I was just never able to get the numbers out of goggles to suit me, and I really get a kick out of overcharge shotting a downstate away from a rezzer and then using ram to stop the rezzer once he gets back to body.
to each his own my good man I am still waiting for the day I can go spec turrets like mesmers spec clones. LOL.
Let’s try to tone this down a bit. Looks like people took it as a personal attack on them when I mentioned these things. So… Let me just say what I am really concerned with and try not to offend.
My biggest beef with the mesmer class is that they aren’t punished for shattering clones as they should be. Many builds actually encourage it. I like the idea of the class and played it in spvp and leveled a little.
Let me explain a bit further: Clones are cool idea, and they can be read through. I think the best player should be the one that mimics the clone, not a player than can toss them out like candy. If you do not think they can be spawned at a super rate, then I suggest you look for videos of it being done. I have seen it, and I am sure they are skilled players, but it still seems backwards. To me the shatters should be emergency buttons, and losing a clone should be a big deal to the mesmer. Ranger lose their pets, its their fault to some extent (and ranger is my #2 toon.) Engineers lose turrets easily and explode them on emergency vs picking them up. Granted the turrets are bad, but the idea is still solid I think. Necros lose pets, and it can be a very big deal to builds that revolve around them. You shouldn’t destroy your helpers unless you really need to. I would like to see the builds revolve more around phantasms and clones with good HP so players have to look for the right one. Guardian specced spirit weapons shouldn’t be undestructable as they seem to be either. If you choose a class that has a micro manage system of clones or what have you, then the class should be structured to support that system, not blow it up constantly in your face.
I would be open to a rework of the class myself that involved more about keeping clones alive for trickery and tankiness.
My OP was about playing on my Engineer, but I have played all classes and I know Engineer already has one leg in the hole. The burst control AoE shatter can be too much, and I think it should be toned down. Give the mesmers something to compenstate for it though.
we good mesmers? let’s shake hands ok?
(edited by dirtyshame.1863)
I use the 10/30/0/0/30 build discharge. Last night was one of my best days. I skip goggles because of the toolbelt CD and lack of damage from the initial toolbelt skill (discharge will hit though).
I used medkit, tool kit, rifle turret, ram. Those do the most damage, shortest CDs, ranged and specced rigth will make toolkit/ram/rifle (if you choose) to stack some serious cripple.
Personally I go with the 33% to proc fire , more or less keeps single target burning 50% of time in a realitve short burst rotation. I use the 20% reduced rifle CDs, 10% improved rifle dmg, and 50% chance to cause a vulnerability. I use the 50% vs the 5 stacks for 8 secs on net because you will see quickly this build can attack several ppl at once provided you line up shots or they group.
In tools or whatever is last set or traits I take the static discharge, swiftness on kit equip, and throw wrench improvment trait.
It really helped me to learn to use toolkit effectively… and I am still learning. Skills 2,3,4,5 are all very useful. Skip 1.
I have been using sigil of force and scholar runes. When you get the jump on someone full scholar and full endurance, that should be 20% increased damage which I am hoping stacks anyway. I did manage a 7k jump shot last night on land which is actually new for me in spvp.
I like that in a short burst you can control a target very well. Net them, burst to avoid them evading your damage while you can. Then knock them down and jump shot if you want. Pull with shield and prybar, then knock with ram. Toolbelt will be almost up again to use.
important note rifle shot on toolbelt is off GCD which means you can use it when you are down. I noted this because I have managed to kill several people (to downstate at least) while on the ground after overcharged shot. Which also gets it off cooldown all the quicker. Do NOT wait to hit this button. Its the only reason to keep turret on your skill bar.
You are glass, but against single target you can handle most anything except fear bombs from necros (unblockable I believe) and a really good trap specced hunter (also unblockable). This build isn’t always viable. Its great in PUG spvp because there is not so much organization. In tourney I would worry a bit. I probably only average on play ability but I find this very useful to use, just don’t blow your … well let’s say CDs… on evades.
Seriously, this is coming from an Engineer doing WvW and SPvP.
1. There are no CDs between using shatters. There needs to be a CD between each shatter of 2 to 3 seconds minimum.
2. Clones and phantasms can be created at alarming rates allowing for massive explosion spam.
3. Explosions are a 360 degree damage spread at target allowing hardly any targetting, plus clones go right after enemy.
4. Many clones/phantasm ability spawn the illusion right on top of the target, even if LOS one can still be created and track down the target.
5. Confusion is the worst game mechanic I have ever seen in a MMO. Retaliation is fine, you can choose not to hit the target. But confusion forces you to do nothing in a game except remove boon (if you can) or take massive amounts of damage. I am aware engineers can also make a build using this but it’s much harder to apply and the duration is far too short. The stacks on confusion should go away as the target casts spells instead of waiting out duration. Confusion needs a major rework.
6. Portal… we all know it.
7. Best elites in game. Bubble quickness for whole team, turn target into something completely useless for 10 seconds. AoE stealth. Far Far outreaches most elite skills. No matter the CD, these are far too strong for what other classes have.
Put 3 mesmers on one side in an SPvP match that know how to play and they have so much burst/dmg/control that you cannot beat that team without an extreme amount of teamwork. No other class can boost so much.
You can begin your kitten flaming, but this class has been too powerful since launch and only made stronger. I would rather deal with the burst thieves.