Showing Posts For drobinhood.6804:
FIREBRAND
First off, I absolutely love the concept. To whoever did the animations: I would gladly buy you a drink. I’ve always loved burn Guardian in particular, and this spec takes that idea into overdrive. It was, by far, my favorite in terms of concept and feel.
Axe:
- The animations are beautiful, and I really want to like axe. But it feels like the design of this weapon conflicts with other design aspects of the Firebrand.
- The range and lack of gap closing makes this feel very awkward in actual use. Increasing the range of the weapon would go a long way to improving the feel.
- The axe 3 pull mechanic frequently glitches with terrain and is an unreliable gap closer.
- The axe 2 symbol has a very long cast time and does not apply a boon once placed. I think the intention is to lay down the symbol first and then use axe 3 to pull enemies into its effect. But since the pull is very unreliable, it feels incredibly frustrating and punishing when axe 3 fails.
Mantras:
- Overall, I think the charge system works quite well.
- Mantra of Flame has a very limited zone of effect. Widening the cone and/or increasing the range to 600 would vastly improve the usability of this skill.
- Related to the axe feedback, the idea of supportive mantras having a forward-facing cone requires that the player either (1) stop their rotation, re-orient to face allies, cast supportive mantras, then re-orient a second time to resume DPSing the baddy, or (2) stand behind allies at midrange and use a scepter or staff so allies can be buffed in a less disruptive way. Option 1 feels very clunky, and option 2 eliminates the axe as a feasible weapon, given its current form. I think there are better solutions.
Tomes:
- I love these. Tome of justice burns all mine enemies with righteous and purifying flame, which is what I’ve always loved most about Guardians. It feels very satisfying to use. Some have complained about the page mechanic, but I like it.
- The cast time to enter tomes does impact the flow of combat to some degree, although I don’t feel as strongly about this as my PvP and WvW brethren, who fear tome interrupts more than I do (as a PvE-oriented player).
- Minor point: I’m going to disagree with others who yearn for the enormous floating book animation to return. I’m not a huge fan and think the art direction is perfectly fine as-is.
Overall:
- I feel that axe skills and mantras have pretty conflicting playstyles at the moment. Both need some tweaking to improve the flow and design of the spec, IMO.
- For axe, a more streamlined way of laying down a symbol and a more reliable way of getting enemies into it is needed.
a) Axe 2 could be modeled after sword 2, which would solve many of the class’ mobility problems. Make it an instant cast teleport that drops a symbol at the enemy’s location.
b) Axe 3 is an unreliable skill to pull enemies into our symbol and AA range. If axe 2 is a teleport that brings us to the enemy and drops a symbol, axe 3 could be modeled after Chapter 3 in Tome of Justice, a heated vortex that collapses nearby enemies into our symbol and AA range. This would be especially useful if you want to keep axe 1 range relatively short.
- While increasing axe AA to midrange would allow us to stand behind enemies and use cone-based mantras to support allies more easily, I get the impression that Anet is wanting the axe to be a short-range weapon. If so, a small increase of axe 1 range (~200?) would be a nice QoL tweak. Mantra of Flame can remain a relatively narrow cone, but a 500-600 range would be needed for skill viability. If we’re not able to position ourselves behind allies and attack from midrange, however, supportive mantras should be changed to a 360 degree AoE cast.
- To distinguish sword and axe (since they would share a skill), keep axe as the more condition-focused weapon and and tweak sword to be more power-focused.