Guild Wars 2

I don’t know what you’re trying to say. I’ve been testing it in the mists and the only non-utility based ‘elixir’ skill that cleanses is EG #5 which it does anyway. There’s no interaction with what was formerly the Cleansing Formula 409 trait.

Whilst HGH now applies on all ‘elixir’ labelled skills the condition cleanse still only works for for the utility based skills.

It would be nice if we could get a recipe to change the class of ascended armour. I have a few spare pieces on characters that I gave to for lack of any other use of them but now could actually make a whole set out of them. Problem is they’re split between light/medium/heavy. The recipe could be the same only instead of ectos you add a bolt of damask, elonian leather or deldrimor steel (possibly 3 of the latter 2).

It wasn’t even broken in PvP. Rangers and their stupid LB pewpew are a much bigger problem from extreme range, mortar has a long arc (also needs LOS of course) and a not too big radius. For PvP conditions and cele are what’s used and mortar only offers a few swap in skills which funnily enough is all it’s going to be good for now.

Well that’s generic. There’s already the ‘Reaper’ PvP title and loads of traits/skills named ’Reaper’s X’.

Whilst we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see if it actually makes the class viable the examples they give are not encouraging. The traits make it seem like it’s going to be once again very selfish oriented and that shout is just another minion skills, and the weakest minion type at that.

Even with the addition of a ton of new skins most staff ones simply don’t look the part. It also means ‘regular’ staff users wouldn’t be starved of skins designed specifically for a more appropriate look (such as the one Rytlock uses in the trailer). This would work similar to racial armour in that once a spear skin has been applied any non-melee staff profession wouldn’t be able to equip it until the skin has been changed.

I know it’s a minor thing but there are a lot of cool UW skins that we don’t get to enjoy much and would make a good compromise for the lack of pole-arms.

As it is every build uses 4-6 into Explosives, Healing Turret, 2 kits and Supply Crate with good reason. Engi has consistently suffered pigeon-holing because so many other skills and trait lines are flat out unviable, for both PvE and PvP. Turrets received attention, albeit in the wrong place, as did Elixir’s to some extent but Gadgets have remain consistently mediocre across all game modes. In short here are my suggestions to make them more viable and increase overall build variety:

• Reduce cool downs significantly: Right now one of their main problems is that there are individual kit skills that do better, eg. FT’s Airblast rivals Personal Battering Ram, as well as providing simply more. Kits are so fundamental to Engi’s viability they are the standard to which other skills should be balanced. By reducing cooldowns to that of regular weapon skills (10-20s) it promotes the more active and flexible playstyle kits offer.

• Better trait synergy: The Gadgeteer trait is the only real attempt at rewarding Gadget use, and is one of the worst GM traits in the game. The boons are very short in duration and don’t correspond to their gadget well. Eg. a whole 6 seconds of aegis on using Throw Mine, which is an offensive skill anyway. My idea would be to re-assign boons (eg. fury goes to mine), have the effects proc when using their toolbelt skills, double their durations and apply the boons to nearby allies. I would also move Speedy Gadgets to the Master tier, rename it ‘Gadget Master’ and add ‘you can now equip a Gadget in your elite slot’. Let’s face it, Engi has the worst elite choices for PvE and one of the biggest drawbacks of equipping anything but a kit is the sheer utility you lose. This would help alleviate our skill slot pressure.

Individual Skill Changes

• AED: Recharge reduced to 30s. Turned into a HoT like Troll Unguent for 10s. Each pulse whilst your health is <75% heals a condition, <50% has increased healing and if you reach <25% whilst it’s active you instantly gain a large amount of health. Tooltbelt skill is now a short ranged PBAoE.

• Utility Goggles: Recharged reduced to 25s. Blindness immunity reduced to 5s. Tooltbelt skill also reduced to 25s.

• Rocket Boots: Toolbelt skill has increased base damage and hugely increased power scaling. Range also increased to 450

• Personal Battering Ram: Now slams the ground similar to Warrior’s Stomp skill. Launch reduced to 300 from 450. Power scaling increased dramatically. Toolbelt skill breaks stun and has drastically increased power scaling (a stunbreak on this low a cooldown would fit in with the upcoming CC/Stability changes).

• Throw Mine: Power scaling increased, proximity radius increased. Toolbelt skill is now in a uniform pattern in a much tighter spread around the player and reduced to 0.5s cast time.

I understand everything’s still a work in process and the exact mechanics haven’t been ‘set in stone’, including the total legend pool, but from what we’ve seen of the Revenant so far there’s a problematic potential of extreme staleness.

• Your weapon determines your playstyle significantly more so than your utilities. Engi and Ele are balanced by a plethora of utility through kits, conjures and attunements providing a whole new skill-set per one. As a revenant you will be forced into melee or ranged. Whilst this may help balance for PvP it takes out both flexibility and customisation.

• Legends and their skills will always have a meta for game modes. Jalis for example is probably staple for sustain and Mallyx for condition play in PvP. For dungeons/fracs the most effective DPS and support ones will be meta. Unless the legend pool ends up being vast with interesting alternatives for each type of encounter this will stagnate. It would in my opinion be much easier to just allow use weapon swap, rather than create legends that try to make up for being forced into one weapon play style.

• Without an alternative weapon set you lose a lot of synergy a long with the customisation to your play style. Ele and Engi are great examples of this as they can stack a lot of might, vulnerability and burst by using combos and swapping between what they have. Without having alternative choices via kits/conjures/attunements there’s huge pressure to make a single set be as viable as what other classes have. I’m all for asymmetry but that’s what the class mechanics are for and it doesn’t make sense to forsake one of GW2’s best mechanics. If the legends affected how your weapon plays too then I can see it working, however not in the current state we’ve seen.

Notes: I’m aware it’s still fairly early and many things are subject to change, I just wanted to give my opinion on what turns me off the Revenant and what would make me interested. I like the energy and legend mechanic for example, but I don’t think sacrificing a whole weapon set just because the other 2 armour tiers have a profession with this feature translates well to it.

So it’s not instanced, officially dehyped. Anything openworld ends up being too easy what do you expect, it’s just a numbers game.

OP gives a great summary. Personally I don’t know why RNG crits were added like any other generic RPG, they didn’t have anywhere near the same presence GW1 and it’s an impediment to the ‘action’ direction of GW2. Ideally I’d like to see crits turned into skill and trait based triggers rather than an awkward % based thing. Unfortunately that’s not going to happen.

The refusal for a PvP/PvE split and balancing accordingly makes conditions another big problem, they’re already great in WvW/PvP.

We definitely need more exciting traits. I don’t mind the +% for a specific weapon if it’s also providing something unique, hopefully new ones along side specialisations can help alleviate this.

Healing power is always going to be useless in PvE and hard to balance in PvP. The celestial meta showed how it can be a significant boost on Warriors and Eles. It may be useless but I’d rather see they use their resources to balance other things.

I definitely agree that Necromancers need a different type of support and had the same idea of orders being a great opportunity for support beyond the standard might/fury stacking. The weird support-healer stuff they’ve tried to press on to the profession doesn’t even work for PvP and has 0 place in PvE.

So the Specialisation with HoT sounds promising and I’m looking forward to seeing some much needed dimensions added to the class through new skills/traits. However until then there are some much needed buffs to areas Necro is simply lacking, namely team support (previous attempts through things like ‘Unholy Martyr’ have been sorely lacking. Note this is primarily PvE oriented as Necro is in a pretty good spot but should also provide more synergy options to PvP. Here are my own ideas:

Healing

Well of Blood: Reduce recharge to 35s. Changed to water field. Grant 1 stack of might to allies in the field per pulse for each bleeding enemy adjacent to them.

Signet of Vampirism: Recharge reduced to 30s. Passive changed to ‘Regenerate X amount every 3 seconds, increasing with every 10% of your health missing’. Active now spreads to nearby foes when the target dies. Scaling of active’s lifesteal increased from 7% to 15%.

Heals are very conservative in their defensive nature across professions, but the addition of Arcane Brilliance and Signet of Vampirism got me thinking the addition of more risk vs reward in this niche could be something Necro can offer.

Corruptions

Blood Is Power: Becomes a channel similar to Guardian’s ‘Empower’. Bleed yourself with each pulse and grant 3 might stacks for 12s to nearby allies (untraited banner range), duration increases by 10% for every 10% of your health missing. Grant fury each time you are struck whilst channeling (1 sec internal cd).

Epidemic: Becomes ground targeted, range reduced to 1000, recharge increased to 25s. Enemies in target area share unique conditions, prioritising higher stacks and durations. (eg. 3 enemies: Enemy 1 has a single stack of bleed for 10s and poison for 10s, Enemy 2 has 3 stacks of bleed for 5s and burning for 3s, Enemy 3 has burning for 5s. The result is Enemy 1 receives burning for 5s, Enemy 2 receives poison for 10s and Enemy 3 receives 3 stacks of bleed and 5s of burning). Each new unique condition applied inflicts 2 stacks of vulnerability for 8s, vulnerability applied on self increased to 5 stacks for 10s.

Corrosive Poison Cloud: Radius increased to 300 now inflicts 1 stack of vulnerability for 5s each time an enemy is critically hit within the cloud. Allies have a condition burnt

Corruptions are pretty much the epitome of selfish play as they are, similar to Engineer’s elixirs though without being very potent. The idea here is to add more synergy to organised play and offensive support that isn’t tied to the stacking meta.

Spectral

Spectral Grasp: Recharge reduced to 25s. Now acts similar to binding blade, shoot up to 5 out at nearby enemies and pull them to you. Retains flat 15% life force gain as long as one enemy is hit.

Spectral Armour: Recharge reduced to kitten .

‘Spectral Attunement’ Trait: Replaces weakening precision as GM trait. Grants additional functionality to spectral skills and gain life force on their use. Spectral grasp: now unblockable, at full life force when used chill duration is doubled on affected enemies. Spectral Walk: condition duration is reduced by 20%, allies who touch the trail gain 3s of protection (non-stacking). Spectral Wall: reflects projectiles, grants fury to allies entering if cast whilst at full life force. Spectral Armour: Grants 3s of stability to you and nearby allies also gain the protection.

Again spectral skills are quite selfish, with heavy investment this aims to provide more dynamic type of support.

Rather than filler festivals and possibly a feature patch I’d much rather see a focus on things what we’ve already got but aren’t viable. There are significantly more subpar traits, whole traitlines and skills than there are usable/interesting ones. Previously there has also been a much larger focus on toning powerful options, down which I agree with to help prevent powercreep, but there hasn’t been an equal focus on providing viable (and interesting) alternatives. Some examples that come to mind: Any trait that simply adds ‘X% more domoges’, the entire Blood Magic traitline, Warrior’s Phyical utility skills, Necro’s Corruptions, Ele’s glyphs.

So I picked up another account during the sale as it might prove useful in the future. I was levelling a character on it to see what it was like to start out completely fresh under the NPE, and I tried to send 1g from my main account through a guild bank to help gear up. However I got a message about some kind of limit placed on new accounts saying this would be lifted as I ‘continued to play the game’. Is this time or level gated?

Only the MF seems to stack when using the celebration/birthday boost, the extra track progress and rank points don’t. Rather than a win giving 5-6% it still only gives 4% and receiving accolades such as top player kills only rewards 6 points when it should be 7-8. Don’t know if this is intentional but it is disappointing.

psizone.8437:

Aretak.3826:

Polearms have been confirmed as not being added, but there has been no clarification on spears seeing terrestrial use.

Because terrestrial spears ARE polearms.

Polearms include melee spears, halberds, glaives and more long sticks with stabby-slicey bits.

Technically yes, but also technically they all lead to different enough fighting styles. A halberd for example relies on heavier blows and more horizontal space. Also note that Anet held them to be different enough to be developed separately to spears they just didn’t make it to the final stages. The fact that he didn’t clarify further and because we don’t know the Revenant or all the specialisation armaments it’s still more than possible.

Why do people keep spreading so much misinformation. The only thing Colin has said about this is from this https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2tsiox/pax_afterparty_lessons_learned/, ‘Colin said “We warned the art team what the community would think when they saw the trailer, but they chose to make things the way they did.” It looks like a polearm.’ Polearms have been confirmed as not being added, but there has been no clarification on spears seeing terrestrial use.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2tsiox/pax_afterparty_lessons_learned/

‘We talked polearms. No polearms in this expansion. Colin said “We warned the art team what the community would think when they saw the trailer, but they chose to make things the way they did.” It looks like a polearm but it is not. No word if they ever will be.’

This is the only information we actually have. We also know that they did basic development for polearms but scrapped it before release, which were also distinct from spears.

I’d really like clarification on this too. The only thing they said wouldn’t be in was polearms, so I wish people would stop saying spears definitely won’t see terrestrial use based on on vague information.

Matchmaking aside (or lack thereof) there are some serious issues with EVERYONE being allowed to queue for it without any prerequisites. Since the patch I’ve seen leechers, afking bots to people with simply no game knowledge. Add something like a r20 requirement and X amount of unranked games played to help filter out this nonsense,

Syrpharon.7491:

You forget that balance issues would be present even in pve, since land mobs work differently than water mobs, and water skills are designed to work in water.

Also porting them on land would require a rework of all the animations for the skills, and in the end it’s not like those skills are unique, since they are simply a slight variation of land skills.

Firstly, the majority of UW mobs are ‘amphibious’ in that work exactly as they do on land (Krait, Icebrood, Skale, bandits, Inquest, undead), the only unique mechanic of underwater is the extra axis. There is no balance issue. Secondly you just recognised a lot of skills are variants of land skills and this is why it would be just a matter of tweaking animations. The main point of this is that some professions gain access to these types of skills that they otherwise lack, such as a proper 2handed melee power-based weapon for Necro/Mes or AoE base weapon for Engi.

Really all it comes down to is targeting adjustments and animations, in my opinion it’s worth the resources more so than whatever content comes with the Living Story.

This has come up in the past across many threads and I feel it’s more elevant than ever. It is a simple solution to the lack of build/weapon and utilises some fairly redundant content; UW weapons are so limited to their use when they could provide so much more for their class. Necro spear functions similar to a GS and provides a power cleaving weapon, Mesmer spear could also provide a proper full cleave weapon, Harpoon Gun on Engi has some interesting mechanics that could provide an AoE base weapon, all those Ele trident skills we barely get to see.

There would need to be a fair amount of adjustments of course due to targeting and physics, Engi’s Harpoon Gun could function more like an explosives launcher for example. This would be easier done than say coding existing weapons as they already exist and are useable. I’d also be fine if this were PvE only at first (much like some runes and sigils) to avoid balance issues that might arise.

They should’ve just brought the skins back at 2-3 tickets each as well as having this lottery. I mean really, 1000 skins for the entire non chinese playerbase? They also should’ve done 10 each per home server for each region. It’s a drop in an ocean of unfairness. Note I was around for the first one but like most people didn’t have the money to throw away on hoarding skins, and honestly thought Anet wouldn’t be this bad at handling their distribution.

This may seem like a silly question but I’d like some clarification for the skritt/shiny wrapper lottery for the old Halloween skins. A few hundred between one region is one thing, between both (especially considering their separate economies) it’s just something I won’t trouble myself with.

Too many rewards, you’ll take your daily uninfused rings and like it if you’re lucky. Don’t forget they recently said they wouldn’t be adding any more dungeons and honestly to seem to give a kitten about instanced quality content at all.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

Well, in the same regard, there’s nothing to differentiate the Balthazar reward track from the other reward tracks, and it’s kind of the same deal. Can only be completed once, and the final reward is something you can only get in PvP.

That makes no sense. They’re all repeatable, with regions being more general in their rewards and dungeons a specific set focus. The glorious track falls into this second category and should reward accordingly. Like I pointed out the Balthazar track is n exception.

This track seems to be lumped into the same format as regional ones which is odd as it’s supposed to be a specific PvP exclusive reward track. The only thing that identifies it as a unique track is the end reward. Compare this to the dungeons tracks which reward you with not just a piece of armour but 3 weapons as well for doing the track . The Balthazar backpiece is the only other PvP specific track and whilst it is a different case because of being non-repeatable, it had its own thematic rewards along the way too so I don’t consider this to be a trend-setter.

My suggestion is to treat the glorious reward track more like a dungeon one add another armour box at 50% completion to lessen the grind, ideally another at 75% too but that’s probably asking too much. I don’t mind if they remove the obsidian shards and ascended materials that feature in regional tracks in the process because these aren’t why you’re doing the track in the first place. They should add a ‘Mists Region’ track if they want a more general PvP region themed track.

It’s the only dungeon rune left out, and whilst power builds can happily abuse might stacking the way condition builds play hasn’t changed in a very long time. It would give a viable alternative to runes of Balthazar and reward a more proactive/synergistic playstyle.

Twigifire.8379:

Because if they were it would be extremely Overpowered. The elixir gun is already one of our best kits. HGH would be renewed as a massive meta, and extremely powerful at killing everyone, as elixir gun offers already massive support. Reducing the skills recharge by up to 40%, increasing the regen duration would be very helpful, and the HGH means nades + elixir gun + elixir s/b would be unstoppable.

This guy, this guy doesn’t know kitten. EG is easily the worst kit that offers nothing, not to mention HGH has always been limited to nobrain builds good for only pubstomps.

Anyway It’s weird phrasing, elixir traits were never intended to affect it.

Continued:

Explosives

I Acidic Elixirs- Being effected by an elixir skill removes a boon from an enemy with your next hit. If a boon is removed they also suffer 5 stacks of vulnerability for 10secs.
II Shrapnel- Increase chance to 33%, reduced duration by 20%
III Forceful Explosives- Merged with Grenadier, keeps the name of Forceful Explosives. Moes to the GM Tier
IV Empowered Adrenaline- Dodging gives you 5secs of swiftness and might (5sec CD)
V Accelerant Packed Turrets- Counts as a blast finisher when destroyed as well as detonated (still only one finisher). Allies gain 5 seconds of fury within 360 units of the destroyed turret.
VI Exploit Weakness- Deal 10% more critical damage to foes suffering from vulnerability. Double when foes is <50%.
VII Explosive Powder- Moved to adept.
X Enhanced Performance- Gain 5 secs of fury too.
XI Grenadier- As mentioned above, merged with and renamed to ‘Forceful Explosives’
XII Autodefense Bomb Dispenser- Equipping the Bomb Kit now grants stability and aegis for 5 seconds (15 sec cd). In addition you gain 150 toughness when it is equipped.

Firearms

I Fireforged Trigger Moved to Master. Whilst the EG is equipped any critical hits caused 3 stacks of bleeding for 5secs (10 sec cd) and FT causes burning for 3secs (15 sec cd). Cooldowns are seperate.
IV Rifled Barrels- Merged with coated bullets.
VII Juggernaught- Merged with Napalm Specialist, which replaces the might stacks.
IX Rifle Mod- Enemies within 600 units take an additional 10%.
X Go For The Eyes- Works with pistol too. Moved to adept.
XI Modified Ammunition- 7% of condition damage is also converted to power.
XII Napalm Specialist- Renamed to ‘Condition Specialist’. Duration of all conditions increased by 33%. Every time you inflict a condition on an enemy, you cure one on yourself (15sec cd).

Alchemy

III Acidic Coating- Merged with Self-Regulating Defenses
V Blood Injection- Changed to +3% condition damage for each boon on you, capped at 5.
VII Deadly Mixture- Critical hits with the EG cause 3secs of burning (20sec cd) and FT cause 1 stack of bleeding for 10seconds (1sec cd). Separate cooldowns.
VIII Potent Elixirs- Merged with HGH.
IX Backpack Regenrator- Now grants the regeneration boon for 10secs when equpping a kit, 10sec cd.
XII Automated Response- Changed to gain -50% condition duration whilst under the effects of a boon. Drink an Elixir C when you have 3 or more conditions (50 sec CD), affected by Fast-Acting Elixirs.

Now here are some skill changes I’d like to see as well:

Elixir Gun- Now utilises a chain of 1 hit, 2 hit and 3 hits. 1st hit inflicts the weakness as usual, 2nd causes poison for each strike and 3rd inflicts bleeding for each hit.
Elixir F #2 is now a cone spray.
Fumigate #3 is now an instant AoE such as regenerating mist that leaves a poison field for a few seconds. Enemies are poisoned immediately and if they are still in the field when it ends lose a boon.
Acid Bomb #4 inflicts 3 stacks of vulnerability for 10secs on enemies affected by a condition.
Super Elixir #5 Removes an extra condition at the end of the field.

Flamethrower- Decrease the time it takes for flame jet to occur in 1 3/4 seconds.
Flame Blast #2 detonate causes 2secs of burning.
Smoke Vent #5 is now a blast finisher, cd increased to 25secs

Utility Goggles- Increase fury to 15secs. Tool belt skill ‘Analyse’ inflicts a unique debuff that increases critical damage against this foe by 10% for 10secs.

Personal Battering Ram- Is now a blowout AoE skill such as Warrior’s Stomp. Increase to 30secs. ‘Launch Personal Battering Ram’ now functions like the old PBR, cd increased to 35 secs.

Slick Shoes- Breaks stun and evades backwards, creating an oil slick behind for 3 seconds. CD Lowered to 45. Toolbelt sill changed to ‘Tar Coat’ (similar to the tar elemental), throw a blob of tar at enemies that causes double burn duration for 5secs on effected enemies within 240 units.

Elixir U- No longer grants a haste skill. Instead it give stability and causes you to reflect projectiles for the next 5secs. Enemies hit by reflect projectiles also lose a boon.

Elixir X- Changed to: Jettison Elixir X into 360 units around you (like Regenerating Mist but with a 1 second cast time and obvious tell). Allies gain 3 random boons and lose 3 conditions whilst enemies have 3 boons converted into conditions. Enemies that lose 3 boons are also daze for 2secs.

Here’s my huge list of reworks that aim to give significantly more options. This is pretty Utopian in that it represents an ideal state of utility for condition, power and defensive builds. In order of most rewards needed.

Tools

I Always Prepared- Using a toolbelt skill reduces the cooldown of other recharging toolbelt skills by XX%. Recharge toolbelt skills on rally (20 sec cd).
II Static Discharge- Equipping a kit causes a bolt of lightning to strike foes within a radius of 360 units (max of 5). Scales with your power but can’t crit.
III Speedy Gadgets- Moved to Master tier. Gadgets grant 10 seconds of swiftness.
V Deployable Turrets- In addition picking up a turret lowers its cooldown by an additional 25% and its respective toolbelt skill.
VII Packaged Stimulants- Moved to adept. Med kit skills 4 and 5 remove an additional condition.
VIII Power Wrench- Moved to Grandmaster, changed to: Tool kit can now be equipped in your elite slot. Equipping the toolkit heals nearby turrets over time and grants 10secs of fury to nearby allies initally (20sec cd)
IX Scope- Also increases damage done to vulnerable foes by 5%
X Leg mods- Swapped with ‘Inertial Converter’ as a minor trait. Inertial Converter now grants 5secs of fury on use of a toolbelt skill (5sec cd).
XI Armour Mods- Gaining a boon also removes a condition or whilst under the effects of a boon you gain XX toughness and -XX% condition duration.
XII Adrenal Implants- Gain might (5 stacks) and fury for 15 seconds when either you or your foe drop below 75%. Gain a portion of your endurance back for each successful evasion

Inventions

Low Health Response System- Increase threshold to 50%, cd to 15seconds.
I Protective Shield- Moved to master. Increase duration to 5 secs. Merge with Stabilised Armour.
III Metal Plating- Add an additional 30% reduction to AoE damage (ie when it’s not being targeted).
V Energised Armour- Boosted to 10%.
VI Cloaking Device- Works when cc’d too.
VII Reinforced Shield- Gain 3 seconds of protection (20sec cd) when you make a successful block.
VIII Power Shoes- Moved to adept.
IX Elite Supplies- Moved to Grandmaster, merge with X and renamed to ‘Elite Inventions’. Turrets now follow you around as well as self repair. XX% of your power and vitality is added to theirs.
XI Elixir-Infused Bombs- Critical hits also removed a condition from all nearby allies (10sec cd)
XII Rifled Turret Barrels- Moved to Master.

AI in this game is mediocre, so making it a non-optional class mechanic that counts for 30% of your class is plain dumb. Utilities are also lacking for anything meaningful beyond traps on a trapper build and spirits for no-brain pet zoo. Combined it’s a simple case of other classes being better without an AI crutch.

My idea would be to make pets optional, and when choosing not to you gain a 30% damage boost along with 3 F-bar skills (similar to engi) based on your stowed pets that summons them briefly to cast a skill. Any pet traits then relate to these skills. Having a Bear and Moa for example would give you a choice of the generic Bear skills in F1 (slash,bite, defy pain), generic Moa in F2 (peck, harmonic cry, frenzied attack) and F3 would be a choice between the variants special skill. A Red Moa and Brown Bear would give a choice of furious screech or shake it off for example.

How are they still so clueless. It’s clear that the devs can’t play Engineer properly and are still shafting it for their ‘esportz’ balance.

As others have mentioned these are nerfs disguised as ‘tweaks’ or whatever. All Engineers have is their utility, which is ineffective in PvE and ‘jack of all’ in PvP. These changes don’t add anything significant, inventions is still a trash line and there are still worthless traits. Really, exploit weakness and empowering adrenaline are awful
Nerfing survivability and one of the core damage traits is a really, really bad idea. Bombs and Grenades are the only kits worth using for any prolonged period, FT and EG are switch ins at best.

It seems like Engi is the new ranger.

Good but we need significantly more of these updates, last proper one was back in June and this stuff is a lot more important than the ‘content’ updates being put out more frequently. They’re different teams and some of this stuff, like getting rid of RNG for Engi skills, has been suggested/discussed for ages.

Quality of gameplay>new things of hit or miss value.

The combination of a 3D axis, tight jumps and horrible camera angles just adds unnecessary frustration. A faint holographic/8bit outline would do wonders in helping.

Pic very related: http://i.imgur.com/L6hy5bE.jpg. The sweet-spot I found for this jump required hover boots. Human is probably the most common/standard character model so I don’t know why it’s this off.

Whilst that method is useful (and probably unintended) as well as having our lord and saviour the Eagle, it’s a huge tedious pain normally. There should be a checkpoint as soon as you’ve done it.

Firstly, make pets OPTIONAL mechanic. Give the ability to perma-stow them and receive f-bar skills corresponding to the animals you selected. Skills that would affect pet pet cooldown or grant benefit from their skills apply to these ones. On top of this a buff to player weapon damage is granted to make up for the loss of a pet though with say 10% less potential dps than with one.

Secondly and linked to this are signets which still need help. Without a pet player gains the active ability by default, and Signet of the Beastmaster increases duration and grants boons on their use. My change ideas:

Signet of the hunt increases damage for a short duration rather than one attack and removes cripple/immobilise/chill.

Signet of stone gives stability and protection rather than invulnerability and is a stunbreaker.

Renewal cures conditions outright and the passive reduces condition duration by 25%.

Signet of the Wild grants precision and the active heals per attack for a short duration)

Third: Spirits function like banners and can’t be killed. However their active abilities destroy them and cool down still only activates after they expire, meaning no 100% up time.

Fourth: Pets dodge when you do, this means they share your energy bar and get screwed over by immobilise too.

Basically what’s really needed is at least the option for less gimmicky AI and more for the player to work with on an active level.

I’ve done it a few times now and at points it simply doesn’t stop the arrow traps, which is either lag or pure bs glitching. Care to enlighten me on skipping?

Annoyingly tedious to retry, tacked on to an already long zone. Glitchy movement pair with insta kill obstacles. Horrendous camera angle. It screams ‘f**k you player’ in the most tedious way rather than ‘overcome this’.

The thing about gems is that whilst it might not be anet deliberately tweaking the gold:gem ratio, it pays for them for it to suck. They have no desire to regulate it. Secondly is the fact that it’s an infinite resource they just create and can make money off of without it having any effects on the game. This means the ratio shouldn’t get so bad, I mean who cares if more people have gem store items?

Whole discussions seems moot. People who think subscriptions were/are ever a good idea are living in the WoW era still, which was the epitome of money grabbing.

Having used a good couple of hundred keys since the introduction of them with Aetherised skins and they don’t make up for the extra key drop they essentially replaced. Ignoring the fact that full tickets are horrible RNG in their own right, they also do not add a sense of ‘progress’ towards a skin; RNG luck needed for 10 drops is only slightly behind RNG luck of a single one. My point is that the system still sucks and it’s a tacky way to create ‘rarity’ of these skin. In a cosmetic preference based game this a stupid justification that only appeases those who get off on the idea of having something others don’t.

Up the scrap rates and bring back that extra key. As a side note I agree with others who’ve pointed out that gem prices for keys is absurd, if you’re going to abuse people’s gambling weaknesses at least make it less of a blatant money grab. I for one have never and will never buy keys with gems and it’s frustrating enough as it is.

Gimmicks are: Stun/cc-locking, condition spam, AI zerg, invuln/evasion stalling.

These are gimmicks because they’re not fun to play against and have no real counter beyond a 1v1. Let me explain. Stunlock will rarely kill you, as long as you have some defensive measures that don’t even need to be a stun break. Conditions can be purged and managed by a single applicator. AI zerging is just a meatshield, offensive is lacking (shatter mesmers aside). Lastly stallers will have very little damage output as well so that even a glass build can just wait for their CD’s.

The problem arises when you get two or more of these builds, and I mean in a 2v2 situation. It’s a fairly cheap sort of teamwork. Dealing with condition pressure and a staller/meatshield isn’t anyone’s idea of fun. Between purging and actually positioning yourself against the right target you’ll be wasting so much time there’s a chance another of their team mates can come along and heavily swing it. Other than maybe 2 condition spammers you see hugely diminishing returns on having more than one type of that character on your team.

tl:dr Gimmicks are hard to counter, easy to play builds that are no fun to come against.

Did they honestly think random and accidental or abuse of gimmicky CC like fear leading to instant death was a good mechanic? Or reliance on horribly buggy jump pads that don’t work most of the time and cancel skills? Then there’s the fact it heavily favours ranged classes if they get lucky and have the jump pads work. And don’t get me started on the cannon, if there’s anything that makes things less competitive and even more gimmicky it’s a 2 shot weapon that can’t be evaded.

Honestly it’s like they took the worst parts of Khlyo in terms of an unnecessarily powerful field weapon and combat layers (as in physical distance) and just removed borders. Silent Storm aside I really feel the new maps fly in the face of any competitiveness they’re trying to achieve, and Skyhammer really just takes the p*ss.

Confirmed, kittening anet.

It’s stupid because the only time they tried skins that you pay directly for, the winter ones, simply weren’t that great. They were sort of nice but not something you spend even 300gems on, especially given the current gold:gem ration.

Nobody knows, and if they do they gain terrible power of the market.

Here it is on heavy heritage.

Since the patch some dye slots on the Order of Whispers medium armour have apparently disappeared, causing a bright red shade to take its place. I noticed this a while ago on my Warrior’s heritage armour too.

You can see the in the attached picture, the blades are bright red.

reedju.5786:

If this isn’t a troll thread you need to take a serious look at other profs. We have the top condition removal of any prof without needing to specialize. No other prof has 3 abilities that remove EVERY condition on them. The most important thing to remember is timing and recognizing how they are being placed. Not to mention readily have skills in different trees that remove conditions. Then look at other profs. How many others have weapons skills that not only remove condi from you but add them to others. I like necro but I have no desire to see a tank fotm condimancer crash the meta…

I forgot how inept people on the official forums are. I’ve had 6 lvl80’s all geared for a while now (only ones missing are Mesmer and Ele), and whilst better off than Ranger and to some extent Engi, Necro is still only on par with others rather than having a niche in them like it really should.

Necro has a single utility capable of transferring all conditions to an enemy yes, but this requires a target where as Contemplation of Purity amd Elixr C as counter examples do not. Granted staff #4 is great but as a weapon is only viable as a swap in for condition builds, which is weird seeing as this is exactly what you claim to not want encouraged over other gameplay types.

Maybe I didn’t make it clear, I’m using condition removal in the broad sense of getting them the kitten off you in a more controlled way that promotes synergy. Conditions of course don’t rely on condition builds either and can be incorporated into any builds for utility, eg cripple, immobilize, vulnerability and even poison for its debuff.

Aye but at the foremost of ‘manipulation’ is getting the negative effects off you in the first place.

Axe training should bump it up 900 range as opposed to skill recharge. Slot #2 is already pretty fast and #3 is purely utility anyway. That and a straight up damage buff off at least 10% would make it a decent contender for the Scepter.