Guild Wars 2

Karl McLain.5604:

Animation update: All dodge animations are in the process of being iterated on. With that being said, in the next Beta weekend each custom dodge ability has had its animation replaced with what is called a ‘stub’, or a placeholder.
These stubs aren’t necessarily what the final animation will look like and may not even resemble the final product remotely (Huge disclaimer: Everything’s subject to change). However, we needed to replace the previously existing animations due to issues that couldn’t be resolved otherwise (i.e. Lag).

We are looking forward to the new functionality, but there’s a few pains that we’re getting through. During the next beta weekend, you’ll find that the Leap combo finisher for Bounding Dodger only works if you land inside a field. This is not intended and we’re already working on the fix for it (it’s in testing now). For now, it’s going to be trickier to get your leap finisher from Black Powder. There’s also a bug in the skill facts that indicate that it delivers a blast finisher, but it in fact a leap and will remain as such.

Other stuff:
As I talked about last update, Channeled Vigor’s now being tested as a 0.75 second cast (down from 2.25 seconds). We’re also toying with the endurance/healing values. The role of this heal is shaping more toward being high spike healing for the thief.

-Karl

thanks for keeping us updated! channeled vigor might actually be a pretty good heal if it keeps its endurance-repenlishing facet. not sure if enough to compete with “insta-cast safest heal in the game with evade frames and impairing conditions cleansing, high healing, and low cooldown”, but then again, few things can >.>

any news on the staff front? at least some semblance of a discussion on dust strike being more of a circular PBAoE skill instead of a line in front of the character? or about vault changes? i ask about vault because it could be the one skill to finally dethrone shortbow, if it’s designed right (i.e. focus on mobility rather than damage).

Zodryn.4216:

http://imgur.com/a/8POV2

*They are in alphabetical order. *

are you telling me that the dragonhunter’s icon is a shield, and the herald’s icon (you know, the guys getting a shield) is a dragon?

:|

vaan.2308:

Cause DD was Shoehorned in

much as i like the daredevil (i’m keeping my hopes up they’ll fix its problems in time), this made me laugh out loud :P

Maugetarr.6823:

Some Suggestions:

*Auto could have its damage increased to a 0.75 multiplier since it’s single target damage at only 900 range.

*Pistol 2 could have a boon strip with the vuln that would put the utility on par with SB.

*Unload could have its shots cut in half if they’d give it a backwards roll (and buff auto). The whole skill could fire 4 shots over 0.75 seconds while giving a 0.5 second evade frame similar to shortbow.

*Finally, put a piercing trait in for pistols. They need some way to compete with the multitarget capabilities of shortbow which far outclasses pistols in a teamfight

Thanks for the update Karl!

no pistol will ever compete with shortbow, unless they somehow give pistols a long range, ground targeted movement skill (like, say, staff #5, if they buff it), infinite blast finishers, and a pulsing poison field to slow down rezzes.

Karl McLain.5604:

FYI the damage increases weren’t part of a re-work of pistols or anything (something I’ve discussed in the past). We realize it still needs some work to get it to where we want, but we wanted to get it closer to being to that point with these changes. We’ll be looking at pistols more in-depth in the future.

-Karl

thanks for showing up and clarifying that.

but understand why we’re all so jaded about the state of pistols (especially P/P). the weapon has been a terrible set since the game came out, a running joke in the thief community. the one time it shone was with a gimmick build that used perplexity runes. the one pistol trait to survive the game-wide overhaul was ankle shots, and that trait is just laughably bad, especially without the range buff it apparently used to have.

pistol mainhand is a condi oriented set that works somewhat decently if you have high stealth uptime (from, say, dagger), even though the autoattack probably feels a bit too slow. pistol offhand is a CC-oriented weapon, with a cheap interrupt, a smoke field that pulses blinds. somehow, against all reason, combining condi with CC yields in a power skill that is nothing more than a kitten rapid fire. so if you take P/P, you have a weak, condi oriented autoattack, a clunky CC skill that i seriously doubt most people use (and is vastly inferior to infiltrator strike), a power skill that you’ll most likely be spamming until you’re out of initiative, and two CC skills, one of which is a CC skill aimed at melee engagements. it’s single target, it’s clunky, it has no mobility, and it deals less damage than pretty much any other weapon in the thief profession.

and after three years, we get a "yeah, they’re kinda bad, aren’t they? we’ll do something about it… Soon™ ".

so while i’m grateful for your communication, and for at least acknowledging that there is an issue there, pardon me if it doesn’t exactly inspire much hope. especially when the last several patches for the thief have been very, very underwhelming, with boring small tweaks that don’t change anything at best, and fixes to tooltips at worst. seeing once again like 5 lines of balance changes (that could be summed up in 3 lines) after one of our specialization lines was butchered and rendered mostly useless (some say just to reintroduce most of it as a new, elite specialization), after years and years of skills that need fixing (scorpion wire, death blossom’s evade frames, etc), is very, very jarring.

EDIT: sorry, went on a bit of a rant there >.> i just want P/P to be viable

Mavander.3208:

Solar Beam should apply burning. Or blind. You are shooting sun beams at a dude. Also the laser pointer beam is kind of lackluster.

i agree that it’s a bit too tiny for even allies to notice, not to mention the style points :P. maybe make it like a recolored mesmer GS auto?

as for another effect, i think it should keep its purpose as a more healing-oriented auto. i don’t know if ~120hp per second is good enough though.

arkealia.2713:

-Celestial Avatar didn’t make much sense for Druids to me (and a lot of people it seems). I know that celestial bodies are part of nature but it doesn’t really fit the basic vision everyone has of druids, let alone tyria druids.

eh, i like it. moon magic, celtic druids dancing to the full moon, and all that stuff.

i think the one problem i have with the druid is that it’s a bit too focused on healing, especially celestial form. i do think some skills there could benefit with a mild damage component for the sake of tagging (similar to how thief’s shortbow 4 deals damage just to force them out of stealth when they land it), and a bit more of boon and utility support, rather than going all out on the green DoTs. otherwise the druid is a bit too limited, and will be sacrificing too much in the name of keeping the heals up, in the few scenarios where you’d even want someone pumping out heals like that.

otherwise, it seems like a really fun spec. i personally like the idea of how narrowed down the trait line is, because it allows me to keep running a mostly functional “regular” build while still bringing out druid’s full potential. what i want to see now is the druid’s full potential branch out a bit more from “puts lots of green numbers on the screen if he mashes all the skills on cooldown”. a blast finisher on the healing seed would be cool, for example, even if the cooldown increased a bit.

alchemyst.2165:

Also to the people complaining about SR; I don’t see why you’re running SR in the first place on a Daredevil, you have enough sustain to run without it. I think it’s good that it’s pushing away from stealth, considering the whole point of Daredevil’s sustain is centered around evasion. Doesn’t make sense for you to have much stealth, plus revealed is being tossed around like candy to other classes. Just saying you’re gonna have a hard time trying to force running SR.

i don’t agree with the complaints, but i felt the need to address why people would be running SR with daredevil:

shadow refuge is simply the strongest skill the thief has in the whole game. it’s not just a skill to get long stealths, it’s a powerful disengage tool, a panic button, a self rez skill, an anti-stomp skill that rezzes at the same time, a powerful group opener… it’s everything. it’s got so much support and utility that it would be preposterous to not bring shadow refuge in any competitive scenario. no other utility skill can compete with it. hell, they could make SR an elite skill and it would fit right in, while still being picked over anything else the thief has to offer. it’s not brought up because you’re in a stealth build. stealth builds don’t use SR to get stealth, they have access to it through other means. SR is brought for… well, everything else i said.

oh yeah, and it can be used from a pretty decent range on a fairly low cast time.

babazhook.6805:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Al Shamari.7234:

Zodryn.4216:

With these updates I think dash is gm worthy. I say remove the damage from lotus (there’s enough reveal on other professions now to catch a condi ghost easily), and give bound a little extra something and I fully accept them as gm traits.

You could still add an interface for selecting them out if combat for convenience. No reason not to, even if they stay gm traits.

Wait, so if they remove the damage from Impaling Lotus, what’s its use?

the condi application. bound would be the dodge for damage, lotus for condi, and dash for mobility/cleanse.

the problem with lotus is that it’s impossible to control it when you need to dodge but you want to stay in stealth, whereas at least bound you can aim away from the enemies.

I tend to not wanting to use stealth in a dd build and prefer that upfront damge for SOM procs meaning a dodge can garner 1K plus health.

P/D thieves are also condi, and far more reliant on stealth :P

Karl McLain.5604:

Re: Dash update!
The original reason we had removed the extra distance on Dash was that we lacked the tech. Since that post, it’s been resolved. Thus, the distance of Dash is back, with a fervor. Now you’ll travel a full 450, up from the 360 previous (~300 base dodge), while moving at a faster-than-running speed. Swiftness duration increased to 10 seconds, up from the 8 we talked about originally.
This thing’s about solid movement, so we’re going to push it in that direction for this BWE. Please check it out and let us know how you feel about it. The animation’s going to remain as your character’s run for now.
We are aware that this new distance will cause some de-sync in synergy with Shadow Refuge, but feel that the open-field movement capability for daredevil needs to take precedence over this abliity. note: You can still dodge from edge-to-edge and remain inside the field, but it’s pretty tricky.

thanks for taking the time to keep us updated! i hope i’m not stretching your good faith too thin, but is it possible for you to give us, in broad strokes, the general things that are still being discussed regarding daredevil (and maybe thief as a whole, since there are still some things that could be changed there)? that would help us direct our feedback to more relevant topics, instead of firing in every direction and hoping one of them is what you were looking for. i’ll understand if it’s unfeasible for whatever reason though, just thought it could help direct the discussion now that the dodges are apparently moving to a good place.

Al Shamari.7234:

Zodryn.4216:

With these updates I think dash is gm worthy. I say remove the damage from lotus (there’s enough reveal on other professions now to catch a condi ghost easily), and give bound a little extra something and I fully accept them as gm traits.

You could still add an interface for selecting them out if combat for convenience. No reason not to, even if they stay gm traits.

Wait, so if they remove the damage from Impaling Lotus, what’s its use?

the condi application. bound would be the dodge for damage, lotus for condi, and dash for mobility/cleanse.

the problem with lotus is that it’s impossible to control it when you need to dodge but you want to stay in stealth, whereas at least bound you can aim away from the enemies.

Shalien.9018:

Karl McLain.5604:

Amante.8109:

Let’s not forget that Mantras, once pre-casted, immediately start cooling down for future use

I believe this was fixed in the July 28th release. It’s possible that they could behave the exact same as mantras. At this time, we’re going with the theme that Distracting Daggers are something you can hold over your opponents for a period of time, and then it’s gone. We’d rather encourage using the daggers and getting those interrupts off, than simply holding the daggers for hours at a time.
Please feel free to let us know how they play during the next beta event. There’s quite a few ways to go with the ability and I’m not sure they have to behave exactly like mantras.

I’m sure there’s a way to make it function different but equal to mantras. I’ve seen many suggestions that are all pretty cool that change how the ability functions while still being true to it’s intent. The current iteration is just a worse version of an already existing Mantra. Which is why there are so many suggestions asking at the very least to make it work like a mantra.

Mantra of Distraction takes 2 3/4 seconds to cast – Distracting Daggers takes 1/2 seconds to cast (this is the only place that seems like an upgrade)

Mantra of Distraction has 2 charges and can be traited for 3 – Distracting Daggers has 3 charges

Mantra of Distractions charges last forever (negating the longer casting time since they just precast it before a fight) – Distracting Daggers last for 25 seconds

The Mantra has a 5 second cooldown between uses – Distracting Daggers has a 1 second cooldown between uses

The Mantra is an instant interrupt – Distracting Daggers is a projectile

The Mantra has 1,200 range – Distracting Daggers has a 900 Range

The Mantra causes 1 sec Daze – Distracting Daggers has a 1/4 sec Daze (This is massively underpowered since the new defiance bar is based on the time duration of the CC that hits the mob)

you forgot the mantra hits on a 240 radius AoE centered around the target.

Ohoni.6057:

Still on Vault, I would still argue that it shouldn’t deal the amount of damage it does, instead being more of a mobility/utility skill. Drop the excessive damage (put it somewhere else, the rest of staff’s DPS is pitiful), and add evasion during the leaping part of the vault (but not the landing. it’s the part dealing damage, people should be able to interrupt that). As it is right now, the daredevil needs to spam vault to deal damage, or be relegated to really, really low DPS output. For the sake of the flexibility of the weapon, I think this is a needed change.

A solid point here. What if they upped the damage on Weakening Charge to all targets, making it a solid “bread and butter” strike, and then greatly dropped the damage on Vault, but gave it the Weakness and perhaps some other condition effect, so that it works ideally as an opener, softening them for your other attacks. I tend to think that they won’t allow us a longer range on it though, not for a targeted hop. Between the DD’s dodges and Steal, I don’t think we desperately need more gap closers.

it’s less about having a gap closer (sword 2, dagger 2, D/P 3 all do a better job than vault could ever hope for anyway) and more about having something that can compete with shortbow for out-of-combat mobility. i suggested pairing the range with the engi’s rifle 5, which is a targetable leap. i doubt it will be enough to replace SB on people’s skill bars, but with some of the other suggested changes, it could happen.

Inkida.8925:

I still feel like Staff #4 needs to actually do more. The thief’s other weapon skills that blind have far more utility. Shortbow #5 also gives you incredible mobility. d/p #3 shadowsteps to an opponent and x/p #5 gives you a smoke field.

Perhaps make Staff #4 into a PBAoE smoke field as well. It doesn’t have to have a long duration, but it would go a great length in helping staff to synergize with thief’s core stealth mechanics and traits. Further, it would go into the brawler gameplay as you can swing freely in that smoke field for much needed damage mitigation.

well if the radius is pretty large (i’m thinking “cap point” large), then it would be a decent trade-off for not having secondary uses.

Auesis.7301:

Animations

Something I thought I’d still keep emphasising is that I’d like to see more work on the animations of Staff. It just doesn’t feel even remotely Thief-y apart from the cool somersault on Vault. The spin on Punishing Strikes is useful but doesn’t look right. Maybe copy the Revenant’s third Staff attack which has a proper Bo Staff-style animation on it, but keep the same damage + vulnerability + aftercast etc? Debilitating Arc also looks really wonky and could do with a new animation. If Dust Strike became PbAoE (as I hope for if you read below), I’d like to see something nice for that as well, else I still wouldn’t be very happy with the recycled Silverwastes shovel animation on the line version.

my post was very mechanic-oriented, so i didn’t bring it up, but yes, i would LOVE to see some changes to the staff animations. my biggest gripes are the idle pose and the 1c attack. the latter baffles me because you already have a pretty sweet 1c melee staff attack, the revenant uses it.

On a side note, if I may, the so desired hybrid condi D/D thief is SO CLOSE to working, SO CLOSE. but a few things still hold it back. The reason I bring it up is because the daredevil specialization really helps this spec, and with some more tweaks to the core thief, the spec I’ve been wishing to (and attempting to, to less than stellar results) run since launch could finally work. Here are my suggestions:

• Death Blossom could really use some tweaking. It has 1/4 of a second of evasion. That’s less time than the latency most people outside the server areas play with (I play with ~200-250 just fine, for reference). It’s an absurdly low evasion, and coupled with the heavy aftercast on landing, means that, for an evasion skill, it actually makes you far more vulnerable than simply running away.

• Heartseeker, Cloak and Dagger, and Backstab are all very high power-scaling skills, which is great for power-oriented D/D, but means they’re pretty useless for condi, and pretty sub-par for hybrid. Now that would be a LOT of work, so I’m not expecting this suggestion to follow through, but Dagger Mastery (that trait that allows dagger attacks to cause poison on a 33% chance) should be reworked, so that each dagger skill has a different effect (say, guaranteed 2 stacks of poison on heartseeker, instead of 33% chance per hit on auto). I do realize that’s unviable, but it’s an issue I hope is discussed within the balance team. Side note, I’d like to see Dagger Mastery and Potent Poison combined, because those traits don’t make sense on the thief context unless put together, so splitting it into two traits is just reducing the interesting choices thief can pick.

• Last but not least, Dancing Dagger (that skill #4 that no one ever uses) is still pretty lame. Maybe add a damaging condition to it? The ranger’s sister skill (Crippling Talon) applies 3 stacks of bleeding, though yeah, it can’t be spammed and doesn’t bounce. So maybe something like 1 stack of torment, since it’s already a movement-impairing skill?

TL;DR: Death Blossom could use some animation tweaking and improved evasion to be a more reliable evasion skill (something that would benefit power builds as well), Dagger Mastery could use some tweaking to take the power-only dagger skills in consideration, and could be merged with Potent Poison, Dancing Dagger could apply a damaging condi (suggestion: 1 stack of torment) to make it something people actually use.

First of all, thanks for posting the results feedback! My post will be pretty much covering the staff, as I don’t have much left to say about the dodges that hasn’t been said a thousand times before (aka “better be as smooth as regular dodges or no one will use them, bounding dodger breaks momentum”), and I’m pretty satisfied with the utility changes.

Now I must say, I don’t like the staff changes. EDIT: going to put it in bullet points to make it an easier read.

• Weakening Strike being multi-target is cool, but it needs polish so that it actually hits the targets in the first place. Right now (i.e. as of BWE2) it was nigh impossible to get more than one hit from it, even on a static enemy.

• Dust Strike needed the faster reaction time, but I still feel (and I’ve seen this echoed in plenty of places) that an AoE around the thief would be far better than an AoE in front of the thief. It makes the skill work better for the “leap into the group fight and stay there through active defenses” playstyle that I feel the staff is trying to have but doesn’t.

• Vault having a faster cast time is an improvement, but the range really needs some addressing. 600 is just not enough range to work as a mobility skill, which I think would be HUUUUUUUGE for the thief (having a mobility-oriented weapon skill that isn’t shortbow). At least give it the same range as Jump Shot from engineer.

• Still on Vault, I would still argue that it shouldn’t deal the amount of damage it does, instead being more of a mobility/utility skill. Drop the excessive damage (put it somewhere else, the rest of staff’s DPS is pitiful), and add evasion during the leaping part of the vault (but not the landing. it’s the part dealing damage, people should be able to interrupt that). As it is right now, the daredevil needs to spam vault to deal damage, or be relegated to really, really low DPS output. For the sake of the flexibility of the weapon, I think this is a needed change.

• You didn’t touch on it, but debilitating arc was a very, very underwhelming skill. In its current state, its only use is “oh I’m immobilized, let me fix that”. It’s not a particularly great evade skill, and it puts you out of range with no way to get back in range other than vault, which feels like a waste of initiative. Not to mention, thief already is packed with ways to deal with immobilize (including a certain acrobatics trait i’m expecting a lot of DDs to take), making its effect rather redundant.

TL;DR: Weakening Strike needs to more reliably connect with enemies, Dust Strike should be a circular PBAoE around the thief, Vault should be heaviliy tuned towards mobility and utility rather than damage (the rest of staff could use a damage buff), and debilitating arc is a pretty lame, uninteresting skill.

alchemyst.2165:

I think the reason you can’t use instant skills during vault is because it’s a jump, and you’re in the air for most of it. You can’t use skills when you’re in the air. I mean you can use a last second steal which does a lot of damage combined with mug + Vault, but you can’t shadowstep or shadow return. It’d be nice to be able to do this but I don’t care TOO terribly much, considering we get an earthshaker-esque movement out of it.

i don’t think it’s qualifying as midair, ’cause i was testing weapon swapping halfway through the animation yesterday to cancel it, and it was working. in fact, it made the whole thing much smoother, because it would lose that sudden loss of momentum for the ground pound.

TL;DR: make staff more of a 5 target weapon, give it better survivability tools for fighting surrounded, tweak skills to make hitting them more reliable and useful, make Vault less of a damage skill and more of an engagement skill (less damage, more range, faster cast, etc.)

Long version:

I feel like the staff wants to be a weapon where you jump in the middle of a group of enemies and fight while surrounded without dying instantly.

Sadly, the only thing staff can do now is the “jump in the middle of a group of enemies” part, and even then not particularly well, because vault takes foreeeeveeeeer to land and has such a short range it can hardly be called a gap closer.

Here are some things I’d like to see done with staff to fit that playstyle more, instead of being a poor man’s sword:

• Up the damage all around. staff right now is worse than shortbow for damage. Until it can do damage that’s at least mildly comparable to other thief weapons, it won’t be taken seriously. It doesn’t have to be the new S/P, but it needs to at least deal some damage.

• Move the damage from Vault to Weakening Charge, and give WC a increased hitbox (right now it’s really freaking hard to land it more than once because it has such a small hitbox, even if you go through the enemy) and number of targets (to fit the “fight surrounded” theme). Also please make WC track your target (right now it feels like it goes wherever it pleases). giving the weakness one more second would be pretty nice.

• Debilitating Arc, once again i think hitting 5 targets around the player would be nicer. You sure it’s leaping 400 units backwards? It doesn’t feel like it. Maybe make it a leap finisher too? Pretty please?

• Dust Strike, blinding enemies around you (doesn’t even need that much range) instead of blinding that one guy 500 range away from you. Would be super awesome if it created a smoke field just long enough for you to leap through it once the skill ended. This is by far the suggestion I’ve seen pop most times regarding staff (other than “buff the damage”) on other threads, and I think it could define the staff’s playstyle.

• Vault, if you lower its damage significantly, could see some improvements to range and cast speed. This would allow the skill to be a better engagement tool, and it would be more interesting than just a clunky half range AoE. Making it an evade on the initial part of the skill would also be great, and would make sense with the animation. I’d much rather have Vault as a utility weapon skill than have it be the DPS skill on daredevil. Having it keep some damage component would let us engage with venoms too.

side note on the staff: can our third attack on the auto chain be like the revenant’s, animation wise? that animation is much cooler than “magic helicopter staff”. and the idle being more like the end of the rev’s third auto would be sweeet~

anyway, THAT’S my ramble on staff. i love the physicals and enough people voiced their problems with dodges already. sorry for the long-winded post

phokus.8934:

We’re supposed to be a mobile class

since when? guardian has always been one of the most notoriously slow classes in the game.

Karl McLain.5604:

Deflecting Shot: We’re looking at increasing the damage values of this ability, so that it has a bit more impact to it.

Karl, I’ll be honest, I don’t think increasing the damage values of a defensive skill like that is the right way to go. I feel a much more interesting approach than just turning it into another damage skill with some flavor would be to play more with the projectile blocking part of it, making it a truly unique tool for the dragonhunter, and something with more purpose in the skill bar than “that skill you fire when on cooldown for some extra damage”.

I suggested a few pages back that the skill had a larger collider (like, far larger than it is currently), and moved slower, in order to function as a projectile deflection skill better. Currently, the skill’s projectile deflection function might as well not be there, due to the size and duration of the projectile (similar to how zealot’s defense is hardly ever used as anything other than point blank DPS, but i digress). Another poster suggested making it comparable with the mesmer shield skill (minus the part where it winds back to the player, of course). I feel that even if that meant a significant cooldown increase, it would be worth it, just to have a cool, unique and functional skill that serves as more than just DPS (after all, true shot already covers that).

i have 3 main things i’d like to see addressed with the longbow:

the projectile-blocking LB skill should be bigger (like, as tall as a character, at least) and move slower. like, way slower, so that you can actually use it as a shield instead of just firing against a random other arrow. someone suggested making it kinda like the mesmer shield wave in size and speed, but without the bouncing back part. i understand that it would mean the skill would get a significant CD increase, but i think it’s a sacrifice worth making to get a strong, useful skill instead of a skill you use at random and hope it has a positive side effect.

the AA could seriously use some movement speed increase. it felt slower than the thief’s shortbow. regardless of damage values, it felt incredibly wimpy because of the small glowing toothpick moving at snail’s pace towards the enemy.

and last but not least, why can’t i fire the symbol behind me? warriors and thieves both can cast their bows’ AoEs behind them, but the DH’s symbol requires LoS to be fired.

contrary to most people, i do like how #2 roots you. it’s a killshot-style skill, you deal massive damage on a fast projectile at the cost of a quick root. it even adds to the feel of the skill.

Byron Miller.4629:

Vilkata.4725:

Another note on the visibility of tendrils during the Tendril Torcher adventure: I had a hard time seeing the tendrils because of other players’ flamethrower blasts blocking my view. Is it possible to instance other players while you’re on an adventure like this? If not there is a lot of potential for griefing here.

Instancing is something we’d like to do sparingly, but to answer your question: There are some things that can be done to reduce the impact that other players will have on your experience, even in the open world. Thanks for the heads up, and I’ll look into those options.

b.

i obviously don’t know how viable this is, or even if it would use similar tech, but what if the flamethrower effects were instanced? things like gathering nodes already have different appearances based on the player, rather than the world state, and even the adventure “thingies” (vines, bugs, etc.) are client-side (or at least per-client).

that wouldn’t solve the problem of player clutter *cough*2012clocktower*cough*, but it would help with the effect clutter.

Jasher.6580:

Josh Davis.6015:

Jasher.6580:

1:00 a.m. Pacific Time?

You can do it, Jasher!

I’ll try but that’s 3:00 AM where I live.

it’s 5am for me >.>

Roy Cronacher.1576:

By no means are weapons tied to a specific legend. Revenant weapons are usually themed in feel and playstyle with a legend to create a comprehensive package if you want to play a certain way, such as sword, shiro, and the devastation line for physical damage. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t meant to be mixed and matched as well to create unique and interesting builds. There are a lot of really cool builds you can make by trying out different combinations.

i think the main issue with the weapons is there isn’t much in term of condi options. mace/axe is literally the only weapon combo that inflicts damaging conditions, and mace can really only be used in condi setups.

i’m very curious to see how aura sharing will interact with AoE aura application skills. will it stack duration on allies? does that mean that the dagger auras are now just as boring as the fire aura on focus, for becoming way more commonplace while having a weapon skill that doesn’t add anything?

Basandra Skye.4031:

BrunoBRS.5178:

and yes, we haven’t seen all the revenant options yet, but giving new options won’t solve the problems with the current ones.

oh and one more problem, which was raised in the awesome reddit thread: the traitlines are too isolated from each other. they have no play between them, and are too narrow-focused. as a result, you’ll always pick up the two trait lines corresponding to the legends you chose, and then invocation.

That may change slightly when Shiro’s finally out, as I believe the devs have mentioned that his invocation, and associated trait line, is the more “pure dps” trait line. As well as dual swords.

have you read what you quoted?

BrunoBRS.5178:

and yes, we haven’t seen all the revenant options yet, but giving new options won’t solve the problems with the current ones.

giving shiro won’t solve the problems we see in the current legends, it’ll just ensure everyone runs shiro, always. it’s like saying “ranger shouts are fine, they have survival skills”.

as it currently is, the legends are too strict and narrow, and so are their respective trait lines. there’s little to no play between them, and borderline zero room for experimentation. this isn’t about needing more legends, this is a problem with the core design, with how legends (and weapons, and traits) are being handled right now.

the revenant’s systems need to be broader. trait lines must be interesting considerations regardless of which legend you’ve picked, weapons need to be more general-purpose (staff is only good for ventari, mace/axe is only good for mallyx, etc.), and the legends need more play between them. right now the only legend that has good general purpose use is jalis, because on-demand stability and a strong condi cleanse heal are always welcome options, but even then, you only jump to jalis on a mallyx or ventari build for those two, then jump back out. hell, the fact that it’s a “mallyx” build, instead of a “condi mallyx + jalis” build is telling of how little play there is between legends.

Zaoda.1653:

I really hope Anet improve Temporal Rift (axe #5 skill) so we have the option (perhaps via a trait) to make it ground targetable (so I can pull enemies off towers tehehe), and either be unblockable, or have its width increased (the long range distance of 900 is fine – needs no change).

what temporal rift (and a lot of revenant skills) needs is working with verticality. that ramp in stronghold leading to the inner gate just won’t let you use it, because the attack will go straight through the ground or float well above the enemies, missing them. temporal rift is one skill with that problem, but there are a lot more that feel they shouldn’t have that issue but do.

Eolirin.1830:

BrunoBRS.5178:

snip

Well, we’re missing some legends and weapons, and that’s going to distort the value of swapping, but I also think it’s generally fine to want to stay in one legend and use the other more as needed; think of it a bit like weapon skill and utility bars being flipped, on other classes you don’t want to constantly cycle weapons unless it’s part of your rotation to do so, depending on what you’re doing you’ll stick with one weapon primarily and switch to the offset when needed. This isn’t much different.

As to synergies, having good synergies from multiple legends with the same weapon is a little more important, but there’s a decent amount of synergy between the Legends we have, though some of it’s buried by numbers being off. It’s more that Ventari and Mallyx both work well with Jalis, but not as much each other, so Jalis feels like a necessary swap. With the other legends, more options will crop up. But it’s stuff like Jalis and Ventari can both work well with staff and hammer, so, with some tweaking, you’ll have something like, if you’re going with a defensive/supporty melee spec, staff with Jalis/Ventari is what you go, and you’ll want to take things like Blinding Truths, and ranged support is hammer with the same, but you’ll take the outgoing heal buff instead of the blinds (regen is an option either way depending on gear), etc. Jalis/Mallyx should fit some sort of attrition build, but the condi damage output and uptime needs to be better.

Also, I think it maybe needs to be clearer that swapping Legends puts you back at 50 energy? You’re kind of meant to be jumping back and forth to help with energy management, I think, sort of like weapon swapping to cover cooldowns. Maybe weapon skill energy costs need to be looked at a little more closely with that, but it’s relatively minor number tweaking I think.

like i said in another post, adding other legends and weapons won’t solve the problems with the current ones (which are like 70% of the base profession). the problem with camping a single legend is that you’re ignoring a lot of your full potential if you do that. the only profession i can think of that isn’t frequently swapping weapons is thief, because swapping weapons for them is kinda pointless, as they share the same initiative pool. revenant has an advantage in that they get a new energy pool every swap, but the skills between legends don’t converse with each other, and the skills within a legend take too much energy, forcing the revenant to just sorta autoattack while waiting for the bar to fill. you’re not managing energy (like a thief would be with initiative) as much as you’re waiting to have energy to manage in the first place.

it’s important to remember that it’s not “other legends”, it’s “other legend”, singular. we can’t judge a profession, even an expansion one, based on how it does with the elite spec, so we only have 4 legends to work with. 3 of them don’t converse with each other. jalis is a good situational legend, but both ventari and mallyx don’t work unless you’re camping the legend (ventari even more so, with how clunky the tablet is, since everything you need to do has a cast time followed by a delayed activation). if 3/4 of your profession has trouble with synergy, maybe it’s time to rethink some things.

the thing with legend swapping is that you’re kinda locked out of everything that makes your build work for at least 10 seconds when you do it, and when you get back, you’ll be back to 50% energy, which in most cases is enough for one, maybe two skills. and given how the revenant has by far the worst uptime of attack skills in the game, since it has no weapon swap equivalent (engis get kits and eles get attunements), revenants spend far too much time not really doing much, because utilities are expensive and the very few offensive skills are either on cooldown or situational.

i’ll say, i was one of those people that thought revenant had way too much energy when i saw him in the early betas, but seeing him in a PvP scenario, he just has to burn all that energy like crazy, because his weapon skills are too limited. the build variety is pitiful, and the flexibility within the very, very few build options is just as bad. no mobility and active defenses (or even passive defenses), coupled with a ranged weapon that performs horribly in melee and alright at best at range make the revenant a sitting duck a lot of the time, burning through utilities to last a bit longer. it’s a problem i don’t see being solved even as i notice my own improvement with the profession.

and yes, we haven’t seen all the revenant options yet, but giving new options won’t solve the problems with the current ones.

oh and one more problem, which was raised in the awesome reddit thread: the traitlines are too isolated from each other. they have no play between them, and are too narrow-focused. as a result, you’ll always pick up the two trait lines corresponding to the legends you chose, and then invocation.

speaking of traitlines, “gain toughness based on healing power” is a really, really bad trait, minor or not. healing power is a stat that has 0 at base, and 90% of builds won’t have a droplet of it because it scales so poorly, so the only people that would be mildly interested in that trait, even if it was something likt a 50% conversion ratio, are super healer builds (full clerics only gives ~1000 healing power). i suggest making it the other way around: gain healing power based on toughness. then it’ll be a trait that even with only 10% conversion, will see a bit more use on most builds, making that trait line a bit more interesting to people that don’t pick ventari.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Mallyx:

1. The combo costs too much energy. It seems fun on paper having to chain all those condis on you, but you spend so much of your energy that you’re left with an elite skill that barely lasts 3-ish seconds. And that’s no fun, considering how cool the elite is meant to be when used after/ alongside your other self-condi skills.

been playing condi revenant on sPvP, and this, so much this. i can barely get a pulse after pulling the condis to me, because of the combined energy cost, unless i sit in mallyx while in combat not doing anything just to get my energy up.

the energy management feels really clunky right now, with a lot of numbers that seem to be balanced around having full energy, but full energy never really being attained if the player is in any mildly challenging fight, because you’ll be swapping legends and using utilities constantly (especially since we only have 5 weapon skills, and most of them are quite underwhelming >.> ). mallyx is the worst offender. his utilities are good, but you can’t stay in mallyx for more than 10 seconds before you run out of energy. i don’t even use jalis’ upkeep skill because it takes me forever to cast it, it’s pretty lame, and it eats my energy, which i’ll be mostly building up so i can use the other skills.

bolded the main subjects of each bullet point for readability’s sake. anything i haven’t mentioned (like mace 2’s atrocious cast time), i agree with OP, or at least don’t disagree.

• my main complaint with the ventari legend is that you have to choose between microing the tablet, and actually taking part in the fight, since all the casts are tied to the revenant. i think the ventari legend’s viability would improve tenfold if all the casts were bound to the tablet, while the revenant himself gets to use his weapon skills at the same time (so exactly how ranger works right now). if the tablet and the revenant were treated as separate entities with their own cast times, i’d wager you wouldn’t even have to change the odd cast times the legend has.

• i pretty much agree with OP’s staff points. one thing i’d like to add is work on the animation. as it is, the auto attack looks like it has less range than a sword or GS, even though it has the same range.

• staff is a good defensive kit. i think with some tweaks to power scaling, and a new #2 skill, it could be a nice weapon for damage. kinda like a different flavor of ranger GS.

• hammer turned out as a pretty decent WvW weapon. in fact, the only one i could make work, since the revenant mobility is so atrociously bad that i couldn’t be part of the melee team if i wanted to, and i was constantly playing catch-up to my group, unless we had stacked enough swiftness beforehand. during WvW i also felt like i was forced to camp jalis, as the other legends just didn’t work well for WvW (ventari mostly because of what i mentioned above)

• hammer #3 suffers from verticality issues. if i’m slightly above or below my target area, my attack won’t connect, which is very frustrating when you’re trying to chill the enemy team and you’re not fighting on a flat area.

• overall my main problem with the legends is that none of them seem to have any synergy between themselves. you want to play condi? you’ll want mallyx mace/axe, and you might swap to jalis to cleanse those condis you stacked on yourself so you can heal. i feel like jalis will be the go-to second legend, and will only be used situationally. the way the revenant is currently set up, swapping back and forth between legends is counterproductive, as you abandon your build’s playstyle for 10 seconds, and then go back to it. camping a single legend instead of the back and forth between legends seems like ignoring half of the profession, and not giving enough reason to justify the fact that revenant has no weapon swaps (which severely cripples the profession, since it doesn’t have the mobility or sticking power, or even the CC, to stay in melee).

near the bridge that leads to fort marriner there’s a case of “weird floaty sand texture”.

Tipper.6973:

Oh, one more thing — Who is this Mordremoth, anyway? The game still hasn’t told me.

and it won’t. even if you were following it in chronological order since launch. they just start using the name at some point and assume the player is in on the out-of-game datamining.

so gaile, which dev has played way too much The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds to come up with this? :P it feels awfully similar (in a good way!) to the maiamai hunt from that game. might be the “hidden crustacean collectibles that make noises so you know when you’re getting close” part :P

Nike.2631:

JonPeters.5630:

Wanted to run a potential idea past you all. Comments welcome.

Jon

Please consider: We could keep the current tomes but categorize the skills the tomes give, making tomes an effective capstone for all 5 utility skill types.

An example of possible assignments~

Tome of Courage
((Signet)) Heal Area Heal allies in the target area.
((Spirit Weapon)) Purifying Ribbon Release a ribbon of light that bounces to nearby enemies and allies, curing conditions on each ally hit and blinding each foe hit.
((Consecration)) Protective Spirit Grant protection and regeneration to allies in a cone.
((Symbol)) Pacifism Pacify foes, dazing them for three seconds.
((Shout)) Light of Deliverance Fully heal up to five nearby allies.

Tome of Wrath
((Consecration)) Conflagrate Burn foes in the target area.
((Spirit Weapon)) Affliction Send out a projectile that makes foes crippled and weak.
((Shout)) Smiter’s Boon Send out a cone that grants might and swiftness to allies.
((Symbol)) Zealot’s Fervor Grant fury and quickness to all nearby allies.
((Signet)) Judgment Knock down and damage nearby foes with a massive blast.

These are chosen to interact properly with the new skill-type based buffs in the trait lines~

Consecrations – Master of Consecrations:
•Recharge reduced: 20%
•Duration increase: 20%

Shouts – Pure Voice:
•Recharge reduced: 20%
•Conditions Converted to Boons: 1

Signets – Perfect Inscriptions:
•Recharge reduced: 20%
•Effectiveness increased: 20%

Spirit Weapons – Expeditious Spirit:
•Recharge reduced: 20%
•Apply Burning

Symbols – Writ of Persistence:
•Heal
•Duration increase; 2 sec
•Radius increase: 60

that would make tomes way, WAY too convoluted and needlessly complex, and the tomes themselves still wouldn’t have skill types.

I think I got you figured out, Mr. Jon Peters.

Tomes don’t fit any guardian skill type right now. But they’re an awful lot like kits, in that they’re pseudo-weapons that use your utility skill slots. I think what’s going in your head right now is you’re planning this change not just to make room for guardian elites with skill types that make sense, but so that the next guardian specialization is a kit guardian, which would fit tomes like a glove.

If that really is your plan, and you guys don’t wait years before the next elite specs are released, then I take back what I said on twitch and think you should go ahead with your plan.

Did I get it right?

Josh Davis.6015:

The amulets will be rebalanced to compensate for the loss of stats originally gained from trait lines.

This is probably as good of a place as any to mention that we’ll also be using this opportunity to rebalance PvP’s celestial amulet to be slightly less effective. We’re probably looking at a 10%~ decrease in overall stats, but this number can change as we draw closer to releasing the core specialization changes.

maybe a good time to bring back jewel slots? instead of adding even more stats to the amulet, let us slot in a jewel like we used to.

sent. i hope that in the off chance i win, i can just give my american friend’s information and have the stuff sent to him so he can get it to me eventually (assuming he doesn’t claim it as his own).

Aye.8392:

I’d love to see some of the answers that people gave to their fondest memory. Copy paste them here!

well, since you asked, (not a copypaste because i already closed the tab:

“finally making out of kaineng and seeing vast greenlands, stone forests and seas of jade in front of me. seriously, i hope kaineng burned to the ground”.

yeah, my fondest memory is that of sweet relief :P

Rainiris.1975:

Josh Davis.6015:

Hi all,

As a follow-up to my post from last Friday, I wanted to give you a run-down of the changes we’re looking to make to the engineer’s turrets:

• Engineer turrets will be able to be critically hit.
• Engineer turrets will be able to be affected by conditions.

Considering most minions/summoned pets are already susceptible to the aforementioned changes we feel that this is a fair way to bring turrets more inline with the rest of the game. These changes should only slightly affect the viability of turrets in PvE/WvW (low creature crit chance/condition application), while providing for more counterplay against turrets.

We’d love to hear your feedback on these changes. Feel free to respond below with your comments.

-Grouch

Allowring turrets to recieve crit damage and condition because “other minions” do doesn’t feel like a correct justification. They can still not move with you, and they still have high cd, where these “other minions” can be respawned just faster.

So, since turrets are getting easier to “kill”, can we get something based on how long have they been deployed? You know, something to compensate the 1 minute plus of coooldown after death.

you can already heal the turrets with specific skills, and shave the cooldown by picking them up.

and then there’s supply crate, which i’m pretty sure makes it so engis can have the most ‘minions’ out at once.

so… any chance this is applied to all structures/objects in the game?

BobbyStein.2315:

BrunoBRS.5178:

i don’t suppose that since the PC VAs are back recording, we could get a polish pass on some… err… lesser performances? *cough*nornfemale*cough* and fix the “hold the line” shout too, since the whole problem with it was one of the VAs read it as “hold this line”.

That won’t be part of this particular update. That stated, I want to review and update PC chatter for the expansion if there’s time. Some of those lines weren’t written particularly well, or they trigger too frequently, or the performance was off so I’d like to fix them.

oh i’d never expect it to come before HoT, if at all. it’s just that some PCs, primarily the female norn PC, have… faulty deliveries (not only on their dialogue, but their random combat/exploration blabbering) that could use a second take. in fact, it’s the main reason i’ve stayed away from the female norn for so long, despite loving the norn culture, armor, and jora (why i don’t go for male norn? i tried, but they’re just too bulky for me :P).

i’m just glad to know it’s something you’re looking into, even if it might never get past wishful thinking.

BobbyStein.2315:

balwin.1435:

BobbyStein.2315:

Underdark.3726:

wait for the PS fix or you will miss a big part of the story.

This is good advice. While I don’t have a firm release date to share just yet, I do recommend that you wait until the Personal Story is restored (with minor improvements) before playing into chapter 6.

I’ll be making a post in the next couple of weeks that will give more details on what changes the update will include.

Edit: Also, thanks for playing. Looking forward to seeing the videos. Are you playing on NA or EU servers?

Do I understand this right: Do you refer to the story part depending on your “greatest fear”? Will these story missions (which are depending on the answer during “A Light in the Darkness” and originally taken a big portion in the part 7 of the personal story and are currently not accessable) be playable again in the near future?

Yes. We’re restoring the My Greatest Fear story steps, restoring chapter 8 to its original order, and improving a few things along the way. I’ll be making an official forum post with more details soon.

i don’t suppose that since the PC VAs are back recording, we could get a polish pass on some… err… lesser performances? *cough*nornfemale*cough* and fix the “hold the line” shout too, since the whole problem with it was one of the VAs read it as “hold this line”.

Test.8734:

BrunoBRS.5178:

they said new traits, not a whole new trait line. it’s entirely possible that they just sprinkle druid traits on the existing lines.

I would prefer if we lost access to trait lines, so they can be replaced by something new. If the Mesmer specialization has no access to Shatter skills, for example, it wouldn’t be surprising if said specialization lost access to the trait line that reduces the recharge of Shatter skills, and instead got an all new trait line.

Likewise, if the Engineer specialization cannot use pistols or rifles, it wouldn’t be surprising if it lost access to the Firearms trait line, and had it replaced by something else.

It would even open some interesting possibilities. What if a specialization had two trait lines increasing Toughness, but no trait line increasing Vitality? And so on.

but using your example, all mesmer trait lines involve shatters and illusions to some degree. there isn’t one single trait line you can pull out and bam, shatters aren’t a thing in mesmer traits anymore.

which makes me wonder if some of these “brand new traits” are actually just replacing traits tied to the old mechanics that are getting redone (if they actually do take mechanics out to add new ones in).

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

By the way, I’m still watching some of the clips and seeing stills and going: “Rathian and Rathalos are somewhere laughing at this noob.”

i had to login just to say “kitten rathian”. all she does is run back and forth like an idiot, flail her tail to knock you down, and do the tail backflip attack to poison you. she’s obnoxious to fight against.

rathalos is cool though, especially now that he can break terrain with his attacks.

inb4wyvernmysogynist

#WyvernGate

good god, people are still going on about it? the ridiculous part is expecting a profession to dictate your personal story, which would be a first in the franchise. (inb4 people that don’t really understand how GW1 campaigns worked).

AoE cap exists because the game would have trouble processing more than 5 ticks per second. all the skills you listed are “wall” skills (including static field, as it’s basically a circumference, not a full circle), which do ticks individually as the player collides with them, rather than pulsing damage to everyone within radius of it. that’s why they can have unlimited cap.

on the main subject, people need to stop complaining that stability won’t be the “get out of jail” card that it once was. it completely bypassed a whole part of the combat and is pretty unfairly distributed among classes. it will still be pretty strong (and i doubt it’ll have much effect on WvW, actually), and it’ll be balanced so current skills give multiple stacks, so it’s not like it’ll be super easy to get rid of stability like you get rid of aegis.

i gotta say, i underestimated your interview. really solid stuff.

just let the devs talk a little bit more next time before your excitement interrupts them and we lose potentially interesting tidbits :P

xXLuggXx.4018:

BrunoBRS.5178:

xXLuggXx.4018:

I think that it looks like you swing a mistical (Haha get it?) copy of your Hammer.

that’s drop the hammer, the knockdown skill. the AA just throws some funny-looking mallets as the character swings the hammer back and forth wildly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MfYvmHyqumA#t=620

you can see for yourself.

I’m actually not that sure about that…
In the video the rev is wielding the hammer shown in my first picture. In the attachmemt the skill animation of drop the hammer looks more like a standard / blacksmith hammer
But you also could be right possibly it’s drop the Hammer…but that would mean that at least this skill changes according to your equiped weapon..cool

We’ll see what happens
I’m fine with the animations (with or without throwing your current weapon)
Actually it would look nice but is not "needed"because you are not throwing your hammer – you throw mist-energy

dude, you can see him autoattacking on the timeframe i linked. it looks nothing like the skill from the screenshot.

xXLuggXx.4018:

I think that it looks like you swing a mistical (Haha get it?) copy of your Hammer.

that’s drop the hammer, the knockdown skill. the AA just throws some funny-looking mallets as the character swings the hammer back and forth wildly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MfYvmHyqumA#t=620

you can see for yourself.