Guild Wars 2

Guess what? New backpacks today as well!
Oh, we are so happy.

…yet again, they completely ignore us…

The Gates Assassin.9827:

That’s what I was saying. Skills should be strong as a start, and mixed up and stronger when traited. Balancing from both ends means that you close the gap between the traited and untraited versions in their effective power.

It isn’t that simple. There are two issues, mainly. Numbers and effects of traits.
Turrets are a prime example of those issues: we have a lot of traits regarding turrets. Even multiple grandmaster ones. If you take them all, there must be a definite gap compared to the untraited versions. Doing otherwise would mean making traits deliberately weak, and forcing the player to get all of them to have some advantage, even if that advantage isn’t comparatively as good as getting some different category with a lesser sovrabundance of traits, but better balanced.
Regarding the effects of traits, a particular example is grenadier.
Grenadier is an overspecialized grandmaster tier trait, working with a single utility/kit.
Personally speaking, this is the worst thing they may ever have done. Such a specialized trait must be really strong to even have a reason to exist. And its effects sure are good…so good that they’ve completely wrecked the balancing of the base weapon to not make it overpowered when traited and they still balance the whole kit over the traited weapon. Obviously, they shouldn’t have put an overspecialized trait as a grandmaster one to begin with.
That said, you’re making the same error as above – piling up effects and expecting them to be balanced both together and when alone. Obviously it won’t work like so – piling up effects must make the total result stronger, else they would be too weak to warrant their slots to begin with.
If there are issues in having all those effects together, then the game should prevent you in doing so; but it should also rebalance them in order to recoup the loss in generalization. The more they are specialized and limited, the more they must be powerful in order to be balanced.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Incendiary Powder is very strong and very hard to play against. As I said in my previous post, it’s not about skills being OP. SD isn’t OP. But it’s not fun to play against because it’s instant, nigh unavoidable damage without using extremely advanced tactics. It’s not about nerfing OP stuff, it’s about making the application of everything on the class fair.

But that’s because you are convinced that you must be able to counter it. That may not be necessarily true. How do you counter a trait that gives +X% damage on a weapon? You can’t, simple like that. This is just a condition version of such traits, just balanced a bit differently (targeting a single player but raising sustained damage by a sensible amount instead of spreading lesser amounts of damage versus multiple targets like +X% damage traits can do).
A clear visual indication can give the possibility of avoiding this particular attack, sure. But maybe they didn’t think of it as something you should be able to avoid. Like those +X% traits mentioned above.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Except the effect of Shouts Healing isn’t OP in the slightest. It’s also not offensive and it’s on a class that doesn’t have a lot of burst healing.

The effects on turrets aren’t offensive as well – apart from the knockback – and yet you still bumped all of them together to make your point. Heh, that’s almost an entire build focusing just on turrets – 2 grandmaster traits and at least an adept one. I would be disappointed if they didn’t end up being strong enough, considering all the investment required.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

These are effects that are passively added to grenades, are random and can really load someone up. The thing about traits is that you have to balance from both sides. The untraited versions should be strong on their own merit, yes, but traiting them shouldn’t make them crazy. You have to balance them from both ends. So yes, they should nerf all of those condition applying auto stuff because it’s extremely hard to play against it. The super easy to hit skills now hit super hard because of those traits.

It being strong is only part of the point. The main point is that these traits and skills have almost no counterplay. I moved it to Grenade Barrage and Big Ol Bomb because that makes them skill shots, rather than something that can be applied with an auto attack.

First, i have to disagree about the base balancing – traits shouldn’t be needed to make something average from subpar. If some skill is underpowered by design, then there is a problem with the design.

Also, i think you’re wrong in assuming that such traits necessarily have to have a sort of counterplay.
A trait like shrapnel is a mean to raise sustained damage by applying relatively frequent applications of a low-damage condition like bleeding. And giving some synergy with other traits.
If it weren’t for the synergy, it could have been applied as a straight damage increase on grenades or bombs…and no one would have cared about it. Exactly as no one cares about the other damage increasing traits. Because their effects aren’t as noticeable as a condition that you can clearly see on screen.
Incendiary powder isn’t much different in that regard, apart from having more means of application (and thus i can’t understand why you limited its use with those two specific toolbelts in your post). It is just more focused, dealing more damage on a single target. Sure, a clear visual indication would be fair, but apart from that, i think it is perfectly fine as it is.

Regarding the first two points, you’re putting a lot of traits and sigils together and commenting that their effect together ends up being strong. Well, yeah, that’s the point of using them, i would say.
If they were to balance taking in account only the best case, we would end up having skills that are balanced when taking all the traits and utter crap when they aren’t traited (and grenades are a prime example of that, as they’re balanced over the traited kit…and the untraited one ends up being so bad that no one ever uses it).
It is like saying that warriors’ shouts should be balanced over their healing (due to traits) and condition removals (via runes). A total nonsense.

runeblade.7514:

Flame Blast/Air Blast/Napalm/Smoke Vent are skills in the Flamethrower kit that are not neutralized. Flame Jet is Not the entire kit.

So, no. Retal doesn’t neutralize the entire kit.

And out of those, only two are damaging skills. Three if you want to count Napalm as well. And Napalm is getting changed too – it will do negligible amounts of direct damage.
Out of three damaging skills, two will process heavy amounts of retaliation. If using the autoattack ends up being a suicide button, and you have to switch everytime a boon like retaliation is used, then said weapon is neutralized by a single boon, despite what you may say.
And if the weapon itself is supposed to be used versus multiple opponents – thus raising the chance that someone will be able to process retaliation, a boon that usually works on the whole group – then the weapon is flawed by design.

runeblade.7514:

Engineers can switch weapons at will with a one second cooldown. They can adapt to every situations very easily than any other profession. If the weapon swap was 5-10 seconds, I would agree since it means the engineer must stand still and do nothing if the engineer has a cooldown on weapon swap. But, because it is a one second swap, Engineers can just swap weapon, wait for retal to disappear and change back to Flamethrower.

However, I do not see a convincing reply why Flame Jet should be changed. Other than, “I want it.”

So you are fine with having a wasted slot on the weapon. Because that’s what flame jet is. Retaliation is an extremely common boon. Even more in groups – the exact situation flame jet is supposed to be used with.
What’s the point of having an autoattack you can’t even use due to a commonly used boon? Why is there even a trait that requires you to stay on said kit if you can’t do anything during that time? Cause that’s exactly what happens with the flamethrower.
People just use the other skills and switch out.

runeblade.7514:

Blind and Aegis completely block my Eviscerate. Anet should buff Eviscerate so that it can hit two times to make my skill useful.

You are completely missing the point. Blind and Aegis aren’t common as Retaliation at all.

But that is just a workaround. As you’re basically saying to avoid using flamethrower, due to how common retaliation is.
Again, what’s the point of having an autoattack with such drawbacks? Low damage multi-hit skills are completely useless due to retaliation, they harm the user more than the enemies. And an autoattack can’t have anything other than a relatively low damage.

runeblade.7514:

Manuhell.2759:

runeblade.7514:

I would agree, but Engineer has a 1 second cooldown for switching weapons. When retal goes down, you can easily switch back.

And why should it make sense for a single skillweapon to be fully neutralized by a single (and quite common, i would add) boon?
And it will be even worse with the feature patch – as napalm will direct damage enemies as well, obviously for extremely low amounts of damage, but still getting fully retaliated in return. And you can’t even cancel that as you would do with the autoattack…

Fixed.

You said yourself to switch out the kit if you see someone with retaliation. How is that not “neutralize the whole kit”?
Especially since out of the whole weapon, only 3 skills damage enemies. And with the napalm change, only flame blast won’t massively process retaliation.
And i still haven’t seen a convincing reply about why an autoattack should come such a risk and no reward.
What’s the point of a trait like Juggernaut if you can’t even stay on the kit?

And both of them are quite more powerful than flame jet (or napalm, for that matter). A single meteor does almost the same damage of a flame jet. With a tenth of the hits.
There is a risk, and they’re rewarded for it.
Flame Jet (and soon Napalm too) aren’t comparable at all. Only risks and no reward.

BrunoBRS.5178:

it is also far more likely to proc on-hit/crit sigils, so it’s not all bad.

It wouldn’t be a problem even with half the hits, though. After all, almost all those processings have cooldowns attached. And engineers are limited to two sigils, anyway, so they probably avoid to use both of them for on hit/on crit sigils. Only a couple traits can efficiently make use of multi-hit attacks, basically. And their effects are weak for that exact reason.

honestly, retal gets exponentially stronger the more people have it in the same area, so it’s not a problem engis alone have.

Those other classes probably don’t have a 30 hits skill on autoattack, though.
Autoattack skills can’t do a lot of damage by design…but you still get punished with the full force of retaliation anyway.

runeblade.7514:

I would agree, but Engineer has a 1 second cooldown for switching weapons. When retal goes down, you can easily switch back.

And why should it make sense for a weapon to be fully neutralized by a single (and quite common, i would add) boon?
And it will be even worse with the feature patch – as napalm will direct damage enemies as well, obviously for extremely low amounts of damage, but still getting fully retaliated in return. And you can’t even cancel that as you would do with the autoattack…

That isn’t a solution at all.
It is a weapon that is supposed to be used versus multiple opponents. And yet ends up backfiring in the same exact situation it is supposed to be used for.
And we’re talking about an autoattack, anyway. Since when one should risk so much to deal an autoattack?

insanemaniac.2456:

so are you proposing like… condi immunity after the 3rd unique condi?
ie
you get tagged by a shrapnel grenade that puts bleed, burn, and vuln on you… then you cant be poisoned by the poison field youre (suddenly) standing in until something runs out.

(3 is prolly too few for the trigger threshold but its a decent example)

what an interesting idea! it has counterplay in that your opponents dont want to spam condis on you (and make more intelligent decisions), you have to decide which condis are ok to keep on yourself…

maybe if the threshold was like 5 itd be still really strong.

Uh, actually, i just meant it working as burning fire and suchs – when you have X conditions, cleanse X conditions, and go on cooldown for Y seconds.
The concept you proposed is quite interesting too, though.

What about scrapping completely the “Y amount of health” part? It made sense with the old AR because the whole design of that trait was based about standing under that treshhold, but it is kinda horrible otherwise.
If all it has to do is cleanse some conditions while still retaining the “automated” flavour, it could work like burning fire or shrug it off, and activate when you’ve got the appropriate number of conditions.

Well, it being kinda passive is there in the name itself – Automated Response.
Anything that would make it more active should also make it change name, basically replacing the trait altogether. The dodge one could be called something like Cleansing Dynamo, for example.

Still, i’m not against traits like the old AR, provided that they aren’t simple bonuses, but also provide different ways to play. And imho, AR wasn’t wrong in that regard – giving a good advantage, but forcing a severe drawback. The trait itself may have been passive, but staying alive while under that treshhold required a good deal of activity by the player.
Anyway, if they wanted to maintain the “automatic theme”, they could make it a sort of forced sustained condition removal – remove a condition every 3 seconds, but block any other form of cleansing. It would make the user resistant versus few conditions, but really weak versus condition bursts.

xbutcherx.3861:

Manuhell.2759:

No, it should work if you actually hit an enemy with the skill. As that was the whole point of changing how the trait works.
Doing otherwise makes the whole change meaningless, as people will just use the longbow for a guaranteed cleansing, despite the change. The point of changing how adrenaline and CI work is that you aren’t supposed to be rewarded for failing.
And as now, it works exactly like that.

Sorry it works on Adrenaline BAR SPENT, and not on hitting someone. Get it?

Did you even follow the Ready Up about warriors?
One of the devs explicitely said in chat that they’re changing how CI will work. And it won’t process on miss.

No, it should work if you actually hit an enemy with the skill. As that was the whole point of changing how the trait works.
Doing otherwise makes the whole change meaningless, as people will just use the longbow for a guaranteed cleansing, despite the change. The point of changing how adrenaline and CI work is that you aren’t supposed to be rewarded for failing.
And as now, it works exactly like that.

xbutcherx.3861:

But then again, and here is the good part of all this, it is actually a nerf what you asking for.
1.-The traits states clear condition per bar spent.
2.- When you use the burst you spent all the bars whether you hit something or not.
3.- The trait is working as intended.
Sorry but is the way it is.

Sure, it is like that now. But in the Ready Up it was explicitely said that the burst skill will have to hit in order to process CI. Thus, your argument about that is soon going to be wrong- the requirement for its activation is going to change.

The effect of those other interrupts is denied – that’s the whole point of defiance. You do 6 interrupts, only the last one works. Until that, you’ve done absolutely nothing.
And there no way to increase the effectiveness against defiance of a control skill. No gear permits that. You can do more damage, but you can’t do more defiance stacks.
It isn’t the same thing of having “more health”, and i’ve already explained before what the correct comparison would be (that is, something really awful to play). Putting more health is a matter of balancing. Putting a different mechanic to deal with interrupts is a matter of design. And those skills were neither designed or balanced taking defiance in account.
Saying that “you can get more control skills” doesn’t make sense. 5 out of 6 of those will still do nothing at all. You are just increasing the number of your skills that won’t do nothing at all to a boss. Especially as you can’t kill something just with control – you will need damage, and CC skills often don’t even deal damage at all.

Also, i have to mix up the modes because we’re talking about control skills that are balanced upon their use in a mode that greatly favours them but can as well be used in a mode where they aren’t as useful due to the encounter design and end up being even more crappy due to a mechanic like defiance.
And control skills aren’t either designed or balanced upon such a mechanic – as there is no defiance for players. You can dodge. You can have a limited time where you nullify CC effects – stability. You can eventually nullify it after being hit – with a stun break. And both of these effects usually have long cooldowns and/or are utility skills, thus limiting their use. But there is no “constantly nullify 5 out of 6 of them” in pvp.
Thus the skills aren’t balanced upon the assumption that they will do nothing at all most of the time.
If they can’t find another way to make it so that control skills effectively do something, then just give them some other effect at least. So that they aren’t just wasted time for most of the time.

Anyway, some of the fixes you propose are indeed fine. Other would be if they wouldn’t potentially increase cpu load, that is also the same reason why we can’t have proper AIs for enemies, and thus workarounds are instead used. It should be seen how much they can effectively do in that regard, else we can’t see such improvements.

Wethospu.6437:

If my HB deals 20k damage I need one HB to kill a 20k target. If boss has 1m health I have to use it 50 times.

Compare that to interrupts. I need to use 6 interrupts for an interrupt. 50 >> 6

There are much more damage skills than control ones, though, as i said before. And their effect isn’t completely denied – just reduced in percentage. Defiance denies any CC effect until the stacks are depleted. 5 interrupts are 5 wasted skills. 6 interrupts are an interrupt. But 50000 damage is still 50000 damage, whether it is 5, 10 or 20% of the boss’ hp.
Also, there is no way to influence how many stacks of defiance you deal, whereas damage depends from gear. There is no “speccing for control”. And having many control skills makes one barely useful, as attacking and making the fight last less would have better results than using a lot of skills to maybe interrupt the enemy 3 or 4 times over a fight.

Yes, high health is their only defense against damage. But so is defiance against control.

Still, damage skills are balanced for a mode where players can reduce or nullify damage in various means and heal themselves; but the defenses for interrupts are rather scarce in comparison. Sure, both can be dodged, but that’s a moot point…since enemies don’t dodge at all.
And it should be pointed out that PvP is a point control mode, and skills are balanced over that assumption – thus having to make CC skills either weaker or with longer cooldowns.
Also, and most importantly…control alone cannot kill an enemy. You still need a lot of damage. Control alone is useless. Damage alone wins fights anyway.

Wethospu.6437:

If there are more underperforming damage skills, perhaps they should be fixed before fewer control skills?

Ehr, damage is all but underperforming as now, i would say.

Wethospu.6437:

What I’m trying to say is that they should fix what is broken. Bosses have bloated health bars because they are against 5 players so it’s completely fair that you need 5 interrupts to interrupt them (that’s why I’m suggesting reduction of one stack).

Additional effect for control skills won’t fix the control. It only reinforces dps meta because you get more damage while control is still pointless.

Simple fixes to make control meaningful:

1) Make interrupts cause full cooldowns for PvE enemies

2) Reduce one stack (5 players -> 4 stacks)

3) Encounter design
* Add special attacks to some bosses which temporarily remove defiance.
* Add devastating special attacks to bosses which are hard to deal with blocks and dodges.
* Add strong defensive skills to bosses which have to be interrupted if you want to kill the boss fast.
* No defiance but fight against 3 – 5 (weaker) bosses at the same time
* No defiance but use stability instead
* No defiance but give boss frequent stun breaks

Undoubtely more complex designs and proper AIs would help a lot in making fights more fun and bosses not just simple hp sponges. Having bosses behave like players, following the same rules, would deepen a lot the fights.
I doubt we’ll ever see them, though. Probably they would end up too costly in terms of cpu to be deemed usable.
That’s why i’m suggesting some sort of bandaid – defiance itself is a bandaid over the normal game mechanics, after all.

Wethospu.6437:

A boss can easily have 1 million health while in PvP players have like 20k. Should damage skills also get additional effects (like control) because they are less efficient at killing the target?

(direct) damage skills still have the same effect, even if they do relatively less damage due to the high hp pools; Still, bosses usually just tank damage, since they don’t dodge at all (and neither properly use defensive or healing skills). That high hp is their only defense, since they lack a proper AI.
Damaging conditions may have some other issues.
Interrupts have their effect completely denied 5/6 of the time.
And they aren’t even in equal numbers, anyway – there are much more skills dealing damage than CC skills.
A correct comparison should be about having bosses with a reduced health pool compared to now (let’s say, 100k hp) but they are damaged only by a single hit out of 10.
Sounds fun?
No, it would just be annoying. Extremely annoying.

Or they can modify those CC skills in PvE as to rebalance them, by giving additional non-CC effects – be it damage, conditions or whatever. What they lose in “control”, they gain in “damage” or “support”.

Wethospu.6437:

CC skills are balanced for it. If boss uses area attack everyone has to dodge. If you want to interrupt it everyone must interrupt.

Defiance stacks work very well if you consider how simple the system is. All you need is a little bit of coordination and planning.

The real problem is that interrupts don’t put most skills on full cooldown. This makes interrupts very ineffective because the interrupted skill can be used again after few seconds. If enemies got full cooldowns interrupts would become pretty useful.

The second problem is that there is no need for interrupts. Other forms of defense (evading, blocking, reflects) are much easier to use. Content is so easy that you can get through even after messing up a lot. Enemies don’t have powerful defensive skills to keep them up or really devastating offensive skills which would wipe half of the party unless interrupted.

I would also reduce defiant stacks by one so 5 players would need 5 interrupts per interruption.

Except that in PvP – the mode the skills are balanced for – you need a single CC to interrupt whatever the enemy is doing, be it an area attack or a single target attack.
And even interrupting a single target attack in PvE still requires everyone to interrupt, or someone to interrupt six times by himself (if we’re talking about a dungeon boss).
Thus, your argument is flawed.

I do agree about the cooldowns on interrupt and that there isn’t an actual need about them, though. Control is an underused aspect in PvE design.
But CC skills not being rebalanced over their weakened effects is, imho, another issue that should be solved.

Imho, one of the problems with defiance is that CC skills aren’t balanced upon it. Quite obviously, as they’re balanced for pvp, and there is no defiance on players.

This ends up greatly weakening their effects, without anything to compensate for it.

The solution should be to rebalance those skill according to the game mode, giving them bonus effects in pve to compensate for the reduced effects of CC.

I would like to see it back indeed, especially since it was implied there was something going on behind the scene.
I can’t understand what’s the point of saying it “doesn’t fit into the narrative structure of the living world”, anyway. Neither do PvP and WvsW updates, yet we still do have those. Heh, even the gem store itself doesn’t fit narratively at all; shall we remove it as well?
And it isn’t like it has to fit: Moto isn’t working for any official organization anyway, so narratively speaking, there is no problem – whenever the “new version” of SAB is ready, he can release it, despite whatever is happening at the time.
Oh, sure, one could say a commander of the pact shouldn’t spend his time playing a game. Well, we never behaved like a commander of the pact anyway – we wouldn’t have been waiting weeks just to get a reply from the pale tree otherwise, especially since we already know it personally.

As now, the only properly skill-based skins available in pve are the SAB’s Tribulation Mode ones, as any others have RNG involved in the drop chance, beside requiring to complete the appropriate content. And so far, Tribulation Mode gave just weapons.
Thus, asking for a skill-based PVE armor seems quite a fair demand.

Also, please put back SAB. Pretty please.

Actually, i was thinking about “the next X autoattacks inflict something” ,where something depends on the ammunition you’ve loaded via the skill used before it. And X is a number that should be decided upon balancing, as it also depends on other parameters (the amounts of the stacks and their durations, or even a per-case basis)
For example, let’s say that in the case of Static Shot, X is equal to 3 and every confounding bullet inflicts 2 stacks of confusion for 3s.
Thus, after using Static Shot, your next 3 autoattacks will inflict 2 stacks of confusion for 3s in addition on the usual effects of fragmentation shot.

What if Modified Ammunitions empowered the autoattack of the pistol based on the last 2~5 skill used?
Basically, using those skills would give X charges of the appropriate ammunition type.
*Poison Dart Volley -Poisonous Bullet
*Static Shot -Confounding Bullet
*Blowtorch -Incendiary Bullet
*Glue Shot -Sticky Bullet
Those charges would be used when attacking with Fragmentation Shot, adding effects to the autoattack (poison,confusion,burning,cripple or immobilization) and eventually visual cues to the projectiles shot.
By raising the uptime of the damaging conditions, dps would increase; Using it with kits wouldn’t help much, as those conditions are already covered by them.
The only issue i have with this is about what happens if you use 2~5 skills in succession, as that would give multiple different bullets.
Thus:
*Either only one type of ammunition can be loaded at anytime, though, meaning that using 2~5 skills in succession would end up wasting most of the effect of the trait.
*All the bullets can be loaded together, and
*Either they are shot one at a time, but then the UI could become too bloated, and a way to see the subsequent bullet shot would be needed.
*All of them are shot together, causing a mini condi-burst.

There could be something similar for the rifle as well, but i can’t think of anything right now. It wouldn’t be as straightforward as the pistol, likely.

Also, i’m terrible at writing lists (dunno why i can’t make the textile work).

Regarding Juggernaut, what about a way to give it back a kind of its initial functionality?
In origin, the trait was supposed to be:
You move 50% slower while wielding the flamethrower, but gain stability and 200 toughness.
Clearly an unlimited stability ends up being too strong for pvp purposes, so what if we changed it to:
While wielding the flamethrower you gain 200 toughness; if affected by a control skill, you gain two stacks of defiance (as long as the flamethrower is equipped).
(an alternative may be to give a single stack of defiance, if two would end up too strong for a master trait, and raise toughness a bit).

If we want to make it particularly flashy and evocative, it may be changed to a grandmaster trait again and make it:
While wielding the flamethrower you move 33% slower, but physical and condition damage is reduced by 20% and if affected by a control skill you gain two stacks of defiance (as long as the flamethrower is equipped).

Decreasing healing is the whole point of applying poison, though. Such a trait would basically make it useless.
Would likely make the trait too strong. It is just an adept trait after all.

Wouldn’t that be heavier for the server load, though, if it had to trigger every second?

Comparing IP to those skills he mentions is utterly, completely wrong.
Engineer is mostly about sustained damage – can’t do otherwise, due to kits…putting many burst skills on those would make them terribly unbalanced since you could just cycle between them – and IP is just another way to increase that sustained damage, by inflicting a condition (as damage-inflicting conditions are a form of sustained damage by themselves, due of their own mechanics).
Sure, there may be other ways to accomplish this. But they wouldn’t be as lenient or cleanseable as a condition. Because the whole effect – some kind of increased attack power – would be spread to multiple attacks, as it would still be about sustained damage, and thus even less dodgeable than the current one. And it likely wouldn’t be based on condition damage, since it wouldn’t be a condition.

If we are to compare kits, we should also consider that grenades are basically balanced upon a grandmaster trait. It would be only logical for them to end up being more powerful than other kits – drastically more powerful, unlike the current situation, with them barely better despite the heavy costs involved.
If we want to talk about a rebalancing of said kit, we should start making the base one more balanced – it is really crappy right now – by moving some of the offense back to it. And after that, moving grenadier to a master trait (as the bonus it gives will end up being reduced). In doing so, getting a trait like steel-packed powder will come as an additional cost, unlike now (as it basically comes for free when grenadier is taken, being a grandmaster minor trait).

I would also add, though, that having those traits you mention working fine with multi-hit weapons like grenades is also one of the few good points about it being a multi-hit weapon. Remove those, and it becomes just a liability.

No, just give us a way to not display them.
Not just checking if another backpack is being used – but a proper option to disable them, as the aesthetical appearance of a character may be based on not having a backpack at all.
And maybe properly add the legendary effect of the equipped weapon even when a kit is being used, not just to a couple of selected skills.

Imho, it is a bad idea to trade them with geodes, as they’re already needed to search for them in the normal way, due to lockpicks.
They could instead implement some other token – let’s call it “piece of fossilized amber” and change the loot tables for those chests.
Doing so, you would normally find pieces of fossilized amber, with a rare chance of getting a fossilized insect.
And those pieces of fossilized amber could be exchanged for an insect of choice, exactly as you would do with the fossilized insect.
Heh, they could even go all the SAB way and make the one got via tokens account bound and the one found in the chests tradable. Thus giving personal rewards for effort, and monetary ones for luck.

Considering it is even more multi-hit than before, due to the Napalm change, some sort of defense against retaliation on it wouldn’t be bad.

Or just make a separate trait about it. Dunno, 50% reduced damage from retaliation as either an adept or master trait (or add it to some existing poor trait).

Nice for PvE, but Napalm dealing damage means it will also apply retaliation. And once it is down, we can’t do anything about it. Could quite backfire on us.

Seems overall nice. I have only a couple issues. Napalm inflicting damage also means it will trigger retaliation – and we can’t cancel it, unlike the autoattack. Could easily backfire on us.
And AED…the change is nice, but i still think its main problem is in the opportunity cost caused by the threshold mechanic – since you could use another healing skill multiple times instead of having to wait for the chance of using AED with the threshold.

There is nothing wrong with it.
People always find some reason to vine.

They should just follow the SAB model.
You can either find sellable versions of the rewards at a small random chance, or a good amount of tokens otherwise. The tokens can also be obtained while playing the content, and can be used to get an account bound version of a reward of choice once you get enough. This rewards effort and gives an incentive to play that content, unlike the current rewards – where quite often it is just more convenient to farm gold and buy them at the trading post than to actually obtain it personally.

The case in question is an account bound item found by rng, so it is a bit different. Putting it sellable at the npc via geodes wouldn’t make sense, as you already have to use them to get the lockpicks to open the chest. Thus, i would say: implement an item called Piece of Fossilized Amber. You can either find an unidentified fossilized insect, or some pieces of Fossilized Amber. Once you get enough of those – let’s say, 100 – you can exchange them at the npc for an Ambrite Fossilized Insect.
Thus either you get it by luck, or you get it by effort. But you get it either way, and you haven’t wasted hours for naught.

Athel.2076:

Since grenades are consistently reported as the maximum DPS kit, yes, I’d expect that to get nerfed adjusted.

They are even too weak, considering that a grandmaster trait is mandatory for their use.
Balancing them over the traited version was already nonsensical – it goes against the whole point of having traits itself. Nerfing it further while still balancing it upon Grenadier would just be madness.

Like always, it will be nerfs based on players’ whinings rather than on actual balance reasons.
I expect some other turret nerf, probably one on supply crates and some nerfing change to incendiary powder.

I agree with the posters above. SAB is really nice.

Maybe there could be two additional tabs added to the Hero panel – Map Events and Boss Events.
Map Events would offer an overview of the events based on the current map, with an option to toggle an alert for their start. It would probably come as an on-screen message (like the ones that appear when there are updates to download, basically).
Boss Events could be similar, but limited to bosses and over all the maps. Maybe there could be also some info about the rewards.
Anyway, when toggled, in addition of the on-screen message on activation, the particular event could appear in a tab on the top right (alike to how achievements you’re following are displayed) along with a countdown to the activation, where available (since many of those follow a time table).

18 July 1327 AE
“Snaff 11” becomes the first unmanned golemancy probe to successfully land on the Eternal Alchemy.

Krewe leader Loois later commented on the successful operation with the following quote:
“One small step for an Asura, one giant leap for bookah.”

Imho, Queen Jennah will die and we’ll have to recover the locket to find the true heir while a civil war ensues.
In the end, we’ll discover that the rightful heir is Kasmeer, as she’s actually the only sister of the late queen and thus the next in line for the throne. Some investigations will follow to see how she’s actually tied with the regal family and the reasons why she was abandoned (mainly political ones) and probably there will be to fight with Minister Caudecus who has seized the throne for himself in the meantime.

But more probably, nothing of that will happen, and i just made a long post for naught.

LadySilverHand.6841:

Has anyone tried taking toys in with you? Balloons, Kites….

Yes, i tried using the balloon when i did the festive dolyak one. Unfortunately, the balloon didn’t appear on the cutscene.

Festive Dolyak here.

If anything, it is quite the opposite – due to kits, to strive for sustained damage, the bulk of damage must be in the autoattacks – for they are the ones that will be constantly used (obviously, as there is no cooldown) and having some supporting or damaging conditions on the other skills (since conditions are already a form of sustained damage).
That way, an high power gives sustained damage via autoattack spam, while conditions can do so by using the other weapon skills.
Having a good amount of skills with high direct damage on the various kits would be a balancing nightmare, due to the possibility of chaining them via kit swap. And that’s why we don’t have them, and we’re rather relying on sustained damage.

Imho, the main problem with defiance is in its concept.
Let’s say that any boss is shielded for X hits, and you can damage it a single time before the shield comes up again. Sounds fun? No, it is an hassle that would make many skills useless. And that’s basically a damage-based Defiant.
Albeit, Defiant is even worse. Cause everyone can deal damage, but not everyone will eventually have hard-CC skills. And a player with some control skill has their effect highly reduced, and nothing as a tradeoff. Skills are, after all, balanced over their effects. And having to deal X hard-CC skills to inflict a single one means you’ve got X skills that end up doing a single one of their supposed effects.
While the idea of a boss with a sort of reverse Defiant is nice, it still doesn’t solve the problem. Imho, the best suggestion is Xenon’s one, that is, give bosses stunbreakers and stability skills with faster recharges.

ArrDee.2573:

Protective Shield!
-Changed trait to remove 1 condition when critically hit! 10 second cooldown!

Seems nice, but imho it should be renamed.

ArrDee.2573:

Formula 409!
-Increased conditions cleansed on Elixir consumption from 1 to 2. Tossed Elixirs still only remove 1 condition!
-Toss Elixir R will remove 1 condition per pulse instead of 2 when traited with Formula 409!

Could end up being too powerful. Maybe it would be more appropriate as a grandmaster?

ArrDee.2573:

Automated Response!
-At 33% health, removes 3 conditions! 40 second cd!

On the opposite spectrum, this is probably too weak for a grandmaster trait. Especially when there are adept traits removing a condition every 10s, without any health threshold requirement.
I would rather see it better as a powered-up guardian’s purity – remove a condition every 6 seconds, or 2 conditions every 15s.
Or it could work with a twist. As in: remove a condition every 3 seconds, but any other condition removal beside Automated Response is disabled (Transmute would still work, as it triggers on incoming conditions).

Guess i’ll quote only the ones where there is something i have to argue upon.

ArrDee.2573:

AED!
-In addition to the current effects, if you receive a would be death blow, you are cleansed of all conditions! For 5 seconds afterwards, condition duration is reduced by 50%!

Imho, there is an unsolved issue here about the opportunity cost. As you have to wait until you have low hp to make it profitable, you often could just have used another healing skill…and even multiple times, considering the high cooldown of AED.
Thus what i suggest is to make it so that if AED activates without a death blow, its base cooldown is reduced to 25s – is it still a terrible heal without the deathblow clause, but you can use it at the start of a battle and resist until the skill is up again to use it when lethal damage is being inflicted (the part about the condition cleanse on the death blow is fine, though – albeit, i wouldn’t add that condition reduction then, since it could make it too strong).

ArrDee.2573:

Grenade Kit!
-Range reduced from 1200 to 1000!
Grenadier!
-Additional range decreased from 300 to 200!

I can’t agree with this. Grenades are already a design mess – a kit balanced upon its grandmaster-traited version, unlike any other utility or weapon in the game.
It would make untraited grenades even more terrible – but considering no one uses them untraited due of how awful they are, that wouldn’t be a big issue.
Yet, it would make the grandmaster trait quite lackluster (especially since, as i’ve said before, the kit is already balanced upon having it).
I don’t think it is a good idea. I would rather see the kit balanced upon the untraited version – as it should be, anyway – and adjust the traits to make it good, but not overpowered (eventually making grenadier or whatever the new name would be a master trait, if the effects weren’t strong enough to warrant a grandmaster slot).

ArrDee.2573:

Flamethrower Kit!
-Flame Jet channel time reduced from 2.25 to 2! Number of hits reduced from 10 to 5! Each hit deals double damage to make up for half amount of hits! Total damage is further increased by 30%!
-Air blast cooldown increased from 15 to 20!
-Napalm burn duration increased from 1 second to 3 seconds to anybody who crosses the line!
-Smoke Vent is now a blast finisher!
-Incendiary Ammo burn time reduced from 3 to 2!

I can fully agree only with the part about the flame jet here, basically.
I’m not sure about increasing Air Blast cooldown; after all, its relatively low cooldown is justified by the reduced effect it has – a simple, non damaging conical push. Still, considering other changes on the kit, it could be justified.
About napalm, i would rather give it some particular status (like a proper “napalm” status effect, akin to warriors’ impale).
Regarding Smoke Vent, well…we have already enough blast finishers. No need to add others. I could agree with a second pulse of blind after some second, eventually. But no more blast finishers.
Regarding Incendiary Ammo, dunno. The cooldown is already quite high after all.

ArrDee.2573:

Elixir U!
-Removed Frenzy and Haste effects!

Having no drawback would make it too strong compared to similar quickness skills. Albeit, the current situation isn’t nice too, as not knowing exactly what shall happen is indeed risky. Maybe they should implement an appropriate drawback for the engineer class. Maybe some status that slows down toolbelt cooldowns?

ArrDee.2573:

Mortar!
-Mortar is now a kit! 1-5 skills each have a charge! Each charge has a 30 second cooldown! Launch Mortar Shot has 3 charges! 2-5 have 1 charge! Charges come off cooldown 1 at a time! That means if you pull out a fresh Mortar Kit, you have 3 charges on your auto attack! If you use them all you’ll need to wait about 120 seconds before you have all 3 again!
-Mortar abilities that deal damage can now crit!

The idea is nice. But i’m not sure that it would be enough to make it useful – after all, the abilities of the mortar aren’t that good. They probably should be rebalanced.

ArrDee.2573:

Incendiary Powder!
-When Incendiary Powder is up, the Engineer’s weapon (or hands if there’s no weapon!) gives off a fiery glow!

Could work, as long as it isn’t possible to cover it via some other particle effect due to some weapon or suchs.