Guild Wars 2

Bright.9160:

Manuhell, I wonder something. The whole thing you keep rehashing ad nauseam is that we are not entitled to any retroactive compensation for our levels. I see the point you make, although I strongly disagree with it, and I feel all your analogies fail, because you keep bringing up temporary content.

I keep bringing temporary content because the old fractals ended up being one of them, even if they weren’t supposed to.
And while it is true that some people wouldn’t have done them if they knew they were temporary, the opposite is also true: some people would have done them when they were still available because they were temporary, especially if there were unique rewards attached for particular achievements (as with any living story release). Be it titles, items or even the achievement themselves, as far as achievement hunters go.

Bright.9160:

That aside though, I wonder if you think that Anet handled this patch well. Do you feel Fractured as a whole was a success? Do you see all the blatant issues with it? The progress reset, the myriad of bugs that go unanswered, the reward nerf (yes, nerf, because rewards are worse now), the broken promises, the complete silence on their end which is just adding insult to injury etc.

Or do you feel like Anet handled this all really good and Fractured was a good change to Fractals?

They handled the patch quite bad, imho. Since the announcement itself – if they deemed a reset of the levels was necessary, they should have told it quite earlier. As they revealed it just a week before its implementation, it was already too late to do anything even if they acknowledged the issues.
Still, that’s mostly due of past screw-ups (the management of fractal levels in general, level 50+ and so on) than a problem of the patch itself – if anything, those are things they should have corrected long ago, possibly just after fractals were implemented and those issues were discovered, instead of taking all this time to fix them.
Also, there are quite a number of issues not addressed, be it ways to use the rings in excess, other uses of pristine fractal relics and issues with rewards in general (also, i still think the gold reward is too low for the average duration of a fractal).
But there are some good things as well, let’s be clear. I do appreciate the new fractals, and the instabilities may offer some varied challenges instead of the stale “beat stronger monster” design we had before – it all depends on their design. And some of them may be debatable (as the whole agony infusion management, that seems more a way to sell upgrade extractors than a player friendly system).
Also, as using mainly an engineer, i could say i’m quite accustomed to broken promises and silence on their part (i’m still waiting for a way to not see the hobosacks and have a proper cosmetic endgame…). Nothing new on that part, i could say.

Dojo.1867:

More than flameblast I could see it on FT5 which is propably the weapon skill with the smallest kittening influence on the game ever.

Well, that skill is basically a placeholder – in origin, we had a skill called backdraft.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Backdraft_
It was replaced, along with the change to juggernaut – it gave stability and 200 toughness while you were in the kit, but as a drawback the movement speed was halved – due to pvp.
And that’s also the reason why, unlike any other weapon, the last skill hasn’t got an higher cooldown than the fourth one.

Bagel.4598:

Judging from your replies to Romo and now to me I can see you are determined to argue even when proven wrong.
Your justifications for their actions are weak and easily contradicted.
I have no interest in furthering this conversation with you.

It seems to me you aren’t able to argument anymore, thus you’re stopping the conversation. Oh well, whatever. Still, i’m just repeating what i said for a week in the fractured subforums – before the actual implementation – and you can still find all the posts related to the matter there.

Or just that as less people are affected, there will be less people discussing the issue.
Let’s put this straight: no one wants to have to fight with Vizunah, because there is no chance to win.
It’s clear why anyone else is fine with having the same stale matches at the top – it means they won’t have to fight a futile battle.

Bagel.4598:

What you are falsely assuming is that the rewards should be ones which cannot be obtained ever again.
Some have suggested rewards that may be unobtainable and some have suggested those that could be obtained in future release.

Because the people i was talking about wanted such rewards to be unique – as anybody can read in the threads on the Fractured subsection.
But even if it was something not unique, it would still have been something uncalled for.
As – and i’ve said it multiple times – there was nothing that pushed players going to high fractal levels outside of a personal challenge. Not even the achievements – as they could be completed with a personal fractal level of 3.

Bagel.4598:

No one is debating that levels 50+ weren’t intended to be played although they could be, legitimately (which was wrong of Anet for not putting a hard cap and just blocking it at level 50 in the first place).
Your argument that giving absolutely no credit for people’s time invested and disregarding it completely by resetting everybody above 30 back to an even level being fair is out of line. That is the problem here and that is where you are in the wrong.

I never said it was fair – what i did say is that giving rewards out of the blue would be even more wrong.
Also, people with high fractal levels aren’t the only ones affected – people lost their time invested due to the level becoming account bound as well. I’m one of those, by the way. And i’m still of the same opinion as before.

What should’ve and could’ve happened was for Arena net to reset people above 50 because as implied by the lack of agony people were not supposed to go past this point. The instabilities should have come in at levels 50 plus and NEW rewards (such as fractal weapon boxes / greater % chance of drops for other boxes increased along with gold reward at each tier) should have been introduced with added AR.
Those that went past 50 may have assumed higher levels would be unlocked later and wanted to get a head start and it would be on them if they spent the time ascending for no gain should the update reset them.
However resetting a progress in the game that was open and expected of players, for (currently) absolutely no beneficial gain to the player / community without any compensation is unacceptable of Anet to do.

There should be reward for those who played this game and invested time and had it deleted.
You can not unjustly delete people’s progress, with no compensation unless it was an exploited mechanic.
If you got higher than character level 80 and were sent back down to 80 you would not be upset because it would have been a bug that you exploited, as you were told in the first place that max level is 80.
However if Anet now reset everybody’s characters to level 50 and said “It’s a race to level 80 again, this time you’ll be recorded to a ladder” and then never introduced that ladder, claiming they are “collecting data” then a month later say they are rethinking this ladder all together and haven’t even started coding you can bet your cherry kitten there’d be a kitten storm and complete outrage all over this game.
Just because this has happened to a small niche in the player base those unaffected turn a blind eye or even stand behind Anet.
What a swell community we have.

We came to know about the level reset a week before its implementation – when it was already too late to make any change. If we must speak of hypothesis, then another solution could have been just introducing those rewards long before the change, while announcing it widely, so that people interested in those rewards would have been able to get them while they were still available.
But that’s all they are, hypothesis. When the problem arised, all they could have done was either putting retroactive rewards (for something that, as i said multiple times, was never supposed to give ones) or giving none at all, neither for people with multiple chars, and neither to people with high fractal levels.
They chose the second solution – the less wrong of the two, imho. And the one who affected less people, probably.

Romo.3709:

So yeah… Your argument is flawed. I don’t even understand why you’re even wasting time writing in here since it completely does not affects you in any way. Is that just a thing you do?

Actually, i did lose many levels in different chars. Cause while i didn’t find it rewarding enough to go to high levels – as you said yourself, the rewards weren’t that good at higher levels anyway – i did have multiple chars near or over level 30.
And before that i found myself losing a stat on my celestial items, without them being rebalanced.

Anyway, what i’m opposed to is the introduction of retroactive rewards for content that isn’t available anymore, especially when said content wasn’t supposed to give rewards for those things to begin with. The bane of every collectionist, apart from making fools out of the ones that didn’t do it because…there weren’t rewards.

I’m not saying that what they did with the fractal levels was right – but giving rewards this way would be as wrong as well.
Not to talk about the whole mess of levels 50+.

The rewards you are asking for are for something that isn’t available anymore.
Exactly like the living story.
And you are asking for a retroactive reward for said unavailable content just because you will be able to get it.
Again, exactly like the examples i did above. Your request makes as much sense – that is, none.

When those levels were there, you got more karma when doing lower ones and had an higher chance of getting skins.
That was all you were warranted to get. If you aren’t satisfied with that, you shouldn’t have done it to begin with.

Romo.3709:

Manuhell.2759:

Romo.3709:

I love how you make my point stronger with each thing u post.
:D

I could say the same, regarding the entitlement part.
Something that any objective reader (and anyone who played the game, since anything giving rewards is clearly pointed out ingame) could tell from the posts.

Do I feel entitled to having level 80 charcter? Yes I do. Do I feel entitled to having the gear I have on? Yes I do. Do I feel entitled to my WvW and PvP rank? You betcha. You know what all these have in common with fractal level? All of the above took time and hard work to acquire. If you can’t understand that simple concept, than I’m sorry.
I said that you fit the reference, because you clearly don’t want us to be rewarded for the time that we put into getting to where we were before the patch. And that makes you perfect example. “Rather, you’re feeling entitled to get something that any others can’t get anymore…” How can others (I’m assuming you’re one of them) be rewarded for something they didn’t work for?
But rather than giving accurate explanation, you’re going to turn into “entitlement” arguments and how we don’t deserve anything because of X and Y. Where X being instabilities and Y being “old fractal system vs new fractal system”.
So get typing, because I’m actually curious as to what you have to say about something that doesn’t a) affect you at all b) exist.

Even doing tribulation mode multiple times required time and hard work. Does that means i’m entitled for additional rewards – apart from the ones i already got for doing said content (tribulation weapons, as opposed to higher chances of fractal weapons by doing higher fractal levels)?
After all, i could say the same – i am entitled because i’ve done it, the others don’t deserve anything because they haven’t done it.
Does it makes sense? No.
And it was something that will still be available at some time and that at least gave an achievement for the first time you did it.

I could make the same example with multiple completitions of the mad king’s clock tower. Still the same, apart from the achievement.

You, on the other side, are asking for a reward for something that wasn’t even related to achievements, didn’t give a reward per se and that won’t even be available anymore (as they have changed all the levels above 30).

You have got to those high levels of your own initiative, well knowing that there was no reward involved or ever implied for the future. Good work, indeed, but don’t expect a reward, especially after that they’ve removed said content.

That is good in theory, and bad when the whole pve focuses on being “master of dps” or having some specialized support (like projectile blocks/reflection, something that we can do, but not as good as other classes, burst heals (again, guardian) or area quickness).
Not to talk about the issues with conditions and control/defiance.
But those are game-wide problems, rather of the class itself.

Bright.9160:

So, are you saying that we also shouldn’t feel bitter about the fact that Anet erased our progress without compensation, but promised a bunch of stuff to make up for it (leaderboards and Fractal Weapon boxes mainly), and then didn’t deliver those things? Or are we just supposed to accept that too?

Not specifying that fractal weapon boxes weren’t available yet was quite bad on their part, that i agree. But regarding the leaderboard? Oh, better delaying them and having some ones that make sense than having a flawed one based on how much time you stayed awake after the implementation of the patch.
Albeit, they should have thought about it earlier – after all, everyone in the forums was able to point out how they would have worked bad, so it is quite strange that no one pointed out those issues when those were being designed.

Romo.3709:

I love how you make my point stronger with each thing u post.
:D

I could say the same, regarding the entitlement part.
Something that any objective reader (and anyone who played the game, since anything giving rewards is clearly pointed out ingame) could tell from the posts.

Oh, the class is indeed fun. But i have to agree it seems in a beta phase since its introduction. Turrets never worked right for example, and gadgets are still lackluster (especially due to the traits – the ones we haven’t got for them).
There are also some nonsensical bits – like not having a second weapon slot and having the main weapons weaker due to kits, while having them optional and with added costs involved – we still have to pay the utility slot after all. Making them also a mess to balance, as a build with just the main weapon and utilities should be equal in strength to a build with the main weapon and three kits (ok, four if we count the med kit as well).
Also, there seems to be more focus on kits than on the actual class mechanic, even balance wise – we have a total of three traits (two of which are minor ones) related to the toolbelt itself, and a lot more for kits (often affecting single utilities, even in grandmaster slots, unlike any other class).
Overall, it would seem like our balance relies on kits being treated as our primary mechanic, but since it isn’t it lacks the advantage of the primary mechanic – that is, being always available.
Something that makes as much sense as giving light armor to warriors because they can use endure pain, or giving them reducing stats cause they could increase them with banners, or making them lose hp every second because they may use the healing signet to regain them. Yep, that’s how we are balanced regarding to kits.

Romo.3709:

And this is a perfect example for what I was referring to.

Example of what? I’m not the one feeling entitled for a reward that doesn’t exist, and neither was ever supposed to exist.
This isn’t a matter of “If you get something that I won’t get then I’d rather have us both get nothing”. Because you weren’t supposed to get anything to begin with. Rather, you’re feeling entitled to get something that any others can’t get anymore, where no one should have ever got nothing.
Also, we’re OT, so i’ll just stop the conversation here. It isn’t like there is much to say, anyway.

Barrage isn’t an autoattack, though.
Flame jet is – thus the attack we would be supposed to use a lot as we’ve got just a single other damaging attack in the kit (especially since we were supposed to stay in the kit when using the juggernaut trait – that gave a stability-like effect with reduced movement speed as a downside first, but was later changed to 200 toughness while in the kit and might every 3s).
And finding yourself unable to use the autoattack cause it hurts yourself more than the damage you deal to the enemy can be quite annoying. Especially since both sigils and foods have got internal cooldowns, so only traits remain (not that powerful to begin with, anyway).

That logic is the one of the devs – i’m not the one that decided to categorize kits that way.
And indeed the tool kit is categorized as a weapon kit (albeit a sort of mace/shield one; and obviously a shield gets to have defensive uses too). It would also have the additional use of turret healing, if only turrets were decent enough.
And at least it doesn’t hurt yourself more than the enemy with the autoattack if an enemy has got retaliation (also, presently, is the only melee non-aoe weapon we’ve got).

Incendiary powder was also the only decent universal adept trait of that tree though.
And saying that people that spent 10 points there could just spend points elsewhere is implicitely accepting that fact: there is nothing else worthwhile in that slot.

But well, it was something that was pointed out in the patch thread, and still got ignored.

Edited (i had written “power” instead of “points”).

Not even the first three servers have equal coverage, though.
The problem is always the same – night coverage making battles onesided.
Until it gets solved – if it will ever be solved – the ones on top will always be the ones no one wants to fight.
And the ones without night coverage that fight them will always be the scapegoat servers that will lose by default – getting impossible fights so that other ones can get the fair ones.
For that reason, i’m not even trying to fight. It is useless to fight when you already know you will lose. I call unconditional surrender on these fights, and just avoid WvsW (unless i need some skins, then i just log on the borderland, get them and return to Lion’s Arch).
Others can try to fight. Good luck for them. But personally, i won’t spend my time on an assured failure.

Sincerely, a piken citizen.

Estriella Faerie.4029:

Manuhell.2759:

Constructive ideas (like, how to make a good leaderboard), instead, would be useful.

I did that in my post. There’s only one way to make a good leaderboard, all the others that were discussed in the fractured subforum were no good. If this way isn’t used, it’s better to not have leaderboard, than to have a leaderboard recording wrong things (like who paid the most to get AR the fastest).

Indeed, the one that was supposed to be implemented would have been terrible. Regarding your suggestion, i think that even putting infinite levels and tracking the max level would present a problem you later mention in your post: that is, some professions would be excluded from the higher levels. Albeit, imho, there isn’t a real solution about that unless all the classes are properly balanced pve wise.
And tracking about time, as you said, would present the problem given by the different lengths of the fractals.
But what about the solution i proposed? By having a leaderboard per every level – as they present different challenges due to the various instabilities – and using a point system that properly differentiates between the fractals, but by still giving the same amount of points per fractal?
Doing so, even if used the time spent to complete fractals as a factor, it would account for the different lengths. And other factors could be taken in account as well – be it deaths, being downed or other things.

Obviously the strength comes from being able to stack large burn duration with the toolbelt and the #4 skill (on the assumption that people will stay above a thin strip of fire and that we haven’t got anything else to deal burning, like a second pistol or a fire bomb or rocket boots or a master trait or a sigil and i’m probably forgetting something else), its control, and the respectable burst from the only other direct damaging skill apart from the autoattack.
Then you swap out from this weapon kit (despite it being supposed to be used as a weapon, as the category would imply) to get another offensive kit (probably a device kit like bomb kit or grenade kit, that aren’t categorized as weapon kits but work as better weapons than the weapon kits).
Sure, it all makes sense.

Halcyon.7352:

TL;DR – I know it’s tempting to want to autoattack #1 in every situation in GW2, but just don’t do it against a counter to it, and then complain that a weapon skill is broken.

We’re talking about an autoattack and one of the only two direct damaging skills of the kit. On a weapon that it is also supposed to be used constantly with certain traits like juggernaut – else you won’t benefit from the extra toughness and might stacks.
Whose “counter” is a boon easily stackable as an area buff. That can hurt you more than the damage you dealt to the enemies. On a skill that is supposed to be used to attack multiple enemies, and yet becomes more deadly for the user if there are multiple enemies.

I would say that something is indeed wrong.

Actually, people did get all they were supposed to get for getting high levels in fractals.

That is, absolutely nothing. Because there was no reward and it was never supposed that there would be a reward for fractal level (be it achievement, titles, items or even just a recognization – fractal level isn’t even displayable ingame outside of being in a party with another player and going to the entrance).

Asking to introduce retroactive rewards for content that was going to be removed was simply absurd. There weren’t even achievement related to high fractal level – the whole fractal of the mist subsection could be completed at personal fractal level 3.

It would have made as much sense as putting retroactively a reward for doing the mad king’s clock tower 400 times during the last halloween or completing tribulation mode without using dodges, on the assumption that it was difficult for everyone who did it, even if there was nothing that pointed the players toward doing it apart from the intrinsic rewards of those activities.

And while i agree that the leaderboard they were planning to introduce are terrible, complaining about the release won’t help. Constructive ideas (like, how to make a good leaderboard), instead, would be useful.
And i’ve already given some ideas about that in my other post in the thread.

Miltek.2104:

@Manuhell
Guardian’s spirit weapons are also crappy and buggy…

I wasn’t saying that others have been more lucky – i was referring about how often turrets are treated differently without reason (like the patch that increased pve hp of many “minions”, but not turrets).

Considering that the completed paths should already be flagged in some way, wouldn’t it be possible to change the “suggested location” part (whose usefulness could be debated…i mean, the dungeon locations aren’t exactly a mystery) in the dungeon achievements in a " paths to complete" list?
Or even just a “suggested path” that just puts the first path not done yet in that dungeon would help.

And should you target any single people in a group before attacking to see how many of them have retaliation?
Funny how an attack that is supposed to be used versus multiple enemies (low damage, relatively big cone radius, up to 3 targets) is so counterproductive versus multiple targets (especially due of how easy is to get retaliation).

We indeed asked for them to attack our targets. What we hadn’t asked for is a buggy implementation of it that continues to change target while not attacking anything.

I wonder if they shouldn’t just scrap the whole turret category and implement something else entirely. After all, they don’t seem interested to fix them anyway – many bugs are there since more than six months ago (and some probably since the launch). Not to talk about the different treatment between them and the “minions” of the other classes…

Indeed, seems i based that analysis on wrong informations. It makes more sense now, especially for a minor trait. Guess i will see them personally next time.

Regarding the shield, i still think that they nerfed it heavily. And considering the other shield skills in the game, saying it is the best one isn’t a great compliment anyway…

Carighan.6758:

I like how everyone talks about the bomb heals as if the whole point isn’t to heal the group with them. Why anyone would ever take that trait for personal healing is well beyond me and really… should the trait just get an all-caps “PARTY SUPPORT TRAIT”? Isn’t it obvious enough as is?

The trait currently dishes out ~3x the healing of the warrior signet, and actually scales better than the _active_component. All you have to do is use it with other players around. But since the entire premise of the trait is group support, it makes no sense to talk about it in single target situations.

(This is similar to talking about Mortar in open-field combat, which it is clearly not meant to be used in. That much is obvious. Difference is that Mortar is meh even in its ideal use case, while healing bombs is actually pretty powerful.)

We should talk of the downsides as well, though.
For starters, it is a grandmaster trait that works on a single utility – thus we’re spending half, or more than half of the points if we also get the reduced recharge and increased radius, on a single utility. And we are the only class that has got grandmaster traits working on single utilities.
Also, bombs are an hybrid weapon. The autoattack is a power one, but the other skills are conditions. Thus we’ll either lose on the autoattack or on the other skills by going cleric or apothecary (or we can achieve a middle ground – but that goes for healing power as well – with celestials).
By working only with bombs, this also forces us in melee combat (and as we lack means of reliable protection and our vigor got nerfed, it puts us at risk). In the meantime the damage we’re doing is probably negligible, if we are using cleric or apothecary equipment.
The healing itself is also a sustained one, so if we don’t go in melee, we don’t heal – unlike other forms of burst healing like traited shouts.
As we specialized mostly on healing bombs, even using traited grenades from a distance won’t do much (again, hybrid damage and low critical chance/damage). I say traited grenades cause we’re already using the first tree, so it would even synergize a bit as far as trait go.
Basically, by dealing low damage we’re making the enemies live longer…thus all that sustained healing is needed just to overcome a problem caused by ourselves.
In the end, it would be more beneficial to not get healing power at all, use just the healing power got from the trait tree and just kill the enemy. You don’t heal much, but at least you aren’t weighting the party down.
And this is a textbook example of a trait designed for pvp becomes near useless due to how pve works.
Oh, fine when you just have to stay on a point and survive. When you’re supposed to kill something, it doesn’t work that well.

And yet you conveniently forget that even at the first level that trait is still healing more than our backpack regen.
Also, we are often in kits because our main weapons are designed to be lackluster because we can use kits (as for last december balance philosophies – and since we haven’t got any others after that, we should assume they are still true). Still, they are optional and cost us utility slots, but we aren’t forced to use them. If a full turret build was viable, it would have no use for that trait. Same for a full gadget or full elixir. Whereas those warrior traits are always in use.

also, engis are so strong that the class is one of the least used. And unlike guardians and warriors, i never see lfg asking for engineers.
Maybe there are other classes being too strong, then.

Oh, the good old “you can’t compare between different classes” excuse.
After all, it isn’t like we are most often on the losing side of these comparisons and one of the least played classes after all.
Oh, wait, we are.
And as for the example above, we find ourselves with major traits (that aren’t even always working – it requires a kit being used) that are even weaker than passive minor traits (even in the worst case). And that’s without considering both armor and base health – something that, in the opposite case, would even have made sense.

Imho, it should be a sort of point system, with a leaderboard per every fractal level.
Something like:
Any fractal can give up to 100 points as long as the group is below a certain time threshold, different per fractal type and eventually even per level. If above said threshold, the points begin tickling down to a base reward.
There could be additional modifiers as well – points per enemies defeated, for example (something that would be applied to non-respawning ones) and points detracted when party members get defeated or downed (a full wipe already lenghten the time to complete, so it is bad enough by itself).
As long as any fractal in the same tier gives the same maximum amount of points – thus the score isn’t rng dependant per se – it is all fine and well.

Heh, they could even give additional rewards based on the score obtained, assuming they’re balanced well enough.

I would have agreed before the change, but now it is an epitome of redundancy.
You stun any enemy for a second while in use; and still, you can’t do anything to those enemies while you are blocking…so their stun will likely end before the skill expires; sure, you can throw it when the enemy is stunned – but then you are trading a stun for a daze – or do that when the shield is going to end – something that is useful mostly to remove defiant stacks, imho. Assuming you’ll even get the second hit, since now it destroys itself due to walls (or even due to the ground) quite often.

Whereas before it would end by itself on a successful block, and you had 2s of stun where you would be free to act – without losing anything, since you weren’t already blocking anymore. Or you would have thrown it directly, if you just wanted the daze.
No redundancy, no “cancel your own skill to make use of its effects”.

Frankly, i think they just wanted to nerf it due to pvp, and they have redesigned it to mask the nerf. But then, in actual use, i find quite hard to justify the change. Maybe just when escaping from many enemies (something the tool kit shield does better, anyway).

Xyonon.3987:

When you trait for the pistol it becomes very viable due the line damage and bonuses, if not, then you are using kits anyway. I see no problem there.

Guess we have different standards for “viability” then, cause it seems quite underwhelming to me – apart from being the only weapon we’ll have equipped in a similar case, due to not having a second weapon slot (and that’s just cause we may use kits, as if giving a fixed penalty for something optional even makes sense).
Especially since most of our main weapon traits are fragmented into multiple (usually mutually exclusive) weapon traits.

Xyonon.3987:

Pistol 1 sux but thats ok since it’s a “1” skill, gap filler.

Actually, that’s quite bad. In a kitless build – something that should be viable as well, as kits are optional – the autoattack is used quite a lot, as the other weapon skills will be inevitably on cooldown quite often (especially since we would have a single weapon).
And they can’t just make the other skills more powerful – that would make kits build even better, as they can just use them and switch back.
So if they want to beef up the pistol, the main way to do that is make the autoattack better – as a mean of increasing our sustained dps.

Carighan.6758:

Oh, I just checked. You’re right, #4 and #5 indeed list themselves as being Elixirs. (#2 doesn’t)
As such, it is indeed weird that the traits don’t work with them. Or rather, that they list the tag (because elixir traits are strong enough as-is).

Mh, you’re right, Elixir F isn’t labeled as an elixir. Guess i got confused by the name, and remembered wrong.
Anyway, those skills were always labeled as elixir since the launch of the game, so we aren’t talking about some recent change.

And it wouldn’t even be that strange for elixirs traits to work with them. I mean, it is called elixir gun after all, and all but the autoattack directly reference elixirs.
Sure, having two traits reducing recharge could be a problem (still, they could just make the elixir trait reduce elixir gun skills by 10% instead of 20%). But it would also give more sense to traits like acidic elixirs (heh, making it work with super elixir wouldn’t be so bad).

Seeing as infusion slots are properly different in number between one and two handed weapons, i can’t think of anything that wouldn’t already permit doing so.

Because we have no main weapon that isn’t based on projectiles, i would say. Oh, sure, those kits you mention are nice and all…but still, they are kits, not main weapons.
We are basically forced to slot a specific utility just because there is no other way to deal with enemies that can naturally reflect projectiles.
We should have at least a choice in using a melee or a projectile main weapon. Like any other class.

#2,#4 and #5 are labelled as “Elixir” on the tooltip, actually. Thus…they are indeed elixir abilities.
And one would be right to expect elixir traits working with them, if only for coherency.

Still, our main weapons are mainly projectile weapons. Thus any build that doesn’t include kits won’t do much versus enemies that reflect projectiles (like earth elementals, for example).
Again, it would seem like kits were designed as the primary mechanic, but still lacking the innate availability (as in, being always available) of the primary mechanic.

The first incoming condition – whatever it is, be it a single stack of bleeding, five of confusion or 10s of burning – gets converted; other stacks of the same conditions already applied aren’t affected.

And i’ve been saying it was terrible since the change was proposed, anyway. Cause we have no control upon it, and it isn’t a sort of passive condition defense unlike before.

I still can’t understand why we even need a backpack to make others see we’re using a certain weapon. I mean, it isn’t like warriors have giant greatswords on their back when they’re already using a greatsword. And neither thieves have a luggage of daggers and pistols behind them when they have said weapons in hand.
And it isn’t like our weapons aren’t recognizable enough. Elixir gun, tool kit and flamethrower are quite recognizable already. Bombs can be seen on the terrain when used, as well as grenades in midair (and it isn’t like seeing a backpack would help much – either he’s facing the enemy to launch said grenades, or he’s launching the grenades directly behind him, so one would recognize them anyway).
Even then, they could just put a bomb in one hand and a bag of bombs in another for the bomb kit, and put a proper grenade launcher for the grenade kit (come on, the whole “my hands can launch things farther than a rifle or pistol” is kinda absurd).
And apply the effects of the equipped legendary to them.

Edit: oh, right, i forgot the med kit. Assuming one even needs to know about that, mh, a first aid kit would be enough, imho.

digiowl.9620:

Manuhell.2759:

NevirSayDie.6235:

I’m not saying that those traits justify having other sub-par GM traits, just that we need to stop implying that other professions are more favored than engineers.

I don’t need to imply anything – i’m stating a fact. No other class has got grandmaster traits affecting single utility skills.

I fear that ANet’s logic is that this is a kit, and so a weapon on par with a greatsword. It does after all provide us with 6 bomb themed skills (5 weapon, 1 toolbelt).

All in all I suspect they never intended tri-kit builds to have a optimal trait selection.

Even if we had to count them as a weapon, there is a single grandmaster trait apart from the engineer’s ones affecting a single weapon – Lingering Curse.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lingering_Curse

Yet, we still have no second weapon slot, we must still spend utilities for them and we are still balanced in the assumption we will use them. Also, it isn’t like they’re real weapons: they’re balanced for sustained use, with no bursts or particular effects (for example, we have no evades) and putting the bulk of the direct damage on the autoattacks.
Basically, even our only advantage – being able to swap between them, thus cycling between the skills with cooldowns – is greatly neutered by design.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Not every GM trait in the game is awesomely powerful, it’s true. I’d wager a fair sum that elixir-infused bombs is more useful than the Guardian grandmaster that increases their condition damage. Or that makes virtue of justice into an AoE instead of a single-target. Yes, there is a GM trait that affects one skill.

13% power to condition damage in the power trait tree. With a class that can use that condition damage via burning just using its class mechanic. Mediocre, maybe, but not that bad.
And the other trait mentioned affects the class mechanic too, not just a simple skill – unlike our trait, it is always in effect, whatever weapon you are using.
And we’re talking about an area burning every five attacks, as it works on the passive effect of the virtue.

NevirSayDie.6235:

I’m not saying that those traits justify having other sub-par GM traits, just that we need to stop implying that other professions are more favored than engineers.

I don’t need to imply anything – i’m stating a fact. No other class has got grandmaster traits affecting single utility skills.

NevirSayDie.6235:

The patch note preview was very clear that the healing power scaling was being increased. It’s already a massive heal considering it’s spammable, aoe, and bombs are a good kit even without the trait.

And at the same time it is a grandmaster trait, working on a single utility, that requires constant and sustained use of said kit to actually have some concrete benefit from it (as it basically heals the same for every bomb, toolbelt included).

Whereas any other class gets grandmaster traits working on entire categories of utilities…

Also, i would add another problem in its design. It is supposed to give a big heal when you’re about to die, with a rather large cooldown. This also means we must avoid using it until the last moment – thus having the heal skill on uptime, while we are seriously damaged.
But then isn’t it more convenient to use one of the other skills – some have half the base cooldown of that – and just heal to get back to our max hp when it is needed, putting it on cooldown and, as it has got a faster recharge, having it ready for another good healing if we ever get in danger?

And at the same time they’re near useless versus NPCs, thus any pve content. So, would that mean they need very heavy buffs?
They should redesign the whole system. Anything less than that will cause balancing issues – as the ones already present.

The old skins are nice, but i would have liked something new too. Especially since they still lack many weapon types.

Imho, there are multiple issues. One is that we’ve got a single trait per gadgets, so at most we can have a cooldown reduction (and considering the high cooldown, it is appreciated anyway).A second issue is that neither that or the toolbelt provide condition cleanses, so we’ll have to rely on other utilities. And i consider the reward to be too low for the risk involved, considering also the cooldown, cast time and how easy is to spot its activation.

Jet Glider – while channeled, glide in a straight line knocking back enemies and dealing moderate damage (you’re basically flying during this period of time). When the channel ends, you begin dropping down and crash with the floor, in an explosion dealing a good amount of damage. This overrides normal fall damage.

Toolbelt: Lateral propulsion – use the jets to evade attacks (3/4s evade)

I’m mostly a PvE player and i did the meta achievement for the mini dolyak. I got it, thus i’m fine. But unless they put something different in the second season, i doubt i’ll do it again. I don’t need a caravan of those, after all.

Imho, they were using a cleric amulet in the stream. A soldier amulet wouldn’t have had that few hp. Anyway, we’ll see next week.

You’re not the only one tired of having this match again.
And i’m from Piken.
Guess i’ll avoid doing WvsW for the week.

Imho, if there will be many people, it will be due to the new healing skills and some new info about class balancings.
Anyway, regarding questions…

-Are there peculiar differences about how the different races celebrate Wintersday? It was primarily an human tradition, after all…and the other races may have adapted the festivities in their own way.
-Any chance of a combat-useable santa hat?
-Shall there be new weapons obtainable ingame (as in – not with gems) related to Wintersday?
-Does feasting with a roasted quaggan on the eve of Wintersday bring luck and fortune during the new year?
-Is this content Scarlet-free?