Underwater combat would be fine if we could harpoon someone to finish them once downed.
You now have to evaluate if it is worth it to run things for the utility vs build synergy. This is a good change, as before you could have your cake and eat it too; your guardian bunker may not make good use of the staff, except for moving to a new point but gave up nothing for that option. Now you’ll have to make a hard tactical choice in sending players without certain mobility options as well as actually run balanced teams. Its like side-decking in MTG, you can’t do it during the game, but you can do it before. Make some inferences, plan accordingly, and work with it. That is far more skill than keeping your inventory open to swap weapons around.
One thing people need to remember is that balance isn’t always ubiquity. Each profession has a different downstate that brings something different to the table. Alone that might seem terrible, but in teamplay its a different story.
Fun fact about power shoes: it means you travel the same speed out of combat in combat, without swiftness. There is a reason its a master trait, mainly this lets you kite things really easily, even without swiftness.
But its nice in team fights, heck its nice in pve. Honestly I like the engineer downstate were it is. Maybe if throw junk was confusion/bleed that would be better but honestly I wouldn’t want anything else to be changed.
I would like the toolbelt skills for the turrets to have shorter cool downs when the turret isn’t deployed. They are just prohibitively long and prevent a few odd ball builds were you carry turrets with the plan of rarely deploying them. Is it needed? no, but it would at least be fun.
I wanna see the flamethrow be changed a bit to be more usable.
The balance will never be perfect, but can be pretty good, right now I would say balance is ok.
Somethings clearly are not attractive enough options for people to play them, same with some traits and that hampers builds. Some builds are excessively strong in some aspects and should be adjusted to be more balanced across the board. As the game ages what those things are will change and hopefully the respective list becomes smaller.
Bugfixes, and hopefully some burst toned down so we can get a more diverse/interesting meta in tournies.
New or revamped traits, and maybe some weapon skill changes/improvements.
I still kill people with izerker since the new delay before it swings screws up people’s dodges and lets you compress another attack in the same time.
The thing about illusionary berserker is even though it may not do the same absurd damage it did prior, to the bug fix, it still is amazing because it sets up for a shatter nicely since you cripple the target, and the phantasm is right there.
Phase retreat can be used while under CC effects, but is not a stun break and doesn’t break stun.
Arcane thievery is sometimes glitchy, sometimes you can fire it off without anything happening. This generally occurs if the enemy moves off to the side of you (not behind cover). It seems thievery is treated as an invisible projectile and thus sometimes has problems with the environment.
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Certain specs even 6 secs ;-)
What really blows my mind is that you get to 8secs by speccing the insane amount of 5+ into illusions… for every other class that would be a GM trait …It’s staffs only gap opener. Not to mention it’s buggy and doesn’t teleport in the right direction half the time and is a short distance.
We have to get out of 100 blades + root SOMEHOW.
8 second cd is far too low for what this ability can do. It seems out of balance when compared to utilities that people have to select in order to get the same functionality.
Agreed. The only weapon ability with this sort of functionally is the thief’s infiltrator strike, which while bugged (it doesn’t break stun properly) does warp you back, but is a stunbreak. Phase retreat shouldn’t be off global cool down while CC’ed, it never has been a stun break or had those properties prior. I think its currently bugged.
As a mesmer you have no shortage of ways to avoid hundred blades, distortion, blink, stuns, dazes, and stealth are all available among other things.
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No, if you want a moba game you have plenty of other options. The game may need some things, but this isn’t one of them.
For an example of a game balanced around the unskilled: Candy Land, it doesn’t matter how often you’ve played, it is random if you win.
Well, that’s taking it to an extreme. People just don’t want to get stomped constantly such that they feel thay are terrible and are making no progress.
A scoring system that accurately reflected a player becoming steadily more competent, even in small increments, would be great in that regard.
I agree and think they are working on some things in that regard.
People will always try to score as high as possible if score is available. Its a simple part of human nature. The flipside is if defending points was more rewarding, people would bunker more.
I think the “skirmisher” points need to go. I’m not sure why they were added to begin with, but they encourage people to fight off the point, rather than on it.
Or do this instead: display all of the stat information for each player at the end of the match, rather than score. Then you can see who was defending, ect. Global Agenda did this. Bringing up the score board didn’t have a single score metric but showed: heals, damage, objective (points for being on point, point capture), support (buffs and team boost), kills, deaths, and devices destroyed, for all the players.
I would love to see things like "npcs kills, buffed secured, boons given, conditions removed, heals, damage, points captured/defended/ contested, and so on on the score board for other players.
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Mesmers have more than shatter burst with sword/pistol + staff as viable builds. Shatter burst just has a level of extreme effectiveness that isn’t matched by the alternatives. Greatsword (yes I’ll go there, since I play a GS mes) is still alright, staff bunker is still solid. Scepter needs some serious help (its getting better though).
Fixing elements that lead to degenerate play is part of fixing the class, and its not like all changes happen in some magical vacuum were stuff is changed to just suck. Things like functionality changes have, and will continue to happen.
I don’t like the feel of DN combat after playing GW2. DN is more like tekken to me and how it plays. GW2 feels more like ssbm.
I could never see why the issue of new players getting rocked being such a big deal. That is in effect balance, the person with more skill wins. If you don’t want to get rocked, you get better at the game and beat people with your superior ability. If you don’t have that kind of motivation you shouldn’t be playing in a competitive format. For an example of a game balanced around the unskilled: Candy Land, it doesn’t matter how often you’ve played, it is random if you win.
Ideally to ease players into competitive formats and prevent complete stomps that leave some feeling demoralized you have bracketing to keep players in pools of those with a similar level of experience. Using the current system to join matches based on rank works fairly well until you get somewhat deep into ranks at this point in time. At that point your rank is so high is becomes all but impossible for you to find a match with that function, because the pool of high ranked players is so much smaller than those with lower ranks. The option then is to play in tournaments because they are more competitive.
You can turn while standing in place to track people while you frenzy, I’ve done that myself. I’ve never had it auto follow for me though.
They could do it like keg brawl and the holiday games; just give everyone the same skill set related to the game. Then you don’t have to do any extra balance work.
On another note, they should let you select keg brawl from the mist, just for fun.
Why would you remove it? quickness is what this game is all about we dont want no slow motion stuff here…..
Because without quickness skills can be raised in both damage, activation/ channel speed/ and function without resulting in game breaking combos. Stuff like pistolwhip and 100 blades can be gasp non gimmicky skills.
Don’t look at it in a vacuum, look at the bigger picture here, removing quickness allows for other things to be boosted to compensate.
“every 8 seconds”
To clarify the statement cause either some people are deliberately missing the point, or just fail at reading comprehension. Every 8 seconds (if traited) you have 2 seconds of blur (evade everything). That is a significant amount of damage mitigation if used well.
The problem isn’t: the fact you can’t damage the mesmer or the damage blurred frenzy does.
The problem is you can’t do anything control wise to the mesmer. Distortion is a powerful ability but it has a lengthy cool down and needs a resource. The blur on blurred frenzy does not. The skill is better for flat out avoiding things than actually doing damage. That’s a problem because it lends a fair amount of survivability to a build that would otherwise be fragile and when combined with other mechanics makes it over the top.
No one here is calling for the sword (or even mesmers) to be nerfed into the ground, what people are asking for is some balance. If that means toning down one thing and raising other aspects, that’s fine and in fact something that should happen.
I wish the toolbelt skills for some of the turrets (rocket and thumper really) were lower on the base, they seem way too high for what they do.
I absolutely love seeing a warrior bull rush me in spvp because I find its the easiest class to tear to pieces. Learn to cc and add more tough/vit and you’ll be just fine.
Unless he has a rifle and knows how to use it. In which case I hope you packed some vasoline.
@ OP. Engineers are more fun than warriors IMO and are capable at doing most things at least at a mediocre level, we are kings of CC above all else.
But saying that, if you want something that’s easy to play, will do more damage than anything an engineer can do with 2 buttons alone and generally have a far easier time wrecking people then warrior is definitely the way to go.
And yes from a PvE perspective warriors are straight up better than engineers, but that is true for pretty much every class compared to a warrior in a PvE scenario.
edit: Not being able to kill mobs your own level tells me there is something off about your playstyle or something. Make sure you are using kits a lot as our main weapons do pretty bad damage and are more used for utility.
You don’t even need the rifle for warriors with all the stun breaks, blinds, and the shield. Or you could just dodge. You can also roll without kits and still do solid damage, the rifle hits like a truck, and the pistol(s) is some of the best condition spam in the game.
Engineer is so much fun. Somehow it feels like a more diverse class than any other. Just because you have so many things that can work togheter.
Turrets are fun also. But sadly in dungeons they get destroyed to quickly.
I find it really hard to enjoy other professions because I’m used to having a lot of utility built in. That and I love the rifle.
Harpoon gun has always been amazing, lol.
Engineers have one of the best downstates for teamfights. Sometimes people its not all about you. But hey, with that self res from elixir r you can just get up with those soothing vapors.
It was bad durring beta when skills 1 and 3 did no damage for the most part, it was impossible to rally of a kill in pve with it. It is now just fine.
A big part of playing engineer effectively is positioning yourself correctly in the fight.
From my personal experience its mesmers with the staff, even non bunker, tend to be the hardest to kill. Chaos armor and chaos storm are very strong due to their double swing of the mesmer getting many defensive boons, and the attacker getting conditions.
BF is extremely powerful but it’s also more or less necessary to make the mesmer class viable in pvp. I would actually like to see BF nerfed but only if other weapons and skills are made more viable to compensate. Right now sword feels 100% mandatory in PVP because BF is so powerful and so necessary to how the mesmer class works.
Its not needed but it is so strong as it seems sub optimal to not take it. That is a problem. The damage is lower that it was (it used to hit over 5k without glass cannon builds) but the damage isn’t the problem, its the total immunity that is. Making it like endure pain (take no damage from attacks, instead of evading all attacks) would be better than how it is cause at least if you could still hit the mesmer you could punish a player for just throwing it out there without a care and encourage healthier meta.
I’m all for buffing other offensive aspects to mesmers, it would help promote build diversity, and some weapons really do need the help, like the scepter.
I laughed when I read about a warrior not getting anything done without quickness, cause that isn’t true at all.
Quickness needs to go, it just makes skills that are otherwise not an issue a problem. Re-balancing without it around would be simpler and allow for some more interesting and useful skills.
It takes 4s to neutralize a point. Just wanna put that out there.
Is stolen fear broken? No, cause stun breaks exist for this reason.
Is stolen fear kinda silly considering its better than any fear a necro has? Yes, at least in beta doom was aoe. But necro’s have multiple fear sources.
Blurred frenzy doesn’t actually hit that hard on its own, normally around 3k or so. The immunity on a short cool down is really what makes it good since it makes the attack risk free. You can just swing into anything, and even if you miss you still can’t be punished outside of someone spacing. And yes, you can even count it as a 2 second block on a 10 second cool down, which is just silly when you realize how much damage you can avoid with it if you use it as one.
I would rather have blurred frenzy not root mesmers and grant protection for its duration. At least make it function like endure pain, you ignore damage but still subject to the effects of skills.
The fixes for glass cannon mesmers could be toning down some of it’s defensive elements, and maybe doing something about mental torment. Getting 20% extra damage is a pretty big deal, especially with it being an adept trait. The other issue is how illusionary persona lets you get 4 clone shatters, when maybe shatters need to only go up 3 max.
Its not an easy problem to solve because the damage individually isn’t high from any one part, but the combined damage and the difficulty in avoiding it, along with the low risk, makes it troublesome.
I’ve had other games I’ve played outright ruined by #3. People already try to stack as it is at times, it doesn’t need to be easier.
Its to balance sirens call. Since trident clones cause confusion, its easily stack able. If it did the same damage it did on land it would be overpowered because no one would be able to fight back.
Evasive purity, evasive arcana (10s for each spell triggered), and fleet of foot have a 10s cool down. Uncatachable, power of inertia, expeditious dodger, and companions defense all last for a really short time (2s).
Only soft if you build soft, it is entirely possible to have great survivability.
Engineers are amazing support. You can save lives and make things easier with your plethora of knock backs, combo fields, solid damage, fantastic rezing ability, and minor heals.
Engineer isn’t obvious, and really does take a lot of thought and skill to get the most usage and fun out of because they have so much utility packed into the skills they get.
The only profession that really sucks when it comes to swiftness is mesmers, but they can steal it with arcane thievery. It is hilariously awesome to watch a warrior pop signet of rage then steal 30s of fury, might, and swiftness. Or take the lengthy stability boon off a ranger who uses rampage as one.
Honestly though it isn’t a game breaker due to the nature of combat. Cripple is a fairly common condition that’s easy to inflict, and hampers you even with swiftness, chill is harsher. Leaps and gap closers exist, such as pulls. Differences in mobility are part of what make each profession play uniquely and how they approach combat.
The first time this happened to me when I was playing necro: “wow, didn’t know I had that in me.”
In all seriousness though, they should swap stolen fear with doom. Would love to hear about that on the forums. At least they fixed the bug were you could do a 20s fear with it.
If it’s the sword + pistol/ staff build based on shatter, I would say yes.
Greatsword builds have never been crazy strong since beta one and are pretty balanced overall. Most of the mesmer’s problematic builds have stemmed from the staff, such as staff bunkers, and the shatter build.
For a list of reasons why the shatter build is so hard to play against:
Shatters outside of distortion animate the same until the clones pop. You have to notice which one is headed your way by looking for the shatter animation the mesmer makes due to illusionary persona.
Shatters can be used at any time and cannot be interrupted.
The shatter combo for the main damage can be used every 10-12s, meaning even if they whiff the first, they don’t have to wait long to try again. The build is one of the few burst builds that actually becomes more dangerous the longer the fight progresses thanks to the fact it can stack might, and put large amounts of vulnerability on a target.
The build takes advantage of the mesmer’s innate defensive ability though use of distortion to avoid damage, and diversion to interrupt key skills.
The staff is a very powerful defensive weapon. Between phase retreat, chaos armor, and chaos storm it can be difficult to pin down the mesmer or effectively engage them. Staff clones are dangerous thanks to the random burning they inflict. It easily protects a mesmer while they prepare to shatter again.
Illusionary leap > swap is awkward to avoid. Since destroying the clone doesn’t prevent swap, and swap immobilizes in an area. Immobilize means you can’t dodge, requiring invulnerability, or condition removal with stability. Condition removal on its own tends to fail cause the mesmer will diversion to prevent it.
Blurred frenzy may not deal absurd damage like it used to, but it is still amazing since it can be used to simply avoid counter attacks. A mesmer who is shattering a teammate literally cannot be stopped from doing so. This means that the burst is safe, no risk taken.
If anything should be changed, its probably the staff (needs a rework), and illusionary leap + swap, since the immobilize forces you to eat the shatter damage. Other shatter builds, such as greatsword shatter may be powerful, but the damage is at least reasonably avoidable.
They need to move them to the top of the list so you can easily get full games in them.
It isn’t hard to deal with, that isn’t the problem. The problem is you can’t stand on the point for a prolonged period of time thanks to the caltrops being there. Normally aoe is limited in duration or size, caltrops last for a good time with good coverage. It needs to not pulse as often, not last as long, or be smaller.
While you wait for a fix you could just play around the current state by drawing attention away from the summon, then using it.
Not everybody plays a shatter build.
Seriously, i stopped playing after i see the patch notes. With every patch there comes a new bug for mesmer, as if they never even spend 1 minute testing the changes at all.
There are just some things you cannot iron out until they go live due to the differences of the internal test server, and live server.
I was wondering how long it was gonna take people on the forums to realize this is a problem.
Yes caltrops is too strong, it offers too much point control on too short a cool down. Same reason smoke bomb was absurd was that pulsed continuously, caltrops needs a shorter pulse to bring it in line.
Ogre rifle actually looks kinda like that.
Norn rifle, pirate rifle, antique musket are all boom stick style rifles.
Well, I wish Engineer had decent DPS outside of grenades. I don’t really enjoy doing all those double actions for one move all the time (and then my target/s move/s and I miss)
They do have good dps outside of grenades. Grenade spam was just more damage than the alternatives.
So tossing an auto when you have blindness to get rid of it, like a smart person is too much effort?
So scepter is a ranged weapon that you need to use at mele range to get it to do damage? The clones that spawn are still useless? Yea, that doesn’t sound in any way good to me still.
Yep, sounds about right. The attack speed mechanic on the scepter is unbelievably stupid.
Cept scepter clones spawn in prize shatter range and has synergy with things like crippling dissipation.