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So if I swap my rifle for a hammer in my build, it’s better, just because Hammer is better than Rifle? I can assure you it wouldn’t be better for me to do that. I lose quite a bit of things that the Hammer doesn’t give me and on the other hand, the hammer adds nothing to the build. What you have said makes no sense.
I mean, just because you don’t need to enhance a Hammer build doesn’t mean Rifle builds enhanced with kits is something that is ‘wrong’ that requires a buff. That’s just player preference; there is no right or wrong there. Like I said, Rifle as a ranged utility weapon complimented by kits isn’t a problem that needs to be fixed.
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So what is wrong with that though? Why would anyone think it’s not reasonable to supplement rifle with an additional weapon to achieve a very efficient build? Why is that something that needs to be fixed? That happens all the time with other classes and weapons. It’s actually NORMAL.
I stopped at where you imagine how these weapons are conceptualized to justify why you think is wrong with them. “75% good with kits” … that doesn’t even make sense. I can’t see any way to have a valid discussion with that, other than an equally vague retort: “100% good for things it’s designed to do”.
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Rifle used to be the #1 Engi PvP weapon. Pistol held its own too. These were good weapons. Why are they not used any more? Two words: power creep. They weren’t nerfed. HoT happened.
HoT introduced so many things that obsoleted vanilla weapons and builds as competitive options. They need to be competitive so that the game isn’t pure Pay to Win, for free to players as well as for some build diversity – something that the game used to have, but really doesn’t any more.
That’s a nice vague, catch-all you’ve provided as a reason but you need to be more specific … You’re saying that HoT all of the sudden made Rifle and FT go from good to not good, but all those power creepy things we got from HoT are a great benefit to those weapons as well. In fact, one of the traits in Scrapper is a DIRECT boost to FT. I mean, how is Rifle as PVP obsolete with HoT? Is there some special way hammer replaced it? I don’t think so.
So … unless you have a specific example, just throwing out key words like power creep and Pay to Win doesn’t really cut it. Your explanation makes no sense.
@Obtena
Maybe just play HoT and then come back to this thread to discuss it further.
HoT is a massive injection of powercreep. As critical as players are on the dev’s for ‘not knowing their own game enough to balance it’, I think HoT proves otherwise. Across the board, in 100% of the content, HoT classes and specializations where stronger than their free to play counter parts. This indicates dev’s are very aware of power level of the elements that make up a class, and also just how strong of an influence marketing/management has on game development. People will buy the new shiny because its stronger (mobile game market is absolutely swimming in pay-to-win right now), they may be mad about it being pay to win, but players will still buy it. HoT powercreep = more sales
I don’t need to play it to know that the meta changed when HoT was introduced. Again, I already talked about this … devs don’t chase meta just to keep people happy. It’s a fool’s errand. You choose the weapons that are appropriate for the given game element you want to play. If that’s not rifle/FT in PVP/WvW … well, don’t use them.
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I’m going to have to think REALLY hard for a reason that a PVP encounter isn’t included in the PVE section of the game.
How difficult or easy it might be has zero to do with whether or not Anet would introduce a replacement option to a pet.
Conceptually, they can’t remove the pet; because as they defined ranger, it has one. That’s not up for debate, or if you do, it’s completely academic … pets aren’t being removed; that’s just nonsense to even think such a thing. From what I can tell from the history and behaviour of the devs so far, the concept of the class they define is more important than what any players think can be done easily to change class concepts.
You have the option to ‘turn off’ pets so they don’t attack. It’s silly IMO, but you can. If playing a pet class bothers you, don’t play pet classes with pets you don’t like or want to play with.
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It’s hilarious to see you pet lovers are so terrified if Rangers had an option to be a petless class. Read: OPTION which simply means you could use pets as you always does OR stow it completely. But unlike Avoid Combat, Stowing a pet now gives you buffs/dps/cc of the pets u choose to stow. No one suggested to completely removed your fluffies lol.
Wait, you want the benefits of a pet, but you don’t want pets …oh just no then.
If people quit buying outfits and only bought armor, we’d have more armor and less outfits. I have bought exactly one outfit, and I regretted it.
Well, that’s assuming that people would pay an amount for armors that would give Anet similar profit margins to what they get for outfits. Remember, this is a business and outfits are part of the portfolio of products Anet sells to make money. It’s not about what people want, it’s about what people are willing to buy.
“at the expense of the PVE experience”
Wait.. how does fixing rifle for PvP hurt PvE? It doesn’t.
Well, I wouldn’t be so presumptuous because I can think of LOTS of changes that would hurt the rifle for PVE. That’s just a kittensure answer to dismiss my concerns about your statements and position.
You’re views on weapon balance do not reflect how the game works or is conceived, so it’s hard for anyone to look at what you’re proposing and support it. If you can’t comprehend and embrace that there are weapons that have purpose for each aspects of the game, then I don’t see much value in anything you would propose. It’s not inclusive.
If you don’t like how a weapon works in a certain game element, don’t use it. There are others you can choose from. I have still to see any place where someone explains what the motivation behind buffing these weapons in WVW/PVP would be. I mean, you’re going to ask Anet to allocate resources for this and this is ultimately a business decision for them to take on the work … and the best reason so for is “MOAR WEPONS PLZ” Well, GL with that.
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They may be useful but people have the right to dislike them no matter how useful they are. And in my opinion anet should have given the petless option from the very beginning of this game.
Yes, it might have been wise for Anet to have given the option from the beginning…but they didn’t and demanding a petless option now when it’s been a thing for four years is silly. Yes, people have the right to dislike the pets but that doesn’t make them any less unreasonable for asking for them to be removed now at this late date.
It also makes little sense to argue the semantics over whether the class should be called a Ranger or a Beastmaster. Meanings based on other fantasy series are mostly irrelevant because it’s…well, fantasy. Not everyone has the same imagination and not everyone is going to be happy with a particular chosen direction. Frankly, the safest course for Anet is what they have already done which is to give people options for a variety of playstyles across their classes and a fantastically easy leveling up experience. They haven’t locked bows to the pet class alone and you can literally make your character look like whatever you want them to via transmog.
Except nobody is asking for them to be removed. They’re asking for the option of not using them, and have been for the four years since the game launched. I’m sorry, but opposing options is irrational.
Well, this whole thread makes no sense then, because there is a button available for that … right beside the F3 button. You can toggle your pet from Guard to Avoid Combat. They do nothing when you do that.
I mean, if that’s all you want, you have it …
Yes, i understand your argument. It’s essentially saying that it doesn’t matter if PVE is trivialized at the expense of PVP and WvW, which is ridiculous. PVE is competitive, it’s just not against players, it’s against the game itself. There are weapons in every class for ALL aspects of the game … so their isn’t any logical reason to take the less suited PVP weapons and balance them to further bolster the currently suitable pvp/wvw weapons.
I get that PVP/WvW is a competition. That’s why you should use weapons that you can compete with in those areas of the game, which there are. If Rifle/FT aren’t good there, then use the weapons that are good. Again, don’t make it sound like Engi is hard done by because they have some weapons not well suited to PVP/WvW … every class has weapons like that, and I don’t think that’s an accident either. That logic you got going doesn’t make much sense.
I mean, you can argue that more competitive PVP environments need balance, which I agree with. You haven’t provided any compelling reason to push every single weapon choice towards being useful in that competitive environment. You even elude that even without this compelling reason, it should also be done at the expense of PVE balance. That’s so egregious.
I see there is little ground to gain here. You want more weapons for PVP, even though you have plenty, even at the expense of the PVE experience. I’m just glad Anet has more sense than this.
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So your argument is that PVE isn’t challenging so … who cares about balance in PVE? I don’t see the relation between what is challenging and what ‘deserves’ the balance points for stuff in the game. IMO, the balance point is where the majority of the players spend their time, not what is challenging. So you see, that’s why you need weapons that are balanced for ALL aspects of the game, not just the ones you think matter.
And to correct you, PVE has been increasing in challenge since Southsun. So if you’re argument is only challenging things need balance, I got some bad news for you …
You see, you won’t face other real players in PVE where their weapons are better than yours because you already know your not going to choose the weapons you know are bad. That’s a really insincere statement. It’s not like Rifle and FT are the only weapons available to you in PVP. If you’re just going to talk nonsense and make it sound like you have NO good weapons to bring to PVP/WvW, so Rifle/FT need buffs, I see little reason to continue this discussion.
^^ A reasonable, but likely generally dismissed option. People don’t like having to choose; they just want it all at their beckoned call.
Well, Anet doesn’t control raid leaders so that’s an unfair statement to make against them. Even if there was complete freedom, you’re not going to compel a raid leader to build a team however he sees fit. Nothing can be done about that …
… except provide raiding environments inclusive enough to give players choice so they don’t raid with ignorant raid leaders that exclude them. Do you see where I’m going with that? Dungeons deja vu … once people realized they could complete dungeons without the meta, they had little use for meta-only dungeon runs … same here.
I haven’t heard of an example where a boss was only completed with specific comps. Obviously that’s not the case with VG if it’s being low manned. If there are a few raids that do have some limitations, then it’s not likely to be addressed with class changes. Therefore, raid diversity was not killed by the class changes as the original poster claims; it’s killed by the specific raids design.
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That’s fair and true … and as we know in this game, not every weapon is appropriate for every game element. I would like to use rifle in PVP too and feel like everyone else but I think there are some dissenters here that are being really sensational about how FT and Rifle have NO place in the game.
The problem is that Anet made a bit of a lazy play not separating PVE and PVP elements sufficiently, so we suffer because of the shared skills. So while I think that it would be nice for FT/Rifle to be more useful in PVP elements, it can’t because the shared skills dictates that the actual balance between weapons on a given class has to be determined by effectiveness over the elements of the game, not between the weapons themselves.
The practical impact is that we have weapons that don’t fit certain elements well, perhaps at the expense of being very good in others. I think that’s what we have with Rifle and FT. Maybe if we had a dozen weapons, that would be less of a problem because Anet could make 4 of those weapons good for each element AND have different roles for each weapon within those elements too, but that’s a dream I think. It’s a shame, but it’s what it is.
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One of the few balance priorities this game gets good is the opportunity cost of travel movement vs fighting prowess: exploration and combat put over a scale, where the choice is yours. That is a really cruel, though and challenging choice, therefore, a meaningful, interesting and GREAT design choice.
Don’t forget that: flattening the speed all over the professions would only undermine variety, choices and, at the end, fun.
Let Guardians be “slow” if they must. They have a lot of movement skills to keep busy when traveling, and they are already a really strong profession. Don’t ruin it just to get an unbeatable combat build that will be boring and nerfed anyway.
This is the most excellent explanation I have seen on the topic. Thanks.
Frankly, I would rather have more interesting options available to ‘grapple’ with an opponent than I would a passive RS buff on a trait or a signet.
Having choices fixes bitter too … you don’t have to play the options you don’t like, you play the ones you do. That should make you feel good. Every class has choices people don’t like. They don’t play them, they are happy people.
Anyways, it’s clear Rifle and FT aren’t choices for you, they are for other people. No reason to be angry about that.
“Having a choice” by definition means that any of the presented options are viable. Evidently, right now engineer rifles are subpar in most if not all circumstances, thus making them a non-viable option for players seeking the maximum efficiency, …
I stopped there because players seeking maximum efficiency aren’t looking for many sources of weaponry … they are seeking the one that gives maximum efficiency. That’s a paradox. Minmaxers don’t care about having every single weapon available to them as a maximum efficiency choice.
Choice as a mitigation still works here, cheap or not, because whether people want to admit it or not, Rifle and FT have specific roles. I’ve already outlined why I think that’s true on rifle. For FT, I think it’s a great main weapon in compliment with rifle. Without being mocked by dissenters, I will simply post one variation of a build I use for PVE.
Frankly, I find it very useful running around with a might stack, permanent and frequently procing stability, a plethora of other boons and damage reductions and mitigations while combining condition and direct damage and large bar breaking capability … but I’ve been told that’s just how fools that don’t care about effectiveness play so take that for what it’s worth to you.
Edit: sorry, this last one is my latest. I find there are many useful variations to play with this build. Thank goodness for all these non-viable choices we have.
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Having choices fixes bitter too … you don’t have to play the options you don’t like, you play the ones you do. That should make you feel good. Every class has choices people don’t like. They don’t play them, they are happy people.
Anyways, it’s clear Rifle and FT aren’t choices for you, they are for other people. No reason to be angry about that.
I have a recommendation for you. It’s not going to help you with the angry, but it’s really good advice for MMO’s in general.
If you don’t like some of the choices you have, don’t use them. Play the choices you like, then you don’t have to worry or care about all the completely imcompetent game devs ruining everything for you, and then you will be happy …
because you know what, some people do that, and find they don’t have a problem with the ‘inbalance’ that FT and Rifles offer them and those people doing that shouldn’t make you angry either; they are a shining example of how responsible, mature MMO players enjoy themselves playing without trying to get to incorporate some sort of morality on balance.
You’re right, that is Anet’s fault, and like I said, if there is no class available for someone to enjoy the game, it’s time to find a new game; Anet can’t cater to every single peculiarity to satisfy everyone. I mean, the concept of the Ranger includes a pet … asking for a petless Ranger is not really … sensible.
Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that someone can’t find a satisfying game play experience from any one of the 9 classes available. Even some of the elites give a whole new flavour to the classes as well. If players are so picky, I wish them luck in finding an MMO to play … I don’t know of any game devs that can cater to exacting players like this. /shrug
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Actually, I know because Anet isn’t a charity organization, hiring tons of devs to chase the meta and balance skills all the time without regard for cost and profits. Balance as you see it … costs money and it’s poorly spent money because there are choices that allow players to decide what weapons they want to use; NOT every weapon needs to be ‘on par’. Choice is your mechanism to ensure people don’t get stuck with bad performance. That’s just common sense. I know some people have a hard time nowadays with the concept of being given choices and make responsible decisions, but that’s why it’s there.
We’ve already talked about why it’s unlikely to be incompetence, but obviously you aren’t at all interested in following a logical discussion because you’re angry about something. So, GL and have fun.
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Rifle is a utility weapon. It’s great for supporting conditions and breaking bars .. and that’s OK on an engi, because kits are superb main weapons. It’s also the longest range option as an equippable weapon, which has purpose.
A competent developer can provide choices that are different from each other whilst still being balanced in relation to each other.
The inbalances are a natural consequence of having differences in choice and the decision to not chase them as the meta shifts is a business decision because this isn’t philanthropy. Furthermore, there isn’t really a point as the ability to choose ensures players can play what they prefer as the meta shifts with gamestate changes. It’s just not worth the effort.
That’s not incompetence, that’s the reality of running an MMO. If you ever found an MMO that did this kind of balancing, it would be fun … for the whole year it would be open until it was shut down.
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Exactly, the problem was that people were getting too many coins prior to login rewards and now the market is adjusting. So problem solved.
So you chose a pet class … and you don’t want your pet. /shakeshead. That’s why there are 8 other classes to play. If none of those work for you, time to find a new game.
Here we go again…
Merriam-Webster says about ability: “the power or skill to do something”
By definition, if they don’t have the opportunity, they don’t have the power, which means they don’t have the ability. Please stop.
Sorry, but just to stick this academic point … you aren’t using the word correctly. Anet is not incompetent. You don’t know if Anet doesn’t have the power or skill to do something. That’s why you’re ‘assessment’ is not correct. He is right … Anet does many things quite competently, so what you are suggesting is that they just flick a switch and get incompetent all of the sudden and can’t do a good job? That’s not logical.
Now, you think i’m making excuses for them. You can label those reasons I provided however you like, but you’re assuming this weapon inbalance is problem … but it’s not. It hasn’t been a problem for 4 years in this game … and countless other in other games. This ‘weapon unbalance’ is not uncommon in these games. That’s not an accident or due to incompetence either. It’s what happens when devs offer choices to players with different purposes. Interpreting that as incompetence is ignorant.
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For open world? Pick whatever you want, it dont matter
For WvW? dont know sry.
For Fractals/raids? When you do content with others, it is generally polite to be useful and not just be carryed. For Guard this mean full berserker (of if you are really bad on you class some marauder)
FOr open world, you’re gear matters quite a bit .. unless you don’t mind taking 30 seconds or so killing a trash mob.
Berserkers is what you should run in open world if you want the fastest kills. Also note that if you play it right, Sinister is quite effective as well for fast kills. Depends on your personal preference.
Well, I’m not talking out of my rear … because you can see that’s not how they balance weapons just by looking at how we have dozens of unbalanced weapons ingame for over 4 years now. Like I said, there are two options and either option indicate this isn’t far from the truth.
Anyways, I don’t deal with arrogance and vitriol. If the only reasons you see that engi have ‘issues’ is because Anet are incompetent or simply trying to ruin parts of their own game, then you’re reasoning is the most incredible that anyone could provide … and I’m the one talking out of my kitten . OK well, have fun being miserable with the blinders on.
The fact that people can complete raids without optimized comps is not a claim, it’s a truth.
This truth has nothing to do with raid diversity.
If a raid leader can choose whatever classes they want and successfully complete raids, that demonstrates diversity. I think any reasonable person should be able to understand that; what else would diversity mean in the context of a raid party composition?
Right now, that does happen, so that’s why I think there is diversity. Otherwise, it would be impossible to do things like low manning. I’m not sure how this fact doesn’t demonstrate diversity to you or in your opinion, has nothing to do with diversity. I don’t think I’ve been unreasonable here and if you think being able to choice classes you want for a raid composition and be successful in raids doesn’t demonstrate raid diversity … then I’m certain that everyone is eager to hear what exactly you mean by raid diversity before continuing any more useful discussion with you.
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I’m not asking you what kind of players can succeed with non-optimal comps. I specifically asked you how non-optimal WITH highly skilled players would make up their damage before rage hits in your ‘optimal comp balanced’ world, not PUGs or scrubs.
You see the point is that you aren’t really making a logical connection here … Somehow you are saying that I am wrong, OBVIOUSLY wrong … when I say that raids are not balanced around optimal comps … yet we have a contradiction that highly skilled players not playing optimal comps can complete raids. I mean, not just by a little bit either … 3 manning VG isn’t what any reasonable person would call an optimal comp, and I think it’s safe to assume that group weren’t a bunch of PUG’s or scrubs either.
So either you have reinvented what an optimal comp is or I’m correct. These raids are in no way balanced around the optimal comp if highly skilled players can 3 man VG. Now, if THAT isn’t obvious to you, then I can only assume you’re being obtuse here. I don’t need to pug to tell me that raid balance isn’t based on optimal comps if this kind of thing is happening. It’s just deductive reasoning.
Pugs not succeeding with optimal comps should in no way lead you to the conclusion that raids are balanced around them, because skilled players in non-optimal comps can complete those same raids. The only conclusion there is that players that suck are not likely to succeed at raids … and that optimal comps does not guarantee a win. But those things should go without saying. Well, at least for some people.
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I enjoy pet classes and they both provide me with such in their own way. I would really appreciate some insight on how the two compare for soloing PvE in regards to soloing higher end things that are maybe not meant for solo, or at least harder for many classes while being easier for ranger or necromancer, things like that.
Personally, I think Necro beats Ranger for that. I’m soloing some HoT HP’s with my Necro setup. Not entirely certain if Ranger could accomplish some of the things I’m doing on Necro. The problem with the Ranger pet tank is that you have one … if he’s down, you’re next. With necro, you can load up on minions. If one goes down, there are 4 more to go … and they are resilient if traited for it and they tank really well.
There is a down side though, while this build is almost untouchable, its damage would not be considered good. In fact, where trash mobs are concerned, it’s slow. So the bonus is that Ranger has better damage and IMO, more interesting builds.
I don’t get the complaint … there are tons of locations for any given kind of terminal you want. No one is every going to ‘troll’ you out of access to anything.
So many things wrong with the idea of the OP, not even sure where to start. I’m just glad that Anet doesn’t think the same way. I quite enjoy the fact this isn’t just another WoW clone.
Please do list reasons why it’s not underpowered right now. Would you like me to go through every class and build and evaluate Rifle’s performance against them? I certainly could, but it would take pages and pages of text. I picked Zerker because I think that’s the most obvious example and Hammer because it’s a comparison against the Engi HoT weapon. Let me know if you’d like me to do another class. I’ll even post a vid.
But anyway.. it deserves a massive buff because it’s not as good as the other options. If weapon balance isn’t a consideration .. what is? Expansion profit?
Yeah, you could, but it wouldn’t matter because that’s not how weapons are balanced. /shrug. That’s the same reason your assessment of these weapons makes no sense. I mean, think about it this way … if balancing a weapon was based on how ‘on par’ it is with something else, why are there SO many weapons in this game that have different levels of performance?
I’m not saying it’s under or over powered … I’m saying that doesn’t really matter. It’s the wrong way of thinking. I think my question points at two options:
1. Anet is terrible at balancing according to relative powers of other weapons
2. Anet doesn’t balance weapons according to relative powers of other weapons
i encourage you to put some thought to this.
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Yep b/c there’s nvr been a case in free markets where a handful of players control markets. lol…..
That said…..I do not understand the approach to markets stability in this game from it’s conception. At one point everything was taken with a heavy handed approach. Now we have a hands off approach. Why not try small incremental changes?
There has … but that doesn’t make what he said any more true … there are a handful of player manipulating the TP? That’s a ridiculous statement. Even if it was true, he’s still wrong because the non-action Anet is taking will fix that problem.
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I don’t get how that’s obviously not true … If VG was balanced around some optimal comp, how could it be completed with 3 people … player skill is important but the fact is that raids need some minimum DPS to succeed before hitting rage. If Anet is balancing around some minimum amount of damage to ensure challenging raids and the most skilled players are hitting the damage caps for their classes, then obviously raids can’t be balanced around optimal comps if they can be 3 manned.
The only obvious thing here is that if Anet did use the optimal comps to balance raids to make them challenging, they really suck at it if they set the damage threshold so low that 3 people can complete it.
Forget all that … let’s assume you are right and VG is should be balanced around optimal comps … explain to me how a non-optimal comp could complete that raid? Player skill does not make up for damage caps on classes … so where does a non-optimal comp WITH highly skilled players make up its damage before rage hits? As far as I can tell, you just killed raid diversity.
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I’m not sure if you play Engineer, but those encounters are not “carefully choreographed”. Those are very common fight sequences vs those classes. Meet me in-game for a duel if you don’t believe me. I play Rifle Engineer a lot. It is my main, so I think I know what I’m talking about here. I’ll post video if need be.
My complaint here is that Rifle isn’t competitive in any game mode and hasn’t been since HoT. It’s not even close.
I’ve listed my reasons why I think Rifle is sub-par right now. If you disagree, maybe you could explain why.
Those encounters are cherry picked by you to prove your point and that’s being insincere. If Anet sat there and examined all encounters like you did, they wouldn’t ever be able to balance anything. It’s not a comprehensive assessment and you know it. You list reasons it is subpar, I could list reasons its not. That gets no where. Weapons are not developed to be ‘on par’ with every other weapon. It’s doesn’t deserve a massive buff because ‘being on par’ isn’t a consideration for buffing weapons.
Engis have more access to useable skills than most classes do because skills have double duty through the F keys, including the condition removal ones. I mean, yes there are classes that have more, but to say Engis have terrible condi removal, I’m just not buying it.
the fundamental concept that the raids aren’t designed and balanced around those optimal builds/compositions in the first place
Do you have any proof of this? That seems to be just your assumption. And you try to build everything on that base. Ability to beat the bosses with weird comps doesn’t prove design and balance goals. Just like low-mans.
Whether you acknowledge it or not, that is the proof because if raids were balanced around optimal comps/builds, they couldn’t be done with non-optimal comps/builds. You wouldn’t see minutes left before rage timer. You wouldn’t see lowmanning. This is not a hard concept to understand. You’re not being objective or thinking clearly here. I think at this point, if these simple concepts are beyond comprehension, we should just agree to disagree.
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So let me sum this up:
Anet leaves the market to those handful players heavily influencing the market. And call this then a “healthy economy”.
But I guess, its an american thing, that kind of logic. After all, americans still believe in trickle-down-theory also.
Here’s an easy fix to inflated prices, Mr Smith:
Limit the amount of possible buy orders per item per account to 1k.
Except that statement isn’t true … ‘a handful’ of players are not influencing the market .. EVERY player that sells or buys is influencing the market all the time. That’s not ‘just’ an American idea. It’s how any free market works. Even players that just hold materials and don’t sell or buy influence the market to a lesser extent because part of the flow of mats and gold can be potentially added at any time to affect prices. It’s way more complex than you seem to understand.
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No, they should not balance around the best comp for lots of reasons, including for the very reason this thread is complaining about; lack of diversity. If they balance around the best comp, then how can any comp but the best one succeed at raids? That’s a ridiculous idea to suggest. Luck for us, Anet has not done that. We can all think of things that can be done, but not assume they should be done, just because you believe it’s a good idea or practice.
I did not ask anyone to balance around all comps, though I can’t see any reason why that’s such an offensive idea to someone that plays the game, especially if Anet can make a challenging raid environment at the same time; those two things are not mutually exclusive. The recent changes move in that direction.
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Are we on the same planet? Let me try this again … I’m talking about raid diversity, the topic of the thread and I’m saying it makes no sense for you to claim that the changes are bad based on extreme scenarios you present. It is YOU making these claims, not me.
And you are making opposite claims presenting other extreme scenarios.
The fact that people can complete raids without optimized comps is not a claim, it’s a truth. Limiting your argument to comps that are the optimal or extremely challenging, then saying we don’t have diversity or that changes are bad because you can’t complete extreme conditions is insincere. That claim is built around the fabrication that certain classes are NEEDED for raid success. This is obviously false.
If you decide to not raid outside the optimal comp space, that’s fine, but to turn around and point the finger at Anet that this is a problem that needs to be solved because of ‘reasons’ is nonsense. We have variance, lots of it … enough to prove you don’t need optimal comps to be successful in raids. Don’t confuse challenging for ‘a problem’, then claim it needs fixing. I shouldn’t have to tell anyone what the intention of raid difficulty is.
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If you don’t trait Alchemy + Invention, you need to dedicate a skill slot to cleansing condi or else you are very weak vs condi builds.
I would gladly trade my elite skill for another regular skill slot so I could bring elixir C or Purge Gyro. Unfortunately, we can’t do that.
That doesn’t mean engineer condition cleansing is terrible. Maybe you don’t play other classes but dedicating a slot for a cleansing condition skill isn’t actually some exceptional thing.
Back on topic, I really doubt Anet would ever consider giving much more burning to AA … there has to be a reason burning was put on the end of the AA in the first place.
Is there some special way hammer replaced it? I don’t think so.
So … unless you have a specific example, just throwing out key words like power creep and Pay to Win doesn’t really cut it. Your explanation makes no sense.
There are many, many things (Chrono Shield 5, Scrapper Bulwark Defense Field, Hammer 2, etc.), but I’ll limit it to a few examples here:
You and a Zerker Warrior meet each other in WvW. The warrior comes at you with bull’s charge. You attempt to knock back with Rifle 4, but Last Stand procs and the Warrior gets 10s of Stability. Warrior is not cc’d and you are because Rifle 4 is a self knockdown, so they probably hit you and stun, then combo you down to <25% health if not kill you on the spot.
… But maybe you dodge their charge and they follow up with Headbutt. Maybe you dodge that too. They still have 9s of stability. They Greatsword 3 to close the distance (you’re out of dodges). You use an escape skill (Rocket Boots, for example) and get 900 units away. They follow with Greatsword 5. You swap to Toolkit and block for 2 seconds. Their stability is almost up, so they swap weapons to get enough adren to use zerker mode. They get perma-stability while in zerk mode from Eternal Champion. They still have Balanced Stance available for more stability and auto-proc Endure Pain, maybe Endure pain on their skill bar as well.What are you going to do against that with Rifle? You can never CC them because they have perma-stab and auto-proc stability from Last Stand if you do manage to land a cc. If you catch them with Rifle 2, (only a 2 second snare) they can just break out of it with any movement skill, but most likely they won’t even be affected because they have stability all the time. You just have to run away.
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You encounter a Hammer Scrapper. You go to CC them with Rifle 4, but they pop defense field. The reflect knocks you down twice. You wait and play defensive for a full 5 seconds because almost all of your attacks are projectiles. Meanwhile, they use Hammer 5. You dodge. They use Hammer 3. You dodge 1-2 of the hits, but get hit by the last one because it lasts that long. Their Defense Field is done now, so you try and attack, but they reflect with Hammer 2, then Block with Hammer 4, and dodge. Also, they’re getting Stability when they evade attacks, so you’re trying to find a good opening to use Rifle 4 again. Eventually you do, you follow up with a combo, but they’ve popped Bulwark Gyro and have Protection Injection, so your attacks do little damage. Now they’ve got their dodges and Hammer 2 off cooldown, not to mention whatever kit they’re running (probably E-gun), and Defense field is almost off cooldown again to buy them another 5 full seconds of reflect.
I realize that is a massive wall of text, but you wanted examples. There they are. Rifle is sub-par and needs to be brought up to HoT standards
OH OK, I get it, you’re using other professions and carefully choreographed encounters to justify chasing the meta on your Engineer … Based on that, you definitely aren’t going to justify buffs for these two weapons. Those simply aren’t objective assessments. You can just as easily create a choreographed encounter when FT and Rifle are the best things ever.
Chasing meta, regardless of the reason, just isn’t a good one to ask for changes. Meta changes all the time, chasing it is a never-ending fools errand.
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Rifle used to be the #1 Engi PvP weapon. Pistol held its own too. These were good weapons. Why are they not used any more? Two words: power creep. They weren’t nerfed. HoT happened.
HoT introduced so many things that obsoleted vanilla weapons and builds as competitive options. They need to be competitive so that the game isn’t pure Pay to Win, for free to players as well as for some build diversity – something that the game used to have, but really doesn’t any more.
That’s a nice vague, catch-all you’ve provided as a reason but you need to be more specific … You’re saying that HoT all of the sudden made Rifle and FT go from good to not good, but all those power creepy things we got from HoT are a great benefit to those weapons as well. In fact, one of the traits in Scrapper is a DIRECT boost to FT. I mean, how is Rifle as PVP obsolete with HoT? Is there some special way hammer replaced it? I don’t think so.
So … unless you have a specific example, just throwing out key words like power creep and Pay to Win doesn’t really cut it. Your explanation makes no sense.
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… What truly is important is that they realize WHY we need a change instead of the what if’s we had a hammer.
If that what was important, I couldn’t find it in your post. It was drowned out by the hammer stuff.
Frankly, Even with the bad damage you claim you get, it seems to me that Mesmer aren’t really too hard done by for PVE. I think that just goes to show that there is more to PVE in this game than damage.
Fair enough, but what is also fair is to recognize that not every weapon is useful in every element of the game … or to recognize that there are times where they are really good, and others when they are not. Fundamentally, I think that’s why there are access to multiple weapons.
It would be nice if they were better in those situations but I don’t think we can automatically assume the intentions here.
Uh no, they’re really not. Please provide examples.
Eg. Rifle is worse than HoT weapons because it is high risk, low reward and provides no defensive cooldowns. Plus, its attacks are projectiles which are countered and reflected by practically everything these days.
Flamethrower is awkward to use and is plagued by retaliation problems in WvW.
Rifle worse than something or Flamethrower with deficiencies in WvW does not mean they are not good as they are. I mean, if you just want to compare everything to the pinnacle of whatever, then you don’t really get why various weapons exist in the first place.
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Well, you are making specific scenarios to prove your point. The fact is that if you want condition removal, you have it in spades. That’s not a ‘terrible’ condition removal situation for engi. You don’t even need to trait Alchemy if you want protection against conditions, I’m simply pointing out it’s exceptional at doing such.
Frankly, if the class changes make those classes less desirable to play, that alone increases the diversity that people will have for raid comps.
Suuure. Making less classes desirable for raids will increase the diversity somehow.
When no one is exceptional, everyone is average. When everyone is average, there isn’t a reason to exclude people. That might be hard for someone that doesn’t understand what average is or that doesn’t understand that you don’t need optimal to succeed in raids, but nonetheless, it works. Whether you believe it or not is not a prerequisite to it being true.
Are we there yet? Probably not, but these changes are putting things in that direction. You can deny it if you like or believe it; neither is relevant. What matters is that it’s happening because Anet wants it to. You’re choice is to adapt or be miserable.
If you think that changes to necro were moving them from OP to average, then we really are playing a different game.
I don’t think that so … /shrug