Guild Wars 2

Kalla’s statue has a greastword, but is there evidence that she didn’t also use a bow? She was the granddaughter of Pyre Fierceshot. And as for “becoming” vs. “summoning,” the Revenant is “becoming” Kalla, wielder of the bow, but her legend was as a great leader of warriors, and because of that, her powerset is based on summoning those soldiers into action. She’s like Alexander the Great in Fate/Zero.

Shouldn’t the class have a “summon spec” traitline? Like one that gives all the utilities basic buffs like Stability, protection, etc. so that they’re more survivable? Another that makes it so that instead of just having a pulsing field, they can also target up to five characters within their radius when they are cast, and then “lock on” to those targets, pulsing out their effects even if those targets leave the field? Stuff like that sounds like a good idea for making them more useful.

No. That sounds awful.

All I want out of Firebrand is a Tome-o-mancer.

All Tomes, all the time, that’s what I want. Anything short of that, I just do not care, which makes me sad as I really like more core Guardian and really want to love the new class. If people like the existing version, fine, then keep that in, but at least offer a trait option that completely overhauls how the Tomes work, so that you can have them active 100% of the time, flipping between them as needed, spammable 1 moves, etc. so that they play out like Engi kits, even if this means nerfing some of the current options. That is what I NEED from this spec.

If they’re just something you can use occasionally, I just can’t be bothered. More hassle to use than core/DH versions.

Ppl need to understand that not every single specc is made for every game mode. They want to create a diversity of speccs so you can decide what you want to play (will be better if there are 4-5 speccs for every class)

I disagree with this mindset. I do believe that every spec should be for every game mode, because some players only enjoy one mode, and they should not have to wait 3-4 years with no new version for their class because this expansion’s spec was for “some other mode.”

Now, different traits can support specific modes, there can be certain builds within the spec that are only useful in a specific mode, but there should always be at least ONE trait loadout that is designed to be great for each game mode in the game.

Wouldn’t work, because you want to use ambushes during your dodge, not a skill that doesn’t have a time window.

Maybe, but 1. If the spec starts pumping out more Endurance than it currently does (which I think it should) then players could be a bit less precious about how they spend it, and 2. Maybe you wouldn’t spend the dodge during Axe 2, but by providing endurance, it would at least contribute to your defensive budget, which it currently doesn’t. I do think that full evade frames built into it might be a bit much, but I certainly wouldn’t complain if they wanted to offer them.

Speaking of, it’s really past time that ANet invent some sort of “anti AoE buff” to the game. Like this used to be a huge issue for Ranger pets until they overhauled them, but in a game that is so heavy with these ground targeted AoE fields that you need to dodge out of, it would be really handy to have a buff that either makes you immune or greatly resistant to the effects of those fields. Not a long term buff, obviously, but something that gets applied very sparingly as a “semi-evade” effect, allowing you to shrug off the ground targeted AoEs, while still being 100% vulnerable to direct attacks, a bit like the opposite of a Projectile Deflect buff. This would be a perfect use for it, give Axe 2 this perk that it makes you immune to AoE fields for the duration, but not to direct attack, so that you could use it without worrying about passing through a fire patch or whatever.

Agreed. This is a “feels bad” issue, I get why they have it, but it will just never be a fun mechanic for players. Here’s my compromise suggestion:

If you use #5 to stand up, then it behaves like it currently does, no change there.

But if you hit a direction to move, you will instantly stand up and start moving, but you will impose a stack of Crippled on you, maybe only half a second, maybe a second, not a huge amount, but enough to slap you on the wrist a bit for getting up too quickly. This would help keep kneeling riflemen “less mobile,” but not make you completely immobile.

The second is in relation to the rate of malice gain. It just feels to build too slowly. Most mobs could be burst down when at 2-3 stacks of malice, and then the whole thing resets at their death. This means big payoff skills and traits that work (or work best at) at full stacks don’t get to be fully utilized most of the time.

I feel like this is intentional. I feel like they felt that the burst potential of this class was intended to be very high, that you could attack a mob/player at max range and whittle them down to almost nothing before they even reach you, so they balanced that with a mechanic that builds slowly over time, making it impossible to max out in a short bursty fight. You can benefit from one, or the other, not both. Now, were they right? Were the two factors balanced to a level that we find appropriate? That’s debatable, but I think that idea is sound enough, and the solution would be in tweaking the relative numbers a bit.

I do think they should drop the casting time though, just for convenience. I’m too used to just tapping Steal.

However I’m not sure I’d enjoy further incentivising spamming dodge for the simple reason of thumb strain (I have dodge on spacebar) from repetitive pressing.

Get a mouse with side buttons, they are amazing. I just switched from a Logitech G700 (which, for the record, is the greatest mouse in human history), to a G602, which is not as good, but they still actually make it and it’s not terrible. Just never bind anything to the bottom-center button.

And also, I’ve elsewhere suggested that instead of providing an immediate dodge, they should change Mirrors to instead generate Endurance ( maybe as a trait, if necessary). If they did that, it could help fuel the Cloak-fest playstyle.

Once again somebody who doesn’t play Mesmer comes in and tells people with extensive knowledge of the class that they are wrong about everything.

It’s not entirely wrong though. People who are very used to the class operating a certain way might be less flexible in adapting to new options, and might not realize new ways that the class could be used, while novices might just stumble onto the best ways to play the spec. I think that the opinions of both experts and novices should be taken into account when dealing with a new spec. And again, if the numbers aren’t there, the devs can always tweak them.

I think based on the conflicting opinions going around, it seems like making the Mirage does higher DPS than a core/Chrono who is being played sloppily, but not to the level of one that is being played with precision (small “p”). So maybe it’s just easier to get the most out of the spec, even if that most isn’t as high as other classes. That could make it a very powerful spec once they get the tuning better.

I mean that literally, the #1 does about as much kitten #1 and the Double tap does about as much as the cluster explosion on SB. I understand that once we have full malice our DJ’s solo crits for about 10K…..but doing 20 seconds of horrible damage just to be able to hit for 10k isn’t worth it when I can just Dagger auto attack for 10k every 2 seconds, or unload spam for 8K each.

Not that I necessarily disagree, but this seems like something easy to test if they let us back in the PvP lobby. Get a Deadeye at his max range and have him DPS down a golem as fast as possible, and compare that to a SB Thief doing the same. I suspect the Deadeye would be faster under practical conditions, but if not, there’s definitely work needed.

I had a ton of fun, and I was running all Mirage utilities too. I loved playing Axe, making a bunch of clones and then just going HAM on the enemies, before using Axe 3 or that utility to swap all my clones to another target. I’m not a great Mesmer player so I’m sure I could have been more efficient in how I used them, but I really enjoyed myself. Favorite new spec so far.

I also used Jaunt fairly often, not so much directly in combat, but just to move around casually. The Ammo system is what makes it worthwhile, not having the pressure to save it for emergencies, you can just spam it out two or even three times to make a casual benefit for you, and know that you’ll have at least one charge of it soon enough.

Also, for those saying that Thief Sneak attacks are stronger than Mesmer Ambushes, well no duh, but Thief Sneak attacks are more resource expensive than Ambushes, an Ambush-specced Mirage could probably pump out 2-3 times as many Ambushes over thirty seconds than a Sneak Attack specced Thief, and WAY more than a Thief who isn’t specialized in going Stealth constantly.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I think the spec is perfect, if they improved it I certainly wouldn’t complain, but I did have a lot of fun as-is. If they do modify it, I would like to see them move in this direction:

• Make clones stronger. People are complaining that the clones don’t do enough damage to be the Mirage’s bread and butter. If so, the solution is not to remove the clone aspects, it’s to make the clones stronger. I definitely want the spec to be the one where clones are the heavy hitters rather than Phantasms.

• Change Mirrors to offer Endurance, rather than activate Cloaks automatically. This would make them more flexible, as they would be providing a resource that you could spend as needed, rather than being something you need to tag to activate.

But I’d rather they give axe the tools necessary to survive in melee range – like 3/4s evade on axe 2. I can understand if they’re reluctant to do that because the cooldowns are very low (compared with Blurred Frenzy),

Given that the Mirage dodge is designed so that you can continue fighting with it (and in this case dodge while using the axe 2 ability), what if instead of providing a short evade, it just provided like 1/4 Endurance or something, a slight speed boost on how often you can use dodge. This would be in some ways better in terms of flexibility, and others worse in that you wouldn’t get as much dodge out of each proc, but it could be nice.

Ok, I wasn’t able to participate in the first desert test, so I really had fun with this one. Here are my notes though:

1. Played as a Mirage, really enjoyed it. I’m not a Mesmer main, so I can’t say it was perfectly balanced or anything, but I had fun with the axe abilities and throwing clones everywhere. I’ve heard that the “cloneomancer” spec is not as strong as it should be, if that’s true, fix it and make the clone damage worthwhile.

2. I enjoyed playing with the mount, I liked the jumping, but I noticed that I couldn’t jump at all with zero endurance, and that was a bummer. You should ALWAYS be able to do a player-scale hop regardless of endurance.

3. Also with the mount, I didn’t like that I couldn’t strafe while riding it, and the strafe keys only spun me around. Mounts need to strafe.

4. Also with the mount, I liked that you could dye them, but they need more than one channel. The belly was always yellow, which means you can only pick colors that pair well with yellow. We need at least two color channels.

5. We were waiting for a race to start, and then some other event started right when the race was starting, and the race got cancelled. Never make players wait around for something fun to happen, and then not have that fun thing happen.

6. Once when I did start a race, I got disqualified for not being in the box at the start, even though I was inside the box when the clock hit zero. This needs to be more efficient.

7. The bounties worried me at first, but I learned that you get credit for completing them even if you didn’t previously have the bounty contract. I did hear that you don’t get as big a reward though. This needs to change. Since bounties can’t be soloed, they need to be something that you can tackle while they are convenient, otherwise we’ll end up with the HoT Hero Points issue all over again, where you show up wanting to do X, but nobody’s around to help, and it can’t be soloed. Either A: you need to get 100% credit for completing a bounty even if you just wandered by as it was going on, or B: You need to be able to stack multiple bounty contracts at once, so that you’re prepared whichever bounty people happen to be working on.

8. I loved the artistic details of the map, there were a ton of fun areas to explore. I got on top of the starting pyramid and found a cool chest there, although the map really made me want the bunny so I could get even higher.

I disagree with the OP. If it turns out that “leave clones out, have them do solid DPS” is not something that currently works, then fix that, make that a thing that works. I don’t want another shatter class. That said, pretty much every traitline in the game has SOME benefits to shatter, and I don’t see them making the Mirage shatters worthless, so I fully expect at least one row of traits that are shatter-based, that doesn’t mean that’s the only row you can pick.

I definitely want the “clone-mancer” Mirage spec, where you only shatter when you have the options to rebuild your squad, or the fight is ending.

I will say, I am not a Mesmer main, I have never loved the class because of how fidgety it can be, but I really enjoyed playing a Mirage during the stress test. The axe skills are a lot of fun, and made me wish I were a better Mesmer player. I’ll leave it up to the experts to determine whether the numbers are in the right places, but I really love all the axes flying around and clones bouncing around.

Agreed. The green viney graphics don’t fit the nature of the spec. It should be yellow to red in color, and more “animal-ish” than “plantish.”

Sigh, no. People enjoy games in part because there are rewards; they enjoy their preferred mode more because there are unique rewards.

Ok, and that works out for them, they get to eat their cake and have it too, but what about the players who want those rewards, but don’t prefer that mode? Do they just matter less?

There are all sorts of rewards that are obtainable regardless of game mode and there are also rewards unique to the content. That makes for a more enjoyable game for most players.

No, it makes the game more enjoyable for some players, when the rewards they want happen to line up with a gameplay mode they enjoy participating in. It works out especially well for players who enjoy all the gameplay types and can move between them at will. It does not work out for players who want certain rewards but are incompatible with the specific gameplay modes to which those rewards are attached, and most players would fall into that category at least some of the time.

What works out best is when all players can play whichever modes they most enjoy and get the rewards they want as a result.

No, as a raider you do raids for fun and the reward. For me both is needed because my raid motivation is lowered after having cleared all wings the first time. Afterwards you get nothing which is like playing fractals (not lvl 40 farm) or dungeons twice or more per day which almost nobody is doing.

If that’s how you feel then you shouldn’t keep doing them. Play what you enjoy.

On that basis, there’s no need to have rewards for any content in any game ever. If dungeons are what people want to do, there’s no need to reward them with (formerly unique-to-dungeon skins). If WvW is what people like, there’s no need to add unique skins there either.

Exactly.

You want rewards in the game in general to make players feel rewarded for playing this game instead of any other, but so long as players are in game and having fun, it shouldn’t matter which activities they are doing, and there’s no reason for ANet to say “play this mode instead of that one, you’ll get a fancy unique skin for doing so.”

There absolutely is a reason, you just don’t support it.

If raids are something people want to do, then there is no need for it to have a unique reward.

If raids are not something that people would want to do without a unique reward, then they are doing a disservice to their customers by bribing them into playing it.

In that light I don’t think its that unreasonable for players to expect fractals to get leg armor, since its much more relaxed than raids are.

And open world PvE as well, since there are many players who have no interest in ANY form of organized group content. There is absolutely no reason why raids should be a source for PvE legendary armor.

I think instead of a line, they need to make this ability use a circular pattern behind the player, so that the attack pattern is closer to the player’kittenbox.

The current version of the ability seems like something that looks cool on paper, a reverse cone, but in practice it’s just non-functional, because with an actual cone attack, if you are in a tight space and fire it at someone directly in front of you, then you always hit that person with 100% of the attack, but with this reversed cone, if you’re in a tight space and target someone directly in front of you, then even if they’re at the ideal range you still might only do half damage because half the shots get eaten by terrain.

Mirrors seem dumb to me, and poorly explained. If I understand correctly, basically you end up spawning mirrors all over the place with various abilities, and then if you walk through the mirror then you instantly “evade” for a second or so? Like an auto-dodge? That’s pretty weak, because you’d really need some expert micro-management to really take ideal advantage of that.

I think a better implementation would be to just have the mirrors recover your Endurance each time you run through one. That would make them much more flexible, since they would still be tied to your new Evade skill, but would allow you to activate the evades when you needed them, rather than when you happened to be on top of the mirror.

I’d almost even want an optional Trait that would grant Mirages the same triple-dodge that Daredevils get. It would be a completely different situation since they wouldn’t be moving while using them, and wouldn’t have the fancy GM dodges the DD gets, but it would help them better make use of the new mechanic.

And if that seems OP, then how about this double whammy, make it so that they only naturally regenerate the default two bars, or even just the first bar, and have to use mirrors to fill up the remaining bars if they want access to them. That could be an interesting mechanic to play with, I think.

I really like the idea of the axe skills, they feel fun to use. I’m no expert on Mesmers though and wasn’t actually able to play the class under PvE conditions, so I have no idea whether they are strong enough, and trust the experts when they say “no.” I would not have fun with the class if I kept dying a lot. So I’d like to see the skills left alone in core function, but if they need more damage to be balanced, definitely give it to them. Ideally there would be a Power spec option in there too.

I tried out all the classes a little bit, but since I’m a PvE player, I couldn’t get much actual combat experience in any of them. All of them had some interesting elements, but all of them also had some fatal flaws, and very few of them seemed to be something I would choose over an HoT spec.

Holosmith: + Fun and varied abilities, cool visuals. – Nothing really, good job.

Weaver: +Lots of interesting abilities to mess with. -confusing to use and there needs to be a bigger visual showing what the primary element is.

Renegade: + I like the SB abilities with The Dreamer. -There is no reason to take this spec over Herald, we need a way to equip both at once. Also, Seven Shot needs to cluster up to prevent terrain misfires.

Scourge: +nifty visuals on several attacks. – Why? Why would I want to give up Reaper for this? No GS, no summons, no Reaper form, the sand totem things are pretty lame and too much seems based on boon corruption when enemies rarely have boons.

Spellbreaker: +some dagger skills look cool, nice counter ability. – Utilities are all lame, and there seems to be absolutely no purpose to this spec when enemies rarely have boons.

Deadeye: +Rifle is a nifty weapon and the Mark mechanic has some cool implications. -Kneel is too much of a pain to get out of, and since Acrobatics was nerfed to make Daredevil, a non-DD Thief is too lacking in mobility. Either restore the pre-HoT core Thief or add more mobility to Deadeye.

Firebrand: +Nice idea. -Awful execution. The tomes need to be rebuilt from the ground up. They are not strong enough or convenient enough to be “occasional” things, and on too long a CD to be a core ability. I would prefer changes to make them something you can use at will, like Elements or Engi Kits.

Mirage: +I enjoy the axe and teleporting abilities. – Dodge does not move you around, which is a necessary part of this game, given all the AoE circles. Mirrors are also counter-intuitive. Maybe they should just provide Endurance.

Only one thing is absolutely clear. The game requires a build-swapping button. Even if the PoF specs have some uses, they are still very situational, and having to manually swap a dozen or more factors to change from a Deadeye to a Daredevil and back again is way more hassle than it’s worth.

I dabbled in it and it would take a lot more practice to claim to have any clue how best to use the class, but one note I would like to put out there is that there needs to be some better UI to depict which is your primary and which is your secondary element. It’s too confusing right now. I mean, if you look you can tell them apart, sure, but it’s not lightning quick, can’t miss it, it’s something you need to scrutinize.

I’m not sure the best way to do this, but maybe a large “primary” and smaller “secondary” icon that appears right above the health bubble. There needs to be something large and central to the UI.

Most of them have rather significant flaws, and/or are more boring than the HoT specs. None of them are unsalvageable except the Renegade, but some will take a significant commitment from the developers to fix.

I’ll be honest here, loyalty. I’ve been playing the game since launch, and I think it’s a great game. I’ve bought gem store stuff occasionally, but I don’t buy things I have no use for, and I NEVER pay money to gamble on RNG crates, so I haven’t been whaling it up or anything, especially lately. I feel like paying for the expansion is a fair price for the time they’ve already given me, which was more or less my reaction to HoT.

Now, that out of the way, am I in love with anything specific to PoF? Not particularly. The new areas look kinda cool, I’ll have fun exploring those. The mounts look interesting to play with, but I’m not like “omg, mounts!” Gliding was way better than mounts will ever be. The new classes have a lot I like about them, but all of them seem fundamentally flawed in various ways, and I’m honestly not certain I’ll switch to any of them when the expansion drops, although I plan to give them a solid attempt.

If I had no attachment to the game, I doubt PoF would change that. But I am attached to the game, and will enjoy playing through the new content and options the expansion brings.

No.

That’s a terrible idea.

I like some of the theory behind Spellbreaker, but it seems too much based on boon corruption for the enemies currently in the game. They need to provide more alternative benefits when fighting enemies with no boons on them.

I like Jaunt, but it’s nowhere near Elite-caliber. I thought of a better elite skill they could employ, that would make a lot of sense for the Mirage spec.

Hall of Mirrors

Generate a total of six clones, surrounding the targeted enemy. They last for 5-10 seconds, and then auto-shatter (or at least three of them do).

There are plenty of levers to pull for balancing on that, as far as CD, maybe you can swap places with one of them, maybe they get buffed for the duration, etc., but I think it could be a really cool Mirage-style skill to have, and perfectly suited to an Elite skill, since it really takes the basic kit and raises it to the next level.

I dabbled with it a bit, and I’ve never been a terribly good mesmer, but I did enjoy some of the options. I liked the constant hopping around of the axe skills, and Jaunt is kind of cool, just nowhere near “Elite skill” level. Maybe if it regenerated faster or was just a normal utility.

In PvE the Firebrand Tomes will be insanely strong if compared to the DH Virtues. I never use that Virtues in PvE but I will literally Abuse of the F1 Tome in every single PvE scenario!

The DH virtues might not be OP (although they are always useful to have), but they are easy, you just press one button and they do their thing. FB virtues, on the other hand, may be more powerful, but take a lot more time to mess with them to pump out all that effect. But since you can’t use them often, it puts them in that annoying middle ground where you can’t use them as often as you like, but when you can use them they’re a hassle to make the most of them, and neither state feels particularly fun.

The strength of the DH wasn’t in the virtues though, it was in the traps, which were awesome. I would take a vanilla Guard with trap access over a DH that can’t use any traps, any day. The mantras, however, are lame, and I don’t particular care about them. I wanted to be a killer librarian, and the FB has the potential to be that, but not in its current form.

I think all these solitions would overpower tomes…

If the solutions overpower the tomes with their current abilities, then I would rather the current abilities be toned down, or individual CDs on some of them increased, or whatever balancing needs to take place to balance them with shorter overall Tome CDs. I cannot enjoy their current form.

Agreed with the OP. Too long.

The comparison he was trying to make is that you’re not in the middle of the fight – you’re the backline.

Perhaps, but what’s the role of the backline in solo PvE? Who’s the frontline meant to be when nobody else is around?

Tomes are not meant to be Kits!
Tomes are not meant to be Elemental attunements!

But they could be.

We are not meant to slip in and out of them, they are cooldowns we save for emergency situations, pop for big burst, burn through the pages fast, then return to our weapon.

But that’s boring.

If Tomes are just for emergencies, then they are too much hassle. Why even bother with them when you can just use vanilla or DH’s “one and done” abilities?

What makes the Firebrand worth bothering with if you can only use any of its options occasionally? Specs like Deadeye, Soulbeast, Scourge, Weaver, Holosmith, etc., say what you will about how they balance out, but at the very least they completely change how each class functions. In its current state, Firebrand really doesn’t add anything cool to the class at all.

If this is what the Firebrand was meant to be, then the devs made a big mistake in the concept phase, and need to rethink what it should be.

I think that they’re good as they are.
Yes, reduce they’re cooldown will make them better, but they’re already strong.
Also, they grant us skills that are Seriously Strong.

If it would be unbalancing for them to allow the skills to be available as often as I propose, then I would prefer they make them weak enough to balance them out, than for them to stay as long CD as they currently are.

One other possible option, which might be interesting, would be to greatly reduce the CD of summoning the tomes, but only allow you to use a single spell per summoning, maybe raised to three with the trait. So basically you could roll from tome to tome pretty freely, but would only be able to do one cool thing with it and then it gets put away. It gives you many options to choose from, but you only get to use one at a time, which could keep it balanced.

I tried few sPvP matches and literally Bursted down people in 1v2-1v3. (not always, only one or two times).

What about PvE roaming? That’s my priority.

The way I see it, for the first few months, half a year, Arena Net will stubbornly ignore all feedback and make no changes.

I have my doubts that they’ll make any huge changes before PoF launches, but I would expect a major balance patch within the first 3-6 months, and I expect the balance devs to be working on these things full time until that happens. If so, getting positive changes out there as early as possible can only help their development process.

I do wish that they’d given players more time to offer feedback on the abilities before launch though.

I was very excited by the theme of this, and very let down by the implementation. The Tomes are what drew me, but with the limited pages, long cooldowns, and very single-focus functionality make them practically unusable. The fire tome seems like a fun weapon, but you basically get one run through it and then it’s on CD forever. The heal and buff ones seem nice at those roles, but when you’re in them you can’t be doing anything else. What use is someone who ONLY heals or ONLY buffs in a solo situation?

Here’s my suggestion on how to make the Firebrand viable:

1. Reduce the cooldown on each Tome to around 4s. You should be able to swap them like Ele attunements, so you could activate some buffs, do some damage, heal up a bit, more buffs, more damage, etc.

2. Make it so that the #1 skill burns no pages. You should be able to spam it indefinitely like any other #1 skill (maybe change the Healing and Buffing #1 skills to be minor damage abilities instead).

3. Make it so that all pages are shared between books, and regenerate over time like
Thief Initiative.

There we go, problems solved. This way, you can roll between the three tomes like an Ele would from Fire/Air to Water to Earth, buffing and healing while needed while hopping quickly back to your DPS spec. The free #1 skill give you something you do while you wait for pages to respawn. The regenerating pages allow you to keep using the books constantly, while still limiting your ability to just spam out the strongest attacks.

Make it happen.

Support is all well and good, but it also needs to do well solo, and there doesn’t seem to be anything great for solo.

It isn’t “bad deign”, it is deliberately and smart, we are meant to swap our Elite specs in and out, DragonHunter should be seeing just as much play time as Firebrand this expansion, that is how this game is meant to be played, that is the entire point of elite specs.

If we’re meant to swap elite specs then they need to have a “swap specs” button or something, because right now it’s WAY too much of a hassle.

Also, since the elite specs are a large selling point of any expansion, they need to be something that ALL players can enjoy, not just players of a certain mode. All specs should be fun and viable in ALL gameplay modes, so long as you tweak the traits accordingly. For example there should obviously be a Guardian support spec build available, but there should also be a more focused soloing build, in which the traits offer less team support and more solo-friendly effects. Deadeye seems to be an example of this (whether or not it’s actually any good at it), in that most traitlines are based on damage, but at least one row seems to be based on spreading buffs around to others.

And yes, if Spellbreaker is useless outside of PvP, then that is 100% pure “bad design.” I’d raised concerns that they seemed to be boon-corruption based, which would on its face be useless in PvE, but an easy way they could correct for that is to balance mobs around having simple and consistent boons, so that boon stripping would be a perfectly viable play style in PvE.

I do kind of think that Deadeye should have some built in reflect protection. Like maybe they only take 25-50% damage from pistol and 0% from Rifle on reflected shots? I’d like some classes to have defensive counterplay without making the class completely suicidal.

So do you like it?

They definitely need to add the ability to have both Renegade and Herald spec at once, otherwise nobody will bother.

Yes. Given the way that the new specs seem to poor at “all arounder” status, they REALLY need to include the ability to swap between Daredevil and Deadeye when out of combat without having to manually adjust a dozen different knobs.

Yeah, Deadeye does feel clunky for not being as mobile as a Daredevil (I really wish they’d give back the core abilities they stole from Acrobatics in HoT), but it also feels very strong. I tried a DP set-up, and the ability to mark, kill, mark, kill, mark, kill was a lot of fun.

Yeah, I like the SB3 skill thematically, but it’s already going to be a HUGE pain in any sort of tunnel or other complex terrain. I think they need to abandon the move’s philosophy and just go full Gilgamesh with it, make a hex ring of portals directly behind you instead.

If they want to have a thing where you’re meant to stick people at max range with it, then just give it a range bonus, so that it does full damage at 1200 range (I think that’s it’s max?), half damage at 600 range, and 1/4 damage at 300 range, which would be about the same impact as the current version.

A reminder for people intending to rain flaming pony death upon their foes, pick the trait that makes it so that when you have stacks of the new specific buff, it makes more ponies appear from the f3 skill. It makes way more ponies if you get a few stacks going.

I’m not a huge Overwatch player, but how do you solo PvE with Mercy?

I was very excited by the theme of this, and very let down by the implementation. The Tome are what drew me, but with the limited pages, long cooldowns, and very single-focus functionality make them practically unusable. The fire tome seems like a fun weapon, but you basically get one run through it and then it’s on CD forever. The heal and buff ones seem nice at those roles, but when you’re in them you can’t be doing anything else. What use is someone who ONLY heals or ONLY buffs in a solo situation?

Here’s my suggestion on how to make the Firebrand viable.

1. Reduce the cooldown on each tome to around 4s. You should be able to swap them like Ele attunements.

2. Make it so that the #1 skill burns no pages. You should be able to spam it indefinitely like any other #1 skill (maybe change the Healing and Buffing #1 skills to be minor damage abilities instead).

3. Make it so that all pages are shared between books, and regenerate over time like
Thief Initiative.

There we go, problems solved. This way, you can roll between the three tomes like an Ele would from Fire/Air to Water to Earth, buffing and healing while needed while hopping quickly back to your DPS spec. The free #1 skill give you something you do while you wait for pages to respawn. The regenerating pages allow you to keep using the books constantly, while still limiting your ability to just spam out the strongest attacks.

Make it happen.

I have to agree. Switching active pets and beast mode is VERY clunky, the controls just don’t feel right, and the impact of them is very weak. At minimum I hope they get rid of the “vine swirl” aura and give it something more “animal” than “vegetable.” I like a few of the beast moves, but most are SUPER underwhelming.