Elite Specs Trade-Offs. Your ideas?

[SoulGuardian.6203]

With ANet being in the process of modifying some elite specs, in order to revitalise core Specs.What would you like to see, so the recent ones are not underminded?

For instance, elementalist have weaver and tempest.What would you choose, if anything, for those who want to stay core?An example would be to add an F5 key to replace the current weapon skills to one that uses energy, but gives you more powerful skills, such as replacing staff skill 2 with a homing meteor.

Say you start with a base 100 energy.Homing meteor cost 50 energy, but will follow target once cast and explode on impact, causing massive damage to target and surrounding foes; also causing knockback and burning.

Switching to air magic, would replace eg staff skill 2 with a floating orb of lightning that would spread lightning bolts in a surrounding area; and cause massive damage, interrupt every few seconds, and daze afterwards.

Just a few ideas.What class would you change, and how?

[Josif.2015]

Ever since the Berserker rework, ArenaNet made it clear that they want elite specializations to have actual trade-offs. Some people may not like this, but I do because an elite specialization should give a profession a different playstyle and not a specialization that is objectively better than the core profession. I'm a core engineer main and seeing it neglected for such a long time hurts especially since we went from almost nobody playing engineer to suddenly everybody playing holosmith and nothing but holosmith. I understand that ArenaNet wants more people to play the engineer profession by creating an elite specialization that is easier to play, but doesn't perform as well as core condition engineer, unfortunately that's wasn't the case when PoF was released and it still isn't the case today.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I came up with two solutions: either remove the toolbelt skills from holosmith and just have photon forge as the F1 skill or make the kits exclusive to core engineer. Before anyone freaks out about this, hear me out: holosmith is designed to be a glass cannon specialization, yet it has plenty of sustain thanks to some of the toolbelt skills like regenerating mist and toss elixir s. Removing the toolbelt skills will significantly nerf holosmith's sustain and rightfully so. No build should be able to deal a ton of damage, while also having stability, stealth, quickness, blocking and invulnerability skills.

While on the subject of making kits exclusive to core engineer, understand that the elite specializations don't rely on kits as much as core engineer does. Scrapper only uses the elixir gun for support builds in PvE and for sustain in PvP, holosmith only uses the grenade kit in PvE and no kits in PvP. I know that a lot of people will disagree with me on this and say that this will nerf both of the elite specializations, but really what else can you do to improve core engineer? Aside from buffing/reworking the kits, there's nothing much you can do.

I could go on and talk about trade off for the other elite specializations, but that'll take a long time. Most of the elite specializations are fine as they are and the only thing left to do is to buff the core professions, like elementalist applying quickness instead of swiftness from the elemental attunement trait in arcane, guardian getting the 20% damage increase from the unscathed contender trait in virtues if you have retaliation instead of aegis etc.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

@Hoodie.1045 said:Ever since the Berserker rework, ArenaNet made it clear that they want elite specializations to have actual trade-offs. Some people may not like this, but I do because an elite specialization should give a profession a different playstyle and not a specialization that is objectively better than the core profession. I'm a core engineer main and seeing it neglected for such a long time hurts especially since we went from almost nobody playing engineer to suddenly everybody playing holosmith and nothing but holosmith. I understand that ArenaNet wants more people to play the engineer profession by creating an elite specialization that is easier to play, but doesn't perform as well as core condition engineer, unfortunately that's wasn't the case when PoF was released and it still isn't the case today.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I came up with two solutions: either remove the toolbelt skills from holosmith and just have photon forge as the F1 skill or make the kits exclusive to core engineer. Before anyone freaks out about this, hear me out: holosmith is designed to be a glass cannon specialization, yet it has plenty of sustain thanks to some of the toolbelt skills like regenerating mist and toss elixir s. Removing the toolbelt skills will significantly nerf holosmith's sustain and rightfully so. No build should be able to deal a ton of damage, while also having stability, stealth, quickness, blocking and invulnerability skills.

While on the subject of making kits exclusive to core engineer, understand that the elite specializations don't rely on kits as much as core engineer does. Scrapper only uses the elixir gun for support builds in PvE and for sustain in PvP, holosmith only uses the grenade kit in PvE and no kits in PvP. I know that a lot of people will disagree with me on this and say that this will nerf both of the elite specializations, but really what else can you do to improve core engineer? Aside from buffing/reworking the kits, there's nothing much you can do.

I could go on and talk about trade off for the other elite specializations, but that'll take a long time. Most of the elite specializations are fine as they are and the only thing left to do is to buff the core professions, like elementalist applying quickness instead of swiftness from the elemental attunement trait in arcane, guardian getting the 20% damage increase from the unscathed contender trait in virtues if you have retaliation instead of aegis etc.

I was thinking about how to make Core Engi a little better and it already having a full set of F-skills makes it a little trickier. I don't play Engi much but I have been playing around with it a bit lately, and utility slot feels extremely competitive when trying to include kits. I was thinking, what if Core Engi got a kit included not as a utility skill, but as a weapon swap feature (with no CD to swap)? It would essentially give them 4 utility skill spots, and would give a clear benefit to playing core beyond just the F5 toolbelt.

[Josif.2015]

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

@Hoodie.1045 said:I was thinking about how to make Core Engi a little better and it already having a full set of F-skills makes it a little trickier. I don't play Engi much but I have been playing around with it a bit lately, and utility slot feels extremely competitive when trying to include kits. I was thinking, what if Core Engi got a kit included not as a utility skill, but as a weapon swap feature (with no CD to swap)? It would essentially give them 4 utility skill spots, and would give a clear benefit to playing core beyond just the F5 toolbelt.

This is similar to how I was thinking of making kits exclusive to core engineer. Instead of them being utility skills, they are the toolbelt skills. You know how the healing turret, elixir h and aed healing skills are located on the 6 key? The med kit's healing skill is on the F1 key, so if you take the healing skill from F1 and bring it to the 6 key it'll function the same as the other healing skills. So yes, I do believe that making the kits exclusive to core engineer and swapping the toolbelt skills with the utility skills is a good idea. It will take time for those who've been playing core engineer for years to get used to using the toolbelt keybinds for the kits, but we'll be more than happy to do it if this change makes core engineer better.

[Thornwolf.9721]

Change the shroud on core necromancer, make it something tied to the themes of the core profession and leave the full encompassing shroud to Reaper. You still get a shroud but perhaps it looks different and has more nuance to it, While reapers is a melee focused variant that covers you in darkness perhaps you could take lich form and use that as the shroud? Give it better abilities and the ability to use utilities which reaper can't do because of its powerful melee abilities, then we have scourge who abandons the idea completely.

Give core revenant more focus on the core legends, and more power to go along with that. The ancient Echo was a good idea and it works but it needs more oomf to really be worth having; I feel like making all the core legends more powerful for core would be a good way to go. But make it that once you go herald or renegade you kind of HAVE to have those legends because they only really shine and work when being used with their respective legend. (Already kinda the case for glint.)

Spellbreaker needs to loose burst skill and only have full-counter or some unique variant of burst skills that ONLY they can use, because it still feels like a better version of core warrior and it shouldn't. I feel like perhaps giving it a few F1 -3 abilties would be good like aura's that the sunspear captain used in the story? Something that allows it to be more of the bastion of a group (This would be like your commander spec, while zerker is just raw unbridled force.)

Mirage needs unique shatters like chronomancer has, something akin to flavor for them.

Firebrand needs its damage toned down, its supposed to be the support option for guardian just like Scourge is to be for necromancer. BOTH are more of a dps class than a support and I feel like both need to be remade from the ground up to make this idea realized. Or druid needs to be given the same treatment because druid is a dumpster fire right now.

Druid needs to perhaps loose its pet in favor for Wicker-minions who can't be killed but are passively there with its Celestial form also working on them, these creatures can attack and can work like a normal pet does. But you have Four of them and they can do various things such as protect and heal allies, cc and offer good benefits while also giving the druid some nuance. Staff needs work and Glyphs are kinda trash with hardly anyone actually using them, they need new utilities the reason I suggest removing the pet rather than having these things be utilities is because I feel it would be too much. Plus this opens you up to have your wicker-creatures who are your defense and offensive companions AND spirits. Ontop of that the wicker creatures should scale on your stats and not have their own, this could be super cool especially if they used something akin to the new "Boneskinner" they showcased on Pacs on the 30th of august. Really thematic and nuanced, Would set it apart from core ranger AND SOULBEAST. Soulbeast would be about fusing with your pet and the bond between them, druid would be about the power of life and the celestial cycle and more around druidism.( Id like glyphs to be replaced with totems, which are like the druids version of turrets that just pulse benefits or drawbacks depending on what it is. So its like banners and turrets had a baby.) And core ranger is about being a hunter with an animal companion, this sets them apart and makes them all unique so if they all stood side by side you'd see from a distance what one was over the other. (Druid just needs love, its in a horrible position right now and doesn't feel good to play anymore.)

[rdigeri.7935]

Here's a random thought for spellbreaker: You only have an F1 which is full counter, and after a successful counter it flips over to the regular burst skill for 6 seconds.

That alone would make it play very differently. Maybe even open room for more interesting traits in spb traitline.

[Erzian.5218]

Spellbreaker trait off is that you have only lvl 1 burst skills.

[Dadnir.5038]

Elementalist: Overall, I think the current trade-off are fine.Engineer: Scrapper trade-off is fine, holo should lose the whole tool belt in exchange for the holoforge.Guardian: DH trade-off is fine, FB tome on another hand... A trade off could be the loss of the weapon switch for FB since they got "kits".Mesmer: Just make it so both mirage and chrono can only have 2 illusions up instead of 3 (give back illusion persona to chrono).Necromancer: Reaper is fine for it's trade off, scourge need to lose the damage on shades skills.Ranger: Maybe remove the ability to switch pet for both e-specs, move the avatar and sb mode onto the pet switch F skill.Revenant: Just need core F2 to be an upkeep (-2) skill that reduce legends skills energy cost by 30%.Thief: The trade-offs are fine, the core issue in thief's balance isn't the trade-off.Warrior: Berserker should lose weapon bursts for a berserk mode that basically increase it's stats for a duration based on the adrenaline spent (make it deal low damage to foes around you while entering the stance and it would have been fine). Spell breaker should just have the counter as it's burst (give it an increased effectiveness for each bar of adrenaline spent and it would be perfect).

[rdigeri.7935]

@Erzian.5218 said:Spellbreaker trait off is that you have only lvl 1 burst skills.

True but check the meta build on it: it uses the two weapons that don't gain advantages by multiple bars of adrenaline, rendering this tradeoff meaningless in this case.

It's an upgrade, even, since you don't waste your bars via three bar bursts, you'll have them left for full countering as well.

[steki.1478]

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Elementalist: Overall, I think the current trade-off are fine.Engineer: Scrapper trade-off is fine, holo should lose the whole tool belt in exchange for the holoforge.Guardian: DH trade-off is fine, FB tome on another hand... A trade off could be the loss of the weapon switch for FB since they got "kits".Mesmer: Just make it so both mirage and chrono can only have 2 illusions up instead of 3 (give back illusion persona to chrono).Necromancer: Reaper is fine for it's trade off, scourge need to lose the damage on shades skills.Ranger: Maybe remove the ability to switch pet for both e-specs, move the avatar and sb mode onto the pet switch F skill.Revenant: Just need core F2 to be an upkeep (-2) skill that reduce legends skills energy cost by 30%.Thief: The trade-offs are fine, the core issue in thief's balance isn't the trade-off.Warrior: Berserker should lose weapon bursts for a berserk mode that basically increase it's stats for a duration based on the adrenaline spent (make it deal low damage to foes around you while entering the stance and it would have been fine). Spell breaker should just have the counter as it's burst (give it an increased effectiveness for each bar of adrenaline spent and it would be perfect).

These sound pretty fair and reasonable.

I'll just add that IMO chrono shatters should revolve around phantasms only and clone skills can grant (aoe) alscrity or reduce shatter cooldowns or something similar. On the other hand I don't think that mirage needs different shatters since it's focused on clones, but I think that movement buff after dodging should be a major trait instead of minor. They should trade dodge roll mobility for being able to dodge mid skill cast (they can also dodge while CCed which is pretty stupid..unless they removed that), but right now it doesn't seem like much of a trade.

I'm also not a fan of soulbeast getting both stats AND extra skills when merging with pet. If merge was permanent it would make sense, but nothing stops you from using pet skills before merging. Being able to quadruple your boons from trait and healing skill shouldn't be possible either. Weaver doesn't get benefits from 2 elements on glyphs or minor traits that are related to current attunement so idk why slb gets to have broken synergies.

The last thing I don't understand is weaver dual skills not being affected by cooldown reduction traits from core specs when thief has 2 traits that reduce steal cd and engi can reduce cd of certain tool belt skills twice as well (from elixir trait and tool belt trait for example).

[Dadnir.5038]

@steki.1478 said:The last thing I don't understand is weaver dual skills not being affected by cooldown reduction traits from core specs when thief has 2 traits that reduce steal cd and engi can reduce cd of certain tool belt skills twice as well (from elixir trait and tool belt trait for example).

I guess that will remain the biggest mistery of this e-spec.

[ZDragon.3046]

I think some of these post are getting off topic to be honest but here are the three biggest offenders in my opinionThe following elites kind of lack a real trade off and dont really lose anything significant enough to qualify as a true loss. A trade off implies something great thats not within the core confines of the professions unique mechanic at least in my eyes.

1: Mirage loses its distortion just like Chrono did instead by default their f4 shatters clones into mirage mirrors and grants the mirage a single mirage cloak on initial use. The trait that does this is replaced with a new effect to compensate. Its f1 through f3 become unique Additionally the f4 requires at leas 1 clone to cast.

2: Soul Beast loses the ability to pet swap and becomes locked to 1 active pet as the pet can be revived by merging with it. This causing them to pick that single pet more carefully for specifically one purpose to focus that bond with that pet.

3: Holosmith's toolbelt becomes locked to the exceed toolbealt skills (Cauterize, Flash Spark, Prismatic Singularity, etc) regardless if you slot the exceed skills themselves in the utility bar or not.

---

Now for Trade offs that either need to be reworked or elites that need to see some tweaks because their trade offs are either not inline or currently questionable.

Chrono should have his ability to shatter without clones returned to the f1, f2, and f3 but not its f4. Continuum Split should always require 1 clone to cast.

Scourge has a trade off of losing shroud but with the upcoming balance changes I question if the trade off is now justified in any other game mode aside from wvw. This requires a bigger longer conversation i wont go into there is no easy solution here.

Druid The trade off here is that the pet is weaker and while it does work its kind of just a lackluster trade really. A bit boring if you ask me thats about it thought. I think druids could have lost pets all together for the celestial versions of their glyphs taking place in the pet hud by default. Give them more of a real bond to nature and the stars as opposed to just lowering pet stats. They would always have a bit of that connection to nature even if they didnt slot glyphs on their utility bar.

Firebrand Is an issue. While it does lose its quick instant active virtues for impressive tome skills with cast times i feel a bit more needs to be done. They could arguably have their movement speed reduced and personal boon duration reduced by as much as 50% while using a tome bundle. Generally the loss of simple virtues for these over-tuned tomes is hardly a trade off. While im not saying they shouldn't be powerful they should also have a bit more of a down side to them to keep them in line. The tomes provide a TON and i mean TOOOOOON of power and utility in every game mode compared to the standard virtues. While i consider guardian at its base one of the best balanced classes in the game firebrand is over tuned and it's built on such a stable foundation where its elites really don't need the level of over tuning that firebrand has in its kit. These impressive spells can stay impressive but perhaps they just lose something while use them.

I see lots of people talking about core stuff here which is going way off topic if you ask me.

[Durzlla.6295]

As a Druid main I would fully support Druid losing their pet in exchange for their F1-F3 being some form of animal or wicker creature summon, especially if it means that my glyphs got some love.

I love the duality concept Druid has, but it’d be nice if they embraced it more, have the out of celestial form be the violent/controlling terrestrial magic and then have avatar state be more supportive and empowering Celestial magic (kind of how they have it).

Would also be cool if they made it so Druids only had one pet, but then make it so that glyphs triggered around both of them, and when they went avatar state the pet got celestially too and the Celestial skills appeared around the Druid and their pet sorta thing.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Hoodie.1045 said:Ever since the Berserker rework, ArenaNet made it clear that they want elite specializations to have actual trade-offs. Some people may not like this, but I do because an elite specialization should give a profession a different playstyle and not a specialization that is objectively better than the core profession. I'm a core engineer main and seeing it neglected for such a long time hurts especially since we went from almost nobody playing engineer to suddenly everybody playing holosmith and nothing but holosmith. I understand that ArenaNet wants more people to play the engineer profession by creating an elite specialization that is easier to play, but doesn't perform as well as core condition engineer, unfortunately that's wasn't the case when PoF was released and it still isn't the case today.

I've been thinking about this for a while and I came up with two solutions: either remove the toolbelt skills from holosmith and just have photon forge as the F1 skill or make the kits exclusive to core engineer. Before anyone freaks out about this, hear me out: holosmith is designed to be a glass cannon specialization, yet it has plenty of sustain thanks to some of the toolbelt skills like regenerating mist and toss elixir s. Removing the toolbelt skills will significantly nerf holosmith's sustain and rightfully so. No build should be able to deal a ton of damage, while also having stability, stealth, quickness, blocking and invulnerability skills.

While on the subject of making kits exclusive to core engineer, understand that the elite specializations don't rely on kits as much as core engineer does. Scrapper only uses the elixir gun for support builds in PvE and for sustain in PvP, holosmith only uses the grenade kit in PvE and no kits in PvP. I know that a lot of people will disagree with me on this and say that this will nerf both of the elite specializations, but really what else can you do to improve core engineer? Aside from buffing/reworking the kits, there's nothing much you can do.

I could go on and talk about trade off for the other elite specializations, but that'll take a long time. Most of the elite specializations are fine as they are and the only thing left to do is to buff the core professions, like elementalist applying quickness instead of swiftness from the elemental attunement trait in arcane, guardian getting the 20% damage increase from the unscathed contender trait in virtues if you have retaliation instead of aegis etc.

The flaw though is that they ALREADY had trade offs that are part of their Core design..... and it was glaring back when Core was the only thing we had. HOT Especs worked to round those out, so every class had something competitive in every game mode. As long as Core Classes have this weakness, many of them can't afford to have further weaknesses without much stronger gains to compensate. On that same note, half the Classes have core concepts that way more flexible then the other half, allowing them to synergize with Especs that don't have to be explicitly designed around them. Holo is example of an Espec that superseded its Core, because Core Engie Traits are too spread out to be effective without all 3 trait lines working on Concert. Guardians on the other hand have extremely well designed skills and traits that work well both independently and as part of a trait focus. The Revamped shrouds do the Heavy lifting for Necro. While the baseline stealth access on Thief makes it a core PvP strategy but is next to worthless in PvE combat, regardless of which Espec they run.

Their attempts to power balance the Especs with the Trade offs are FAILING, because they don't seem to understand how these classes are Power balanced internally. Like making Scrapper a Barrier engine and offsetting it with lower Vit, but tying it to its power damage output. The change to Scourge Shades fail to recognize all the previous nerfs that have already happened, which in turn was failing to realize how much of their Traits are directly tied into their Shourd mechanics. Thats because Necro weapons are utilities, and the Shroud is its main weapon. Reaper is essentially the same concept as Holosmith..... but PF is treated like a Kit only interfaces with other trait lines for damage, while Reaper Shroud is a complete Transform that draws from the Traits to get the majority of its power.

[Daniel Handler.4816]

@"Thornwolf.9721" said:

1. Change the shroud on core necromancer, make it something tied to the themes of the core profession and leave the full encompassing shroud to Reaper. You still get a shroud but perhaps it looks different and has more nuance to it, While reapers is a melee focused variant that covers you in darkness perhaps you could take lich form and use that as the shroud? Give it better abilities and the ability to use utilities which reaper can't do because of its powerful melee abilities, then we have scourge who abandons the idea completely.
2. Give core revenant more focus on the core legends, and more power to go along with that. The ancient Echo was a good idea and it works but it needs more oomf to really be worth having; I feel like making all the core legends more powerful for core would be a good way to go. But make it that once you go herald or renegade you kind of HAVE to have those legends because they only really shine and work when being used with their respective legend. (Already kinda the case for glint.)
3. Spellbreaker needs to loose burst skill and only have full-counter or some unique variant of burst skills that ONLY they can use, because it still feels like a better version of core warrior and it shouldn't. I feel like perhaps giving it a few F1 -3 abilties would be good like aura's that the sunspear captain used in the story? Something that allows it to be more of the bastion of a group (This would be like your commander spec, while zerker is just raw unbridled force.)
4. Mirage needs unique shatters like chronomancer has, something akin to flavor for them.
5. Firebrand needs its damage toned down, its supposed to be the support option for guardian just like Scourge is to be for necromancer. BOTH are more of a dps class than a support and I feel like both need to be remade from the ground up to make this idea realized. Or druid needs to be given the same treatment because druid is a dumpster fire right now.
6. Druid needs to perhaps loose its pet in favor for Wicker-minions who can't be killed but are passively there with its Celestial form also working on them, these creatures can attack and can work like a normal pet does. But you have Four of them and they can do various things such as protect and heal allies, cc and offer good benefits while also giving the druid some nuance. Staff needs work and Glyphs are kinda trash with hardly anyone actually using them, they need new utilities the reason I suggest removing the pet rather than having these things be utilities is because I feel it would be too much. Plus this opens you up to have your wicker-creatures who are your defense and offensive companions AND spirits. Ontop of that the wicker creatures should scale on your stats and not have their own, this could be super cool especially if they used something akin to the new "Boneskinner" they showcased on Pacs on the 30th of august. Really thematic and nuanced, Would set it apart from core ranger AND SOULBEAST. Soulbeast would be about fusing with your pet and the bond between them, druid would be about the power of life and the celestial cycle and more around druidism.( Id like glyphs to be replaced with totems, which are like the druids version of turrets that just pulse benefits or drawbacks depending on what it is. So its like banners and turrets had a baby.) And core ranger is about being a hunter with an animal companion, this sets them apart and makes them all unique so if they all stood side by side you'd see from a distance what one was over the other. (Druid just needs love, its in a horrible position right now and doesn't feel good to play anymore.)

They need to stop reworking elite spec mechanics every few months and just adjust traits. If they are direhard on differences they can buff core professions in ways that don't carry over like when core revenant got arcane echo or core engie got unique f5 skills.

It is wiser for core mesmer/core ele/core ranger to get their own f5 skill than for them to puzzle how they can nerf mirage/tempest/soulbeast, invariably fail at it, and never change it.