[Suggestion] Give range weapon auto attacks a chain

[Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365]

I feel like all range weapons auto attacks are really kind of lame at this point in the game. Many of them are really powerful (rev hammer, ele staff, engi rifle, ranger LB) with high power scaling so of course its been appealing to just spam 1 for that reason. inbb4 NERFSWEREMADE qq... yes i know... this is not a thread about that.

It wold really add something interesting if the range autos were given a chain. This could also allow for number scaling and new effects being added to the autos or nr! skills

[Kodama.6453]

There are 2 ranged weapons which already have this: Scepter for necromancer and for mesmer.I agree that it would be interesting to see this implemented in more ranged weapons, tho.

[Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365]

@Kodama.6453 said:There are 2 ranged weapons which already have this: Scepter for necromancer and for mesmer.I agree that it would be interesting to see this implemented in more ranged weapons, tho.

Yep thats true. So far no projectile autos have a chain Id think there could be some pretty cool stuff to be done with those

[Kodama.6453]

@Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365 said:

@Kodama.6453 said:There are 2 ranged weapons which already have this: Scepter for necromancer and for mesmer.I agree that it would be interesting to see this implemented in more ranged weapons, tho.

Yep thats true. So far no projectile autos have a chain Id think there could be some pretty cool stuff to be done with those

Mesmer's scepter uses projectiles, if I am not mistaken. Necromancer's doesn't.

I would really like this to happen for engineer especially. Rifle and pistol autos never really felt good to use. This could give them some more satisfaction.

[DonArkanio.6419]

Oh man, I'd love it!

I hate the way ranged weapons just slam that 1 attack over and over again - Guardian scepter being the biggest issue for me.

Bows and rifles are kind of understandable, because there is so only so much you can do with it. But weapons like Rev's hammer, Guard's scepter, and Staves could use some improvements.

I like how Guard's staff works, simple because it has an AA chain.

[Kodama.6453]

@DonArkanio.6419 said:Oh man, I'd love it!

I hate the way ranged weapons just slam that 1 attack over and over again - Guardian scepter being the biggest issue for me.

Bows and rifles are kind of understandable, because there is so only so much you can do with it. But weapons like Rev's hammer, Guard's scepter, and Staves could use some improvements.

I like how Guard's staff works, simple because it has an AA chain.

Engineer could have amazing auto attack chains with pistol and rifle, considering that they simply could use different types of experimental bullets for each chain ability.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I'd be down with this. Warrior Rifle AA needs some love.

[Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365]

@Kodama.6453 said:

@Ovalkvadratcylinder.9365 said:

@Kodama.6453 said:There are 2 ranged weapons which already have this: Scepter for necromancer and for mesmer.I agree that it would be interesting to see this implemented in more ranged weapons, tho.

Yep thats true. So far no projectile autos have a chain Id think there could be some pretty cool stuff to be done with those

Mesmer's scepter uses projectiles, if I am not mistaken. Necromancer's doesn't.

I would really like this to happen for engineer especially. Rifle and pistol autos never really felt good to use. This could give them some more satisfaction.

Oh thats right! I havnt touched my mesmer in 5 years so had forgotten about it!Yes, engineer being my main class i rly miss some spice regarding all the ranged autos.

[Obtena.7952]

It sounds good, but it's a hard sell from a practical perspective to implement a chain on a ranged because the risk to break the rotation is pretty low compared to a melee. And yes I know they already have some ranged chain weapons. Like anything, it's a theme-based decision to design some with chains and some without.

[Taril.8619]

It would be nice. Adds some more flash to auto-attacking as well as some skill improvements when you try and time your abilities to not interrupt AA chains.

Though, I'd prefer a fix to the issue of various ranged weapons being so lacking in their non-AA based damage, so that sitting around and auto attacking is a less prominent part of gameplay.

Heck, one of the reasons I don't play my Ranger much is because I really want to use a Longbow and shoot from far away while my pet gets up close and harasses people. But for the most part, Ranger LB is just auto attacks with a skill 2/5 mixed in every so often... (It's not helped by the fact that Ranger doesn't have a second Power based Ranged weapon to use alongside LB to switch between at similar ranges as Axe is short range and SB is also short range and is condi)

Outside of that, I think it could be cool to see what they could come up with for certain weapons. Such as Mesmer GS, Necro Staff and basically all Tridents.

On a somewhat related note, I wonder if it'd be possible to get auto attacks to be Dual Wield skills? So that when using 2 weapons, you'll use both while AAing (As opposed to standing there holding 2 swords and only swinging one while your off hand just sits there doing nothing...) of course, that's a ton of work to add in for every weapon combination, but it'd be pretty cool.

[Yasai.3549]

Different animations - yesAA chain which has ramping damage - no.

Melee has AA chain to compensate the melee range that the player has to be in in order to pull it off.If yu give ranged weapons an AA chain similar to melee which increases in effects per hit, it will throw weapon balance right out the window.

[Kodama.6453]

@Yasai.3549 said:Different animations - yesAA chain which has ramping damage - no.

Melee has AA chain to compensate the melee range that the player has to be in in order to pull it off.If yu give ranged weapons an AA chain similar to melee which increases in effects per hit, it will throw weapon balance right out the window.

There are already ranged weapons which do exactly this, like necromancer's scepter and guardian's staff. Doesn't seem to be such a huge balance problem for these 2 weapons.

And considering how absolutely underwhelming some ranged auto attacks are (engineer's pistol coming to my mind immediately...), I think this would be a great way to buff these skills.

[Yasai.3549]

@Kodama.6453 said:

There are already ranged weapons which do exactly this, like necromancer's scepter and guardian's staff. Doesn't seem to be such a huge balance problem for these 2 weapons.

And considering how absolutely underwhelming some ranged auto attacks are (engineer's pistol coming to my mind immediately...), I think this would be a great way to buff these skills.

I only responded as such based on the weapons that OP suggested, like Engi Rifle and Ranger LB, which already perform nicely without having an AA chain.

But yu are right, there are certain weapons which need either a rework or small buff like AA chain, but at the same time several others that do not.

[Taril.8619]

@Yasai.3549 said:Different animations - yesAA chain which has ramping damage - no.

Melee has AA chain to compensate the melee range that the player has to be in in order to pull it off.If yu give ranged weapons an AA chain similar to melee which increases in effects per hit, it will throw weapon balance right out the window.

First off:

It's possible to balance numbers and cast times so that ranged weapons continue having the same DPS even with an AA chain, with the only addition being maybe some minor utility from a condi on part of a chain.

Secondly:

Melee AA chain is actively detrimental to melee strength. Since it backloads their AA damage towards the 3rd (Or 4th) combo strike, punishing lower uptime (As well as combo cancelling from dodges and skill usages) as opposed to having AA's that deal a flat amount of damage every hit.

Thirdly:

Many melee weapons don't rely on their AA's as a main damage source, often having shorter CD other skills that they use frequently instead. It's more so ranged weapons that end up actually heavily relying on AA's for damage (Which leads to lackluster results for ranged weapons that have bad AA's, such as Necro Staff, Engie Pistol, Guardian Scepter and Guardian Staff (Which currently already has a chain AA))

[Tharan.9085]

Just play guard for that staff AA chain

[Smoosh.2718]

I dig this idea!!

Would give ranged weapons more impact on the 1 play, that actually feels like you are doing something.An example of this could be for rifle: shoot once, shoot twice (double tap), shoot three times (three round burst) or something of the sort for Longbow, where you load an extra arrow per shot, but the downside is that the arrow travels slower on each shot.

[Dante.1763]

You know what, i like this idea. Necro scepter is my favorite ranged AA skill actually because its not boring and feels nice. Anets creative, im sure they could come up with neat AA skill chains for the other ranged weapons.

To those concerned with balance, they can keep the same DPS by just splitting the damage up between skills, not a big deal.