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Essence timing


Rauderi.8706

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I've been meaning to bring this up since the Saga started, but with the new episode, it feels more relevant.

Trying to maintain Essence stacks as they are now just isn't fun. They take too long to build up and don't last long enough. That they even go away at all is part of the problem. I could hope, at least, to get a full 15-minute (should be 30, honestly) recharge for grabbing one, instead of a measly 30-second bump.

With how things flow in Drizzlewood, this makes Essence even more obnoxious, since there is little control one has over which essences can be grabbed in the middle of chaotic battle.•So I gotta ask, can we make the timer a little (or a lot) more generous?

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I stopped bothering with this mechanic, it is way too annoying having to gather up the Essences for almost no benefit. Maintaining the stacks is even more of a bother, an annoying chore. Sure, the special skill is a must for Strike Missions, so they added the dummies for a quick stack. Might as well give the buff when you enter the instance.

For open world fighting, using the special Skill is a bother too: fights are fast and frantic, retargeting is frequent, the F6 skill keeps popping up but either you have the wrong type of Enemy targeted, the enemy is already dead or the effect is negligible anyway due to high dps of groups/zergs. Takes a pretty long time to cast too. Even when population goes down, I do not see people using the skill more: either you do these meta's with enough people or you don't do them at all.

A rework is needed.

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I read the comments from the game designer who created the essence system and it was sad. He thought he was building a new, fun, and exciting addition to our collective game play. Instead, he seems to have created an irritating, almost useless add-on that a number of people, including me, just ignore.

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I completely agree. It seems there's never enough red or especially green in the new map, and with how fast the charge empties until you get a full stack, I find myself paying more attention to running around picking up essences than to the actual fighting or anything else going on. Which leads to my character dying and, if I'm the only one on an event, to the event failing. I enjoy using the essences to break bars and do damage, but trying to build up a full stack and manage the timer is stressful, not fun.

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@Rauderi.8706 said:I've been meaning to bring this up since the Saga started, but with the new episode, it feels more relevant.

Trying to maintain Essence stacks as they are now just isn't fun. They take too long to build up and don't last long enough. That they even go away at all is part of the problem. I could hope, at least, to get a full 15-minute (should be 30, honestly) recharge for grabbing one, instead of a measly 30-second bump.

With how things flow in Drizzlewood, this makes Essence even more obnoxious, since there is little control one has over which essences can be grabbed in the middle of chaotic battle.•So I gotta ask, can we make the timer a little (or a lot) more generous?

I agree a longer timer is much more desirable since I have to go out and aquire the stacks manually, with tons of time in between fights possibly. The essence system would be much less of a bother if it refined some. I do it, even though I feel like it seems weird, to go into strikes solo and acquire the stacks from the pylons then leave. It rotates so sometimes you can get two different ones. But why do I HAVE to do that?

Additionally, I wonder why Charr on the new map have essence?

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@aspirine.6852 said:The essences are just plain annoying. I would rather see them being reworked because all I see is error messages during a fight.

That's right. Unless you are fighting just one Champion without adds nearby, then the attunement always switches to the correct essence. Otherwise, it keeps blinking back and forth, and it takes forever to trigger - by then, it's already switched to the next.

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@"HotDelirium.7984" said:Additionally, I wonder why Charr on the new map have essence?Ikr XD

It felt like they drop essences just for the sake of dropping essences, doesn't actually have a point to it. Also the RGB skin colour Charrs make them appears "cheap", if that's the right way to put it.

I also agree with OP that after playing on that map for 2 days, the essences system is pretty much non-existence to me more so than ever. There really should not be a timer at all once you gathered until you leave the map, full stack or not. Not to mention firing it at any mob is like almost never succeeded like how Tyncale described....

I was in the hope of new patch would bring essence autoloot but I was wrong. Otherwise it's very distracting to the actual fight for something that don't even function or I die/contribute less, so I might aswell just ignore it.

P/s: I like the new map & its events, just not the essesces system.

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@Blueberry.8095 said:

@"HotDelirium.7984" said:Additionally, I wonder why Charr on the new map have essence?Ikr XD

It felt like they drop essences just for the sake of dropping essences, doesn't actually have a point to it. Also the RGB skin colour Charrs make them appears "cheap", if that's the right way to put it.

I also agree with OP that after playing on that map for 2 days, the essences system is pretty much non-existence to me more so than ever. There really should not be a timer at all once you gathered until you leave the map, full stack or not. Not to mention firing it at any mob is like almost never succeeded like how Tyncale described....

I was in the hope of new patch would bring essence autoloot but I was wrong. Otherwise it's very distracting to the actual fight for something that don't even function or I die/contribute less, so I might aswell just ignore it.

P/s: I like the new map & its events, just not the essesces system.

I like that! Essence auto loot! Next mastery! I'm glad the new models aren't translucent RGB like the other creatures. They never said they were of ethereal/ghostly origin besides aberant being an evil doppleganger half so they really should be more solid. Its hard to fully see them.

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I'm actually kind of surprised that the upper tier of the essence mastery wasn't an ability to automatically collect essences upon enemy death. If you ask me, adding another tier to the mastery that does this would solve most of the problem.

Between screen clutter, millions of events and map objectives, and the fact that visual cues for the essences easily fade into the woodland environment, running around to physically pick up essences is about as fun as running to individual enemies to pick up loot - which is to say not at all fun.

From a lore standpoint, an auto-gather ability could be attributed to having more experience with essence collection, and from a mechanic standpoint, it'd be more in line with the way loot (and even buffs) are treated.

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After spending a whole evening on the map, the only few times I got the essence to work without the invalid target was during champ fights.The essence idea itself is not bad at all, collecting them and using could use a little tweak. Mastery to use the essence no matter the mobtype?

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Now that I think about it more, Essences would benefit more from a different approach.Instead of "unlock this ability for this duration" it should be "every 5 essence gives 1 charge/ammo of this ability". That would still encourage players to engage in the enemy type but not punish them for needing to idle or being somewhere that a particular enemy type doesn't exist (the latter being a huge problem where the Essence system was first introduced).And given that the big beam attack is only useable under very specific conditions anyway (veteran+ enemy, certain HP% threshold, essence charged), an ammo limit that could be unloaded on an active target feels like a much more practical option anyway while still respecting a limited benefit.

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I'm sure it's been suggested before, but honestly having auto-loot pick up the essences for you would solve a lot of these issues. If you were constantly getting a 30s recharge every time you killed an enemy, rather than kill enemy > wait for essence to appear > walk over essence > now you can continue doing what you were doing, it would do a lot towards keeping up the buff just through active participation in the map. As it is, I've done the meta about 7 times so far and usually only have the blue buff charged. If I work at it, I can get red and rarely green.

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@Rauderi.8706 said:I've been meaning to bring this up since the Saga started, but with the new episode, it feels more relevant.

Trying to maintain Essence stacks as they are now just isn't fun. They take too long to build up and don't last long enough. That they even go away at all is part of the problem. I could hope, at least, to get a full 15-minute (should be 30, honestly) recharge for grabbing one, instead of a measly 30-second bump.

With how things flow in Drizzlewood, this makes Essence even more obnoxious, since there is little control one has over which essences can be grabbed in the middle of chaotic battle.•So I gotta ask, can we make the timer a little (or a lot) more generous?

Agreed. I feel like a 24 hour buff is really warranted for this. I still don't even know entirely how they work or how the buff transfers. If I switch maps or get my essences maxed from strike mission instances and switch maps will I still have the buff? I've never bothered to try.

I'm still struggling to find enough mastery points for this last episode. These masteries in general, no matter how much damage they put out or how integral they are to strike missions have always just felt really underwhelming, clunky, and unnecessarily grindy. It's satisfying landing a large blow every now and then to decimate a mob but it's barely noticeable and the cast time makes it pretty irritating to use, especially when you occasionally have a very brief window of time to use it.

I don't really know how they're going to keep building onto this skill. I guess next tier we spend 5 mastery points, the damage gets a minor boost, and it bounces to more targets? At max development is it just going to be a giant aoe nuclear bomb we can press and wipe out everything around us? lol

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The essences should last longer, I agree. I think that once you've acquired 30 stacks, the buff stays for an hour, and each stack you pick up gives you 5 mins. That should be sufficient time for players to accumulate stacks without feeling the need to race around like a manic Skritt picking up essences from slain enemies.

I'd also like it if the different essences fed into/empowered each other. Like, if you have both Vigilance AND Valor at maximum, you can fire a combined blast that deals even more damage and has improved effects. Likewise, maxing all three essences gives you a Spirit Cannon of Doom that deals insane damage/CC/condis. Maybe an idea for T5 of the Mastery with the next release?

And speaking of which... Has anybody actually gotten the T4 version of the blast to properly bounce to targets? It feels like I never see that effect actually happen; I'm only catching enemies within the initial blast.

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  • 2 weeks later...

If they made it that easy, everyone would have it, and trivialize the combat. These blasts do like 20k-40k damage and CC. I agree it feels bad to have 28 stacks and they fall off before you can get 2 more, but the abilities should be limited. I have however had all 3 at the same time once, and then they are very spammable. Agreed that the correct colour doesn’t seem to pop up most of the time, Seems to fire anyway. If you can catch Vishen and Roanoah between you and the right coloured mob, they can be damaged too.Blue seems to be the easiest to collect. I maxed out green at the Overlook. I think I’m finding through the meta it goes green, blue, red south to north.In short, it should be left to those who make it a point to get the pickups. And remember, once one is maxed, further stacks give magic find.

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