illuminosity.8537

100%, it was amazing how quickly I went from being excited to disappointed when thinking about hammer dual attacks and then seeing them. Also worth pointing out that hammer has tons of combo finishers and basically no fields, and ele utilities are useless for generating fields too. Catalyst compensates for this with its class mechanic, and tempest can at least somewhat compensate with overload fire and air, but what is a weaver to do? Rely on ally fields and hope they hit the right ones? The dual attack skills are the perfect opportunity to fill in this gap. You can even keep an orb-y theme if you want. Some basic ideas: Fire/Air: Fire a plasma orb that explodes when it hits its target leaving behind a fire field in the indicated spot. Fire/Water: Fire two orbs of frost and flame that burn / chill targets they hit, then meet at the indicated spot, leaving behind a water field. Fire/Earth: Fire a lava orb straight towards the target that pulses burning to nearby targets and leaves behind a fire field. Water/Air: Fire a frost orb that shoots nearby targets with ice shards inflicting bleeding, and leaves behind a frost field. Water/Earth: Summon a mud orb out of the ground at the targeted location that immobilises targets. Air/Earth: Fire a sonic orb that explodes when it reaches the targeted area, dazing targets for a duration based on how close they are to the center of the explosion.

Please do something about energy on catalyst. It feels awful. Boss goes invuln at the wrong time? Too bad, you don't have quickness for your group when invuln ends and they need it. Harvesting in open world / home instance? No access. Non-instanced fights? Start off with nothing. Currently it adds nothing valuable to the spec, is barely integrated into it and makes it significantly more clunky and unpleasant to use. Some basic suggestions: Remove it and tune cooldowns on spheres appropriately Remove it and add charges for spheres like scourge shades Integrate it fully throughout the spec so that traits and utilities have interplay with it (not just one rather random trait), e.g. energy on attunement swap, energy on augment use, energy on gaining auras, pulsing energy granted by EE stacks, or when an EE expires Make energy regenerate like rev energy whenever a sphere is not actively down Or anything, really, just please fix this mechanic that makes the spec feel so much worse to play.

I don't really see it as a problem. Giving up arcane on weaver is a huge detriment, so the alternative needs to have a serious upside to recommend it. More viable trees for more specs across the game with interesting tradeoffs seems like a win.

At least the old bots used to try to play and were about as good as a terrible player. The AFKers that just stay in home basically mean you're not going to win unless there's a severe skill disadvantage. I took a break from PvP with the EoD launch for a while, and just started getting back into it and having fun, but for the last three weeks or so there has literally been one or more AFK bots in every second match I've played. I can deal with losing, but loading in and realising in the first thirty seconds that it's all over because of some random kitten sucks, and I won't be going back to the mode until Arenanet decide to actually spend some effort on this. People have talked about the game mode being dead for a long time, but it was at the very least always fun. It's not anymore, and this will be the real death of it.

I love that sword weaver is getting buffed, but I feel a bit iffy about it being on autos. The skill rotation already has a lot of things to pay attention to, and the more you buff autos, the more complexity you add by having to monitor auto chains, and the more it hurts players who don't do so. I think it'd make the spec a lot more friendly to newer & less skilled players to reduce auto attack damage and increase the damage on active skills like the dual skill attacks, which is naturally what a person will be looking at and paying attention to while attunement dancing. It's great to see tempest getting some more defensive tools in their kit, but I find the placements a little odd. Eye of the Storm is a skill you want to use *after* people have been CCed, so it's a little odd to see it now having reasons to use it both before and after. I'd suggest a different way of making Eye of the Storm more of a consideration to bring, such as having it provide fury, or lean into its defensive role a little differently by having it daze nearby enemies when used (ie, enemy CCs you, use you eye of the storm to recover and have a short period of daze and superspeed to help you escape or turn the tables). I see the thinking behind aegis on aftershock, but I think it's actually counter productive. If someone hits you with a ranged attack, won't we now block it instead or reflecting it? It seems a bit odd. I would suggest putting stab on aftershock, making it the skill you use when you anticipate incoming ranged damage or CC. I would then put aegis on to Flash Freeze to enhance its protective effects.

Some thoughts on one of the more underwhelming and outdated feeling trait lines: Stone Flesh: Strike damage taken is reduced while attuned to earth. Decent defensive effect, plays into earth's defenses / condi damage theme, but every elementalist spec is based around switching attunements. Talents should never encourage camping a single attunement. Suggested change: After attuning to earth, strike damage taken is reduced for 6 seconds. Earth's Embrace: Cast Armor of Earth when struck while below the health threshold. Needs a full rework to escape the pit of the 300s cooldowns. In general I am against traits of the form "let yourself be hit to get an advantage" anyway. Encourage players to actively mitigate damage. Suggested change: Gain increased incoming barrier. Gain barrier when you successfully evade an attack. Serrated Stones: Bleeding you inflict has increased duration. Deal increased damage to bleeding foes. Increased bleeding duration is fine. Increasing all damage if an enemy is bleeding is kinda weird, and boring because with the amount of bleeds in the game, it cashes out as 5% straight buff against any enemy where 5% damage matters. Suggested change: Bleeding you inflict has increased duration. Gain increased condition damage whenever you inflict bleeding on a foe. Elemental Shielding : Auras you grant to allies also grant protection. Elementalist can already grant allies protection from Arcane's Elemental Attunement, Earth Staff 3's Transmute Earth, Earth Warhorn 4, Aftershock, Overload Earth, Earth Elemental's Stomp and Earth Jade Sphere, as well as a half dozen personal sources. This trait is competing against strong aura cleanse in fire and fury and swiftness in air, and needs to grant a unique form of protection to be a compelling choice. Suggested change: Auras you grant to allies also grant barrier. Earthen Blast: Damage and cripple nearby foes when attuning to earth. Cripple is quite nice, and gives you an active source of escape or pursuit. A flat, non-critical packet of damage however doesn't suit the trait line's theme at all. Suggested change: Inflict bleeding and cripple on nearby foes when attuning to earth. Strength of Stone: Gain condition damage based on your toughness. Inflict bleeding when you immobilize a foe. The only real issue here is that toughness is a stat players actively avoid for raiding (a problem which should be addressed, but is out of scope of these changes). Suggested change: Gain condition damage based on your vitality. Inflict bleeding when you immobilize a foe. Rock Solid: Grant stability to nearby allies when attuning to earth. One of the more underwhelming support talents. In most builds that use earth, earth is going to be on cooldown when a mechanic requires stability, and coupled with its short duration, you're basically just hoping you get lucky with this trait. On the other hand, stability is very strong and arguably too prevalent on other support builds at the moment, so shouldn't be too spammable. Suggested change: Magnetic auras you grant to allies also grant stability. I'd also recommend adding magnetic aura to Magnetic Wave, or for a very short duration on attuning to earth to increase the value of this skill to non-tempest builds, but that may be oppressive on tempests. Earthen Blessing: Decrease the duration of movement-impairing conditions applied to you. Restore endurance when you receive one of these conditions. Feels more like an air talent to me, following air's themes of critical hits, crowd control and mobility. Suggested change: Crowd control effects have a reduced duration on you. Geomancer's Training: Strike damage from nearby foes is reduced. Earth weapon skills gain reduced recharge. Reduced recharge is nice. Reduced strike damage is a little boring, but basically fine. Diamond Skin: Remove conditions when struck while your health is above the threshold. Bad for so many reasons. 1) You shouldn't be trying to get hit 2) It directly contradicts itself by working on getting hit, but then not working if you take a certain amount of damage 3) Competing with strong cleanse from water and fire already, when it should do its own thing. Suggested change: Auras you grant to allies also grant resistance. Written in Stone: Signets gain reduced recharge and continue to grant their passive bonuses while recharging. Perfect talent, strong and worth taking, while changing the way you approach a whole set of existing abilities. If I was to have any complaints, it would be that too many of the signets aren't amazing even with this powerful buff, and that Perfect Inscriptions is now a boring copy-paste of this. Suggested change: Don't change. Stone Heart: You cannot be critically hit while attuned to earth. Powerful, but has the same issue as Stone Flesh encouraging camping attunements. Additionally, this completely invalidates the effect of crits for enemy power users, even though they've had to invest two statistics (precision & ferocity) into it. Suggested change: After attuning to earth, take reduced damage from critical hits for 6 seconds. I would suggest the reduction equals 50%, so it removes the base bonus from a critical hit, while still rewarding enemies for any extra ferocity they have equipped.

Short feedback from me (anything but a rev main). With the nature of the alliance stance, and the ability to spec it as a decent healer, you should give it a second weapon for its elite -- greatsword for dps focused play, and scepter or warhorn for a boon support role. Players could take both to lean into the duality, or take either one to focus on damage or support only -- and it would give rev an additional support weapon option other than the so so staff skills.

Changes that would make it feel better to me: Jade Sphere can be permanently down, just nix the energy mechanic altogether. To balance this a little, feel free to remove any damage from it, so it's basically a permanent combo field ele can bring. This also means it doesn't matter that hammer can't bring any fields since anyone with hammer has a permanent combo field available in the attunement of their choice. This also solves the problem that energy feels icky to use in basically any environment that isn't hitting a long lived boss, and means you can get quickness up on your group as soon as combat is joined like... any other quickness support would be expected to. Remove the f5 cancel skill. You can now f5 again with a cast time as a downside to replace the field. Give it a short cooldown like 5 - 8 seconds if necessary. Change the field to give boons on placement and attunement switch instead of pulsing them. This rewards attunement dancing, and has a really nice interaction with fresh air giving out quickness. The length of the buffs may need to be slightly increased since they'll be happening less often. Augments no longer affect you at all. Instead, they affect anyone inside your field. This is a nice way for ele to bring some group support without needing to go full tempest to do so, which is a perennial ele complaint. I'd also rework a few to make them more interesting, e.g. maybe projectile block instead of / as well as superspeed for air, group stunbreak (but again you have to be inside the sphere to be affected) on the earth as well as the barrier. [Edit] To clarify, it shouldn't rely on you matching your attunement to the augment, that's a bit too much. There are plenty of ele skills that do different things based on attunement, but their versaility is what makes up for their being more finicky to use -- you get 4 different options from the one skill. Here you are locked into the one skill but still have to wait for the right attunement. Change the elite completely. It turns your sphere into a damaging field for a short period of time, pulsing damage and a condition based on attunement onto enemies within it. Cooldown would then be shorter, potentially with charges, and it would have a nice interaction in pvp where enemies could be in the field safely most of the time, but your elite makes it more costly for them to do so. I like the focus on auras and getting more out of them selfishly, as opposed to the tempest being an aura support, but the rest of the talent tree is fairly boring. Stat buff may be effective but it's a bit bland. I guess it may be too late to change this, but I'd really like it to tie better into the new mechanics. There should be interactions with the sphere and the augments -- e.g. a talent that makes augments affect you personally more, but allies less, a talent that does a pulse of damage or condis when sphere is placed or changes attunement. I don't really love any of the GM talents. Stability on auras is fine. Empowered empowerment while a great name seems super punishing -- absolutely no benefit unless you can maintain a full ten stacks which is pretty hard to do? Sphere Specialist is powerful but boring. I'd much prefer if it had a more active component to it -- e.g. maybe combined with the above change to it giving boons on attunement switch, it could now give the outgoing attunement's buff on switch as well as the incoming one's? Hammer autoattack damage feels very, very low. I thought it'd be fun, having a reasonably damage focused water spec to use it with the water damage talents, such as piercing shards, but it felt very unrewarding, even with full buffs vs the dps golems, let alone in the open world or pvp. I like the hammer 3 skills, although I echo everyone else in that they need to last much longer. I actually think it'd be fun to maintain them permanently, and instead of having the finale attack, and then losing them all, I'd much rather have a way to keep them going once you hit the fourth one up.

It's definitely a project that would take a long time to move through, and would need to be done gradually so as to not egregiously break everything on the way, but I think in general the game has grown too many counter-mechanics and then counter-counter mechanics, and I'd like to see them all lessened. Examples: Block & Unblockable Unblockable should absolutely not be a mechanic. If you use a big attack, and your opponent recognises it and uses their block skill to counter it, then that's on you. A good PVP balance would have you bait out a block on a lesser skill, or CC your opponent before landing a big hitter. The counter-side to this is that unblockable wouldn't need to be a thing if blocks themselves were less problematic. Aegis and block should a) not be passively applied, b) be rare enough that blowing one on something unimportant actually matters and c) shouldn't be able to be channeled for long periods of time. If you equip a shield and use it to block it should be rewarding because you managed to block that giant 8k crit, or maybe the incoming knockback, not because you can dance around on the point taking no damage for the next 5 seconds. Condis & cleanses There is way, way too much condi damage and cover condi application in the game. Naturally, this means everyone has been given tons of passive / easy cleanses, and the few classes that don't have good cleanse, or the condi classes that don't come with high reapplication or their own fetid raft of cover condis are out in the cold. Look at eles speccing fire for example, why are there two separate condi cleanse fire traits in a row that you can grab both of? It shouldn't be needed or desirable to take them, nor should it be possible to and then largely eliminate whole sets of condi damage. Resistance should likewise be deleted. Your defense against condis already exists, and it is cleanses. Having two different defenses makes it that much harder to properly balance. CC, Stability & Stun breaks Too many classes have too much ability to chain CCs, one after another. Instead of rewarding people who use it to interrupt at the critical moment, or to tie an opponent down for that crucial big hit, it's so simple to chain CCs that there's no penalty to doing so. This of course has lead to an increase in access to stability, giant stacks of stability, pulsing stability skills etc. I do think stability is an important type of defense against CC in particular situations, (e.g. safeguarding a stomp or res) so I don't advocate deleting it in the same way I do unblockable, but it should be extremely limited. I think nearly every skill that grants it should grant 1. Rare exceptions with long cooldowns maybe 2. Nothing short of an elite should grant 3 (think about this, if you give someone 5 stacks of stab say, you're telling them it's okay for them to eat 5 CCs without even trying to avoid them. It's madness!). I would also remove all sources of pulsing stability, and things like the elementalist trait that throws it on to all stance skills. Likewise, lots of skills now have stunbreaks, including some pretty random placements. This, too, devalues CC and thus in turn requires classes to have more access to CC in order to reliably lock someone up since they can potentially just pop out of multiple CCs in a short period of time. Less skills should come with stunbreaks, and those that do should be on long cooldowns with few other mechanics tied in. Perhaps skills with stunbreaks should have significantly longer cooldowns if used when stunned? Going for a CC should be an important moment you have to time well, missing or mistiming it should matter, but it doesn't if you have too much CC. Using your stability ability should be something you have to think carefully about popping and if the current situation justifies it, or if there's a better way to avoid that CC, or a better time to ignore it. Mobility Feels like almost everyone now has tons of access to swiftness, superspeed, or lots of movement tied into weapon & utility skills (e.g. warrior greatsword). In a game that's about point control, this devalues your ability to read the map and be in the right spot ahead of time. Getting out of position / fighting at the wrong place just isn't punishing enough if half the players on the team can roll across half the maps in 20 seconds. Evades & damage immunities Feel like these should also prevent capture-point contribution just like going invincible does. If another player on the point literally can't even do anything to you to move you off it, why should you get to count as contesting that point?

I would suggest the following: Add pips to unranked. 4 for losing, 6 for winning. This gives an incentive to people to win, but means you get your rewards anyway. People who just want the rewards, want to mess around with random builds etc can just have fun in unranked without getting in the way of people who care about and want to attain rank. For this reason it's very important that the average pip gain in this mode is equal to the average pip gain in ranked, or pip farmers will continue to play ranked.Edit pips in ranked. 10 for a win, 0 for a loss. If you're just planning to afk, mess around etc, you should expect to lose a lot on average and get nothing -- incentive to stick to unranked. If you really think you're hot shit and can maintain an above 50% average, then you get more rewards for it -- but you have to put your money where your mouth is by risking getting nothing.Lower the amount of pips needed per chest to compensate for the average gain being 5 instead of 6.5.This way you can still reward all pvp players, casual or hardcore for continuing to play pvp, make both ranked and unranked desirable destinations for their respective audiences without punishing anyone.

Okay, some more thoughts given some time to reflect: WVW DOTA week - Camps spawn low level npcs. Towers spawn parties of low level npcs and high level champions. Keeps spawn siege weapons. These rally to the nearest enemy held point and attack it -- except on EBG, where they rally to SMC if you hold it. This gives teams and players a reason to have to leave SMC to defend SMC. If you let the other teams capture all the keeps, you won't be able to keep up with all the attacks. If you take a few keeps, you'll be too well defended to attack directly until some of these supports are taken away.Rampage week - At a predictable interval, tower, keep and SMC lords will leave their keep (with a suitable retinue) to attack a nearby enemy held stronghold. Players will have to escort their NPC to keep it alive. It will be made much stronger when it leaves its base, but not enough to stay alive with no support. If the NPC dies while outside its base, the base's walls are weakened 50% until the NPC respawns.Dolyak week - Dolyaks spawn at an increase rate from each camp held. Each dolyak rewards double normal rewards to escorts / slayers. Slaying a dolyak rewards a temporary buff that increases all stats by 20% (doesn't stack) for 15 minutes.Nemesis - When you enter a WVW map, a player on one of the enemy teams is chosen as your nemesis. You can see their location on your map and get 10x reward (and a new nemesis) upon slaying them.Ripe for the picking - Each camp / tower / keep taken gives all players taking it a counter. No bags drop from normal enemies -- instead, you get 1 bag per 3 counters they have, rounded down.We brave few - Walls and defenses have 30% reduced health. Siege weapons do 1.5x damage. Successfully repelling an attack gives double rewards.They come at night - when night falls, unaligned NPCs appear and assault all bases -- undefended bases will be overwhelmed and revert to neutral. A heavier than usual number of NPCs will stay on these points and need to be slain to capture it back.They come in waves - allied npcs such as hylek, ogres, etc come in several waves of increasing strength when captured by one team However, they lose their alignment after the last wave is defeated and are free for another team to capture immediately.Watch your back - There are double as many allied NPCs guarding each base, but allied NPCs have a small chance to switch allegiances to an attacker when a base is besieged. (Probably need some sort of CD or minimum number of attackers / duration of attack to stop people running to all enemy bases trying to spawn it).Spy among us - Each hour, one spy spawns (per side) inside a randomly chosen allied base, if any, and roams the base in stealth. Enemies can see where the spy spawned. Offers a special reward if found and killed. If enemies do 10% damage to one of the walls of a base a spy is inside, the spy will destroy that wall.Traitor in the ranks - at a given interval, one of your lords will declare their allegiance for one of the enemy teams. Your team has 10 minutes (5?) to subdue the lord and return them to your side, or they will switch your base over to that team.PVP The point is on fire - Each second, all points do direct damage to anyone standing on them and add 1 stack of burning.Point master - Two NPCs fight over each point. NPCs will buff allies with might, regen, swiftness, stability, etc, but don't count for capping points.Point decay - Points automatically decap when not held by a player. This effect starts 30 seconds after being abandoned.Opposites attract - Home point ticks at half the usual rate. Far ticks at double.Instabilities - similar mechanics to fractals, e.g. reduced damage when stacked and increased when too far apart. Randomise on game load (but same mechanics apply to both teams)Gotta go fast - permanent 50% speed increase to all players, except when crippled or chilled.Barrier mode - all heals grant barrier instead. There is no way to heal players. Barriers have 50% reduced effectiveness.To the victor - gain superspeed, fury and 5 stacks of might upon landing a killing blow.Dodge this - dodges no longer provide effective immunity. Enemies evading attacks miss out on any conditions that would have landed or CC, but still take 33% of the damage they would have incurred.Explosive revenge - two seconds after being defeated, players will explode, dealing 5000 damage to any enemies within 600 range.Not really downed - if downed players survive 8 seconds, they are automatically revived, but with a full downed penalty - if they die in the next minute they are immediately defeated.PVE Slayer - A particular enemy type is singled out for bounty rewards for 24 hours. Killing a normal enemy awards one point, vet 2, elite 5, champion 10. Bronze, silver and gold completion levels are available and reward objects themed around that enemy (e.g. ghosts could reward Ascalonian tears)Mushroom week - Treasure mushrooms spawn after each world boss & meta boss kill. Other mushroom npcs spawn during these events and have to be dealt with by players.All the colours of the rainbow - Bosses spawn dyed a randomly chosen colour. They drop a guaranteed dye of that colour on death -- obviously spawned in normal proportions as of unidentified dye drops.Legendary week - Precursor drop chance tripled. Legendary chests (from collections) drop a small amount of resources of types needed for the next tier of crafting. Daily rewards also give 1 - 3 mystic clovers.Kill streak - Each player gets their own instanced enemies untouchable to anybody else, contained to a single map. Race to kill them all in time to get bronze/silver/gold rewards.Mist vault - On killing a given daily boss, a portal spawns to the mists. Once there the player has x seconds to loot as many chests / nodes / etc as they can manage.Dungeon boss week - a random dungeon boss spawns outside his dungeon each day, appropriately scaled as a world event (and appearing on world boss device). Drops tokens for his dungeon, and a small chance of a random exotic skin.Disclaimer: I'm sure some of these would be terrible, but it'd be fun to mix everything up.

It'd be great to see weeks dedicated to revisiting living world maps which can get pretty dead. Imagine if you had a living world season 3 week where each day focuses on a new map, a big portal appears in capital cities to take you there (maybe let people who haven't bought the lw season go to the maps but not get the story / not be able to WP in until they purchase too?), bonus rewards drop to incentivise people to go. I love a good invasion event in a game. The awakened one was fun. Do more like that. I hear the mists are pretty unstable at the moment...