Swizzle.7982

I wonder if the next season will be more like the War in Kryta, Hearts of the North, Winds of change. A series of smaller scope epilogue type stories similar to those in GW1. There are a lot of stories they could cap off, like the Charr uniting under a new Khan Ur, the future of jade tech and Cantha, Elona now that Joko is gone, etc. These stories could pave the way for us to move into GW3 and what the state of the world will be there and hint at what the next big bad will be.

Still bugged, now the health bar is empty, but it's nowhere to be seen and using the bell doesn't work.

Yeah, this is super annoying, I've been playing all morning to collect coins for the armour recipes only to find out they need research notes, and the kits don't seem to be able to salvage anything I craft (Most things appear red and can't be clicked, a couple of food items weren't red, but still couldn't be salvaged). Hopefully there's a fix soon.

That's just... stupid. By that definition literally everything in the game is fine because if you play with some other class that can buff it, it's fine. Balance is based on the individual class and what it can do, or what it can offer other classes - not on what other classes can potentially do for it.

Lets be honest, the mech is going to be nerfed to hell in PvP anyway no matter what, because no one is going to enjoy playing against an AI that has any chance of killing them. I'm of the opinion that primary balance should always be done with PvE in mind, since that's what most people are playing. If something doesn't work in PvP then put restrictions in place there (i.e., restrict pet choice based on the amulet the player takes). That was how PvP worked in GW1 - the only reason they said they didn't want to do it in GW2 was because it meant players had to potentially learn two variations of a skill, but come on, that's really not a high bar. And in PvP maybe there should be a few bars to pass anyway...

How in the world will fixed stats be harder to balance around compared to percentage stats of "whatever gear you have"? (Which by the way, is always going to be the same in PvP since YOUR OWN STATS are constrained this was as well - you literally equip an amulet that dictates your stats, so the traits that give your mech a % of your stats will always result in very specific and fixed numbers). Essentially all my idea does is take that type of PvP choice and move it into PvE, while also disentangling this choice from the traits you pick (allowing the traits to actually do something half decent without pigeonholing the player into a very specific set of traits).

I get the feeling that they simply haven't had enough time with the e-specs this expansion. Take Virtuoso, the theme is about music but the skills are all about psionic daggers? It's as if they were still at the concepting stage, had all these cool ideas, but then didn't have the time to either streamline the ideas or pin them down quite enough. So we've ended up with this weird mish-mash of concepts. You can see the same thing with Harbinger, a kungfu shadow warrior that drinks potions and accumulates blight... like, what's the theme here? I feel like with most of the previous e-specs you could kind of sum them up in a couple of words, but this time it's quite difficult to easily convey what they're about. Then we have what seem like half-baked trait lines on a few classes - go top for condi, middle for support, bottom for power. Which I think again speaks to a lack of cohesion regarding the class concept. When you look at e-specs from previous expansions they either fit a very specific role or through trait choice can be made to fit very specific roles (Scourge can focus on support or condition damage for example depending the other trait lines you choose). It felt like the traits were far more impactful and that there was a real choice to be made in how you built your character. Now there's virtually no build craft to be had (on the mechanist for instance, where traits give your mech specific stats, there's no reason to take a condi trait if you didn't also take the trait that gives your mech condi damage). I'm still hopeful that by release they'll have really nailed these specs down. Maybe it's simply the case that we don't usually see e-specs this early in development. But I really hope this doesn't make anet feel like they need to hang on to concepts just because we've already seen them (like, maybe get rid or the mismatched musical theme on the psionic dagger mage and give us an actual bard type class later, when you can do it justice?).

Then just choose a pet that has the same stats as you?

Is it though? I mean, sure the pet might be bulkier, but we're missing a lot of things that make rangers effective (like pet swap). Mechanist also removes a lot of the engineers power as it doesn't have access to toolbelt skills. And lets be honest, Anet designed a lot of engineer skills to be somewhat sub-par on purpose because each skill the engineer gets is essentially two skills. But with the removal of the toolbelt the engi is left with only the sub-par skills. That's what the mech is compensating for. Engineers from day one were designed to be the jack of all trades class. They should be able to spec into condi damage and have a support mech if they want. Sure, that's probably never going to be as strong as going all in on condi - but that's the trade off. Currently there is no trade off because there's no interesting choices to be made. Pick all top, all middle, or all bottom (even then they don't synergise well) based on your stats - or get no stats. That's you choice.

Then they should really question their current design philosophy a bit more. Because if this is the case they might as well remove the trait lines entirely. If you have condi stats then you automatically get the condi line, if you have support stats you get the support line, etc. That's not what traits should be, and by extension, what the mech should be. Traits are, or at least were, supposed to be interesting ways to build your character. Besides, the main thing that needs fixing are the stats. For instance the condi trait line lets your mech inherit explosives traits. Those traits which cause conditions trigger on critical hits. Except if you choose the condi trait line your mech basically can't crit. It's issues like this that are caused by limiting traits and attaching mech stats to traits. Compare this to how a ranger chooses their pets. It's the pets that have the stats. You can choose a pet that can tank, or a pet that supports, or a pet that deals condition damage. Your traits don't lock you into having one specific type of pet.

Just to add on to what I said previously - Obviously that sounds like a lot of work to make different mechs. But we already have three different models of mech (since the arms change), so already we have three forms that could be made into "pets" to select, the same way a ranger would select between the different pets they have. There doesn't need to be a whole new system of stat attribution or whatever. Just three mechs to choose from, each with different stats. This way you can make the traits more interesting and allow way more build diversity (An engi focused on power could take a support golem for instance).

How about we just take a lesson from ranger pets? Have 4 or 5 different mechs to choose from and give each one different stats. It's a system they can expand on, like ranger pets by adding new mech types in the future, it fulfils the desire for more cosmetic variation in mechs, and lets players choose a mech with the stat combination they want to use.

Why not just make the mech use rocket punch as an F ability? (F4, or move everything along and have it as F1). That way we can also use it with pistols and rifle. We're used to having 4 or 5 toolbelt skills, it seems strange to do this with the goal of giving players more control, and yet you remove skills or tie them up with other abilities instead of just making them into their own skills. How about putting Jade Siphon back as F5 too?

After a bit more time with the turtle I'm still struggling to find a real use for it, other than mucking about with friends sometimes. Do I want to get somewhere quickly and easily? I use my Raptor/Rollerbeetle/Skyscale. Do I want to kill things? I get off my mount and kill them. Do I want to travel underwater? I use my Skimmer. There's exactly one use for it that I've found: Do I want to attack enemies underwater? Yes and I'm playing as a Mechanist and my mech doesn't work underwater so I'm going to use the turtle. (But not my own turtle because driving the turtle is boring and doesn't let me attack as the driver, so I hope someone else has theirs out...) All in all, very situational.

Why not just make this baseline for how the mech works? Literally everyone is going to take this signet for this effect. So making it baseline changes nothing - everything still has this effect. The only difference is that people now have a choice, do they want a speed boost and shadow step, or do they want something else?

There needs to be a way for a solo player to use the siege weapons. Otherwise 90% of the time it's not a siege turtle, it's just a turtle. On top of that the turtle does nothing better than other mounts. Solo, it might not even be as good as the warclaw. The only plus is that at least this means I won't feel the need to buy cool skins for it.

Yeah, but it still makes no sense. The active ability is a teleport. Both moving 25% faster and teleporting moves the mech faster... so one of them is kinda redundant. The mech also has either ranged abilities or gap closers (as does the engi using mace) so it's not like the move speed is valuable anyway.

So power changes have made the damage terrible. The removal of mech skills makes the mech feel lifeless. Attaching the mech punch to mace 3 makes the mace mandatory, on a class that can't even weapon swap. Without toolbelt skills a lot of utility is lost and signets have to be overloaded to make up for this. Because some signets are now too overloaded on the passive side you're seriously punished for ever using the active ability. Some mechanist traits simply make no sense, like the mech gaining explosive traits, but not being able to crit, and so it can't use those traits anyway... I know some of these things were issues last beta, but this time we don't have the good damage to make up for it. Now the mechanist just feels broken in an entirely unfun way. The last beta I spent days having a blast and I was pretty sad to go back to my regular engineer. This beta after a just few hours of mechanist I'm glad to get back to my holosmith. Is anyone else feeling this way?

They should get rid of the speed buff. I mean, who cares about a 25% increase in speed... we have mounts now. All it does it make the golem do this weird hover/hop animation that looks garbage. Make the passive copy boons, make the active a condi removing shadow step. Simple.

So one of the recent changes to Harbinger has changed elixirs: But isn't this also true for engineer - click button get boon? Of course, you get toolbelt skills that lets us throw the elixir too... unless you're playing Mechanist. Then you can't throw the elixirs, which A) harshly nerfs a few specific traits that interact with elixirs when used on allies, and B) removes any potential synergy between elixirs being thrown onto the mech. Could thrown elixirs be made baseline for both necro and engi? Potentially swapping the functionality of toolbelt skills (so they are the self targeted abilities), or replacing them with different elixir toolbelt skills entirely?

Exactly? So if you choose to run kits you're going to lose out on at least some of the passive bonuses granted by the signets you're not equipping. So you're not only pushed towards using mace (or you lose access to rocket punch) but also pushed towards not using kits (or you lose out on your mech gaining additional stats).

If that's the case then Mace should be made more interesting in and of itself, rather than made better at the expense of other weapons. I mean, Mechanist literally only has two other weapons it could possibly use, so I suppose they could also update those to trigger rocket punch too. It just seems like with this round of Elite Specs they're really pushing players into the new weapons, not because the new weapons are good, but because the old weapons simply lack new functionality. This severely limits the potential for buildcraft and that's going to hurt even more on engi, which barely has any weapons to choose from as it is (or you're forced to run kits, and lose even more of the mech's power since it won't benefit from the signets).

Doesn't this punish Mechanist players who don't use a mace, effectively removing access to Rocket Punch entirely? One of the changes to the Untamed was made specifically because it felt punishing to use other weapons, but how is this any different? If I use pistols or a rifle then do I miss out on being able to use Rocket Punch? Is there a reason that Rocket Punch and Jade Siphon can't simply be added as F4 and F5 skills? To me that would seem to solve the issue, adding more player control over the Mech without needing to force players to use a specific weapon, or removing skills from the Mech entirely.

Doesn't this punish Mechanist players who don't use a mace, effectively removing access to Rocket Punch entirely? One of the changes to the Untamed was made specifically because it felt punishing to use other weapons but how is this any different? I'd much rather have the Mech still use skills on it's own and simply have my commands interrupt them than be forced into using a specific weapon.

This finale is a huge disappointment. My biggest disappointment of the entire GW franchise so far. Things were going great too. Zhaitan was a bit iffy. But Mordremoth was a huge improvement, with a wold boss event and a whole map dedicated to him, as well as a more personal personal story instance. Then Kralkatorrik took it even further, with no less than 3 story fights against him (one of them taking place flying through the mists on the back of Aurene!) and a huge open world event where his literal body made up the map. And then... Then we have this... two dragons killed (not even by us) at the same time, in a 5 second cutscene... Ok, if it had just been Jormag that died, well they had a decent arc, they at least got a bit of a chance to shine. But Primordus is gone too. The amount of wasted potential really just makes me so incredibly sad. Like many other players who saw Primordus in GW1 I was looking forward to him finally getting the spotlight. As a huge Asura fan too I've been looking forwards to finally seeing "their" dragon. For the last 14 years, I've wanted to go back to the depths of Tyria, to discover lost Asuran cities, to find out what remains of the dwarves, to finally see Primodus as the world ending threat that he was promised to be after we killed the great destroyer in the central transfer chamber all those years ago. But now both dragons are gone, along with all those possibilities. That's two dragons out of six. Arguably one third of GW2's story effectively ruined. That can't be undone. And for what? So we can rush to an expansion and get the story over with? It feels like the people making this game have stopped caring. So after all this time, from pre-searing Ascalon to the disappointing death of two elder dragons, why should I care any more either?