Fizz.9384

Hey Anet, you updated Tequatl's Hoard so it is now stackable, but you forgot to do the same for Drakkar's Hoard. Please fix and thanks.

Lol. Someone doesn't remember the scourge pug meta which plagued then CM 100 (now CM 99) before EOD. But it is very unfortunate for scourge enjoyers that scourge came out on top this expac with the highest dps by far. That means it will be the biggest target for nerfs and likely get hit hard just like deadeye a month ago. At least there will still be good reasons to play scourge after it gets nerfed, unlike deadeye.

Lol. I actually like Sunqua and Silent Surf. The normal mode versions aren't that hard. They're easy enough when you've practiced them a bit. Some people just refuse to get better at the game. As for being long, Sunqua is much quicker and more fun once you've learned the CM, so you can consider that. Hopefully Silent Surf will be a bit quicker (and less buggy) after the update. Calling the newer fractals a "huge difficulty spike" is an exaggeration IMO.

What? Grenade kit isn't passive. Rifle skills 2-5 aren't passive. The elite isn't passive. And good players won't set the mech skills to auto either. You actually seem to be very true to your name and I'm certain none of us should be wasting time engaging with you.

Ok but 22.2k dps is not "very strong" for a pure dps build. Not even close. So.. thanks for demonstrating that pmech needs to be buffed.. I guess? Also, I'm highly amused at the people who are suggesting that you can be at your keyboard dodging and pressing buttons to do mechanics while also allegedly being AFK at the same time. Is this like Schrodinger's Mechanist or some crap?

I actually think the Spellcaster is a relatively well-designed fractal boss, minus the bugs of course, but that goes without saying. The reason why it gets skipped in T4 is almost always because there will be a CM group who already did 100 CM. Otherwise in recs it will be skipped because it's too long. Nowadays I skip recs entirely. I think 100 can be kept as is for T1 for the purpose of teaching the mechanics as you progress. Then at higher tiers, it would be better to have 3 different paths, each one having one of the elemental bosses (chosen at random) followed by the final boss. For example, you may go into 100 and go directly into the lava path where you fight the Fury of the Mountain and from there go straight to the Spellcaster. This is similar to how some other fractals have alternative paths, like Underground Facility and Aquatic Ruins.

For some people, winning is fun no matter the means. Sometimes that means outnumbering your enemy. Even fights being fun is a matter of your own opinion. Others don't care if the fights are even or lopsided. They just want to win. If you don't want to be outnumbered, know when to back away from a fight so you can wait for backup or hit back somewhere else. With EoD, mobility is more widely available across the professions than it has ever been.

Uhh.. doing "way less damage" is exactly what makes any DPS build irrelevant. IMO it should only lose somewhere around 3-4k dps tops. If you look at snowcrows there are plenty of builds that bench higher than pmech in its current state. Personally I think they should also remove the autocast from the mech abilities because I seem to see lots of people complaining about how they go make coffee and come back to find they are top dps (I would like to see a dps log on some of these claims, btw, from a boss that isn't shiverpeaks or fraenir).

I wouldn't mind it if Anet created a pip booster consumable, something that would give you maybe 2x the pips per tick and last an hour or two. I would pay good money (real money or in game currency, whatever) for that just to avoid sinking such a ridiculous amount of time every week to max out skirmish tickets. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Then you have an option. Those of us with real lives outside the game can buy the boosters. Those who are unfortunate enough to suffer from such cognitive impairment as to think that the current system is fine can go ahead and keep spending the ridiculous hours grinding.

I mean that sounds reasonable in theory, but then consider that you have to play like it's your job every week, 15+ hours, to get your max tickets. Realistically it will probably take the average player a couple of years to get the armor. People who do raids realistically can get a set within 6 months (taking into account the slower progress in the beginning as you learn the raids and play with other inexperienced players. The time investment is very disproportionate.

Huge nerf to venoms. The changes to weapons don't nearly compensate for that. Edit: should also point out that specters don't rely on autos that much. It's mostly scepter 3, then swap back into shroud while initiative regenerates. So specter is actually getting a huge nerf here. The Scepter 3 dual skills need a significant buff to offset the venoms nerf.

Thank you. I was having the same issue with not being able to EMP the third/highest ship and it was driving me crazy.. Relogging and doing what you said finally worked and gave me "Above and Beyond." Anet really needs to fix these annoying bugs... 😑

I'm in favor of improving WvW rewards in literally any capacity the devs decide. Lots of WvW vets don't seem to understand that rewards/loot are part of what makes content fun. That's why the fractal CM crowd was complaining about mystic coin rolls being removed from boss loot. Many of them enjoy CMs, but the chances for mystic coin loot just adds to the fun. PvE players who don't really want to do WvW are mainly there to farm GoB and skirmish tickets. GoB isn't too bad since it doesn't take a crazy amount of time to complete the reward track, but getting enough skirmish tickets for the legendary ring or armor takes an absurd amount of time (even compared to other legendaries) for players who don't want to play WvW exclusively. I think Anet could adjust the rate that skirmish tickets are earned, or allow you to exchange other currencies for skirmish tickets (and vice versa) to allow you to play a larger variety of game modes while still making some progress toward legendaries and other rewards. If we use legendary insights as an example, you can earn at most 25 LI per week from raids, and up to 365 skirmish tickets per week from WvW. That converts to about 15 tickets for every 1 LI per week. So I would suggest a vendor where you could exchange LI for skirmish tickets and vice versa at a rate of 1 LI per 15 tickets, and maybe cap that at 365 tickets or 25 LI max per week. Currency exhcnages like this could give PvE players the option to do more PvE, WvW players the option to do more WvW, and dedicated WvW vets won't have to deal with as many bad PvE players who really don't want to be there.

Posting some of my thoughts from testing Specter during both betas it was available. There are a lot of things that could use tweaking, but below are just some of the things that stood out most to me. Scepter Skills Endless Night (scepter/pistol 3): Anet said providing both alacrity and quickness was too powerful. They also felt changing targets while casting Endless Night to give quickness to more people was not fun. Ironically, they have amplified this problem by forcing specters to cycle ally targets even more rapidly to grant quickness to a group since it only has one target now instead of three. If Anet doesn’t want players to have to cycle targets to apply quickness, then they can increase the targets to 4 or 5 and maybe reduce the boon duration slightly actually not at all since it was reduced already. If they don’t want Specter to be able to provide both alac and quickness, I think it makes more sense to have alac and quickness granted by separate traits on the same tier level so you have to choose one or the other. You could rework Traversing Dusk so it replaces quickness on sc/p 3 with alacrity. If the weapon skill is good enough at providing group alac or quickness, I wouldn't even mind taking taking alac off wells. That could improve build diversity since Specters won’t be forced to take wells for 3 or 4 of their slot skills in order to provide alac. Taking almost all wells on my skill bar feels restricting. Shadow Sap (scepter 2): This doesn’t feel impactful. There is never a moment when I would prefer to use initiative on this over scepter/pistol 3 or scepter/dagger 3. Topping off might for one player isn’t enough. Maybe changing this to a five target AoE (either AoE from your target or a ground targeted skill) so that it damages or CCs multiple mobs or grants might, barrier, and/or some other boon to multiple allies could make it worth using in some situations. Shadowsquall (scepter 1 stealth attack): This also doesn’t feel impactful enough given specter’s reduced access to stealth compared to other Thief elite specs. I was expecting a more rapid firing attack like pistol/pistol 3 or pistol 1 stealth attack, but the attacks are slow and the damage is low. There is never a time I would want to go into stealth to use this attack, and given how limited stealth access is on specter, Shadowsquall should be much more impactful to reflect how rarely you will be able to use it. Daredevils and Deadeyes can use pistol 5 smoke field into dagger 2 leap finisher to gain easy stealth. Specter can do this as well, but the initiative cost is prohibitive with their reduced initiative pool. Deadeye also has kneeling rifle 4 smoke field into dagger 2 leap finisher, a trait for stealth on dodge roll, the F2 stolen skills, and the Shadow Meld elite for tons of stealth access. Meanwhile, Specter will likely take Well of Gloom over Hide in Shadows, and other stealth utilities like Blinding Powder would likely be replaced by wells and venoms. The only consistent access to stealth will be Hidden Thief from the Shadow Arts trait line, which provides stealth on siphon, but taking that trait line will be a dps loss anyway. So again, my point is that given how limited stealth access is for Specter, the scepter 1 stealth attack should be powerful enough to compensate for how rarely you will be able to use it. Traits Consume Shadows: I agree that Consume Shadows was probably too powerful for how easy it was to access (just press F2 twice for instant massive group healing, barrier, and rot wallow venom). But I think they went a bit heavy on the nerf. I was expecting a reduction in the heal/barrier amount. Traversing Dusk: See above for Endless Night, but being forced to fill 3-4 of your slot skills with wells in order to provide alac for your group doesn’t feel great. Shadow Shroud skills: Based on the change to Consume Shadows to increase the healing and barrier potential for every second spent in shroud up to five seconds (along with a 50% overall reduction), the idea is to spend more time in Shroud. I think this can be ok, but the way I see it, the problem here wasn’t entirely that Consume Shadows was too strong, but also that the shroud skills are lacking. They don’t feel impactful. There is nothing there that feels strong like Reaper shroud 4 for example. Even trying to use Mind Shock (shroud 5) for stability or the CC stun is super clunky because of the long channel. And while in shroud you are limited to only supporting your tethered ally. Maybe a trait that modifies shroud so your healing, cleanses, and stability applies to allies in a radius instead of just one tethered ally would improve shroud and allow for more varied gameplay. Maybe you’ll opt for a stronger, single target tether when doing a raid that requires a tank (or hand kite for Deimos), and maybe you’ll go for AoE support for fractals. The shroud tether mechanic is way too narrow in scope. If Anet wants us to make more use of Shadow Shroud, they should give us options to open it up to more variety in gameplay including group support instead of just supporting a single tethered ally in open world and 2v2. (I feel Specter is pretty easy to focus down in PvP situations since they don't seem to have much in the way of self-defense.) Wells: Overall I’m concerned that the intense coloring of the wells will make it difficult to see other fields and AoE attacks. I think the color should be made more transparent so it’s easier to see what else shows up on the ground. Well of Tears is a power damage well that feels very weak in a spec that largely specializes in condi damage. I never wanted to use it. I imagine some people will make power builds work on Specter, but even then, this well could probably use a boost (or a rework entirely).

I was thinking a few days ago how much I would love if we could get our skiffs fitted with jade tech weapons like a machine gun, mortar, or laser cannon. Just think how much fun it would be to sail around the Bloodtide Coast blasting pirates to oblivion. Based on the masteries, looks like we're only getting depth charges which will probably just cc underwater mobs, but I can dream right? Maybe they already thought of adding a weapon to the skiff, and then separated it into the siege turtle instead. But could we get weapons on both please? lol

You can pet cats there.

Yeah, the shroud skills just didn't feel good during the last beta. They felt weak compared to scepter. None of the skills feel impactful like Reaper's shroud 4. Specter's shroud 5 is clunky to use for stability or cc because of the long channel it has. If they want us to spend time in shroud, make shroud skills worth using. I also strongly feel like there should be a trait that changes the single target healing and barrier to AoE with lesser effect to allow more variety in gameplay.

Yes, you don't need to kneel, but not kneeling is a significant dps loss. To be clear, I'm concerned about end game content such as raids and fractals, not open world. In open world any deadeye build is viable as is any build from any other profession. You're talking about the AoE heal from the consume shadows trait when leaving shadow shroud. We will see in the next beta if that alone is competitive for group healing. They did just heavily nerf it, which is where my concern is coming from. The changes to sc/p 3 and consume shadows overall heavily nerfed specter's ability to provide healing for the group. But we'll see. I have much more to say and suggest in response to the changes Anet made, but I'll hold my thoughts until after I actually test specter in the next beta.

How about fractals? How about raids other than QTP kite or Q1 kite? Rifle deadeye was the first spec that got me really hooked to the game. Then I realized how much kneeling handicaps you in a game where mobility is so important, so I found a pistol/pistol deadeye build that I loved for open world. But eventually you realize that Daredevil just has better dps while being easier to use. Now I use deadeye strictly for QTP kite and sometimes WvW. For everything else I use daredevil. Like deadeye, I get the feeling specter will see little to no use in end game content because this single target healing will never be as good as firebrand and druid for group content, and renegade will just be better at providing alacrity along with other more useful utility (e.g. stability from Jalis, boon strip from Mallyx, projectile block from Ventari).

OP is talking about fractal CMs. As a player who has been trying to get into CMs, it is incredibly frustrating to find that the only accepted group composition in pugs now is basically firebrand, alacren, 3x scourges. If I want to join groups for CMs I have to play one of those and not what I want to play. Even if I know my class well, play it well, and know the mechanics very well, if I want to do dps, I have to bring a scourge. Scourge and epi are obviously beyond broken when a group comp like that has become standard. And it kills variety in the game. I agree with OP. As an alternative to nerfing epi, I would even suggest that if a fractal boss is vulnerable to condi (or if condi works well on a specific boss like Ai), then any adds in that encounter should have high resistance against condi. So sorrows and anomalies should be significantly more resistant to condi. This could force more varied group comps and it may even force players to respect mechanics again! Edit: Also, yes, I'm very much in favor of heavily nerfing firebrand as well. IMO guardian should only be able to provide a couple boons to the group. It should not be able to diarrhea almost everything to the group as it currently can. Having said that, I think scourge is the bigger issue because scourge takes up 3/5 spots in a fractal party. A healbrand takes only one.

Why are you gate-keeping so hard for this? Is it going to hurt you somehow if the time-gate was made more realistic? My main point is that the Legendary WvW armor takes disproportionately long to get. So much longer that it's just plain stupid. I think it makes more sense for the time gates to be similar regardless of the difficulty of the content. Time spent is time spent. Raids can be brain dead as well if the group is experienced enough. Maybe ANET should focus on more interesting requirements (player kills, objective completions, etc) for getting the set as opposed to afking "brainlessly" as you describe, for months on end. Do you genuinely think a time gate that long is a good system? If it can be done brainlessly anyway, why does it matter if it takes months or weeks? Think of it this way, if the time gate were shorter, that's less time you have to deal with brainless afkers ruining your WvW experience. They will afk in your maps for maybe 8 weeks instead of 22.

I completely disagree with the argument you're trying to make here. First off, it's pointless to bring up how long it used to take in the past. What matters now is how long it takes to earn the armor now. Actually, your post made me realize how ridiculously long it takes to earn the WvW leg armor compared to PvE. For your first set of PvE armor, doing all raids every week will get you 25 LI per week (15 LI for wings 1-4 plus converting the 10 LD from wings 5-7). That means you can get the 150 LI needed for the armor in 6 weeks. With a group who understands the raid mechanics, you can easily get those raids done I would say by spending a couple hours 3-4 times a week, so maybe 6-8 hours total for the week. Note speed runs of all wings are done in less than 3 hours. For WvW armor, clearing the skirmish track all the way through diamond every week will take 22 weeks minimum. As others in the thread have said, getting diamond will take 20+ hours per week depending on your rank. It is literally a part time job compared to PvE. The time gating between PvE and WvW is worlds apart. WvW requires almost 4x as many weeks and at least 3x as much time (or more) per week. The difference is insane. To be more fair, I think the skirmish tickets should be more heavily weighted toward the early chests in the track. For example, you could get 365 tickets by the time you finish gold, and they could add more tickets to the track overall. I know legendary armor should take some work to get, but players should be able to get their legendary armor within a reasonable time frame without having to dedicate their lives to a specific game mode. I like WvW, but I also want to do raids, fractals, metas, achievements, and work on leveling and learning other classes. I don't want to be a WvW slave to get the leg armor. Yes, I could just get the PvE armor. I already have everything I need for the full set, and I will probably get that by the time EoD drops if I still don't have the WvW set by then. However, the Legendary Envoy medium armor set looks like complete garbage, so here I am shooting for the WvW set that at least looks decent.

I propose we put all the fat Charrs and Norns into their own instance so they can all suffer together in their own hell.