Myxam.2790

There's been rumbling and rumors of Stretched Time/Ends Well Support Chrono burbling among my peers but when I sit down and really look into there's a lot of things I'm seeing keeping it from really being viable, especially when we're talking about competing with the likes of Tempest, HAM, HealBrand, and Specter. First, being the legacy of nerfs to Signet of Inspiration: The first major pain coming in Feb 2018 changing its effect from sharing the boons at their present duration to the subgroup, to applying one stack at a set duration, and then later that year in December changing it from applying boons at all to increasing their current durations, which is where it stands now, nerfed down further even from there. Part of the big niche Chrono occupied up to this point was, yes, a monopoly on Alacrity sourcing, but also allowing low Boon Duration sources of critical boons to be covered in subgroup via the Chrono doubling their duration ever 12-15 seconds. When we lost both of these, our healing was never competitive with the likes of Druid, Tempest, and the newly arrived Firebrand. Leaving us as just a more complicated and less efficient Alac/Quickness than Renegade and Firebrand. Second, being the investments we need to make into getting the numbers to where they are. We have a lot of very poor choices to make in pursuing 100% uptime on Alacrity, and it costs us options in other directions that our competition just doesn't need to make. We have to give up a lot of very powerful utility options to take our Wells, if we had Alacrity on Shatters we'd be in a better position. Druids are the only of our competitors who take as deep of an investment as we do, but their perma is far safer, and their healing packaged into their weapon and profession skill. We can't compete with the outgoing Barrier, Stab, Healing, Damage, and general ease of play of the Mechanist, making us a very unworthwhile pick at worst, and a challenging pick at best. We're not anywhere close to being able to compete here. We don't even have a leg up on healing output when it comes down to it. We don't have a single aspect in this role that we do better, making us overall the worst choice in it. Even Shoutsworn Heal Warriors have us beat with the recent changes to Banners. Lastly, ArenaNet's present execution and vision for balance is stacked against Elite Specializations like Chronomancer. Drawing every class into a position to 'play' every role regardless of their approach or strengths will mean someone will always be at the bottom. Removing what makes a specialization unique at the group level, removes considerations to that end which is what Chronomancer has historically always thrived on. Veterans of the Genre know what happens when you take these approaches: When everyone can do anything, the person who does it with the least effort wins. And, not balancing to allow complex and mechanically demanding specs to be rewarded for that time and effort hampers our ability to succeed in spite of Chrono's baseline requirements of positioning, and timing in excess of the base expectation. You can see this principle going on right now with Rifle Engineers in all aspects of the game. When you have several options to do something similarly, the easiest to play well will gain a lionshare of the play. You do not see nearly as many Bladesworn Warriors despite their ability to outperform Rifle Engineer because doing so requires a great deal more effort and engagement. In Conclusion; Chrono's Support Aspects have never recovered from the nerfs in 2018 heading into Path of Fire, and following changes in other parts of the game and the introduction of new, better support choices as continued to undermine its niche. Improving its numbers will not change its placement, as it does not fit the present design schemes of ArenaNet's vision where Supports are concerned, and where the community is concerned thanks to its complexity. Changing Stretched Time to grant Alacrity to the party from Shatters like Seize the Moment will be a step in the right direction. Improving its Alacrity duration would not aid in Chrono's play as no other Alacrity Support needs to aim their sourcing outside of player placement, which is what hampers accessibility/playability to this, not our capacity to trade Concentration gear away for DPS. Changing Flow of Time to grant personal Alacrity or Quickness based on the Grandmaster Trait choice would help as well. Flow Of Time is an unexpected barrier to playing Alacrity Chrono well, as it reduces immediate readability of uptime on Alacrity, and provides far more worth to our Quickness Variant as its rewarding that playstyle over the Alacrity side. Allowing all 3 Grandmaster traits benefit from this minor aids the class overall, not just AlacSupport. All's Well That Ends Well, Restorative Mantras, and Blurred Inscriptions need Cooldown Reduction features added to them to bring to parity with their competitors in Role. These changes are legacy balance changes from the days when Alacrity gave 66% Skill Cooldown Reduction and not the 25-50% we have today. Repeal these changes and Inspiration stops being a neglected Trait Line by the playerbase, and HealMesmer becomes a topic of conversation. Making Persistence of Memory transfer to 5 targets instead of only the Mesmer, or making it a Minor Trait, would also help close the gap as a lot Mesmer's important Boon Generation is tied in Phantasm-affecting Traits. Giving our groups ready access to the copious amounts of fury, and quickness we can generate from this, or the odd round of aegis will help close the gap for us, plus the might output helps close that gap as well. Reviving BoonShare via Blurred Inscriptions and Signet of Inspiration would be perhaps the bravest and most direct approach to reviving our placement in group-play. Rolling back this one change would be enough to bring Chronomancer Support out of the dark ages and back into the conversation, I cannot stress how much we lost when this was taken alongside Alacrity from us in 2018.

Tactics is overloaded as it is. Compress traits in Tactics, and then we'll talk.

If they bring back SignetShare they can keep the split, its more the fact we have NOTHING.

The only way you achieve balance in a game this complex is to make finding the answer more complex than anyone is willing to find, not by reducing complexity. The more things that are removed that muddy the waters around Class/Spec/Build Power, the worse the game will get.

Top 3 PVE Concerns for Warrior: I Don't Exist anymore. I am too complex and rewarded too little to compete. Banner changes were a cruel joke. This change will limit my potential for expansions of my roles in future. I have nothing I excel at doing. I do not even have a unique niche to claim as my own.

How'd that faith work out for you? I lost mine in 2015.

Warrior has several big issues facing it when it comes to 'fixing' it, that have existed more or less for its entire lifetime. No Unique Gameplay Warrior shares its core loop, and its measures for success as a profession with several other professions whose variations make them more successful (Mesmer, Necromancer, Druid Ranger, Specter Thief, Deadeye Thief,), with far less reliance on that loop than Warrior. All of its builds performance is tied up in Burst and aligning personal buff windows, making them keep several plates spinning to ultimately land in the middle of the pack when played perfectly. Deceptive Skill Floor Warrior's performance ultimately rests upon aligning several windows at the correct time, knowing when its safe to do so, and having its mistake mitigation options tied up in places that compete for limited space in a build, making it punishing to newer players. Further, its not rewarded for this excess of effort that the likes of Firebrand, Mirage, Mechanist, Virtuoso, etc are in their simplicity. Weak and Contradictory Identity Following this, its identity as a class to newcomers is contradictory to its legacy, outsider expectation, and general perception of what it should be. The name and its history conjure a sense of a hardy frontliner who is hardy and efficient with its effort ( IE, Tanky and Simple to Learn), rather than what we have in the glass-jawed weapon master who needs to complete their sword technique in the flap of a butterfly wing. Historically (Guild Wars 1) Warriors' primary niche was in their effortless tankiness thanks to massive armor, health, and inherent damage reduction, a niche that it still maintains today in that game. Warriors should be simple, effective, and friendly to players. Warriors should be a natural choice for Tank and Bunker, not the ACTUAL last choice for these playstyles. Design Stagnated by Overreliance on Banners For so long Warrior's decisions have revolved around the power of Banners in the game, from their days with the Blast Finishers in kit, up until Tuesday this week, those free stat blocks have informed and restricted the design teams' ability to expand Warrior's capabilities and capacity. Solutions Shift Warrior's potency out of its unique buffs and cook them in baseline. Push the affected traits and skills more towards making the Warrior robust and hardy by creating more effects like Might Makes Right, Hardened Armor, Adrenal Health. Offer the Warrior simple choices that give it utility and defense. A Warrior's goal in any fight should be to weather and beat down their challenges. Banners still need to be a worthwhile part of a Warrior's kit, make it so you can only have one per warrior on the field (by making summoning a new banner delete the old one), and their effects need to be something worth taking without being so overwhelmingly desirable as to inform the whole class. Perhaps have Banner of Defense pulse Barrier, Banner of Discipline pulse a Lesser Signet of Might effect, perhaps Tactics gives a random temporary skill, and Strength pulses minor damage echoing or something. The value of Boons in such low amounts is pointless. Do not leave these with Party Quickness cooked in, do not leave it on Tactics or Warhorn either. You have made it very clear you do not want builds to have both and this will cripple your ability to expand Warrior's role in future. Spitballing something besides what we have now. See next post. Elite Specializations should be where this is varied. Berserker needs a firm identity as a damage dealer, Spellbreaker as a Debilitator and Controller, and Bladesworn as a deliberate tactician. But again, the focus should be on readability, simplicity, and ease of use. A low skill floor should be Warrior's Bread and Butter, not its anathema. Closing Effort should be Rewarded, I don't know how someone comes to the conclusion it shouldn't on y'all's team but they need a serious readjustment with game design, cultivating a skill, mastering adversity, and overcoming a challenge should be the desired emotional goal a Developer wants in their player. (D&D comparison) The existence of Wizards and Sorcerers doesn't displace the need for Fighters and Barbarians -- but choosing to pick the former over the latter still needs to be a worthwhile choice otherwise it won't be made.

The Narrative Arc, combined with the Bosses who violate the game's established rules, and the new achievements have led me to conclude that the 80 Gigabytes of storage drive space on my Hard Drive will be better spent empty. This entire season has been putting on full display Jormag's villainy and these Charr's complicity in it, only for this episode to treat me like a child who hasn't developed permanence yet. The very first thing we're told, is that we're allies with Jormag now because Primordus is just too big of a threat despite no evidence of it, only for them to never contribute to our fights through out the chapter. When Taimi tells Braham to shut up and trust the plan, I blew a blood vessel in my eye, and shouted out in disgust. This is the garbage being shoved in our faces right now. Right now. The Writers in a single off-handed line made me defend the worst solitary character in their storyline, Bro-hamhead, on a basis of principle. The Man who was given an unironic failed Batman story arc. The parallels to current events and their take on them is childish and disgusting. I was gritting and bearing my teeth hoping Cantha would deliver me back to enjoying this game and its narrative, but this is one step too far. Good bye, so long, auf weidersehen, adios, au revoir, 再见.

I'm not certain if its a consideration, or how this will work, but I'll pose a very likely scenario that will occur. I am the leader of a Roleplaying megaguild, and Alliances would ultimately resolve the necessity of my guild existing (Thankfully putting me out of the job and letting me enjoy my position in the RP guild I'm apart of). The guilds that represent under my tag would be able to band together under alliances and communicate in game with a universal chat (I can't imagine this system not implementing a new chat channel) as well as out of game through Discord. A handful of members in this collective engage in WvW on a personal basis. If this system was implimented solely in mind of WvW, would the existence of my new Alliance sort the entire population into one of these realms every 8 weeks and 'fill' potential slots that wouldn't be used because of this handful of members playing WvW, while the rest of the alliance doesn't? Wouldn't it be more apt to allow Alliances to form for other reasons such as sPvP, Raiding, Fractals, PvE Trains, or Roleplaying? Or will there be some kind of measure in place to exclude these types of guilds from allying? Could alliances opt out of WvW sorting? Could we see flags for Alliances in specific content that would allow, say two or three full commander squads of guild members be sorted into the same instance of VB,AB,TD, DS, DoI, or SS? You've given me a lot of hope for this feature reducing the headaches and hoops I have to jump through, and I look forward to a response.

I think the main dig here isn't that its a lootbox -- we already have loot boxes in this game. It is however, entirely in the TIMING. Right now, even the screw-loose gaming press who couldn't be further out of touch if they lived on Pluto, are turning on Loot Boxes -- it was a TERRIBLE idea to introduce one right now, especially for a mechanic that people were giving you unbridled praise for. Even worse is that the majority of the skins are minor changes on the base skins. If there's a solution here, (and I doubt this will be heard, because even I've spent a good 15 bucks on this already), its to pull it out, and put skin sets into the game either along lines of Theme, or along Mount. You need to minimize the RNG majorly, because right now its reaching a boiling point with players. For the time being, just avoid this entirely, go back to Outfits, Weapon Skins, (Armor Skins maybe), items that might cost more, but have guaranteed items behind them, and stick with that until this Lootbox issue dies off.