ens.9854

Hope it's support and not condi. A wall that makes projectiles unblockable (with a cool shadow effect) would give it an instant spot in WvW. We already deal with enough kitten condi thiefs. Unsurprisingly it looks like scepter mainhand, so probably ranged. So we have scepter/dagger and scepter/pistol. Hopefully the dual skills are also ranged, and there is a way to make use of pistol 5 (blast please?) or else it will go the way of sword/pistol.

Wow! I thought people were just being critical with their feedback. I think it is 90% okay. Skills do not need complete overhauls (maybe some utility added to weapon). Some traits DO, but I don't consider that to be a major thing. With some damage adjustments and animation/QOL (aftercast on DT and other attacks, swapping etc) tweaks it will be almost there. I think it is so frustrating to play because it is so close to being fluid and rewarding and then you run into something glaring like fumbling the weird hotkeys, goofiness getting into/out of DT, getting locked out of weapons, or feel like you are swinging a wet noodle outside of DT.

It kinda has an identity. You can do respectable damage from range with a melee weapon, which is new for warrior. The problem is the melee damage is garbage so you end up spamming all your ranged attacks even in melee range. And you are locked into saber mode by DT so you can't just swap to axe/x or whatever (which still suffer from the lack of damage mods in the traitline).

From some tooling around in unranked, I am left to wonder why on earth the gunsaber was invented if it such an ineffective weapon... Overall damage (ignoring trigger) is LOW. Some damage should be shaved from dragon trigger and given to weapon skills (either via traits or directly to the skills). Players are able to facetank your "payoff" 2 skill due to its long animations and low damage. Spamming 3 is your only real damage to the point that it feels like an oversight. This skill actually feels great for that reason. 4 needs some utility buff... it's mostly just being used for more ranged damage. Much has been already said about the clunk of DT. Heres more! Dragon trigger traited stun is scaling should be reworked. I feel this stun is the entire reason our weapon swap is put on CD (to prevent 4+ second stun into axe 5 traited with Unsuspecting Foe). Reduce the top end of the stun and let us swap.

Approved. This is the best option. The new vindicator mechanic can simply be a legend that allows you to actually choose your utilities. Heals and stunbreaks are kind of "whatever", but for the other two utilities and the elite you will likely VASTLY prefer to have one over the other depending on the game mode and role. Locking you into the opposite skill, then requiring you to use every other useful skill, then a cast time to fix it... what grief.

How about we just pick which utility we want individually? Then f2 can give you temporary access to the opposite skill or something. Preferably instant cast.

Well it's worse than gunflame. You lose all the flow you sucked into sword if you get interrupted. Gunflame you can at least recast.

For pvp it seems fun but a bit clunky and unreliable. I can see hilarious moments with throw bolas into blink behind dragon trigger. And unblindable attack vs thiefs in wvw is chef's kiss if you can land it somehow. Guntana seems... reasonable if the damage numbers are good. All the cooldowns are enormous, so you can really empty yourself out if you stay in it for too long. And you don't have to worry about having garbage burst skills anymore, so I'm on board there. Traits.. we hoped this would be a replacement for discipline. It sorta is. No word on how fast hands interacts with it yet (or if saber mode even has a cooldown?). There is at least a swiftness source, which can compensate _somewhat_ for warrior sprint. The adept traits also somewhat compensate for the flow engine of grandmaster discipline. Strength still seems good. Tactics seems great. Defense seems at least justifiable. However the major traits are... very bad. Throwing walls lets you.. throw more walls? Too many ways to cleanse or ignore cripple/immob.

Is it really in the spirit of bannerslave if your entire group is setting you up to full charge dragon trigger after breakbar? More like bannerCHAD /s.

Another legend with a weak heal is a bit of a worry for pvp modes. Very difficult to pair with shiro. Might be forced into dodge heal with +100% endurance regen (food or trait), and using f2 for condi cleansing (to get to the real heal skill). Which... feeds back into staff stall gameplay, hurray. Stock up on energy sigils now. Greatsword dash and block may or may not provide enough relief with the hopefully reasonably costed stunbreaks...

Do you really believe we need MORE cleansing in the game like OP suggests? Then we will be back to condi players whining that their damage can be completely invalidated. The idea is to undo the creep that has already occurred.

The whole discussion is bizarre to me. The reason we have cleanse meta is not because of bleed/burn/torment/poison. Nobody would complain if that's all they had to deal with. Its because condi builds absolutely vomit every other nondamaging condition on top of those (with extra duration often) and make the game MISERABLE to play and damaging condis a die roll to cleanse, unless you cleanse massive amounts. Nuke nondamaging condi application from orbit. Shave cleanses to a reasonable level.

I don't think we want to go down the "remove downstate" path. In many ways it is functionally similar to reducing the TTK dramatically. Forums will be flooded by players getting bursted by thiefs who then disengage -> rinse repeat. Don't get me wrong, GW2 is the most fun in the power burst meta, but lets only go into one balancing abyss at a time here.

Just CC them lol. Ok for real though, zerker specs do tear through me even on a mostly dire setup. We all know what is getting nerfed. Ever flip 20+ torment stacks onto 6+ enemies and full heal yourself?

I thought the problem was stacking protection and other -% damage taken (food, traits, herald buff) is far TOO effective compared to toughness. Nobody knows how these things stack (which are additive, multiplicative), but they seem to be the secret to tankiness especially in zergs. It does definitely feel like protection is more than -33% at times...

Just add stability on top of every stunbreak. Seems fine to me.

Can lag inflate numbers? Just got nailed by a spear -> 19.3k trueshot on (almost) full marauder thief lol. Start of combat walking up to a camp he cleared. Had 300 ping from downloads tho so i didnt even react lol.

At that point you're just playing condi for style points.

Meant heartseeker btw. A malicious backstab should hit high numbers regardless. Power vs power matchups all feel great (outside of a couple outliers and bunkers). TTK is long enough to go through a couple rotations. They pretty much achieved what they were going for. Unfortunately that's not the meta.

Everybody devoting every available resource to countering condis because even outside damage they are so debilitating. This is how the meta has always been - add cleanse until its not a problem because they are so strong (similar for boons). This is not a favorable state for power or condi players. Power players are locked to defensive skills/sets and condi players are neutered against any structured group. IMO the condition system has become fundamentally broken because of the prevalence of non-damaging conditions and the nondiscrimination in cleansing.

Looks like you didn't even react. Also it only does 8k when you are <25% (its a finisher move) and probably have only 5k health. i.e. you would have died even if they nerfed it by another 33%. The finisher damage only matters in rare situations that thief finds a low health tank. Glass thief not in a great spot right now as 90% of meta builds will ignore their burst. I feel for you playing warrior though they are in an even worse. Should probably be asking for war buffs not thief nerfs.

True. Seems to be all about focusing targets/cycling cc now rather than 1 player bursting somebody to downstate and the team cleaving. It's less fun but possibly? better for teamwork. It becomes quite tedious if squads battleship well. And then a few supports can make a small fight last an hour.

Yeah tbh it should grant players hit by it resistance.

Pretty much. Some condi attacks just do too much. It would be different if everybody was spamming just burn/bleed/torment. This was destined to happen. More and more people are spec'ing into condi builds because they escaped the nerfs. Supports are now outnumbered 3+-1 by enemy condi builds. Unlike having insufficient healing vs power, which just meant health bars dropping, not being able to cleanse makes fights absolute misery because of the huge variety of punishments conditions can bring.

Nobody would mind condi meta so much except it comes together with a vomit of long lasting nondamaging conditions that neuter your character and makes cleansing a nightmare. If you come within 1200 of a blob your bar fills up. Give these skills the same treatment as power skills - make them about damage OR soft cc. Then nerf cleanse back to a reasonable level.