Diruuo.6314

Is there no intention to revisit the horrible gameplay necessitated by the Vindicator changes from the previous balance patch? The removal of Vigor completely from Vindicator, the added clunky rotational ability, the overall lower Endurance, the inconsistency of gameplay if you don't have external vigor, the still nerfed greatsword (why are swords still the preferred weapon instead of Vindicator's own weapon)? This is exceptionally disappointing, because Vindicator continues to have mechanical and thematic issues that the balance patches are completely ignoring, instead focusing on only numeric adjustments that are both unnecessary and won't be significantly impactful. Please reconsider the mechanical issues outlined above and give us some concrete plan to resolve them. The current iteration of the elite specialization is easily the worst it's ever been, despite benchmark numbers. For a profession that typically flows so elegantly due to the energy system, the previous balance patch managed to muck that up completely for Vindicator specifically.

I find it astonishing that I still need to bring this up, considering that the tattoos were made available for purchase again - IN THEIR BUGGED STATE. Numerous more patches have gone by with no resolution in sight, the same bug, as reported months ago, when the tattoos originally released. This is absolutely unacceptable and is borderline false advertisement. At least give us an update on this issue, is it being tracked at all? Is the dev team aware? I've submit in-game bug reports, I've posted here, what else must I do for this to be acknowledged? @Rubi Bayer.8493

It doesn't appear to be in patch notes, but I can confirm that the audio issues are resolved, and you can now hear the cute chirp the little dragon makes when it does its little wiggle idle animation! 😄

The new roundtail dragon uses default jade bot sounds when it's taken out as a mini, despite not having any of the same animations or for it to make sense to sound robotic/mechanical. I have confirmed that it has unique flight animations that are specific to the dragon, and it probably has unique idles too, but those are as of right now inaudible since it is bugged. Please find a video below of a brief demonstration of this bug. Note the audio of both jade bots as they follow me in mini-form, and then note the audio of both jade bots as they are controlled via a terminal (i.e. their actual movement sounds). I have submitted an in-game bug report relating to this issue as well, but adding here because of the video might be helpful. In summary - roundtail dragon has wrong audio when used as a mini.

I once again seek an update on this issue. This is still an active issue that continues to be a horrible eyesore for a variety of effects a player can consistently have on their character, rendering the skins frankly unusable. Examples include the new WvW infusion, several other infusions (dwarf for example) as well as unique effects like the Juggernaut. IQrzHPy.png (1106×783) (imgur.com) bATUVCH.png (972×779) (imgur.com) @Rubi Bayer.8493 - can we please have some communication in regards to this issue. It has been ongoing for months and there's been no acknowledgement. I find this unacceptable for a gem store item.

I do not think these listed changes really capture what the issues with some of the specs are. For Herald and Druid in particular, the playability and flexibility has straight up gone down, to the point of breaking the specs. It's not merely about their ability to provide a necessary boon, it's about how they provide it. To list concrete things - invisible timers are just... bad. They're not easy to track, and while I understand you'd want us to not have to track them, when you tie important effects to them, it's bound to happen. Yes, the reduction will make it more responsive, no, it's still not a good implementation. Herald already has enough over-time-ticking things, for a critical boon like this I don't think it's a good fit. The "invisible timer" problem was mitigated by Draconic Echo, but that has been removed as an option for boon support builds (despite making perfect sense as the boon support option in its original design). Additionally, your original stated goal was to reduce the spamminess and improve flexibility for Herald builds, you've, very directly, negatively impacted both of these aspects of the build with the changes in the June patch. The build is significantly more energy constrained, and thus there's even less flexibility in how you play it. For base throughput, you also generally follow the same rotational priorities as you did prior to the change. So in practice - it's just as spammy, now it just has less energy to do anything useful. In a world where the DPS quickness build prefers the same two legends that were used before, and the utility legends are less useful - you've directly failed at your intended purpose of introducing flexibility to it. The situation is the same for druid. On paper, they have their utility skills free now, but in practice, they lost an even more important resource - celestial avatar. Now you need to constantly rotate in and out of Celestial avatar, bringing Druid back to the days of old where you had to do so for the damage buff. Except it's worse now, and the playstyle encourages a carpel-tunnel inducing level of spam of skills in Celestial Avatar. This also removes Celestial Avatar as a resource used for... well... healing or CC. If damage does not align with your alacrity application, then you simply waste all the healing because you had to provide buffs. These are fundamental, critical, usability and design issues, that the proposed numbers changes above will not fix. Thus, I find the response to the criticism and feedback underwhelming. These builds very plainly feel worse to play, and perform worse than they did prior to the June patch. They are also still very spammy, so their usability is either unchanged, or in the case of Druid - made significantly worse. I firmly believe the design issues introduced with the Patch are so fundamental and problematic, that the only reasonable option is to revert the changes, and get back to the drawing board.

@Rubi Bayer.8493 I apologize for pinging yet again, but there are still egregious issues with the tattoo items that have not been fixed after numerous patches across months. Additionally, the issues have not even been acknowledged after the "invisible body parts" was fixed, as if the remaining visual glitches don't exist. Please let us know what the status on this is. I think it's a fair expectation that gem store items will not exhibit horrific graphical issues for months and months. I still cannot use the tattoo skins much because of how broken they look. This is unacceptable for real money purchases.

Thank you for the insight and explanations! Always interesting to get a better understanding of the process like this!

@Rubi Bayer.8493 - There are still egregious errors with these gem store items that have thus far gone unfixed. There have been two regularly scheduled patches since the issues have been brought up and we've had no further communication or fix in either of them. To be unable to use my gem store purchases due to graphical issues that seem to go unaddressed is quite unfortunate, and I find it rather unacceptable. Not to mention that the tattoo skins weren't even bundled at a discount prices for those of us that want all of them due to the designs. Can we please at least get some feedback on when these issues will be addressed, lots of evidence further up in the thread is still valid and is still an issue. In general I expect gem store items to not be released in such a broken state (and remain broken for months).

Latest patch still does not address the issue of jumbled textures with certain effects (most easily observable with The Juggernaut...) This continues being rather disappointing, as this is a paid item that has been in a broken state to a point where I can't really use it. Can we get some clarity on whether this issue is being tracked and when can we expect a resolution? Example of broken textures for Bestial Tides tattoo set post March 16th patch.

To add some detail to this issue, easily replicatable texture bugs with Juggernaut's unique effect. For reference, this is what it looks normally, without the flickering or texture anomalies: Non-glitchy look Then this is the Bestial Tides tattoo set with the Juggernaut's effect. Bestial Tides + Juggernaut (yes that's the texture for my boots on my shoulder) Bestial Tides + Juggernaut 2 Others exhibit oddities as well, like for example the Serpentine tattoo set loses all definition when affected by the Juggernaut effect: Serpentine set broken texture example (note the complete lack of texture on the chest, and compare to the texture still visible on the legs) Lastly, the fire bloom set chest piece completely disappears with the Juggernaut's effect, not as egregious but still disappointing, the pants piece is broken like the rest, however, exhibiting the same texture jumble that is visible in my first two screenshots: Firebloom set broken texture example Correct image for reference It is rather disappointing that these unique skins were not only released separately from each other to the gem store, but were also released in such a broken state.

Revenant feedback: Imperial Impact: The attack from this trait no longer inflicts chill in PvP and WvW. Reduced power coefficient from 0.625 to 0.5 in PvP only While I think the coefficient change makes sense, I am a little sad to see the chill removed, as it allowed for an interesting condi playstyle (with traits that interact with chill and Mallyx in general). Such changes that reduce build diversity generally make me sad, so I'd like to see that part of the change dropped, or the build somehow preserved in a different way. Thank you for posting all of these, I find the early feedback opportunity very good!

Also, seriously, Vitality in the Offensive potion is weird. Remove the effect entirely and move it to the Defensive potion. Flip the costs if so inclined (so that the Defensive one is the most expensive). It's incredibly odd and disjointed right now. "Yeah, I'm dying a lot, what potion should I get? - Oh the offensive one of course!" No, weird.

Disappointingly, I find these notes to be problematic as they indicate some of the direction of changes really go against the design of some specs. This while claiming to be aimed at introducing new build opportunities while actively killing such builds in the process, even highlighted within the design notes. It needed to be removed? There was no better way for this to be handled? This actively removed a rather weak and niche but functional healing support build. This is unfortunate, because it allowed several elite specializations to actively interact with this functionality, namely Vindicator, to provide an interesting support build, that, again, was very niche, compared to "meta healers". As it stands, Vindicator is incredibly anemic in most content. It was repeatedly nerfed in competitive modes, despite not being particularly popular. In PvE it's a low damage, selfish DPS that needs to sacrifice a core defensive mechanic of the game to even get to that low DPS. This "sacrifice" feels particularly bad when it's not actually rewarded with anything substantial. The damage boost dodge should be something that adds throughput OVER default good DPS, i.e. it should be a risk-reward decision for players who choose to use active mitigation - blocks on weapons - to avoid damage, but should not be a requirement for basic throughput that is often given for free to other specs; As it stands, it feels like punishment, rather than a reward. Why do I inflict this upon myself when it's actively unrewarding? The boon dodge is good for boon builds, it's functional, it's interesting, it's okay. It's only really useful if you make it give more boons, functionally tying it to trait 2 in the first line, but I digress, it's okay. The heal dodge was nerfed a few times, and was pushed towards healer roles, yet Healers....were pushed to Boon support roles. Which dodge would a healer choose I wonder? This needs to be better. To nuke it because of competitive modes (again) is becoming a theme that's disappointing for the whole of Revenant. This all is further compounded by incredibly dysfunctional and weak weapons - Swords, Hammer, Shield and Greatsword (after the Greatsword 5 nerf) - they all feel unimpactful, particularly compared to a lot of the other profession's weapons. The worst of them all is Hammer, which was mechanically broken for the sake of WvW. Ghosting attacks, being slow to hit, introducing a "dead zone" to it, the target indicator not aligning well with the effect, removing interesting gameplay (the 3 steps damage). This, nerfed for WvW, while other long-range damage dealers have remained dominant in the game mode for years. Leaving Revenant without a functional Ranged option for PvE while at it, as well as killing its role in WvW. The worst of it all is I think the rather misguided desire to add Quickness to Herald. While I'm not against the idea generally, the fact that the "suitable solution" was to completely throw away Herald's design around upkeep to force Quickness into it (while removing Alacrity) is appalling. Why was it considered acceptable for something to be introduced to Herald's unique gameplay that completely discards said gameplay? This is an astonishing direction for an otherwise beloved spec. Please revisit the idea of Quickness on Herald entirely and actually build something interesting around the upkeep mechanic, the current solution comes across really poorly, with the design notes especially.

Vindicator Greatsword 3 dash fade-out (at the end of the animation) cuts sharply if there's no target and it doesn't finish in the swirl, seems like an animation/transition is missing. It looks very jarring if you just use it for movement, character should "fade back in" from the mists in a sense. Nomad's advance does not maintain weapon model on jumping, but it does maintain trails/weapon effects, it seems like the animation was designed for the model to be there and it would make sense to be there. Mentioned numerous times but the "stance" of the Legendary Alliance is not consistently saved to whatever you last selected, often defaulting to the healing/support one instead of the damage one. The skill bars on Legendary Alliance completely lack any animations, and the F3 swap is incredibly quiet, there's very little feedback to you swapping between the two from the Legendary Alliance. I am not sure if this is a bug or a desired effect (if so this would be the only legend without a skill bar effect ...) but a proper transition like for all other legends is sorely needed. There needs to be proper gameplay feedback to me pressing the button. Since there's really no feedback to the swap I am adding this under the bug thread and not the feedback thread. In general, F3 feels buggy and because of this lack of feedback the Legendary Alliance feels unresponsive and clunky.

I have only one thing to add to the already existing feedback - use the sound quip that goes with the end slate logo. You do use the one at the start, but not the end. Example: The animated logos for each expansion are unique and tap into the art style of the game incredibly well, and they're all made with sound.