Lynx.9058

Currently my favorite professions/specs are: Engineer - Scrapper Engineer - Mechanist Necromancer - Reaper Thief - Daredevil Ranger - Soulbeast Elementalist - Weaver I mostly play solo/open world content, I don't pvp/wvw, and I only jump into fractals and such rarely when the guild needs it, so take that into account on these =P On each: Scrapper is my main and has been for a long time, was also my first character (charr engineer). I feel it fits the charr engineer/iron legion aesthetic perfectly. Gameplay wise, I run a juggernaut/flamethrower build, and it's just a simple, tanky character that can do decent damage and survive a lot of abuse without being very complicated to play. I don't use the hammer very often, though sometimes I'll swap to it from flamethrower for a flavor change, but the flamethrower is just easymode with juggernaut and scrapper traits. Mechanist is my new favorite with end of dragons, and the one I'm currently playing the most. Like the scrapper, it's very good with open world content, can handle a lot of abuse and deal decent damage without a complex rotation or having to know/utilize mechanics or synergies. I love the golem and my mechanist is a little Asura gal, reminds me of Gaige/deathtrap from borderlands 2 =P Reaper I run with a minion build ("minionmaster reaper"), and right in line with the above two specs it's tanky and easy to play. I do wish we had better skins for the undead minions though. Daredevil is one of my newer characters, but I love how it plays more like a tanky melee combatant that doesn't really have to use stealth or worry about taking hits. Having three dodge charges is fun, and the fact that your dodge becomes an attack is even better. On groups you can just dodge/5/dodge/5/dodge/5/dodge/5 almost endlessly to have constant evasion and aoe damage. Soulbeast is kinda tough but a little squishier than the others, takes a little more effort to play. I run dagger/torch and swap to dagger/dagger while torch skills are on cooldown, and it's a full condition damage build. The offhand torch abilities (esp ability 5) do a ton of burning damage, and then you stack on all the dagger poison conditions and enemies just start to melt. Only downside is that I don't really get to use my pet much anymore, since I'm always merged. Weaver is probably the toughest of the bunch and my hardest character to play, but I've got a celestial weaver build with sword/dagger that works pretty well and can take a fair amount of abuse before going down. Still have to be much more careful with mechanics and dodge more often. I'm not a fan of having to constantly change atunements, so I mostly stick to fire/earth and run it like a condition build with burning and bleeding.

At the very, VERY least, if they can't make it usable underwater, then the cooldown on depth charge support needs to be dropped to like 5-10 seconds.

I was referring to the mech not working underwater at all =P

they didn't listen to feedback on any of the new specs. They threw trash into the beta and sat on their hands for 6 months ignoring these forums.

engineer weapons in general are pretty bad.

Just wait until you have to get your feet wet. And so what if it's a decent overworld solo spec? It's trash in groups and pvp and wvw right now, and probably always will be because anet doesn't know the first thing about balancing their own game.

What's wrong with superconducting signet? I pair it up with the mech f2 lightning field to get some heavy aoe damage out

I'm really enjoying mechanist so far but it's super disappointing that almost nothing was changed from beta, and the mech is still 100% useless underwater, and we're still forced to use mace and all signets with this spec, and you still get little to no benefit from your traits if your mech is inactive.

I like how you completely leave out scrapper's core trait getting nerfed, just because you want to rant about how some other specs you don't like mightve been a little too good.

> Anet releases expansion with a bunch of buggy, clunky e-specs that don't work in the established meta > They ignore literally all feedback from two beta tests regarding any of these issues, and push the expansion without any changes to the specs > Everyone gets angry about the new specs not being any good > They nerf all the old specs to "encourage" using the new specs -_-

Yea, Anet didn't listen to literally any feedback from the past beta tests. At least we didn't get super nerfed, catalyst was horrible during the last beta and instead of making anything better they just straight up nerfed damage on their hammer abilities by as much as 60%. Guess I'm glad I didn't bother grinding out points for it.

From what I've seen, almost nothing was changed from the last beta, and any changes that were made were generally nerfs. I can't believe after all of the negative feedback on the state of catalyst, the only thing they did was make it even worse. Mechanist has had no changes as far as I can see, so at least it hasn't been further nerfed, but they did absolutely nothing to fix any of the issues that were brought up during the beta tests.

Generally, yes. Half the point to even using an elite spec, for me, is access to that new weapon type. Doesn't apply on all classes, of course (I don't plan on using an axe for my firebrand, for example), but most of the time it's a big draw to the elite specs. It makes things frustrating when the 'new' weapon for an espec doesn't seem to be any good. I ran into this problem with hammer for catalyst during the beta tests: I WANT to use the hammer, and hammer 3 feels thematically very connected to the catalyst's functionality, but the hammer just sucks.

That sounds a little to much like weaver to me.

I didn't have a chance to play much with the Virtuoso during the betas, I was focused more on other specs since I didn't even have a mesmer at the time. That said, I do thematically like the psi blades and ended up making a mesmer hoping to go virtuoso once EoD releases. I'm definitely NOT a fan of mesmer in general, and I hate that the clones/phantasms/whatever are constantly disappearing and feel unreliable, but the fact that virtuoso had 'permanent' psi blades that persisted out of combat made it feel a little more functional and less clumsy to me. That said, most of my gameplay is solo/open world pve, and I generally gravitate towards tougher specs that can facetank stuff more easily (I main a scrapper and reaper for the most part). I just wanted to get an idea of how tough/solo-capable the virtuoso may have been?

A comment elsewhere sprung this idea into my head: Virtuoso can accumulate psionic blades as their class mechanic, and then fire them off with shatters. Currently there are problems with Jade Sphere (F5) and Elemental Orbs (Hammer 3) that everyone is trying to get changed/fixed, so here's my solution: Remove Hammer 3 and replace it with a new attack for each atunement. Catalyst Mechanic: Whenever you enter a new atunement, you spawn an elemental orb of that type (max 1 per atunement). These orbs revolve around you, have no duration, and persist out of combat. They deal minor damage to nearby enemies (melee range) each second, increasing with how many orbs you have accumulated. Pressing F5 fires all of your accumulated orbs at the target (1200 range), dealing heavy burst damage based on how many orbs were active. A jade sphere effect is created at the target's location upon impact, based on the atunement that was active when F5 was pressed. This lets catalyst build up steady, passive AoE damage around them as they do their rotation through atunements, and allows them to save that big burst and jade sphere effect for an ideal moment, rather than worrying about losing all of the elemental orbs after a few seconds or being forced to use it when an enemy might be blocking, shielded, invulnerable/immune, out of range, or whatever. It also moves the elemental orbs from Hammer 3 away from the hammer weapon, and into something the spec can use regardless of the weapon type they've got equipped - which I think is important because, to me throughout the play tests for catalyst, Hammer 3 was more iconic and at the forefront of my character identty than F5 ever was.

Speaking of virtuoso, what if catalyst's hammer 3 orbs were removed from the weapon, and became part of the class mechanic, functioning like the virtuoso's psionic blades? Every time you change atunement, you gain an elemental orb (for the atunement you're going into). These orbs float around you, and persist out of combat. The orbs deal some minimal damage to enemies around you every second or so, and you use F5 and fire off all accumulated orbs at the target, creating the jade sphere effect at the target's location based on your atunement at the time of use. That sounds, to me, like a much better mechanical basis for both the F5 and H3 abilities than what we've been given.

The passive barrier is good, but you can also use the gyros and combos for additional barrier generation. The difference between before and after learning how to use my scrapper combos was night and day, and definitely improved survivability and damage.

I really want them to add skin packs so I can have all my summons actually be skeletons/zombies instead of these weird fleshbabies.

I'd rather have a longer duration on the orbs and remove the finale skill so you can keep refreshing it. I'd like to be a walking elemental storm, thanks.

Do we know for a fact charr have three sets?

I do like the idea of a brawler spec for thief, tbh. Greatsword or Hammer, loses stealth, gets to use stealth/ambush attacks while visible, that'd be pretty cool. I do think if they come out with a fourth spec for each profession, many of them need to be ranged focused (1200 range, maybe 1500) - especially the elementalist and engineer specs, as both of those professions currently lack strong ranged options while simultaneously making more sense as ranged characters than melee in terms of theme.

Yes, but charr and asura females better get actual female swimwear and not be stuck with the ugly male version like they are on so many other skins and outfits.

Then the least they could do is put some kind of text or warning on those items stating that they are not dyable. I'm sure I'm not the only new-ish player that had no idea about these legacy items or the fact that some could not be dyed until I purchased them, and it feels a little like getting cheated.

Here are some of my top picks for what I'd like to see: A proper HUNTER theme: Ranger spec with Rifles as the unlocked weapon, maybe the ability to use multiple pets at once (2, maybe more); i.e. the standard hunter with a pack of hounds feel. TECHNOMANCER: An Engineer spec that unlocks either mainhand scepter or offhand torch, offers ranged attacks, and uses technology to create elemental effects (Fireballs, Ice slicks, Lightning storms, Earthquakes, etc.). WARDEN: A Necromancer spec that focuses on and changes pet/minion functionality. I would like to see this implemented as a sort of "Dark Druid", where a lot of the spell effects have more of a nature-inspired feel, maybe something like what we see with mordremoth aligned enemies. Uses either a shortbow or longbow which applies torment and poison with attacks, and each minion skill is replaced by a reanimated animal instead of a bone/flesh minion. Blood Fiend: replaced by a Death Spirit (using similar spirit models/animations as the ranger's spirit summons) that causes you to siphon health and gain barrier when attacking Bone Minions: replaced by Undead Rats, and now summons 3 minions instead of 2 Bone Fiend: replaced by Twisted Iboga, sprays acid at enemies dealing damage in a cone Flesh Wurm: replaced by Noxious Vine, a stationary vine that sprouts out of the ground, lashes at enemies, and emits a poison cloud that periodically poisons enemies in the area. Shadow Fiend: replaced by Dark Stalker, an undead jungle stalker that can pounce on enemies (on command), immobilizing them in addition to applying the standard shadow fiend conditions. Flesh Golem: replaced by Zombie Bear, a massive risen bear that can charge at enemies and taunt them, as well as being tougher and dealing more damage than the flesh golem. ALCHEMIST: An Elementalist spec that unlocks Rifles, which fire magically enchanted bullets based on your atunement. Also uses alchemical concoctions as grenades, creating area effect hazards, buffs, and damage. (TBH, this is what Catalyst should have been, the name would've fit perfectly). PSION: A Mesmer spec that unlocks Hammer. Psions can create some elemental effects through their utility skills, and their clones/illusions/phantasms are replaced with apparitions, which follow the Psion and attack enemies until killed or sacrificed.. A maximum of 3 apparitions can exist at a time. Shatter skills are removed and the F1 skill is replaced with Sacrifice, banishing one of your apparitions to grant yourself barrier and regeneration. Pyromancy: Psionic flames burn enemies around you for the duration. Create a flaming apparition that burns enemies. Cryomancy: Saps the heat from nearby enemies, applying chilled, immobilizing them, and extinguishing burning on allies in range. Create a frozen apparition that chills enemies. Telekinesis: Pulls all nearby enemies towards you, and becomes Telekinetic Blast, which knocks all nearby enemies away from you and temporarily immobilizes them. Create an force apparition that stuns enemies. Telepathy: Lash out at the minds of all nearby enemies, applying several stacks of confusion and crippling effected targets. Create a mental apparition that confuses enemies. Somniomancy: (Elite) Enter a dream state, leaving your body behind and becoming an apparition for 30 seconds. While in this state, you create dream apparitions each interval (3 seconds) which siphon life to you from enemies they strike. Somniomancy ends if your physical body or apparition body are killed, or when the duration runs out. The Psion would be a melee brawler, with controlling area attacks. Each of the utility skills effects the area around the Psion, and the Psion can constantly create and sacrifice apparitions to gain barrier and regeneration. Somniomancy serves as a sort of secondary health bar/shroud with the caveat that your physical body is vulnerable.