[Scepter noise]

The scepter hate because of its noise burns with a passion. Take my illusionary upvote. :P

[Phoenix Protocol should not force displacement for Alacrity application]

On 6/13/2024 at 7:45 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

I'm saying that it wasn't actually planned out, it's just something that happened, and that might explain why it, well, feels like something that's jury-rigged out of disparate parts all doing their own thing that happens to have a certain result rather than having been designed as an alacrity provider. After all, willbender was originally supposed to be the really selfish guardian elite spec.

That doesn't fit what I've heard, mostly because the hammer itself is doing most of what it's doing primarily through autoattacks, and using skill 2 in order to get back into combat after an F2 (or to trigger Karakosa). What I've heard is that it's one of the easier heal builds to learn, the problem is that it can't heal as much as most so it falls off in fights where you really do want all the healing you can get.

This. Alac willbender was initially for it and itself only. Eventually the devs decided on group alac willbender being a thing. That's draxynnic's point. Even I know this because I was around during EoD betas. 
This isn't about the devs not knowing how to design elite specs; this is the case of development. Another great example of this: the devs also decided whether Specter should give alacrity or quickness, so they added both options to it in the betas, then after beta 1, they picked alacrity as its special role. Though, ironically, to this day, Endless Night still provides quickness in WvW and PvP, but Shadestep has alacrity in PvE.
 

What's really quirky about willbender is not the alacrity application per hit, but that you're tied to virtues' battle presence trait, regardless of condi, heal, or power roles. F2 has nothing to do with this either. You can work around the mobility. I do feel that alacrity willbender bounces around a lot like alac mirage, so I get the annoyance. You can't tell me that you're not randomly teleporting and creating clones as an alacrity mirage just like alacrity willbender is using f2 virtue to dash and using physical skills. 

At this rate you're better off asking for redesigning Phoenix Protocol because Idk where else alacrity would go and fit so smoothly into the espec.

[Engi spear presentation speculation]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I disagree on the 'done to death' bit, on the basis that there are a lot of ways to add a bit of it, but not a way to really specialise in it. Elementalist is always flipping between at least two attunements, while for engineer, it's very easy to have a bit of electricity in there, but hard to really focus on it. Hammer holosmith is probably the closest at the moment, and spear probably will be soon enough when it's introduced, but that's obviously mixing with the hologram theme of holosmith, and possibly more importantly... it's still basically a melee build skinned over with a few electricity-based graphics. There are obviously ways to do scrapper and mechanist with electricity as well, but similar issues apply.

The electricity/lightning theme, in fantasy and sometimes in science fiction, is more normally associated with throwing lightning bolts and electricity arcs at range - but the playstyle associated with that seems to be something that ArenaNet has been actively avoiding. Elementalist? Staff and pistol air are notoriously bad, and sceptre air has proven to be one of the most boring interpretations of the concept I've ever seen (running weaver for dual skills, especially Plasma Beam, does help but only so much) feeling more like a continuous laser with an electricity skin rather than a lightning-themed playstyle. Engineer's electricity-themed ranged options are basically pistol's Static Shot, Static Discharge, the shield throw (which is another case of having an electricity skin rather than really feeling like part of an electricity playstyle) and Orbital Strike. The closest is, ironically, mesmer - the purple lightning might be something other than lightning according to the fluff but it comes close in look and feel - although that's obviously mixed with mesmer stuff.

And part of my disappointment here is that having a second electricity-themed melee weapon just adds to the paradox of electricity simultaneously having been done to death while still not having been done right, and by making the "done to death" side of that paradox even stronger it makes the other side less likely to be resolved. I wasn't expecting spear to be a ranged lightning weapon - I was hoping for spear to be something similar to what you're thinking - but "melee electricity" is the thing I absolutely least wanted to see because it makes the chance of getting a proper lightning playstyle further down the line less likely. It's probably going to be more electricity-themed than hammer is (from what I've heard, hammer was originally more explosives-oriented, shifting it to electricity was something that happened relatively late in development) but it's still just another melee weapon.

So I can be harsh or overly critical about things. It's just that holosmith did this theme the best. We charge up energy to do more damage inside photon forge, even. Hammer holo is what I use in PvE and WvW yeah. It's the absolute closest you'll get to the electricity style until spear's release. Anet has done so badly on ranged lightning playstyles. I'm not sure if it's because they don't like it or had boring interpretations. Don't even get me started with the elementalist's flop pistol, staff, or boring scepter. Not even Weaver makes scepter stand out more on the electricity front. Confusion, burns, blinds, vuln, weakness, superspeed, and the like are what I would love to see on a lightning-focused weapon.

I'm not sure why a melee lightning spear is now going to compete with melee hammer either! I don't wanna say it's uninspired to do a 4th melee weapon, but there have been 3 already, what does the 4th one add apart from theme and playstyle? I do agree that this route makes a cool proper lightning playstyle less likely in the future.

[Support weapons for necromancer?]

if you wanna open up a can of worms, having a support weapon on necro would be not great to balance around scourge. it used to be easier to control balancing weapons when they were limited to their respective elite specs. now that weaponmaster training has enabled all weapons to be used, that's gone out of the window.

scourge does fine without a support-focused weapon. what actually needs to happen is blood magic traits being reworked and dagger, warhorn, and staff getting serious changes. not much needs to be done.

warhorn could pulse healing and swiftness, have blast finishers. staff may need some boons like might, vigor, or fury. resistance would be so rad though, especially if it goes to warhorn lol. main-hand dagger and off-hand dagger are lost causes especially with the changes to boon corruption. now's a good time to relook at core weapons instead of shoving a support weapon onto necromancer. 

[Engi spear presentation speculation]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I suspect what they're thinking here is to create a general-purpose melee DPS option, since hammer is somewhat defensive in nature, sword is generally regarded as holo-specific, and mace is support-ish. But seriously. Engineer hasn't had a new ranged option that isn't deploying support fields since release. I'm getting bored of rifle and sick of grenades.

And at the risk of getting egg on my face when elespear is revealed (although I'd take that) why is it that all the good electricity-themed weapons are always melee?

Spear is the air attunement weapon of engineer's weapons. /s I was really hoping for something like explosions or burns or dangerous AOEs. Electricity has already been done to death too! 

As for range? Pick your poison: melee, mid-range, or long-range. 

[Thoughts on Throwing Spear?]

1 hour ago, Genesis.8572 said:

As with all spears, I'm curious which E-Specs it will work best with. This at least gives the Bladesworn a solid (mid-)range option when not in its gunsaber modes. It would be nice if this worked with Spellbreakers, at least for the thematic connection of the Sunspears, but that remains to be seen. 

I know they tried making longbow and rifle work by adding 'explosions' function to some of their skills, but longbow does it better unironically because it has 5 ammo skills and 2 of those skills are explosions. Rifle DOES have 6 ammos, but only 1 skill has the explosion function. I guess rifle butt compensates for getting more ammo in return and having hard CC. They should revisit both weapons before making spear supersede them. :|

[There is a possibility that spear is a support weapon.]

16 hours ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

To be fair I've seen some warrior mains opine about how real warriors don't do ranged combat and even others claim Condi dps is un-warrior like. 

Ngl this sounds like the same warriors who would suggest changing to another class for ranged combat, even if that is an extreme opinion. Condi DPS un-warrior like??? Did Tyria freeze over????

[There is a possibility that spear is a support weapon.]

All jokes aside, Idk why it may take the spear to fulfill that mid-range weapon that neither longbow nor rifle is sufficient for playing in the same range. Oh wait the warrior community dislikes said weapons. Longbow at least works on condi berserker. It performs okay on power bladesworn, but it's low on the preference list for the build. (Not only does arcing arrow do most of the damage, but that skill and smoldering arrow have explosions, and they have 2 and 3 charges respectively so they synergize with bladesworn's traits.)

[New Fractal 100 Lonely Tower - NM Easy? - CM Too Hard? - Fat Discussion & Guide For Completing The CM]

Having a fractal that encourages ranged play isn't horrible, but having to camp it because this fractal is melee-unfriendly is a terrible reason to go range. Unless you wanna die to Eparch's whirlwind attacks, you're asking for death. 

The spongy health is disgusting, and that trend is continuing with the new fractal designs. At least this fractal doesn't have long phases before the boss on regular mode. Idk about CM though. I hate this fractal so much more than even Mai Trin t4. Besides the cons, I don't mind encouraging bringing boon corrupts, boon strips, or boon theft. You do not want Eparch grabbing boons from your allies, so supports need to be careful with Eparch having Envy. I learnt that the hard way playing my power quick harbinger. Regret is also so annoying unless you're playing with non-projectile ranged skills... Thankfully anet lets you take care of Eparch's buffs by taking yellow, blue, or purple orbs.

Wanna know the salt in the wound? A bug makes Eparch not reset its health after a group does /gg, unlike Twilight Oasis's final boss or going straight to Captain Crowe on Siren's Reef. Hopefully, Anet will look into that.

[Necro Spear, Sustain Mechanics, and a Harbinger rework that eats its OWN life energies.]

2 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

I'm aware that [Blood Bank] doesn't currently do those things, my point was that if it DID count as barrier in the eyes of Scourge, or even Relic of the Scourge, it'd still be self-only. Having to slot Blood Magic and [Blood Bank] to benefit from Scourge barrier effects once every 10s is not the most heinous design sin that exists in this game.

Also, [Feed From Corruption] doesn't grant alacrity to allies, because you only apply alacrity to the targets you grant barrier to. Scourge needing group barrier for group alacrity is another reason I'm not thrilled with it's flexibility, but again, if we got some kind of secondary/offhand shield, that could apply barrier in an AoE, it'd be a great alternative to torch generating group might. We might even still get a group-barrier skill on one of the last two spear skills, but I find that unlikely, and Power Scourge is kind of a joke in the PVE space at the moment.

Ahh I'm sorry, I misunderstood you and myself even. Oopsie. If all that barrier counted for scourge, it would definitely be for the scourge. Honestly, alac scourge isn't flexible with its slots or traits. Now I wish 'feed from corruption' affected allies, but it is what it is. Anet totally messed up the potential. It irritates me that the anti-synergy was done on purpose. 

I don't see a rework happening even though they said would look into scourge again if alacrity scourge proved to be too much. Power scourge is good for WvW, just not in PvE. Who knows whether spear will give group barrier. What are the odds of necro's new weapons giving boons that aren't might or regeneration?

[Necro Spear, Sustain Mechanics, and a Harbinger rework that eats its OWN life energies.]

4 hours ago, Vooksa.2941 said:

Pardon, but: yeah, so?

• Mechanist provides alacrity on barrier and passively applying barrier every 3 seconds, using two traits. Herald provides enough group quickness for permanent uptime with no concentration by spending enough energy/s, using a single trait. Harbinger itself provides permanent quickness while it's in shroud, for 3s every 3s.
• As of March, Elementalist's Air [One With Air] grants reduced superspeed in PVP specifically when [Fresh Air] is also equipped. Necro's own Soul Reaping [Dhuumfire] is split to have different stats for if you're playing Scourge and for Harbinger.
• [Blood Bank] only grants the Necro barrier, not allies, so the condi cleanse, might, and alacrity/vigor is solo-only.
• Are you really telling me that [Blood Bank] barrier can't be made to allow on-barrier benefits to trigger once every 10 seconds? And needs to have zero meaningful interaction with the game's premier barrier specialist??

no, blood bank doesn't grant condi cleanse, might, nor alacrity/vigor. blood bank doesn't interact with any of scourge's traits. I think it's because of the fact that scourge would generate tons of barrier while regenerating health. it would be too OP or have to have an internal cooldown, and anet would likely add the latter in WvW and PvP. 

what does happen is that necro's boonrips and boon corrupts grant barrier to the scourge, but alacrity to allies. this is why feed from corruption is a lot stronger than what one would think even taking it over sandstorm shroud. even the lesser spinal shiver trait will grant solo barrier + group alacrity if you strike a foe at 50% HP with boons. 

a hot topic I think is that scourge's support traits are out of place. desert empowerment should've been on sand savant. WHY is the scourge reduced to 180 radius to grant alac compared to other supports? both quick and alac supports aren't even hindered with a 180 radius. that's inconsistent and beyond annoying. you NEED to be in 180 radius to grant alac on all of your shade skills, but 300 radius for things like boon corrupts or boon strips. anet messed up on alac scourge, but they could revisit it.

[Spearheading a New Weapon: Guardian, Ranger, Necromancer]

9 hours ago, kiroho.4738 said:

I think this will be changed into knockdown or pull after the beta (at least for PvE)
AoE knockback was never popular in PvE as it directly works against the general pull-together behavior.
A pull or knockdown would support this behavior and still fit the skill.

I know anet has gotten rid of both knockdowns AND knockbacks, even the former has been replaced with crippled like on soulbeast's takedown. Who knows whether it'll change? Knockbacks are great when you want to play at range or get enemies off you. Admittedly, I think if the symbol didn't involve weakness, the knockback would make sense more than a knockdown or pull. In the case of WvW, you can still be aggressive with knockbacks by teleporting or dashing to your enemy even when they thought they had some breathing room. 

[Hopes for new Ranger Land Spear]

Ranger obviously nothing has to do with 'range.' It's an ignorant argument to emphasize ranger's ranged capabilities. They are like hunters, pet owners, master of the forest, a protector of a national park. Read a book. 

What ranger could benefit from is either non-ranged skills or more sources of the unblockable buff to override projectile reflects. I'm not gonna say ranger will ever get weapons like scepter, trident, or rifle to bypass it, but there aren't many melee weapons left either. Off-hand sword is the last one yet to be added. While ranger has flexibility with its range and melee weapons, it isn't necessarily any better than what other classes have.

What will Untamed's ambush be for terrestrial spear, though, interestingly enough? Im hoping a ground-targeted leap that creates a shockwave.

[Spearheading a New Weapon: Guardian, Ranger, Necromancer]

Ranger and guardian's spears are spot on thematically. Truly harking back to Paragon I guess. Ranger's spear is gonna be sick with the rogue playstyle weaving in and out of stealth. 

Methinks these 3 are power or hybrid, especially guardian's and necro's. I like the mobility necro will get hehe, because being able to shadowstep frequently will be useful to trigger relic of Peitha. And knocking back people on guard spear is gonna be so funny hahaha! It sounds like an offensive support weapon, kinda rare for guardian to get both of those worlds on a weapon.

[Hopes for new Ranger Land Spear]

Spear sounds just as cool as what I initially wanted, but hey, this looks to be a quirky fun weapon for WvW! It's not like ranger could've gotten something dumb like rifle or pistol. Focus could've been interesting though. Melee is cool as long as there is something unique and brings its own playstyle. 

I'm interested in using relic of unseen invasion with this weapon for the memes coupled with smokescale. Lots of lots superspeed and some stealth. <3

[How to Enable Support Harbinger]

There'd need to be reworks to harbinger. I don't think that's gonna happen unless anet relooks at traits and shroud. Bolstering Brew could just be merged with Twisted Medicine though. There's no point in making it compete with scourge ngl. Like Scourge, Harbinger has terrible stability output, especially the boon dps variant. At least power harb has stability every 10s when entering shroud! I feel like Harbinger was designed to be an offensive support, well a life-sucking support that drains its health for boons. It's not a reactive defensive elite spec at all that has barriers, stun breaks, or panic buttons. Mass revivals, cleanses, barriers, and a teleport make scourge way more useful than harbinger at preventing damage in the first place.
 

[Really excited for some ranged spears.]

15 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Well, hammer at least has the excuse that it was designed on the expectation that weavers would never be using it, and pistol is really just messed up in general rather than being messed up for weaver: the problem with the dual skills is basically the same problem as the general skills, except that the bullet mechanic is made even more of a pain to deal with.

I rarely ever see weavers pick up hammer anyway yeah. I was talking about the pistol's uninspired lame dual skills which is a double whammy for how bad pistol is in general. You'd think there'd be better condition variety and cooler skills, rather than solely firing elemental-specific bullets and consuming them for effects. I'm mildly scared what they'll do for spear, man.

[Quick cata excells at nothing. Here's how to improve it.]

On 6/5/2024 at 1:59 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Except that's literally the difference between boon DPS and boon heal. You're not expected to do the same DPS as full DPS, to be sure, but you need to be throwing out a decent amount of damage or the group would be better off with another healer instead. Or, y'know, a boondps that does do a decent amount of damage.

well, of course, I'm not saying boon DPS should not have extremely weak damage. boons are primary, and damage is secondary. most boon DPS supports hover around 15%-44% boon duration. it depends on how well the player can manage their uptime and if the concentration is enough to maintain permanent uptime on boons. you can work around those usually. on another tangent: my problem with Catalyst is that it has three traits that emphasize on boons, but one of them affects your jade spheres, but the other doubles the effectiveness of EE (i.e., more concentration for quick catalyst), something that requires forgoing sphere specialist.

[Really excited for some ranged spears.]

I had a sinking feeling that a class was gonna have a ranged spear (though I predicted a midrange spear on warrior). Jajajajaja. Ele spear does sound very interesting. Weaver is the one I hope who gets good dual-attuned spear skills, because they messed up so much on pistol and hammer for Weaver. -_- 

[Spears are confirmed 2h. After this xpac, thief will have gone 13 years with no new offhand.]

Dual wield skills? Anet be like 'we don't care to devote ourselves to making those skills.' It took them NINE years to make dual-wield skills with EoD. Endless Night was so sweet on release. 
All that axe does is copy both scepter and pistol with the condi damage, although axe is more for hitting crowds of enemies. I'll respect that axe does lots of juicy burst damage for both power and condi builds. Spear however is so powerful underwater esp if a DD or DE is using it. Imagine if it retains the block on land... 

[Necromancer Spear Description]

4 hours ago, StraightPath.3972 said:

@Magmi.6723  Swords go far beyond meta, which isn't their purpose in the first place.
 

• real mobility (not teleports to an "anchor" or enemy) with double leap
• amazing mob tagging, far better than staff
• a real ranged weapon - Staff and Axe are good for burst only, after that you swap or go shroud.
• well rounded - you got cc, lifesteal, life force generation, mobility, might and vulni generation.

I've no idea why so many necros diss the swords. I'm running full Grieving gear hybrid reaper and I couldn't be happier
having double swords as one of my weapons swap options.

swords make necro so fun. double leaps are pretty rare to have. the boon corrupt on mh sword has a lot of synergy with traits that people overlook. the chills enable condi reaper to use something that isn't scepter or greatsword. off-hand sword makes up for the fact that other off-hands do no damage, or used to. poor focus and warhorn. I swap between sword + torch or double swords for CC.

I've been using sword especially in PvE and WvW because it's crazy to go w/o mobility. People only care about damage or if the new weapon suits their fantasies; the latter is fair. Not everyone spends time homebrewing builds either so I get it.

[Necromancer Spear Description]

1 hour ago, felincyriac.5981 said:

bruh no way it doesn't provide swiftness at least, don't tell me we still need warhorn...

Aye I hope it does at the very least. While underwater spear grants personal swiftness, whether or not that carries over to the terrestrial spear, we'll see on June 27th. 😬Also, now that I think about it, the 6s of swiftness on deadly feast's 15 CD is way too short.

[Necromancer Spear Description]

The teleport and melee range is nice, considering how many ranged weapons there are now. Melee however does not fit necro without swiftness or especially stability. Even if you drop blinds or CCs, you'll get tossed like a ragdoll. This weapon sounds so cool though, and I like that exiting shroud can benefit this weapon. Other weapons should get that treatment in the future. It's really eye-catching, and in general, there should be more reasons to exit shroud after DPSing.

[Give [Well of Power] group Stability similar to [Well of Precognition] (Chronomancer)]

Stability is always going to be necro's sore spot, but I don't see well of power giving group stability, as cool as that sounds. I would be for upping the number of stacks from 1 to 5, however. Otherwise you have to walk over your allies with trail of anguish, or if harbinger, use elixir of ambition off CD. Ironically, power harbinger has more access to on-demand self-stability than power quick harbinger. I could even see anet buffing trail of anguish's initial stability from 1 stack to 5 stacks in PvE only lol.

[Which Weapon next for Engineer?]

One way I could see spear on engi would be skills like throwing it to create explosions, burning, or coming with AOEs. Granted, ranged playstyle isn't everyone's style. It better not be a support weapon either.😅