Uete.3805

After trying it out for a bit, I find the movement in air 3 a bit wonky. I think the skill might work better if it was the other way around: you shoot, then can do a full dash. Either that or make it a mini-lightning flash, so that we have more control on where to land. The main issue, however, seems to be figuring out whether you have a magic bullet or not. I think adding a bullet marker (like the bladesworn ones) on top of each attunement could do the trick. If you have a magic fire bullet, show it above the F1, etc. The rest seems alright, although giving it some small cone like spell ala engi pistol 4 might allow for some more variety in its skills visuals.

I've got no idea regarding numbers (especially with the bugged Thief Relic thingy), but they are lovely for mobility and range damage. Not a fan of reaper so I'm using them with Harbinger and they feel great as a mostly ranged kit. Might try them out on T4s and easy strikes as quick harb once arcdps is back to see how they perform.

I don't know... for competitive modes it seems a good move, since it means that Kalla *can* be balanced more easily. I'll have to properly try it in pve to know how it feels, although they improved both damaging skills, which is a good thing. I'm only worried on how effective will the heal and Darkrazor's ability be: Resolution isn't as good as the ability's initial effect (albeit we now can have barrier, so it might end up being better as well) and we'll see how big is that daze on Darkrazor. If it significantly hurts its breakbar damage maybe they could add extra breakbar damage for pve (like necro's warhorn 4)? I'd also appreciate if they could change the coloring of the spirits a bit. Without the animations and the fields they all look kind of samey now. From the preview it says they are no longer targeatable, but from the live demonstration it looks like they still are (which is a good thing). I wouldn't mind if the energy requirements could go down a bit so that it's easier to use the band together mechanic with the Ofelia elite skill.

I'll just pop in to tell my fellow forum users: yo, stop targeting specific devs and give useful feedback for a change xD as in specific ideas, with actual purpose and with kinder words. Devs are human beings for kitten's sake...

Before winter break Game Director Grouch gave us this amazing interview (https://wccftech.com/guild-wars-2-qa-arenanet-on-switch-to-yearly-expansions-secrets-of-the-obscure-learnings-and-2024-update/) where he states: "We plan to focus on weapons for our next expansion, but we have a fun surprise in store to keep things fresh and exciting." What do y'all think that "fun surprise" will be? They've kind of confirmed we aren't getting elite specs (yet), but I'd be glad if they added new Utility skills. I could see them going with: Adding the missing healing and elite skills to some type of utilities (for instance Ele's conjure weapon or Mesmer's glamour healing skills). This could mean getting a new 4th utility option for each Revenant legend to give some needed flexibility to their kit. Adding a new type of utilities (including healing and elite skills). We could finally get glyphs for Necro, that could be used inside of shroud for a different effect, or a new legend for Revs (Jora, Snaff or Gwen could be fun). Since they seem to be adding a new weapon for each profession as well I doubt they'll do both, but I can still dream. Future expacs could add a new utility set for each elite spec, Willbender could get manipulations, Catalyst wells or elixirs, Untamed could get minions, Vindicator could get another double legend in Jora and Svanir, etc. Or maybe the surprise is just an overhaul of underwater combat (kidding! or am I?)

I really like the idea of a trait that makes you drink an elixir when using your utilities. Mechanically, however, it should work a bit more like the other major adept traits: giving you extra stats to boost your playstyle. I think it could affect either concentration or healing, depending on whether they want Harbinger to have a healing option or not. Nonetheless, and as pointed out by others, it competes with dps traits, which makes it a bit irrelevant for qdps or dps Harbinger... With that in mind, you could make it a trait that shares the healing effect from Alchemic Vigor with your allies (which increases with your blight), alongside drinking the agony elixir.

I think adding a water field to skill 2 (at least in pve) could be a good move to make it more of a support weapon. Could even add another blast to skill 5 (in pve only since this one is busted as hell).

I LOVE BOTH SWORDS! And the theme is quite cool as well. Might be time for a slight rework to both dagger and staff to make them the group healing/support weapons now that swords provide ranged strike damage and self-healing. Reaper's gonna be scary, but hopefully the swords bring good numbers to have them on Harbinger as well, specially since they fit with the ranged playstyle of harb. Kudos for the aesthetics, the theme and the choice of role Anet!

Do all bullets get consumed when using a matching elemental ability? As in, if we have fire and earth bullets using a fire skill also removes the earth bullet? From the trailer it looks like it does, so it would make little sense to accumulate different bullets, no?

After seeing the preview for Ranger and Thief I'm convinced Rev's Scepter will change based on the current channeled legend. It'd be cool if it also changed the color of the skills, but we'll see whether it's a more fleshed-out trident situation or just as plain as that one was. I could see them having a projectile aa, a channeled 2 skill and an AoE 3 skill with different effects: Assassin: Vuln and extra damage Demon: Torment, Poison and Confusion Dwarf: Barrier and Weakness Centaur: Healing and cleansing Dragon: Regen and other boons Kalla: Bleed and Burn Alliance: Damage and Healing This might be too much hopium, but I'm high on it right now xD

Yeah, after seeing that both Ranger and Thief have gotten weapons with special mechanics attached, I'm feeling very hyped for the rest of them. I still think that some Necro weapons deserve a slight rework towards being more support oriented (looking at you Staff, Dagger, Focus and/or Warhorn), but looking at Anet's mindset of filling holes in roles I'm very unsure what role either sword will provide. In any case I think a cool mechanic could imply that rather than the Necro holding the sword, sword abilities summon a minion (or 2 one for main-hand and another one for off-hand) that fights in our stead. The minion would only auto-attack unless commanded to do another ability (2-5 skills). Therefore we wouldn't be bound to melee or range, but our minions with swords would fight for us. I think it'd be hilarious.

I'm not too keen on the Curses traitline changes (looking it from a PvP/PvE perspective). On the GM side of things our options are: Condi mini-burst and weakness when entering shroud or critting (no more boon reap since last June) Fear does damage Extra condi damage and improved scepter Essentially all GMs do now is only improve condi damage with different flavors. The first one applies some weakness and the third one has some utility built into Scepter 3 being AoE corruption, but that's about it. Terror should have something more to be competitive, unless I'm downplaying the +25% damage. It would make sense if Resistance didn't block the Fear damage (as some people have proposed) when using this trait or if it provided a new source of Fear in pve (for instance to Shroud 3, increasing Fear coverage or duration for all 3 elite specs). On the other hand the Master tier is full-on utility: Faster Corruptions recharge (which might be gone in a few patches given that they are removing most of the CDR traits) Corrupt on Shroud 2 Heal from your applied conditions I think this one gives more compelling choices for your build, but there's no clear damage trait (unless we count the Faster corruptions, since those allow for faster condi generation from the utilities it affects).

I've been using a lot of Mallyx revenant lately and just realized that it's so satisfying mainly due to the Elite aura: It's flashy (making you a demon), it visually shows when you are proccing its effect and you get to see the actual affected area. Maybe the problem with Harbinger's grandmaster is also an aesthetic one. With some mechanical improvements and a new coat of paint it might work mostly as it is right now. Regarding the power GM trait specifically, I think another good option would be for it to modify how the shroud works ala Sandstorm Shroud in Scourge: Heavily reduce the amount of condis it provides to increase its power coefficient. Or maybe it would work even better if you got an spectral pistol (kind of a will-o-wisp entity) that shot your target whenever you hit them based on your blight level (you get 1 will-o-wisp at 10+ blight and 2 at 20+ blight). TLDR: Make each GM aura visually distinct and allow power GM trait to provide less condis and more raw damage or more hits with extra projectiles from will-o-wisp-like helpers.

I mean... out of all the pistol skills in the game there are only 2 that put you in melee range (warrior 4) or benefit from being closer to your target (engi 4). I think it's safe to assume pistol will be mostly 900 ranged, with maybe a couple exceptions. I don't think it will fulfil a utility role, but I hope it doesn't step into scepter territory. I think they should solidify scepter as the condi weapon and let pistol be the ranged power option. They should probably do sth similar with dagger and sword, and make one of them better at condi and worse at strike damage. Maybe we'll start seeing this shifting with today's preview? The main problem ele has is that every weapon can do anything, so everyone ends up playing sword/warhorn. I think, however, there's room to promote certain roles within the flexible nature of ele's attunement system, even hybrid ones.

I think the SotO patch was basically the weaponmaster thing, with subsequent patches trying to rerail that trainwreck (50k scourge anyone?) With that said, the fact that we are back to the usual and preferred preview the changes > look at feedback > change if needed cadence are good news. I don't appreciate this "kitten if you do, kitten if you don't" philosophy this corner of the internet tends to gravitate towards. Like, if you complain both when they do a preview and when they don't what you aren't appreciating is the effort Anet has put on balance. Last we heard they have 3 people working on something necessary that has no actual economic benefit for them. I also think these patches don't appear in a vacuum: Given this patch will release at the same time as the new weapons beta, I think some of the changes will work greatly with the new weapon roles and strengths. We are bound to have some nerfs to overperforming builds, of course. Some of them will be presented as buffs, but will be perceived as nerfs since they'll change some of the current meta builds. But I guess that's what balancing means, no?

I agree, we need them in the league chest or sth. My boyfriend plays a lot of WvW and he gets everything done in no time.

I think a Chrono rework could do the trick. I would change the placement of some of the traits too: Adept: Delayed reactions gets fused into Danger Time, which becomes an Adept trait (may need a nerf) Time catches up: Keep as is or provide super-speed to the user as well. New trait: "Time heals all wounds" your Shatter skills remove 1 condition from nearby allies (maybe 1 per clone shattered in pve) and provide might per clone shattered. Master: Improved alacrity: Moved to top line Illusionary reversion: Keep as is All's Well that ends Well: As proposed in this thread make wells heal on every pulse and grant protection with last pulse. Grandmaster: Chronophantasma: Moved to top line Seized the Moment: Keep as is Stretched time: Moved to bottom line

Harbinger's been needing a greatmaster rework for a while. If they want to keep the "aura" style, I wish they'd change them greatmaster traits to Orders (in a callback to gw1 necro). That way each greatmaster could provide different group utility: Order of Pain: Your power is increased. When entering shroud grant an unblockable crit attack to nearby allies. Every 3 seconds, grant your allies Painful effect (extra attack, always crits, think aoe impossible odds effect). Order of the Frenzied: Every 3 seconds, AoE quickness and fury. Order of Apostasy: Your condi dmg is increased. When entering shroud grant a corrupting attack to nearby allies. Every 3 seconds, grant your allies Apostate effect (extra torment, similar to wallow venom effect). I'm nostalgic for Orders. Otherwise, I would change the current damaging traits: Cascading corruption: Aura removes 1 boon on top of current effects or change it to Cascading undeath: Your power is increased. Summon a Spike horror when critting while in shroud (3 sec internal cooldown). Spike horrors are also summoned when using shroud 5. (Spike horrors would be animated spiked bodies like those in the shourd 5 animation and would disappear or explode upon leaving shroud). Doom approaches: Increase the radius and damaging conditions based on the blight threshold: Under 10 blight: small AoE and torment. Between 10 and 19 blight: medium AoE torment and small AoE poison. At 20+ blight: big AoE torment, medium AoE poison, smal AoE burning.

I think the GoB should be obtainable through PvP reward track as well. I loathe WvW and love PvP (even in its current state) so it'd be an amazing change for me and a cool alternative for people who, like me, got burned out of WvW because of the kitten GoBs. It would at least give some variety when getting different leggies and maybe get more people into PvP the same way it's gotten some people into WvW. Either that or sell it in the fractals for a ton of pristine relics xD

I'm unsure what Anet will do. Maybe they create an alternate route for players who'd pick newer races to get to level 80 and call it "new leveling experience". They could use the Charr rig for Tengu and the Sylvari one for Largos. They could even bring Kodan, Dwarves and freed Awakened with the Norn, Asura and Human rigs respectively. It would probably require a lot of QA though... Regarding the professions I thought they could bring them as part of new elite specs down the road: Paragon for warrior, Monk for guardian, Summoner for Revenant, Assassin for thief, Dervish for ele, Ritualist for necro. Maybe they could create the Minstrel for the mesmer and something new for ranger and engi. But I reaaaaaaally doubt it.

Yeah, the pistol is (sadly) coming in 6 months...

You are totally right, I made the build so long ago I forgot I used the Runes of the Eagle for the extra precision. With those you can go full berserker with sigil of Accuracy to get to 75%. My bad! (Changed it in the original to avoid further confusion, although that's quite mesmer-inspired)

Exactly as Roadkizzle says: I'll just add a couple things: + Make sure you have 75% crit chance so that you get to 100% with Fury. A good option is to use a Sigil of Accuracy (alongside a sigil of Force) on each weapon set. + Use runes of the Scholar + Relic of the Thief + For utilites go with Signet of the Ether, Well of Action, Well of Calamity, Phantasmal Disenchanter and Well of Gravity. + Build 3 clones initally with your sword phantasm, dagger 2 and GS 2 and shatter them with Continuum Split + Use your GS4 and all utilities and elite within that time and then use all your available phantasms twice thanks to Signet of the Ether You will puke quickness and alacrity while making your dps friends blush

I'm team 40k dps is enough dps, we can't be moving the pole flag any further or older content will be so trivialized it won't be even fun anymore... imagine if this happens with every expansion we'll be at double the max dps a char did last month in 3 years. The new runes + relics + weaponmaster have had their consequences made clear: nerfs are needed at the skill and trait level. I personally think Anet knew Scourge would be killing it under this circumstances when they nerfed it in June, but the outcry for dps Scourge was so loud they buffed it again in July. Well now it's clearly overshooting xD I'm hoping they will remedy this within 2 weeks or so.

Aside from Rev (SB and GS) and Heal Scrapper (through mace), as has been mentioned, I think the light-armored classes also got good weapon combinations. I haven't tested them all properly but I think these are worth a look: + Condi Necro (any spec) with pistol and torch. + Power (quickness) Harbinger with GS. + Full range Chrono with dagger. + Tempest with hammer. + Catalyst with sword+WH. As you've all said it could just be a novelty, but those novelties make the current especs more fun. We'll see how balance and benchmarking lead the future of specs soon enough, me thinks.