[Please increase sources of Elemental Empowerment, even benchmarks struggle to keep up 10 stacks.]

On 1/9/2023 at 6:56 PM, Barnesy.5839 said:

The reason elemental empowerment is so difficult to maintain is because new applications don't override the older ones. 

For example: Suppose you have 10 stacks of elemental empowerment which are all about to expire. You cannot gain new stacks until the old ones expire.

Whaaaaat? That's crazy, I'm ok with EE not being renewed every time you'd get a new one. Not overriding the old ones, however, is even more punishing that I thought... Hopefully they change it in the upcoming balance patch.

I think another cool feature they could add to the Catalyst UI would be a bar counting the EE stacks above the health orb. That way we can properly prioritize CC or aura generation to maintain the 10 stacks (basically reusing the Druid CA bar, just like they should do for Harbinger's blight stacks). It's horrid having to check your (bloated) buff bar in order to check if you are at 10 or not.

On 1/10/2023 at 12:46 PM, zaswer.5246 said:

For me cata lacks combos for auras, i mean it is a spec that needs auras non stop, so maybe a couple hammer skills and spec skills could combo too, for example, fire 4 leave a fire field, air 2 is a rota finisher, while each spec skill, if used inside its element field, gives you that element aura for a second, just a tick to maintain the trait buff.

I thought it'd be great if either the hammer or the augments added more finishers to the Catalyst kit. I hadn't thought of them giving auras as well! That could be a great implementation. Specially for the augments... they are really tame for a utility skill. I think it'd be cooler if they were Elixirs (to keep with the chemistry theme for the Catalyst) instead of glorified stances.

In any case, there are other options to make them cooler as well: they could be changed so as to improve the Jadesphere abilities when used in their corresponding element or to summon more orbs to orbit around you (either closer or farther away from the current hammer orbs).

[Can Harbinger Get New Traits?]

The main issue trait-wise are the GM traits.

For the strike damage one, I think giving either your elixirs or your shroud the ability to produce minions affected by your other traits would be cool (to give it more of a minionmancer feel).

I think there's space to make the condi one give burning to your harbinger shroud abilities or at least different damaging conditions based on proximity or blight stacks? Like the closest you are to the radioactive gunslinger the more your burn?

Basically, if they changed them I hope those traits become more flavourful than just the (very much needed) mechanic changes we've been asking for since harbi beta.

[Anyone else impatient for a Q1 2023 Road Map?]

17 hours ago, Luthan.5236 said:

 And yet again no road map. Might get published next week - until they do a late news. (Afaik sometimes - though not too often - they do  updates on the website outside of the regular tuesday thing.) At this week end would also be an option maybe.

Their last Studio Update was on Wednesday 14th of December, so they could drop the roadmap today (please do so! xD I'm one of the impatient ones as you can grasp). However the previous roadmap was on a Monday, then the summer one was on Wednesday and the spring one was on a Tuesday, so essentially they'll drop it whenever it's ready and it suits them best. I guess I'm now expecting it next week since, as many people have said, the Lunar New Year festival was the latest update we know of.

12 hours ago, Mystflower.7319 said:

Curious? Yes! I'm looking forward to what the world of GW2 has in store for us, especially which turn they'll make when it comes to the story. I kind of hope that our dear beloved "commander" will retire and that there will be a new NPC hero that takes the lead, who, with the help of our characters, will fight against some new evil in the world of Tyria. But I don't think that they'll go that way. 😁

I'm also hyped to see where they take their story next (and their specs balance hehe). I loved the dragons and they could have gone on for 10 more years with that story if they wanted to, but I trust they'll give us something fresh and cool. Hopefully with some GW1 nostalgia, but Tyria is a vast world and it's the Dev's canvas to create it as they choose to. And I trust these people will do an amazing job.

With that said... Did I hear story speculation time??? My money is on a story focused on Marjory's Friends Detective Club and Kasmeer's role as the Krytan ambassador to Cantha. The first one will allow us to go to different Canthan maps, while the second one will allow the devs to reuse old maps to show how both continent's relationship is resumed. Both plots will end up intertwined by the end. In any case I see the season ending with Kasmeer and Marjory's wedding in LA. They get married and the festivities go smooth until something goes awry (for instance a random 3-headed water hydra attacks LA or something of the sort) leading us into the 4th expansion. Either that or Anet drops the bomb that the season is starting with said wedding on February 14th <3.

[New Legendary Accessory???]

Sure, an alternative way to get leggy accessories makes sense. What makes no sense, however, is complaining you are forced to do X content in order to earn the current ones when all leggy items (except PvP ones thank goodness) requires everyone to do WvW.

I play (and enjoy playing) PvE and PvP content, but not WvW, yet I need to go do WvW dailies because that's the most efficient way of getting the Gift of Battle. I've recently started with Raids (so I'll eventually get the PvE ring) but there's no chance in hell I'll get the WvW one since it requires 4 or 5 Gifts of Battle (like... REALLY?)

So, basically, I think they should figure out an alternative way of getting the Gift of Battle and give us a PvP legendary ring while at it (so that you can at least pick where you are getting your rings of power from).

[Back to square 1 after 29th November patch]

So... The rifle autoattack change only affects the number of hits it does but it keeps the same dps in PvE. I understand the frustration regarding competitive modes, but I also trust that if it gets too trashy they'll just pump up the numbers. Personally, I loath any competitive build that relies on autoattacking constantly (looking at you flamethrower aa).

Aesthetically, it's the right call to change how the aa works, and numbers getting looked upon after the fact is (imo) the right way to go for these kind of changes.

[Harbinger Underwater Shroud Skill Bugs--incorrect skill activates for Shroud 4, Shroud 3 movement doesn't work]

Hi there! I'm not @ZTeamG.4603, but I was able to reproduce the bug:

1. Go underwater with a Harbinger
2. Enter Harbinger Shroud
3. Mouse over skill Shroud 4 (https://imgur.com/a/TwMkAjC - 1st image). Note that the skill icon shows the same skill as Death Shroud 4 underwater.
4. Shift+Click on Shroud 4 so that it appears on the dialogue
5. Mouse over [Gathering Plague] (https://imgur.com/a/TwMkAjC - 2nd image)

As you can see it seems the wrong skill (Death Shroud 4 underwater) is being used here, despite the tooltip describing a different skill (Harbinger Shroud 4 underwater) altoghether.

Thanks for looking into it!

[Thoughts on replacing energy meld]

I'm really liking what I'm reading. I agree that energy meld should be a goner and replaced with sth else.

An empowered jump, seems the most easily implemented option, but the idea of using an ability from your other legend sounds cool as well (although having 2 elites might be too much). Another option would be to get a new skill based on Vizu disarming Shiro and named after the famous assassin from gw1 lore. Since Vindicator has pretty low cc, it'd be cool if it dazed the enemy and then applied some other effect based on legend (or just simplify it and make it an unblockable daze, or a daze that rips boons and gives vuln).

In any case, I think a rework to the Major traits is also in order, since the 2-dodge change makes them too op as they were an pretty lackluster in some modes as they are now. Basically, they could make them more interesting so that they provide better damage/healing/boon management, for instance.

[Make revenant mallyx + corruption traits better]

I agree, given the current state of Mallyx and Resistance, that Empowering Misery should remove any damaging condis on you on top of its other effects (and maybe make its healing be unaffected by poison?)

In any case the main issue is the Resistance change and the lack of damaging conditions on Mallyx (except for the elite). A good option would be to buff Abyssal Chill to apply 3 torment in pve and 2 in competitive modes, as that could synergize well with Vindicator too. The other option would be to give burning to Call to Anguish and poison to banish enchantment (when removing boons). I'd want both tbh.

Regarding the traits, I would swap Demonic Resistance with Fiendish Tenacity (Mid 2 and Mid 3) and then make Demonic Resistance give you immunity to damaging condis when you have resistance, essentially making resistance work like it used to.

Pain absorbtion is a pain, so maybe make it transfer some damaging conditions with your next hits or have a toggle skill that sends damaging condis to nearby foes.

Thanks for starting this thread! I think it's time for more Mallyx changes :3

[QoL and build variety improvements for Harbinger]

12 hours ago, Radina.6057 said:

Harbingers problem is that his Elixirs are simply awkward to handle and infested with bugs. Having to manually aim at yourself is already huge turn off for a spell that needs to hit you no matter what to not screw up your rotation. Blight Stacks just randomly not being granted because of a whole list of nasty bugs is simply frustrating. Had an Invulnerable Target inside your Elixir AoE? Well, better luck next time. Stood inside a hitbox? Time to roll the dice to see if you get your Blight stacks or not.

All the more reason to make Harbinger Shroud the main reliable source of blight accumulation. While the kit is quite self-reliant I oftentimes find myself wanting some more boon corrupt or pulls on my build. With the current rigid set up that means either not having enough Blight to fuel the Shroud abilities or leaving BiP behind (which might also be a bad idea DPS-wise).

Allowing shroud to be the main blight provider would open up buildcrafting and consolidate the spec in a higher risk-reward role without modifying the current rotation or feel. Keep the blight cleansing on the elixirs, so that you can react to riskier situations, rather than using them on cooldown because you need to build that blight.

Also, for pvp I've got this feeling that I'm never reaping the benefits (nor the danger) of blight simply cause I'm playing with one elixir and any blight on shroud is removed as soon as I use a mobility skill. I strongly feel the current iteration only allows for blight build up through elixirs, rather than the main shroud mechanic, which in the end it's the cause for the 3 mandatory elixirs in pve.

[A case for build and Legend diversity]

I want to start acknowledging that Balance seems to be pretty central to the game's current live development, which is amazing.

Given that the devs are currently changing rarely used traits and skills, I think it's a good moment to bring back an issue with Revenant's baseline design: The lack of Legend flexibility. With every new elite spec batch, all other professions receive 6 new skills to play with. However, since the start Rev has been stuck with the same 5 skills per legend. I think it might be a good time to try to spice that up by including a new 4th utility skill to every Rev legend. This would allow us to swap a utility skill our build rarely uses with one that better reflects the needs of our build. Here are some examples that could be implemented to begin the discussion:

• Assassin stance: Being an assassin, the kit is based on mobility, extra hits and life-stealing, but it lacks single target burst and vuln application.
  • "Reaper's mark" (inspired by Meditation of the Reaper in gw1): Mark your target for 5 seconds. Any incoming attack makes them Vulnerable. When the mark ends you steal life based on the amount of Vulnerability on the target. // The mark could be Shiro's own mark over the target's head.
• Dwarf stance: It is a very utility heavy legend (and it is one of the best rounded up ones I think), but it's missing a bit of cc and could provide some revive potential to boost up the kit.
  • "Ogden's hammer" (inspired by a famous voice line in Old Lion's Arch, Ogden role as a monk in gw1 and Jalis use of "I will avenge you!" in the first game as well): Summon Ogden's Hammer to daze your enemies and partially revive your allies in front of you. // I envision this as a hammer of light falling right in front of you.
• Demon stance: This one might be in serious need of a deeper revision, but I think it can be saved by providing a more damage-focused skill.
  • "Shadow spikes" (a callback to "Shadow Smash" from Mallyx): Summon demon spikes around you, immobilizing foes and applying more conditions the closer your enemies are. // Basically it's a PBAoE of dark spikes that immobilize and bleed all foes within 360 units, that additionally torments those within 240 units and burns those within 180 units.
• Centaur stance: This legend has been recently updated (and it shows), but I think it could use a bit more boon and blind application.
  • "Ronan's light" (inspired by Ventari's friend): Reflect the sun's light with your tablet, blinding foes and giving boons to allies. If this skill is empowered burn your foes and give aegis to your allies. // A ray of light falls on the tablet and blinds nearby foes. Allies would get Regeneration, Protection and Resolution baseline. Serene Rejuvenation would give even more Resolution.
• Dragon stance: This one's also pretty great as it is, but there's room to give it some more condition application and condition protection. Lore-wise, Facet of Nature would be the new skill, but the F2 should remain mechanically untouched and could be renamed "Prophetic echo" > "True words".
  • "Facet of Nature": Place the Facet of Nature on yourself to grant nearby allies resolution every few seconds.
  • "Nature unleashed": Consume Facet of Nature to send crystal thorns to your enemy. // The crystal thorns would be projectiles that apply bleed and poison.
• Renegade stance: This legend is also missing some direct condi application and AoE strike damage, so I've come up with a hybrid warband spirit:
  • "Scorchrazor's Searing": Summon Kalla Scorchrazor to rain fire arrows on your enemies. // The spirit would fire 5 barrages of arrows in her area dealing damage and burning to all enemies within it every second.
• Alliance stance: This one's also pretty well rounded, but could use some more tools for each of the heroes of the Alliance's roles:
  • "Pride of the Armada" (from the famous Luxon Armada): Instruct the Luxon Armada to fire at your location to damage, cripple and bleed your enemies (when no enemy is targeted). Instruct the Luxon Armada to fire at your target to damage, cripple, bleed and burn your target (when an enemy is targeted). // PBAoE damage and condis around the vindicator or single hit and more condis on a target. This would work well situationally based on the number of enemies around you.
  • "Saint's mantle" (regarding Saint Viktor's title): Protect yourself and nearby allies with barrier (when no ally is targeted). Shread your mantle to heal and protect with barrier a selected ally (when an ally is selected). // PBAoE barrier around the vindicator or single heal and barrier on an ally. This would allow for both aoe barrier application as well as single-target healing.

Ok, this took me way longer than expected. Let me know what do you think about the general idea and feel free to share your own new Rev utilities. Cheers!

[Draconic Echo and Quickness Upkeep Changes?]

I think the best approach (for PvE) would be to swap Rising Momentum with Hardening Persistence and to make Rising Momentum give quickness AoE around you instead of speed %. For competitive modes it clearly won't be a good change so they might either change quickness to might (boring) or make quickness only for the herald (which might still be OP).

[QoL and build variety improvements for Harbinger]

Hi there! After playing Harbinger for several months (and loving it btw) I think some changes could improve the feel and build variety of the spec:

1. Show the Blight level over our health globe: This is a purely QoL and aesthetic improvement. Basically apply the UI for Druid's Astral force (in bright green of course) to keep track of how much Blight have we aquired, rather than putting it along the other boons and buffs. This would quickly and visually inform us of our level of blight and give the spec a special UI to further differentiate it from base necro.

2. Remove loosing Blight in Shroud: This change is the more significant of the two, but I wanted to know your opinion on it. Current PvE Harbinger runs with 3 elixirs so as to get to 20 blight before entering Shroud, allowing us to use Shroud 3 & 4 at their max capacity. Since using the empowered version of those skills removes 5 and 10 blight, respectively, we end up loosing blight in Shroud instead of gaining it (which feels wrong for some reason). I think it would make the spec more rewarding if those skills (Shroud 3 & 4) didn't consume blight, but still turned more powerful at higher blight stacks (let's say over 15 and 20/25 blight, respectively).

This change would solidify the risk/reward mechanic that Harbinger Shroud and Blight were supposed to accomplish by always increasing your Blight inside of Shroud while turning both the Shroud skills and the Blight associated effects (Healing over time, Condi or Power damage based on traits, lower max health) more consistent while on Shroud. We could still use the elixirs to remove Blight while outside of Shroud, of course. This change could also allow us to run with less than 3 elixirs while still maximizing damage, freeing a spot or two for other Necro utilities or other more utility based elixirs (looking at you elixir of Bliss and elixir of Ignorance).

Bonus 1. Could we get Harbinger Shroud 4 back to 900 units in PvE only? It was super fun to use in the first beta...

Bonus 2. Get a look at underwater Harbinger Shroud. Its 3rd & 4th skills are a mess.

Thanks for your time!

[Was Torment nerfed or buffed?? (PvP WvW only)]

I just did a quick calculation comparing the torment numbers before and after the patch. Basically, if the enemy is 90% of the time moving new torment does around 13-13,5% more damage now, if the enemy is 99% of the time moving then new torment does around 20% more damage than before.

As other people have indicated, immobile enemies get less damage than before (still more damage than being on the move), but also are more susceptible to burst.

Basically it's a buff to torment (I need to try my Harbi with it though).

[Please make mech useable underwater!]

It feels specially bad in fractals whenever the underwater one is part of the daily rotation and I'm playing Healac Mecha since I can't provide any barrier or alacrity outside of the signet

A good solution indeed would be to center the F abilities on the engineer as a band-aid until something better can be implemented, even if that means the major adept traits don't fully work.

[Turret Skills Need A Balance Patch! - A Comprehensive Breakdown - Turret Adjustment Guidelines Are Included And Discussion Is Encouraged!]

Wow, amazing analysis and very well put out piece of constructive feedback. Kudos!

I believe their initial intent with Engi's turrets was for them to become gw2's version of Ritualist's spirits. As such, I would keep the Experimental Turrets trait and improve it for buffing purposes. I'd say remove the reflective barrier (or put that on the Deployable new trait) and make them a valuable part of engi's supporting capabilities. To do that I'd advocate for the base boon duration of all boons to be at least 5 sec (so that you could have permanent boon aplication around your turrets with 100% boon duration) or to keep the current boon duration (or lower it a bit) while providing its effectes every 5 seconds instead of 10. I would also maybe review the amount of might flame turret would give (I think it could go up to 5 might for 10 sec) and the boon granted by net turret (It'd be interesting if it gave resistance rather than swiftness).

They could always go the quickness-catalyst route and make the Experimental Turrets effects even more powerful at the expense of some of the turret's power coefficients and condi durations (although taking inventions over firearms or explosives is already a dps loss no matter what you do).

Thanks for the post!

[Hybrid Holo OW Build - Opinions please!]

With the new Cele set up you provided, you are possibly good to go for OW. Another option I took when going the hybrid/condi Holo route was to take the grandmaster trait Thermal Release Valve (your dodge roll burns enemies and removes heat i.e. heals you), which turned out to be a massive improvement on both my condi damage and my survival. Try it out if you ever have issues to survive!

[Locked Breakbar for Kalla's Spirits?]

I was thinking it might be cool if (in PVE only) Kalla's Spirits could get the Mecha and Ranger's pets and spirits treatment and have a locked breakbar when summoned.

This would make them more viable in fights with heavy constant enemy CC (fractals, dragonstorm, etc.) since they wouldn't be knocked out of their initial place or stunlocked. They should still be killable, but al least they'd be useful consistently for their (short) durations.

What do you think?

[Nerfs to Condi Mechanist?]

I'm not sure whether it's so OP to warrant those nerfs or not, but what I know is that Mecha is the only viable condi option for engineer. Why nerf it and not buff Condi Holo then?

[Should there be an elite and healing skill for every skill type?]

In short: yes they do.

Also Rev should get an extra option for a 4th utility skill for each legend, allowing for a bit more build variety.

[Worth it to wait or just bite the bullet now?]

I think you can go Druid Healer with spirits so that you provide enough Alacrity. I just checked on Metabattle ant that's considered meta on raids and strikes. As long as you are healing and providing alac I don't think the same build wouldn't work on non-CM fractals honestly (can't say about it's efficiency or use in CMs since I haven't done them yet).

People are just using Mecha because it's easy to use (and to me quite fun tbh), but if you are properly healing and giving alacrity as a druid that shouldn't be a problem.

[Will we see new boons moving forward?]

Hi all! This is an honest question based on the "let's remove unique buffs and turn them into boons" philosophy.

Most of the traits that provided a unique stat boost to the party have changed to give boons instead. This means that some of those traits are copies between professions (ranger's and revenant's both give fury, while warrior's and engi's both give might). On top of that Necros still bring shareable lifesteal through Blood Magic's Vampiric Aura.

Would it make sense then to add more boons to the game to give each of those traits more uniqueness through boons? Or is the boon system too bloated already?

I'm leaning towards the second option here, but at the same time I think adding more boons could help the variety of DPS+boon providers (or maybe it would make it worse and it's a horrible idea?). Some examples would be:

+ Leeching (essentially a life-steal boon necros, revenants and thieves would excel at sharing)

+ Ardor (Replacing Kalla's Fervor in its initial iteration: +2% crit damage, condi damage and life-steal, stacks up to 5, comes baseline from mesmer, warrior and engi, as well as renegade of course)

+ Fervor (Increases all healing received and reduces incoming condi duration, used by ele, guard and ranger)

Some of these thoughts come as well from the lack of new effects, boons and conditions in EoD's combat (except single target healing from Specter) compared to Barrier in PoF or Alacrity, Resistance and Taunt in HoT.

What do you think?

[Quickness Herald doesn't work]

Going back to the quickness duration, I think the 2 sec mark is based on mixmaxing mentality. Can you keep up 100% quickness uptime with 100% boon duration using your 5 facets? Sure! Is it fun or allows for strategic gameplay? Meh... For me it sure is not.

I think it'd be more fun if you could keep your heal or big CC Elite skill or stunbreak for those occasions when those are needed, rather than wasting them to provide quickness uptime on a perfect rotation. To do that I think it'd be better to increase the base quickness duration to 2.5 seconds in PvE and to unnerf Facet of Elements back to 10 seconds (or even 12, so that you could use it twice before changing legends, at least with alacrity). You will still sacrifice some of your utility to do so, but not your entire Dragon Stance kit and that feels more fun to play to me.

[August 2 balance update preview]

11 hours ago, Tseison.4659 said:

 🤷‍♂️But anyways, not really going to complain but they should've redirected that focus back on the Wells as mentioned a million times, making them mobile (except for GW) and I'm sorry but I'd rather have Well of Action and Well of Senility reverted back to their original effect🤷‍♂️

 

10 hours ago, Mikael Ekvall.6039 said:

Wait what... no changes to wells?

And no boosting the class identity at all?

 

Although they mentioned the changes would be focused on weapon's power coefficients (as they have done), I think it's important to point out the new wells aren't working too well with the spec's identity as Mikael says.

I would prefer if they went back to providing quickness and alacrity, respectively, as Tseisom suggests in order to line up with Chrono's identity as a boon provider and for unstructured or solo PvE play (in other words allow them to provide 100% quickness or alac *only* when taking the grandmaster traits that facilitate that playstyle but never both).

I don't think it's too problematic if an alac provider gives some quickness or the other way around, but it's quite thematic for chrono and can help filling small gaps in other boon providers for inexperienced groups. Regardless of that, for structured PvE the most optimal build for quick or alac DPS would rarely bring the other boon if that meant lowering their personal DPS since there are better options in the Chrono kit.

In any case, the new Wells aren't useful for Chrono (Superspeed doesn't care for boon duration and Senility is a worse Well of Corruption or Null field). A better quickless and alacless option would be if Action cared about boon duration and Senility about Condi damage, for instance: Action could generate might every pulse and stability at the end and Senility could give Bleeding and Freezing every pulse and Confusion at the end (Keep in mind I'm no balance expert). The condi option would open up gameplay with the Staff and the Chaos trait line as well (for both condi and boon duration).

TLDR: Bring back the original quick and alac-providing wells in a future updates or at least make them more thematic with the chrono identity or synergetic with Chaos traitline.

[Wells after the profession update]

I understand why they decided removing quick/alac from the wells and tides of time was a good idea, but it has stripped down the boon buffing identity of the spec, IMO.

As many of you have pointed out it's still difficult to land any final well pulse on moving fights, to the point where trying to keep both alac and quick through those means it's quite difficult. The new grandmaster traits grant us the ability to provide either boon consistently, however.

I personally think it was overkill to remove all quick/alac from the base chrono kit, and against its theme and original design, specially when playing with smaller groups ourside of high-end pve. It's good we can't consistently provide both with a 100% uptime, but it's also nice we can provide some of them when not specializing on it if we've invested in boon duration gear. I'm hoping at least the well-provided boons get re-implemented as they were in a future update.

[Bug - Spiritual Childcare [Merged]]

Hi all!

I can confirm that #12 is still bugged (sadly). Hope this gets fixed eventually.

Cheers,