Jump to content
  • Sign Up

BlueTurtle.9263

Members
  • Posts

    14
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by BlueTurtle.9263

  1. Yeah I feel the same way. I’m actually so disappointed by everything I’ve seen that I filed for a refund for EOD the other day after the latest guild chat. Everything I’ve seen has just shown that this expansion isn’t worth $30 and I have really low standards for what I’d pay money for. I was only excited for two of the elite specs and was going to make new characters just for them. Three others I was probably going change existing characters to have the spec but I’m also fine keeping them the way they are. The others I hate or hate the direction they’ve gone in since their first beta. Two elite specs is a far cry from the sales pitch PoF and HoT get with their specs and I don’t even like all of those. I was excited for the siege turtle, I mean turtles are my favorite animal and it’s even my game name. But frankly what we got wasn’t all that great. It’s way too hard to steer and control and is just boring for the driver. I’d own it and upgrade just cause turtle but I’d probably never actually use it. I would at least upgrade the turtle though which is more than I can say for the other masteries. Fishing is boring and was never going to be more interesting with a mastery system; it should have just been a mini game. Skiffs are boring and made obsolete by skimmers but could have at least been made interesting if we were able to build them up with weapons, or crafting stations, or other things but all we get is fishing and speed buffs. Arborstone is a useless afk hub and I’m not going to spend time and effort hunting down and acquiring mastery points just to upgrade that waste of space with vendors. Even if the unrevealed mastery is as game changing as gliding or mounts like an underwater combat overhaul that I was hoping for, it wouldn’t make up for the others. On the note of underwater combat, where’s the undersea dragon? It’s the freaking logo of the expansion and we have gotten zero teasers or mention of it being integral to the plot. All we’ve got for story is pandering main characters and cliche antagonist motives. This is the biggest point for me because even if everything else sucked, I still bought the expansion for the story to see what happens but the plot they’re hinting at just makes me roll my eyes. Basically all I wanted was that about half the elite specs to be interesting, one or two useful masteries, and the same good story telling they’ve had before and even with those low standards I’d only get a story I’d not want to play through, two elite specs and a mount I’d put in the work to own but never use and that is not worth $30. At this point I consider IBS more worth because we got some good farming maps, resources and vendors that complimented PoF and LSW4 content, a story I considered interesting (albeit with a disappointingly abrupt end), and waystation and mount stealth masteries, not to mention the strikes and other content other people care about more for basically 1/6th the price of an expansion (or even free if you unlocked via the return events). So yeah, I filed for a refund. If the expansion actually turns out to be fine or a worthwhile living world that requires it comes out maybe I’ll buy it again but for now I’ve seen enough
  2. The spec feels a lot less awkward to play now that the player doesn’t have to manage flipping the two stances. That said, energy meld still has the problem of it being now useless for other legends besides the legendary alliance. It can keep its new functionality as an endurance gain but it needs to also have its old functionality back as an energy gain as the other legends suffer from lack of a means of restoring energy besides legend swapping. I don’t understand the greatsword buffs. Last beta, I felt the greatsword was needed to be nerfed not made better. Vulnerability and chill on a 1 chain is too strong. Chill is nearly a hard CC, it should not be on a spamable skill like a weapon chain. It already gets a chill on the 3 and can take a trait to apply it on the dodge as well, it doesn’t need more. This is made even stronger if a player makes a condition build centered around the corruption trait that applies torment on chill The 5 is supposed to be a mobbing tool but it felt like it hit single targets too consistently and now gets even more guaranteed hits? The damage needs come way down if the randomness does too.
  3. If life force no longer drains as in the first iteration, then Corrupted Talent should probably be changed. If the desire is to have a power trait line on this spec, more attention needs to be given to support that build, otherwise scrap it and focus on condition damage. Wicked Corruption should be changed to something else besides more strike damage per blight stack. Currently, if taking a power build, one gets more damage from taking Vile Vials with the vulnerability application. While the traits and some skills can support a power build, the shroud is entirely geared toward condition damage. This also makes the grandmaster trait feel pointless in taking as a power build doesn’t even want to go into shroud with this spec. Either shroud needs to be more power based initially and then can have a trait taken to make it more condition focused or the power traits should try to ignore or reduce the reliance on shroud rather than copy the condition traits. As a random idea regarding the above, maybe the condition build can focus on building up life force to enter shroud and the power build can focus on sacrificing life force (and shroud) to heal the player like the first iteration. Basically making the condition version a risk vs reward build and the power version a bruiser build. On another note, I think there’s a bug with the blight consume mechanic. Maybe I didn’t understand it entirely but it seemed whenever it consumed blight it reduced the blight stacks briefly but then immediately added them back, like a net change of 0 with no additional stacks rather than reducing them. Not sure if that was intent or not but the description needs to be clearer if it is.
  4. I really like the changes to the jadetech sphere, it’s reliable and useful now. That said, my main gripe with the spec is that the traits feel like the player will only be able to take advantage of them if in a group setting or using the hammer. In solo play using core weapons, other than a few random skills there’s not many ways to give yourself aura or to CC an enemy to take advantage of many of the traits. Most of the traits I ended up taking were vanilla utility traits that didn’t really feel like they added much as a specialization, though again this is from a solo play perspective. Shattering Ice is a really strong skill. On multihit weapons, it adds a lot of damage. While, the changes to the other augment skills were warranted this is the only one I feel should be reverted. The chill should be the extra effect, having it guaranteed on such a strong skill is a bit much.
  5. Not totally sure if this is a bug or not but the unleash ambush skills on the core weapons feel kinda wonky, or at least on the greatsword it does. For starters, it felt like it only swapped over to the ambush skill if I was in combat. Then I after starting combat, I could reliably get the ambush skill and activate it but only if I hadn’t really done any weapon skills (or maybe just the 1, need to test that more) but if I tried unleashing mid rotation, it would change to the ambush skill but it’d be put on cooldown. Then at some point it’d swap back to the regular version of the skill before it came off cooldown. It’s possible this also could have been a weird interaction with the 5 resetting cooldowns. On a minor note: please change the art of the ambush skill, possibly to the purple the hammer skills have to make it easier to tell when it changes versions. This was giving me a lot of trouble when I was testing the above bug. I know this part should technically go into the feedback thread but as the bug and this was really all I had to say, I felt it wasn’t worth making a separate post for it.
  6. I like it, I just feel it needs two changes. I feel like the turtle gets too hard to control too quickly. They said that it would get harder to steer the faster it goes, which is fine, but it feels like moving right away from being stationary is already difficult to steer. Additionally even though it’s intended to be a multiplayer mount, as the first combat mount, it’s a bit boring for the owner. The crash down isn’t stimulating enough and the owner could really benefit from the ability to switch to the gunner seat (if empty) to turn it into a stationary artillery unit. Something else to do while driving would also be nice, maybe something like a mine laying ability or being able to burn enemies with the jump jets.
  7. While the quality of life and survivability changes for Dragontrigger are nice, I'm confused by a lot of the other changes made to this spec since the last beta it was in. It felt like they changed a lot that was fine before and overlooked the problems it had. I also posted feedback from the first iteration of Bladesworn on page 5 so please look there as well for any clarity on my previously noted problems with the spec. Dragontrigger It's still too easy to self interrupt this stance. Make it so you can't walk out of this, the priority action should be staying in Dragontrigger until either an attack is launched or a some sort of weaponswap is done (or it expires while out of combat). min the previous beta, going into dragontrigger counted as a weapon swap. I think that should be the case once again so it can synergize with weaponswap sigils and traits. Thematically, it doesn't make sense to pull out the gunsaber and then immediately sheath it for Dragontrigger. Design-wise, it makes no sense to have major functionality that isn't resource-based locked from use at any given point. Make us able to go into Dragontrigger from either weapon set not just while the gunsaber is currently out, especially since normal weapons are now completely cut off from their burst skills. Pistol The offhand pistol is still very underwhelming. The change to make the 5's pushback be based on the ammo count makes no sense; It didn't push you that far back to begin with and the intention was to add movement to the offhand slot so why reduce that? The real problem it had was its ridiculously short attack range; it's a ranged weapon, why do we have to be right next to the enemy to even hit with it? Revert the ammo count affecting pushback change and just increase the attack range of the 5 to be about equivalent to the 4's dash. Besides that, only having offhand pistol completely breaks the theme of warriors as weapon masters. We were given two daggers for warrior's other spec, Spellbreaker, so why do we only get one weapon now? Currently there's no incentive to even take the new weapon if all we're going to do is 5-4-5 and then immediately swap back. Armament skills The heal skill is still awful. It fails its primary purpose of an "oh crap I'm about to die" button. The delay before getting a sizable heal will be fatal in emergency situations. I suggest reversing the design of this ability. Make the first charge do no healing and give the aggressive boons and then put the player into stim state. Then using the second charge while in stim state consumes the boons and does a big heal. This allows the player to use it aggressively without sacrificing its ability to save someone low on health. I don't recall Bulletproof Barrier actually having damage last beta so that was nice, makes it actually useful to take though it could use more damage. Electric Fence is pretty useless. It does hardly any damage and warrior already has access to a lot of cripple and immobilize (it's even on the gunsaber). There's no point in ever taking this ability so I think it should be reworked into some kind of attack skill. Similar to only getting offhand pistol, it kind of breaks the theme of warriors to not get a single dedicated attack out of a new set of skills. The changes to Flow Stabilizer are good. Dragonspike Mine still feels somewhat out of place given warrior already has a stunbreak (with ammo) but resetting Dragontrigger and laying a mine makes it usable. The elite skill is still good but I would prefer it to have zero cast time. That way it can be used during DragonTrigger as besides walking, activating any other skill minus shouts will also break you out of it. Traits Please revert Lush Forest to work off the last charge again. That or rework it completely or to work off of explosions or something. Having it only activate on the first charge is not fun; currently it's just like how people used to play Firebrand with holding onto the tome charges. Reverting it would also compliment Fierce as Fire and Unshakable Mountain in the major master line as utility, offensive, and defensive choices respectively. On that note, if a decision is made to go with some other design besides cooldown reduction, then the cooldowns for gunsaber need to be reduced a bit. It's still unclear (or possibly inconsistent) with Swift as the Wind and River's Flow as to what actually affects flowrate and when. There's no indication on if there's a flow stack limit or internal cooldown or if the player needs to be in combat for it to activate on either one. I activated one movement skill after another and never got flow above one stack aside from when using Break Step which randomly bumped it to two. Taking a bunch of shouts with the heal trait could sometimes get it to two but other times it was stuck at one, though using "To the Limit!" could get it to three. If there's no bugs with these traits then there needs to be tooltip updates to make it clear exactly how and when they work. While I liked the burning Fierce as Fire applied before, its current effect is also good. Though I feel there's lost opportunity to have nothing in the traits aside from a ferocity stack that takes advantage of all the explosions in the kit. I suggest reworking Lush Forest to have the current Fierce as Fire effect and change Fierce as Fire to do some new effect that triggers off of explosions. Maybe every explosion applies 5man quickness or alacrity for 1ish second around the Bladesworn As I've said the quality of life changes to Dragontrigger are nice but given how much easier it is to get above half charges now and the fact that the stunbreak skill also resets the cooldown on Dragontrigger, I don't really see the point in ever taking Daring Dragon. I feel this should be reworked into something else, possibly unrelated to Dragontrigger as the other two major grandmaster traits cover PvE and PvP scenarios pretty well in my opinion. Underwater Combat The spec is still wonky and awkward when used underwater. While using the Dragontrigger dash to launch yourself like 100ft in the air is hilarious and should be kept in, the other parts of the kit should be tuned to work cleanly underwater.
  8. I like the Untamed in concept but it could use some reworks. First of let me say I like that this build focuses more on power damage as soulbeast is heavily condition focused and druid, while can be played both ways, is so heavily skewed towards pure support that it makes making a dps build with it moot. The pet The pet skills should have the have the ability to set a loop cast the same way we can set a weapon skill (usually the basic attack) to automatically cast off cooldown. Additionally, the pet not having access to its normal skills in unleashed form is making it do much less damage even with the damage boost from Vow of the Untamed; when in unleashed I think it should let the AI use its normal skills like before with the player controlling the unleashed skills. Ranged pets are also useless in unleashed state. Pets entering unleashed should trigger pet swap sigils. Weapons and abilities Having hammer be the only weapon to benefit from the unleashed state feels like it pigeon holes the spec into only using that weapon which would be a shame considering many players were waiting for a power focused spec to help their power weapons. The other weapons should benefit from the unleashed state too even if it just modifies the basic attack or gives some sort of effect like the "does more damage to CC'd targets" effect that most of the unleashed hammer skills get. Also having the player go into unleashed state should trigger weapon swap sigils. The heal, elite, and Exploding Spores are in a good spot. Unnatural Traversal is fine for the most part though needing a target to use might hinder its applications or be passed over in favor of other utility skills. Nature's Binding is fine on its own (or in a pure untamed skill loadout), but in a build with mixed skills it probably won't see much use. In a pvp trap build for instance, a player would not take the highly synergistic Nature's Binding due to the need to take a stun break and two traps. Maybe rework this skill into another skill and transfer the effect as is to the hammer so it could be used more often with trap utility skills. Mutate Conditions is a worse Signet of Renewal and should be reworked into a completely different skill especially since you'd likely need to activate this when in the less tanky unleashed state which would end up giving you multiple stacks of vulnerability on top of the extra damage taken from Vow of the Unleashed. The hammer is a decent weapon but it has no movement abilities, blocking skills, or supportive abilies. The damage is low which shouldn't be the case if it brings no support to the table. I think at least one of the weapon skills should be reworked into a leap or some other type of movement skill as currently it relies entirely on Unnatural traversal (which might not be taken due to the need of other utility skills) to close gaps. Throwing in some (self) swiftness in somewhere might help with this too. Turning Nature's Binding into a hammer skill could also make up for each other's weaknesses; the normal version could make the wall of vines around the player to block attacks/projectiles and the unleashed version could activate the skill as it is now around the enemy. The hammer would gain more utility and the effect of Nature's Binding would see more use. Traits Vow of the Untamed is the main issue that is holding this spec back. I get the idea of swapping between offensive and defensive states but the 10% more damage taken and 15% less outgoing damage are extreme downsides on a trait you have no choice but to take. I think the downsides should be removed so that it really is just swapping between an offensive buff and a defensive buff and not juggling debuffs. The current values could be reduced to balance out only having positive effects. If nothing else this is the one design change that must happen before release of EoD. There is no cantrip trait to reduce cooldowns or add other effects. Maybe combine the extra effects on unleashed pet skills traits into one to make room for this one in the major adept line. Cleansing Unleashed does too little to be worth taking especially since Mutate Conditions is so bad that other utilities that condition cleanse would be taken instead. This should either cleanse more conditions or be reworked into another trait after maybe adding resolution in more places throughout the kit. Fervent Force does not affect pet skills and using a pet a skill to disable an enemy does not benefit the player character. On a minor note: The visual effects for the unleashed state are horrendously ugly. While it's nice it's not permanent and goes away after 20/30s, it could still dissipate faster. An enemy player doesn't need 30s to visually confirm which entity is in the buffed state.
  9. Finally I can give feedback on an area I'm very familiar with! Warrior is my main and have both a Berserker and Spellbreaker and have experimented with countless other builds and weapon combos. It makes me sad to see everyone's opinion on the current state of warrior before Bladesworn so I did a lot of tests to try to give the best feedback I can. In summery, a lot of Bladesworn feels "just ok enough to not be a problem" but could use some tweaks to make it easier to hit that sweet spot. Notes on functionality: You can't go into dragontrigger if you are moving and trying to move while in dragontrigger breaks you out of it. This feels really awkward and going into and staying in dragontrigger should be the priority action. Reactivating dragontrigger or firing it off should be the only way to get out of this state. Currently it's too easy to mess up trying to use it. Not sure if intended, but healing, utility skills (except shouts), and the elite all break you out of dragontrigger. Movement skills are a given but I don't know if activating a signet or placing a banner or using the elite to refresh the dragontrigger ammo skills should interrupt that. It makes you less of a sitting duck when charging in pvp and can help you maintain raid responsibilities or give the slash more power in pve. Also seems odd to have the 4 and 5 be ammo skills in this state if the elite can't help them. Something to consider. There might be a possible bug with the trait River's Flow and Swift as the Wind. I had taken shouts and the trait that lets them heal but when firing them off, Positive flow didn't go above two stacks. Same with movement skills Not sure if there's an internal cooldown on those or not, it should state so if that is the case. Armament skills are fairly underwelming aside from the elite. Though this might be fine as they occupy a more utility (for lack of a better term) role than the other skills warrior has access to which are more aggressive, supportive, or stat-changing. Still, if feels off to have warrior of all classes not get a new attack skill out of the bunch. They already have "shake it off" as an ammo stunbreak so maybe the stunbreak could be reworked into an attack skill. On that note, the kit feels like it could use at least one more way of generating Positive flow aside from traits and one skill; see below for ideas on this. The heal skill is an interesting concept but I think it should be reversed functionally to get better value out of it. Currently it fails its main job of a "I'm about about to die, I need lots of health right now" tool due to the delay one needs to heal twice. I suggest changing it so using it the first time doesn't heal you at all but gives you the boons instead and puts you into stim state. Then if used again while in stim state, it removes the boons and heals you for double the amount it does now. This would let the player use it aggressively as a fourth utility skill (similar to "To the Limit!" for instant adrenaline) without sacrificing its primary role as a panic button. On that note: maybe the other armament skills (minus the elite) could be reworked the same way: activate once to gain benefit A and put the player in a state where if they activate the skill again, benefit A is removed and an equally powerful but different benefit B is applied. It would fit the name "armament" better thematically. Perhaps one skill could actually reduce flow or remove a stack of positive flow for a very powerful effect and then activating it again remove that effect and add to positive flow. Something to consider. Not sure if everyone forgot but underwater combat exists. You can use the gunsaber and dragontrigger underwater but they're a bit awkward in that environment especially the movement skills. Maybe make an underwater gunsaber type weapon or change the skills to function a bit differently. Notes on the gunsaber: I like the gunsaber overall. It covers enough scenarios to make up for being the second weaponset. However, the cooldowns are a bit too high. This wouldn't be an issue in pvp or raids as you would be expected to weaponswap regularly but in the context of an open world casual player who wanted to use the gunsaber as their exclusive weapon, it could be a bit annoying in longer fights. This is one of those points where the spec feels just ok enough. I took kick, shouts, the trait to reduce their cooldown, Lush Forest, and Tactical Reload. Basically as much ammo skills and cooldown reduction as I could fit into a decent build to see how spammy I could be and was more or less satisfied with how much I could fire off and for how long before everything was spent and on cooldown. However this is a very specific build and the spec in general could benefit from maybe 3-5 seconds taken off the gunsaber weapon skills in pve. I don't play pvp but from what I've seen others say, dragontrigger has way too low damage to be worth using. Notes on other weapons: Offhand pistol is a decent weapon but it feels lacking in certain aspects. The 4 is a decent approach. The 5 does good damage but it's way too short ranged for a projectile weapon. You have to be right next to an enemy to even hit them with any of the volley. The pushback covers more ground then the range of the attack. The teaser trailer said they use offhand pistol to maintain their flow when not using the gunsaber but the weapon doesn't bring any benefit to that other than keeping you in combat. While I'm fine with gunsaber taking up the second weapon slot, I feel it really breaks the theme of the warrior as a weapon master to not give them dual pistols. Offhand pistol alone doesn't feel worth ever swapping off gunsaber (especially with its long cooldowns where you'd want the other weapon set to be used for awhile while it recharges) if all you're pretty much going to do with it is swap-5-4-5-swap. At the very least, giving them some positive flow generation could help. When using the other weapon set, dragontrigger remains locked as a useless skill. The other weapon sets are really hurt by not having their burst skills anymore. I feel like they should still have access to their burst skills with maybe some number tuning to use flow instead. Another option is to make flow a bit like energy on revenant where it always has natural generation up to 50% and adds or subtracts flowrate on other factors. This would let people start a fight with dragontrigger if they wanted to instead of fighting to build it up and then charging it to bring it down and let other weapons use their burst skills by reducing the flowrate for a bit if taking amounts of flow away as a cost like adrenaline is too hard to balance. This would work well with my previous suggestion about reworking armament skills. Some could take flow away and give it back. At the very least, if nothing else changes, dragontrigger shouldn't be locked so the player doesn't have to swap to gunsaber just to immediately go into dragontrigger. Notes on traits: Essentially the first tier traits could use some buffing, the middle tier traits are just ok enough, and the grandmaster traits are fine. As I mentioned before, the kit feels like it could use a little more ways to generate Positive flow. I don't know if that's because River's Flow/Swift as the Wind have bugs or actually needs more weapon/utility skills to do that. The weapon swap one is probably fine. Lush Forest seems fine as it is. Buffing it to 2 seconds taken off from 1 second might be too strong on utility and other weapon skills and if gunsaber gets its cooldowns reduced then this trait doesn't need to be changed. I didn't experiment with Flame Shell Burst very much but it feels like it applies enough burning to work in a condition build. Only thing is slightly increase the range of the flame burst as it needs to be right on top of enemies to hit them with it. Unshakable Mountain is in a weird spot. It feels like it applies just enough barrier to be useful but Lush Forest seems like the better option in both selfish and supportive power builds and Flame Shell Burst would have to be taken in a condition builds. On a minor note: I think visually the gunblade's model should be updated a bit as it looks kinda weird. The handle seems too long and the handguard is awkwardly big; making it the same diameter as the gun barrel seems like an appropriate size. The glow on the blade could be toned down just a bit. Update the skill icons to have more grey, silver, black, and duller warm colors. At present it's quite a lot of bright orange and yellow taking up the whole skill bar which kinda hurts to stare at after a while.
  10. Vindicator as a specialization feels slightly off. The greatsword as a weapon feels too strong. The focus from energy to endurance is a bit awkward. Upkeep skills remain actively draining energy when doing the dodge/leap; they should probably either be disabled when activating the dodge (and possibly reenabled after it finishes) or make it so it doesn't drain any energy when doing the dodge. Having the F2 refresh endurance is fine when in the Alliance legend but the other legends are really hurt but the sudden inability to refresh some energy. You can take the "gain energy on legend swap" trait but overall it feels like there's less energy available to a rotation. Managing three legends feels too complicated. The two sides of Alliance are different enough that a build wouldn't cycle through them in a rotation, they'd be cycling between one of them and the third legend. However managing that is awkward. The F2 exists as a means to instantly flip them but one would probably swap to the third legend to continue through their rotation and the F2 doesn't flip the Alliance skills when the third legend is active. There's also the added awkwardness of having the skills mixed in state when flipping. I have a few suggestions I feel might help this: One is to split the F2 into two separate buttons that turn all skills, regardless of state, to a specific state. Two is to separate the skill cooldown between the states, as in if a skill is used, it flips to the next state immediately able to be used (after casting is finished) like an ammo skill. If used again it will go to the previous state with whatever amount of cooldown it would have left after recharging in the background. The ammo skill cooldown indication could be reused here just maybe colored to reflect whatever the other state's cooldown is. Three is to make the F2 function while the third legend is active just so the player can flip that legend's state at their convenience instead of adding an extra step when in the rotation. Four is to let the F2 regain some energy again. The other legends really need this back and I don't think Alliance will be broken from someone being able to channel the Kurzick elite longer given it hurts the player. Greatsword, on the other hand, feels pretty solid but quite strong. I don't think there should be a chill on the attack chain. That sounds way too strong in pvp. With two/three leaps between the weapon and utilty skills, they should have no problem sticking to an opponent. There's also enough chill elsewhere in the kit to supplement this if needed. Plus if one takes the corruption trait to apply torment on chill, this spec can frontload a lot of torment already and doesn't need more on the attack chain. Additionally, the 5 seems too hit a little too consistently for how random it's supposed to be. In like nine or so activations, I'd expect two or three to hit a single target, given it's basically a mobbing skill. But I seemed to have been consistently getting four or five hits on a single target. I think the area of activation is smaller than what was shown in the preview video so maybe increasing the size of it would add more randomness to it; that or the number of activations should be less. On a minor note, the F2 is still noted as "F2" in descriptions. Should probably be changed to be the skill's name. Will update more as I do more tests and articulate my thoughts better.
  11. Overall the Catalyst seems ok in a group setting. But its traits and mechanics don't help too much in a solo setting. The main issue is the jadetech sphere. It feels like it has too long of a cooldown, takes too long to build up, and drains energy too quickly. It also seemed like they shared the same energy pool so putting out multiple spheres feels like it drains them quicker. I think they also seemed larger in the preview video, currently they feel too small to combo effectively. Another problem is that core weapons don't feel like they synergize that well with this spec. You feel like you're forced to use hammer to be effective on it. The elemental power (or whatever the name is) trait line which seems to proc mostly on disabling the enemy but the weapons besides hammer don't do that very well. This combined with jadetech spheres feeling like they need adjustments basically just leaves the aura traitline as the only real viable one for solo play. The utility skills feel like they have a really short cooldown which might be fine given the added complexity of needing to activate them next to the appropriate sphere but overall doing that feels awkward. I think they should have longer cooldowns but only need to be activated in any sphere to get the additional effect (some of which can be adjusted to be less powerful for being easier to trigger). Will update more as I do more tests and articulate my thoughts better
  12. First of all not too crazy about the name but it's kinda growing on me; kinda on the fence whether or not I think it needs a new (lore appropriate) name. So overall I like the spec. I like the how the traits are arranged, especially the trade offs in the first tier. I don't know if it was a tooltip error but it seems like the alacrity given in the Resolve grandmaster trait isn't long enough to really make the trait worth using (even when taken boon duration traits and stats the tooltip stayed at 1.75 secs); might need longer duration. My main problem with the spec is that I feel like it has too much movement and not only that but unnecessary movement; not from a playing against the spec standpoint but as a person using the spec. I don't play crazy movement based thief so maybe people are more used to it but to me it seems a little too much to handle, even when trying out a build that had none of the movement-focused utility skills taken. The main issue are the virtues. Courage might be fine as it's a shadowstep but Justice and Resolve being dashes that go through the target (assuming they're supposed to do that) feel awkward as it feels like you'd want to activate virtues midfight most of the time. Even if a condition build uses Justice to initiate, they'd likely want to reactivate it again at some point in a longer fight. But between movement skills on weapons, virtues, and some of the utility skills, it feels overwhelming to use. I felt like I had to pause and go through the rotation in my head before every encounter to not find myself completely away from the target. Maybe make Justice and Resolve stop at the first enemy and rework one of the utility skills to be more combat oriented (for those that take all the new skills). Also, possibly due to feeling a bit overwhelmed as stated above, I didn't really feel like I noticed the damaging ability of the offhand sword. I didn't really notice the animation and I also didn't notice the burst damage that I thought it was supposed to have. I don't know if that means it just wasn't activating properly in the rotation I was using or if the damage was low. It should probably be made clear in the tooltips exactly how traits that affect the passive component of virtues are treated when spec'd as a willbender. Either state "this does nothing when used by a willbender" or possibly change these traits to do something differently when used by a willbender. The later might be a good option if buffs are needed. Random thought, but I saw someone make the joke "what if the meta was to not take any trait for the first tier?" as they have tradeoffs. If people actually try to do that, should we let them or should we force it like "if no traits are selected then by default the spec will use the middle row" or something? Just something to consider. Might also help people on any profession that just forget to set something or haven't logged in a while and have things deselected.
  13. Tried running a strike damage build. While I felt like I could make a decent build centered around that, shroud felt distinctly geared towards condition damage which feels odd given the choice to include trait lines for both types of damage. It would be nice if maybe the skills had higher base damage and less torment and then maybe one of the traits adds the torment back in for condition builds. Overall I like elixirs, though it is a bit boring to have them all basically the same icon. The radius on the elixir share feels like it needs to be larger. I like the risk vs reward aspect to them with applying blight though it might be a bit harsh to have the healing skill also apply blight; maybe that and/or the stun break one could reduce the amount of blight instead of the life force gain.
  14. So I don't really play mesmer normally which is why I was testing Virtuoso to see if I'd like to play one now. But given my unfamiliarity with the class, take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm pretty happy with the spec from what I tested. Dual swords and the Dueling/Domination specializations seem pretty synergistic and strong with the strike damage trait line. Damage seems a bit high, at least from the perspective of someone playing close range, but numbers can be adjusted. Design and functionality seemed well thought out. My main issue, which just might have been on my end, was that I think there was an overall clunky feeling to skills and traits that summons clones/illusions/phantasms and what creates a blade. Notably with the Dueling trait Desperate Decoy, I feel like whenever that activated, I had an unusual screen shake (I know that the screen might shake a little when entering stealth but this seemed bit more severe) and varying times for the blade to appear (sometimes instantly, sometimes after 2 seconds). It was also hard to tell what in the build was actually generating blades in practice, I feel like I'd do one rotation of skills and I'd generate 5 and then do the same rotation (after some time to let any internal cooldowns reset) and only generate 1 or 2. The trait Infinite Forge seems a bit weird in placement and conception. Maybe I'd need to play through a prolonged encounter to really see the worth of it but it seemed like even while knowing basically nothing about mesmer, I had no problems generating blades (inconsistent amounts per rotation notwithstanding) even through the longer fights I was in. It also seems weird to me that the skill taken to favor gradual consistent blade generation over burst is on the strike damage trait line. Having to aim the elite skill feels weird if you're just going to stay still while firing it. I feel like maybe the noted cast times were different from what the skills were actually doing. It was slight but it feel like they were a little slower than what it said they were. I personally hope the trait Mental Focus isn't changed to go off of something besides range or is changed to be long ranged focused. Heal skill seems underwhelming. Maybe I missed something but it feels like it a heal based on an attack should be more aggressive or reward you more. I like Rain of Swords and Sword of Decimation being different skills but they could probably use some cast time and damage number changes to make them feel more different.
×
×
  • Create New...