AsterionStarbreaker.9564

What does Blue Mage even have to do with this? Blue Mage is side content that is completely unrelated to the main game content. If you were trying to prove a point, you massively failed at actually picking a point to prove. I say this as someone who plays both FFXIV and GW2. Blue Mage also you know, functions kind of like how skills used to work in GW1 in that you had to go out and get them and build a deck of them. It can't even enter mainline content normally except in preformed parties, and even then your claim is wrong because assuming you have enough of the skills, you can make your own entirely different loadout so you're more likely to encounter someone using different spells than you. Also you know, I don't see how Guild Wars 2's spec variety compares to the 17ish classes all playing inherently differently from each other within their role. A Gunbreaker does not play the same as a Paladin which does not play the same as a Warrior which does not play the same as a Dark Knight. A Summoner does not play the same way as a Black Mage which does not play the same as a Red Mage. Machinist, Bard, Dancer. Heck, even the healers don't even play the same. Sure they have a role but their class mechanics are very different. There is a dearth of difference between how GW2 handles its (arguably limited) build variety and how classes are very clearly differentiated in PLAYSTYLE and rotation in FF14. If you're going to make a claim, at least act like you know what you're talking about this. Because I am max level in all of the jobs that FF14 currently has to offer, and they do not compare in the slightest to how GW2 professions work. And given how the balance in GW2 works half the darned time, I don't know if that's better or worse. At least in FFXIV, I mainly have to focus on just getting good at my rotations instead of hoping that ArenaNet is a slight bit nice to my main profession of Elementalist because 'oh no they're overperforming a slight bit in this one specific area of the game compared to every other profession who can do that function for far less opportunity cost', because Yoshida looked at how WoW handled its trait system and was like 'yeah how about we don't do that because that is a balance dumpster fire and a half waiting to be happen'. Because let's not pretend that ArenaNet's own handling of the trait balance is something to be proud of, considering some of the silly decisions they've made over the years in the name of 'balance'. Half the time it feels like 'build variety' in Guild Wars 2 is made in spite of ArenaNet's balance decisions to shoe-horn people into taking certain traits.

Mmm, I'm conflicted on Catalyst being the way it is from the trailer (which... they need someone to do a better way of advertising those professions because this has been a problem with all the EoD spec trailers so far in that a lot of the trailers do not sell the class very well and expectations run wild). I'm just... tired of being in the close range, is all. I play Weaver mostly, generally enjoyable though a bit frustrating because haha, I'm playing the lowest health, lowest armor profession on US servers when I'm an Australian, which just exacerbates the survivability issue combined with the effects vomit that makes determining tells rather difficult. For a profession that is stated to prefer ranged combat in the character creation screen, I have to raise an eye at the fact that all three of their elite specs heavily prefer close-range, combined with nerfs over the years making the usage of staff and scepter impractical, frustrating and unfun (damage numbers aside, they really do need to be brought up to the levels of other classes handling of the weapons, please give them some TLC and QoL, ANet). It's kinda confounding. Unless, you know... they actually take a look at staff and scepter and Elementalist's entire ranged options and make them better or buff core elementalist and actually do a massive balance pass over the entire profession come the expansion (Wishful thinking, I know). That said the press-kit gives me hope of it being a useful and fun class to play. Fire and Air being 'mid-range' attacks whilst Earth and Water are the dedicated close range sound like a fun time. That said if we have a trait like Virtuoso's Mental Focus where we're heavily incentivised to go close-range, we better get some tons of survivability to offset the fact we are the most fragile class compared to others, because Weaver's barrier on one skill on their entire hotbar compared to other sources of barrier make me a liiiiiittle jealous of the other classes. Unless we get something like Scrapper's barrier-on-hit trait without the Vitality decrease.

I'm rather... conflicted about the Catalyst to be honest. Yay, Wells... so we're elemental knock-off scrapper... still, I hope we get even more survivability akin to that of every other class. Or even become as tanky as a normal medium armor (Yes I know Scrappers lose vitality... in exchange for generating barrier with every hit of their attacks). On the other hand, supposedly Catalyst supplies rather useful boons like alacrity and so on according to the Press Kit that was released in regards to it. Time will tell if I'll be able to Ka-braham with the huge hammer.

Apparently its from a presskit that got released to some media outlets. Fire and Air Attunement are like Mid-Ranged range whilst Earth and Water are straight up Close-Ranged/Full Melee. I've seen it floating around in a lot of places, I think MassivelyOP was the media outlet or something?

Honestly, I have to wonder what they did to cause this bug. Logically it should have just been a number tweak, did they forget a comma or like... accidentally commented out a line somewhere when applying the 20% increase? Don't get me wrong, it's a nice bug but like... how did upping a number by 20% cause... well... all of this?

Legitimately, my favourite unintended consequence of the barrier change for Weaver. It's... actually rather nice being a melee-range Weaver with Sword, and being able to take a hit and not explode immediately from a stiff breeze or condition spray in the Open World (HoT-areas can be painful for this). Like if they tone it down a little and straight up change the interaction to be on any weaponskill action instead of just Dual Attack, it'd be such a nice defensive and sustain trait. And it's not too overpowered either since the barrier is very weak even in its original state. Like if they fix the weird interaction where activating mount-hotkey in combat gives you a burst of barrier even when you can't mount, I think it'd be perfectly fine as is. I actually feel rewarded for the frenetic 'kill the enemy before it downs me' play that Weaver generally ends up being sometimes in the Open World (especially if anything inflicts damaging conditions and Purging Flames is on CD). Combo it with Water Attunement and I actually feel like I can survive long enough using Water Attunement weaponskills comboed with the healing Signet to heal myself up to a less dangerous threshold. I do have to wonder though, how did a number tweak result in well... this being applied to all actions? Celestial stat build Weaver with this bug is so much fun. And its not even that out there for a trait, given Impact Savant is basically this bug (except its a result of an action taken rather than being a barrier based on the precentage of damage dealt).