ShadowInTheVoid.9183

I'd like to see Mortar be the goto for large damage in a large area but having to deal with slow projectile speed meaning it's east to avoid like now and then contrast that with a rocket launcher that is faster and hard to avoid but lower splash area and less damage per projectile. A heavy focus on power damage but maybe a nice long duration wide dark field to combo with and some general blindness. Toolkit needs something more as hammer is just better all over and mace is going to be more of the same too. Maybe make this the tanky option with a built in defence+vigor boost at the cost of power power and condi stats? Medkit is fun for full support but I would like to see some poison or something on 1 to make it easier to sit in the kit in low level PvE and make it abit more accessible to average players. Shame losing F1 ruins it for mechanists.

Your still limiting your thinking to defending a system that is not working rather then how the system could be improved. A person kiting 1v2 would be doing damage (and this can be extended to non damaging conditions too) to 2 people. If the 2 people were on far then their location could be picked up and points given based on the fact you are being offensive in proximity even if you are not actively capturing at the point. It's actually far easier to balance individual components of a granular output then it is to balance a system that is just Win/Lose especially when you have no control of 4/5th of the input.

Points. Assign a point value to time spent on a node capturing, disputing or defending Assign a point value per 10K damage dealt Assign a point value to each kill. Assign a point value to each 10K healed Assign a point value to each ally revived Give bonus values actions that involve the map mechanics. At the end of the map you just total up the points. The point is Win/Lose as a binary when you have no control on the main input does not offer feedback on the players actions. Contribution points as a granular system that is heavily weighted to your own action gives a huge amount of feedback. It can help to view this through the lens of Dynamical System and Control theory and acknowledge the input/output disconnect rather then just focus on individual details out of context. Try to think, that is the actual end result the a person is playing for (long term rewards rather then an individual win) and we want people to put in (like not being toxic, not AFKing or match fixing, some player skill). If the system doesn't give you the correct output from the input you desire then the system is incorrectly designed.

1) This very comment is the sort of toxic we want to get rid of. If your understanding of a complex system is based on vast over simplifications then you don't understand the complex system. Also please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect 2) If you win the dual and capture the point then you win points for your team. If the dual went on for any serious amount of time then someone from one time or another would turn up and resolve the issue. It's not that big a deal if you have an anyway functioning team. 3) Does it even matter? Why does who wins and loses a match actually matter if your reward is based on your contribution rather then an binary Win/Lose which is far more based on team assignment luck.

If you are in a long 1v1 dual then if nothing else you are keeping 1 of their team busy to and not necessarily a detriment to your team. With the right tweaks you could be earning points for offence on a node and for damage. The other person could be earning points for defence on a node and damage. The winner would then earn points for the kill. You wouldn't need to punish directly, the "punishment" would be that other players could be earning more points for capturing undefended nodes or for more kills. This could also help move people away from other types of behaviour. Would we have so many people spamming stealth and running away if time spent in stealth is not earning points? (Obviously there is still merit in terms of mobility and capturing points but using it to drag out fights is painful) If people didn't earn points while they stood around calling everybody noobs would they keep being being as toxic? It shouldn't even mater to you who your playing with and if you win or lose as long as your contributing the best you can.

This would also pretty much end match fixing because nobody get's anything out of doing it. Yes, this is true but in PUG sPvP does that actually matter? You have no choice or investment in your team past that one match so how important is winning or losing apart from the rewards you receive? You really just play sPVP to work towards various rewards. As long as the metrics focus on positive measures rather then negative then you could still be motivated to play as intended. Kills, Total Damage, Healing, Revives, Time defending points and Time capturing points all contribute towards your team winning anyway. You could offer bonus rewards too for things like: Killing a Lord in Legacy of the Foefire Ringing the bell in Revenge of the Capricorn Destroying or Repairing trebuchet in Battle of Kyhlo Activating the Skyhammer Capturing the Arena in Djinn's Dominion This would incentivize people to make more use of what the map offers. If you weight things correctly there should still be a reward for doing something even if it got as extreme as 1v5 because you could still do some damage or run to a point to some degree. You should never be better off not playing then just having a go. Right now if your going to lose you might as well AFK or just quit and plenty of people do. Obviously Tournament are a different story and I wouldn't suggest making the same changes there.

I love Acrobatics for the Swiftness, enhancement of Vigor and general survivability but it's hurt by not having anything built in to give decent reliable Vigor and lack of any damage increase. Feline Grace change to Vigor on roll 6 seconds (to match Expeditious Dodger) would be a great change. As for damage, maybe swap out something like Upper Hand for +5% strike damage when under the effects of swiftness, +5% condition damage while under the affects of Vigor. Or both on Condi as there is plenty of strike damage boosts already. You could even throw in a +5% while Revealed . This which would match up really well with changing up stealth to offer longer stealth at the cost upping Revealed to 6-9seconds. This would help make stealth attacks more of a commitment and get rid of the more annoying aspects of stealth overuse.

This is not actually as crazy as it first seams. It could add a bit of build diversity but it doesn't actually need to involve adding a whole new slot, it could replace the Breathing apparatus slot. There is no point to their being a separate Breathing apparatus slot, it is just another piece of Armor that people forget about till they're in water and they lose their 6th rune bonus. There is no legendary BA so no issue with Legendary Armoury and BA skins could be applied as purely cosmetic items. This would be a good step to improving underwater play too. For Guardian it could affect spirit weapons. For Thief it could offer bonuses when using venoms. For Elementalists, bonuses when using summoned weapons (they need a boost and the recharge time halfing) For Engineer I would actually say also affect Turrets (They need some real attention too)

I bet Sword would work better. Oddly, Mace would work well on on Scrapper. I really hope they open up weapons to be used on other specs in future. I haven't tested in sPvP, does mech respawn when you do or do you just have to AFK at spawn till it recharges so you don't die instantly?

I just keep looking at this and remembering this is the water expansion. Boats, underwater siege turtles and WATER DRAGON.

There is just too many things that don't add up with Mechanist. We're about to go into THE water expansion and we can't use the mech underwater. Your basically 1/2 a core engineer without your mech being there so your going to need to avoid water at all cost. Your so dependent on the mech that it's going to be instant death in most area's if it dies The mace would be fine on core and any other specialisation (and I hope they do open weapons to all specs) but it's a very odd choice to give you a mech to engage close and then tie you to close combat too. Ranged suits it far batter. You could take grenade kits but you've already lost out on the toolbelt skill that goes with it. Are any skills apart from signets even balanced for using without toolkit?

I am looking forward to a the major water focused expansion and hope there is some good water combat improvements. Right now, mechanist will be unusable. Above ground it's going to be pretty limited anyway without any access to toolbelt even when the mech is gone. Under water there is never going to be another trait line less useful then mechanist because any traits would do something and anything is better then nothing at all.

At the cost of DPS, a pretty big cost for PvP or WvW. Engineers can already get perma-vigor + perm 50% extra Endurance Regeneration and get 10% extra strike damage from having Vigor too. We're not talking about anything revolutionary.

I would say yes to focus on dodge but more avoid double up rather then synergy with Daredevil I love the basically perma swiftness but the big let down for me is that it's too unreliable to get the extra endurance to fuel your dodges. Upper Hand would be pretty reasonable with some extra endurance regeneration too. I would love to see them change Feline grace to Vigor on dodge and 'Endless Stamina' to 'Endurance Regeneration Increase: 50%'. Engineers get Adrenal Implant under tools and Vigor on top of that so it's not unheard of. I'd love to see a 'Reduce physical and condition damage for each boon you have.' major trait like 'Iron Blooded' on Engineer too. If you could have these few things it would add some major survivability at the cost of losing out on the major DPS traits. There would be good synergy with Daredevil but it's never going to get big damage without the DPS boosts of Trickery of Deadly arts. There would be synergy with Deadeye and core Thief survivability that would really help them feel more forgiving to new players but again you would lose on DPS so it wouldn't be unbalanced. Something to pass out some Vigor to your party for more support builds, especially Specter, would be nice too.

I was not aware of this till today. Does anybody know what you had to do to get it? I got the 2020 Extra Life Donation Bundle and got Mr Sparkles but didn't see anything about the tonic and wish I had known it was available.

The more we see of EOD the more we see water, skiffs and yet more water. I am hoping there was no underwater mech and it just wasn't done yet but also I'm generally hoping for some improvements to underwater. 1) Making as many skills and traits work underwater for all professions 2) Make underwater weapons more balanced and inline with land weapons. 3) Allow some sort water surface combat. (Maybe just limited to underwater weapon) 4)Either add legendary Breathing apparatus or just scrap them as an item completely and make them just a skin with no stats.

I'm definitely finding that when I try to play lunchtime - early afternoon UK time. I don't know what's going on today but there suddenly is a spike in them roaming maps together. I had a match earlier with 5 bots on the other side (not sure how many on mine) and they all went round together and as soon as one died it just ran straight back to the group. They all attack a single target so you die fast. For a disorganised team you don't stand a chance.

This matches with what i've seen but generally down to Silver 2. There just seams to be a massive increase in the last week or so too and i'm not struggling to get into a match without bots. I've seen some of the bots starting to travel in groups too which can get pretty annoying to deal with.

Yeah the damage is too high if your compare it to a ranger pet, but a ranger is the main character and the pet is their sidekick The mech is the main character and the mechanist is the sidekick. If a pet dies, sad times but the ranger carries on. If a golem dies there is no point to the engineer being there.

Mace is a great idea. Mech is a great idea. They just don't fit together! If your using your mech to fight you don't want to be up close. I guess this could be an option at least. Mace would be fun on core engineer, holo or scrapper so yet another argument to let us use espec weapons on core and other specs. It's good that Optimized Activation and Static Discharge work with Mech Commands but now we have 3 buttons instead of 5 and there isn't any fast recharge option. When your mech is dead or dismissed your basically defenceless. J-drive at least gives you something in it's place. We really need something when the mech isn't active. If you put Crash Down on F5 and gave us toolbelt skills when it's not active that could really fix alot of issues. Also every mechanist having the exact same mech in the exact same colour is going to get terribly confusing fast so I hope we get a dye option. The Mechanist and Mechs in general are a great idea, probably the more interesting e-spec we've seen. There is alot of very good idea's here but just too many limitations. I mostly see myself just putting on Mechanist with a Rifle, a bunch of signets and just not pressing anything. Just a really easy going low effort build for when you don't want to try too hard

Warrior wasn't too bad. It was a slow charge but with a decent payoff. Catalyst was a joke, nothing lives long enough to charge up energy and even if you got a serious fight and did build it up their orb lasted 2 seconds and did nothing. Warrior could be tweaked, Catalyst needed a fundamental change.

So going over what has been said it sounds like there is a few ways to deal with this, each with positives and negatives. 1) Golem is powerful enough that it is worth losing those skills. Would need to offer some level of sustain to make up for F1 and be VERY hard to kill because you are effectively useless without your golem. It would also very much limit what skills are useable with the spec which would then make it very susceptible to any tiny nerfs. This would really need Medkit to get some sort of rework to make it useable for support. 2) Give us F5 to swap between pet skills and toolbelt. Would allow both sets of skills but would be additional effort to swap between. Also the issue with some of the traits that trigger on toolbar being more spam-able. A cooldown on swapping could sort this out. It would give an active trade-off between toolbelt skills vs activate usage of Golem skills. 3) Move golem activation to F5, let us use toolbelt 1-4 when golem is not active. This would limit spamming linked to traits and would give us an option to use toolbelt skills on a cooldown but would still be extra effort for swapping 4) Move golem activation to F5, let us have our F1 toolbelt skill so at least we know we can get a heal. F2-4 are golem skills which hopefully have sensibly low cooldowns for trait usage. Accept that a lot of skills will no longer be viable but some skills will still be balanced with having a mech. You would still be effectively useless without your golem so it would need to be very hard to kill but you could at least keep your heals. Medkit has been mentioned a few times and it's not the biggest lost in offensive roles but is a pretty huge part of support and I don't see anything in the Golem to balance that out. They did say they wanted to Golem to have a support option so it would be a bit odd to wreck the Engineers support potential to do it. I tend to lean towards option 3 with a cooldown here as it is a balance between having some commitment to the new mechanic without being locked out of normal skills completely. Unfortunately there is a very high chance that this is going to be a spec that has a very niche and just isn't used outside of standard PVE.

Reaper has nothing in it that lowers sustain, it's just it's close ranger nature that makes it risky. If your worried about sustain with that just wait till you see what they're like with long range weapons. Mirage gets 1 dodge in pvp because it's an enhanced dodge and keeps 2 in PVE anyway. What difference would a shield make except more sustain at the cost of damage? Sword on other specs would be just as shishy, more so as it would lose dual element access. And DPS increase would be balanced by close range. What broken combos? The weapons have to be individually balanced anyway. There is no overpowered weapons and if there was they would be nerf'd

Then please explain. Can you give an example of a e-spec weapon which if equipped on core or another e-spec would have an unbalanced advantage over using that weapon on it's own spec?

Specter is a great name but I wish they had gone with Spectre as the spelling both for being a bit more archaic and not being as easy to mix up with Scepter.