InspectorCaracal.2970
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Posts posted by InspectorCaracal.2970
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2 minutes ago, Vagrant.7206 said:
The ranger and pet are meant to be equal partners.
The mech and engi are not. A mechanist by themselves (without the mech) is substantially weaker than a core engineer:
- One traitline is entirely devoted to the mech instead of the 3 core traitlines.
- All the utility skills have half of their utility without the toolbelt skill. This means that even kits are weaker than core without their toolbelt skills.
- Signets are a piece of passive gameplay that primarily enhances the mech. Engineer weapons are generally weak and ineffectual compared to most other class's weapons (by design, to encourage kit use).
In other words, the engineer is acting more like the mech's minion than the other way around. So the mech kitten well better be more powerful than a ranger's pet - a mechanist has little else going for them.
Right, that's what I said and that's what I expected. But there's a difference between "this is better than ranger pets" and "I barely even have to play when my mech is there", you know?
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Two things up front!
First, I haven't read this thread, so some of this might've been said by other people.
Second, I'm a ranger main - one who was ecstatic to hear that engi is in fact getting the robot pet I've been hoping for since EoD was announced.
I'm still excited about it! But I only had to try playing Mechanist for a few minutes to realize that there is something deeply, terribly wrong with the game balance.
I totally understand and agree that the engi mech needs to be Really kitten Good. It's replacing an entire core engi mechanic and you only get the one and it doesn't have any of the synergies that ranger pets gets. I expected it to be a bit better than the strongest ranger pets. But.
But.
This is too much!
The mech can basically solo the Labyrinth for me.
The mech can defeat regular mobs in half, a third of the time or less as my strongest ranger pets, without breaking a sweat, with the support trait selected.
Maybe this is what the devs decided the numbers need to be like in order for the mech to be viable. If that's the case, that's fine - except it means pets are woefully under-powered.
Or maybe the pets are carefully balanced to not dominate the game. If that's the case, then the mech is OP as hell.
I don't know which direction things need to be fixed - maybe it's even that the pets need to go up and the mech needs to go down so they can meet in the middle - but the huge gap in effectiveness between the mech and the strongest ranger pets says that something, somewhere in the numbers, has absolutely gone wrong.
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On 10/23/2021 at 5:31 AM, anduriell.6280 said:
Untamed does not bring any new pet sustain. If those pets haven't been viable in wvw for 9 years they will not be viable now. If a Druid can not keep them alive with all its healing an untamed will be even more useless.
Ah, so that's why they nerfed Druid pets.
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On 10/23/2021 at 8:58 PM, anduriell.6280 said:
ranger is limited by the combination the pets offer which is usually very unidimensional: you can not get a pet which offer aoe support and at the same time ranged dps for example.
Bit of a tangent, but: oddly enough, my suggestion of having Primal skills at least partly defined by pet archetype rather than the same for all pets was generally disliked with the argument of the archetypes "mis-matching" the base pet, but it sounds like that's exactly the kind of mix-and-matching you want. So I guess I'm not the only one who would like that aspect of the idea.
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A leap skill, maybe something called "Hop"....
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5 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:
- Does the "corrupted mode" also change other weapon skills or just the hammer one? (If it's just the hammer skill, that's just another elite spec that isn't thoroughly thought out in my opinion)
- Is it possible for the untamed to switch pet in combat? (If not... that's even worse than I thought)
- If the pet can be switched, I wonder if the "corrupted" skill are the same for all pets and if they share cool down?
To answer your questions:
- It only changes hammer. They are still considering having it change other weapons.
- Yes, you can switch pets.
- Yes, they are the same skills. I don't know about cool-downs, but we'll find out on Tuesday.
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What if they just copied from Mechanist again and gave our pets a breakbar when unleashed?
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19 minutes ago, Ehecatl.9172 said:
Yah, I understand that complaint. Though I also understand why. Even just using the archetypes that'd be 15 new skills on top of the hammer's 10 new skills and the utilities to design. And while they aren't NEW having direct control of the old pet skills does add more toys to play with for each pet species all the same.
Plus this way does have an advantage in that you don't need to weigh the effectiveness of two different sets of pet skills per pet choice. You also don't need to worry about situations like the fire wyvern being a Deadly pet and getting condi skills even though its main toolkit is chiefly power oriented. Or marsh drake getting support skills even though nothing about its main skillset is meant for support. Or whole archetypes being less appealing because their abilities aren't useful.
Yeah absolutely, that's why I'm only very slightly disappointed. It's like, "oh, this delicious cake would be even better if there was some ice cream with it" lmao. It's mostly that, if they were going to go and make a whole bunch of new skills, I'd rather they be for the pet archetypes than our weapons.
Although while I'm talking hypotheticals, mixing the archetypes with the pet's own strengths wouldn't bother me so much, since as it stands, all pets are getting condi abilities for primal mode, regardless of whether it suits their stats. It would just be mix-and-matching to a slightly larger extent.
I still think it would be fun, but yeah, it almost definitely won't happen, for perfectly good reasons. xD
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9 minutes ago, Ehecatl.9172 said:
It will also change your pet's skills no matter what weapon you have equipped.
Slightly tangential but while I'm still really excited about this spec, I am slightly disappointed that all pets get the same 3 skills when Unleashed. I was kinda hoping they'd use the pet types they added when releasing Soulbeast (Versatile, Deadly, etc.) and have different unleashed abilities for each of those categories.
tbh I'd much rather they did that than add extra mode swap attacks to the other ranger weapons but I don't think they're going to wind up doing either.
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7 minutes ago, Gomes.5643 said:
Did we then actually loose something for it? Like petswap again? Because currently it seem the Untamed is the better ranger.
Sure, except you have to used the Untamed traits and profession mechanics instead of whatever other third specialization you would've wanted. It's a pet-focused ranger, of course it's going to make the pet abilities better. Like how Soulbeast makes the ranger's abilities better.
I guess if you want to focus on what we "lost" - the normal F1 F2 F3 functions are gone. (I think.)
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5 minutes ago, Gomes.5643 said:
So did they clarify that the additional pet skills are only for the untamed? It sounded like it is a general thing .... as even the golem had 3 skills ....
It's definitely an Untamed-only change. I think the Jade mech has it for the same reason Untamed has it, i.e. it's a pet-focused spec which relies on using the pet itself as part of your gameplay. I wouldn't be surprised if the idea made it to the Untamed because they came up with it for the Mechanist.
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To pre-emptively balance all the people who'll come in saying how disappointed they are: I AM EXTREMELY EXCITED.
The visuals aren't nearly as obnoxious in gameplay as they were in the teaser video, and the lore behind it has mollified me. I love the way they implemented the pet-ability buttons into the profession UI. The Primal Swap mechanic looks good, and it looks like it has some good extra traits to go along with the swap besides the hammer skills. This spec is going to let me make an even better version of the build I've been trying to play and I'm absolutely thrilled.
Also, all the non-Rangers are going to hate the pet shadowstep and I'm delighted.
p.s. I actually like the Build-A-Robot engi spec - I think they did a good job of making it a pet spec without being better at being a pet class than being a ranger.
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With pet AI still being a problem, will there be more mechanical skills added to control the pet?
From the press kit quote I saw earlier I think the answer is "yes" which has me on the edge of my seat going "YOU BETTER NOT BE SCREWING WITH ME ANET"
I'm so glad it's tomorrow and I'm trying so hard to steel myself for inevitable disappointment, but!!
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Additionally, the untamed’s bond with their pets grants them more direct control over the default abilities of each pet
This is the one part I really want to see. I'm cautiously excited but also with the awful GUI of the Catalyst mechanic I'm a little afraid haha
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I don't really have any opinions about the "QoL" changes, mostly because I'm... confused? I want to know why they're being done, because a lot of them, as described in the post, don't make sense.
Removing participation from repairs is one. There's already a marked dearth of ways to gain participation when trying to play defense, making it a lot harder to get other players invested in defending points. There's not much of a bonus if you win, and there's even less if you lose, so a lot of players just don't want to bother. Not that I ever wind up using repairs to refresh, which honestly makes it even more strange that it's being removed. What's the problem being solved? What part of the game experience is being improved?
I'm also a little confused what the rationale is behind removing the outnumbered pip bonus, specifically because it's said in tandem with "it's too hard for players to get pips". Why remove the most tangible reward from playing on an Outnumbered map, especially if you know it's a reward that's already hard to get? I can sort of get if the two extra baseline pips are supposed to balance it out, but that only makes sense if it's balancing out removing the bonus, not addressing the stated problem of skirmish tracks take too long.
I have some opinions about how it might change the way the game plays, but mostly I'm just confused what the problems are that the removal of repair participation and Outnumbered pips are supposed to be fixing.
P.S. I did find the post-mortem really interesting and informative - it was especially good to hear that the system itself worked and a lot of the trouble was, to oversimplify, Database Shenanigans ™️ - so thanks for sharing that!
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I said I didn't have any useful gameplay feedback, but it turns out I was wrong.
I just discovered that "picking up" your sphere expends ALL of the energy you have stored up. I completely understand putting in a penalty cost, like the one for dropping out of avatar mode on druid (yes, I do main ranger, how did you know) but a full loss of all the energy you've built up is really too much of a penalty for needing to raise anchor.
On a subjective note, the hammer skills feel like they can't make up their mind if they want to be melee or ranged. I'm a little biased, since I like sword weaver the best, but I kind of expected hammer ele's weapon skills to play more like a slower, tankier, harder-hitting weaver - and they almost do, but not quite, which I feel makes them less compelling from both sides.
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I don't main ele so my gameplay feedback is spotty at best, but there is one major problem with Catalyst I feel competent to give feedback on.
The energy bar is INCREDIBLY TINY.
I don't mean charging it, I mean on the screen. It's miniscule! It's barely visible! It's a smudge on the dashboard!! This would have been a great case for reusing existing UI design, specifically Druid's celestial energy bar, but instead it's a teeny tiny meter wrapped around a squeezed-in button that really shouldn't be in the same row as the attunements anyway. I really don't get why the Druid charge/F5 placement UI wasn't reused here, it would work perfectly.
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Came in to say some stuff and people've already said all of it, so I'm just butting in to make one remark:
36 minutes ago, Karakutso.7546 said:I just have 1 request / question. Bladesworn is the first spec to introduce a class mechanic/weapon that you can permanentaly wield and run around with.
It might be the first elite spec to add one to a class, but Engineer's had that for a while. If they add skins for gunsabers, they should add them for flamethrower kits etc. as well.
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Mechanist Feedback Thread
in Engineer
Posted
I also play engi.