PseudoOAlias.4279

Fixed! I'm not saying the double-animation lock on [Line Breaker] feels great exactly. Especially when you can't cancel either. But genuinely, thank you for fixing the issue with the unblockable' stacks. This topic can now be closed (if applicable.) Unless people want to use it to discuss something more! Cheers & Thanks, 🤘

| Explanation Video: ^ https://youtu.be/89wGEdCbxfA | Heya Tyria! Pseudo here. Back again to shout at some clouds and with a quick update for the ever dwindling population of Gun-Ronin out there. > If you want to read up with what's been going on with Bladesworn you can check that out here. > Or a dissection on why new [Dragon Trigger - Boost] (the 2) is both a design and counterplay nightmare for not only you but your opponent as well, check that out here. I try to be largely positive/optimistic/full of copium, because I'd like to believe you catch more Balance Devs with honey than with vinegar. But: | TL;DR :: New, Delayed [Dragon Trigger - Boost](2) also no longer travels/hits at it's full range. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As is shown in the video, my crew and I did some testing and in addition to all of the other bugs and Design Problems* plaguing Bladesworn: The Terrestrial version of the 2nd Dragon Trigger does not retain its hitbox' long enough to account for the added .5s delay. In contrast to the unmodified aquatic version of the skill.* Therefore, while your character model, eventually moves the same distance as before, once you get to your target you will likely find them somewhat healthier than you may have anticipated. *Problems Such As: Bladesworn currently being the "Alacrity Spec" and not having an F1 burst (which is where ANet chose to leverage the majority of Staff's immediate, on-demand healing. Yes staff is more than artificially healing-juiced enough to compensate for this regardless. No the world's not going to end tomorrow because of it. But in addition to being forced to use Gunsaber - which itself has 0 support, it just "feels bad" on what's supposed to be a support spec. But this is a separate discussion entirely. ^ btw. I may be alone here, but Please DON'T just add base F1 back to Bladesworn. This will fix nothing. It needs a complete facelift, or interesting grandmaster traits/skills, or just to not be a boon support spec, or SOMETHING. | THE EASY FIX: | >> The Fix for this is Simple: If we must exist in a world where all 3 slashes have differing attack timing(s) but the same animation(s) -- again which also makes predicting+dodging which one was used borderline impossible, it's not my first choice but fine. But for the love of all the Water Bottles on the planet: Extend the duration of DT2' active hitbox by .5s. << Either way (c)hopefully the recent Bladesworn nerfs give the balance team some "Design Space" to add back some FUN' to the specialization. BUT PLEASE, For the future, stick to prioritizing Fun on skills, and then adjust the numbers on them to balance them out. Maybe we'll finally get setup Bladesworn back in some capacity, or get OG [Daring Dragon] back / they'll finally move alacrity to Spellbreaker. Or perhaps even our weapon swap back and have it just share a 10s+ base cooldown with swapping in to Gunsaber like ele attunements, since that coding's already done. Or maybe we'll get none of these things. Only time will tell. But ANet asks for feedback so all I can do is give it. | THE BETTER, AND STILL EASY FIX: | Imo. the delay should be Reverted and the Damage Reduced, AoE Radius on the sides of the slash reduced, or any number of other better changes that could preserve both FUN and FUNCTIONALITY for you and your opponent. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't really have another point here. Everything I would normally put I've already said in my previous Bladesworn dissection posts. So go check those out if you're wondering what's up with the class/want to see what feed1,000+ hours on a Specialization looks like. I just thought the remaining 3 or so people trying to enjoy Bladesworn out there might like to know why their Dragonslashes are literally "Coming up short." Editorializing a bit in conclusion: This may seem like nitpicking, (and it super is.) I'm biased AF. But it's just another bug on the ever-growing pile of symptoms that make Bladesworn feel awful to play. I'm not going to die on this hill, but we got 0 Explanation for the last round of Bladesworn changes. Changes which made no sense, and not only not only kneecapped the class in PvP it blew it's kitten legs off in PvE and WvW, and even made it harder for your opponent to counterplay. Dragon Trigger 2 was the only fun skill Bladesworn had that felt actually good to use. In a game that's all about Freedom of Movement and Build Diversity, I want Guild Wars 2 to continue to exist in an increasingly competitive game-space, and I want Bladesworn to be fun. But failing that I'd really like it to just be fluid or at least make sense. ANet, please let CmC stick to his guns of making "A Game That Is Fun First" instead of one that's "Perfectly Balanced." For the future: If you want a skill to be used less or competing skills to be used more: Please keep healthy functionality in some way and increase/reduce numbers. But above all, please, please explain/preview hugely impactful changes like this. And tell us how to give better feedback to possibly fix nerfs like this in the future so that everyone can win. 😄 Cheers, & Thanks for Reading if You Did!! o/

| I want to Preface this with: Warrior Staff is Mostly Great! Thank you for taking feedback on it!! | But: Explanation: Warrior Staff 3, aka. "Targeted Greatsword 5 Rush" used to have it's functionality split between "damaging / weakening" opponents if you targeted an enemy AND Healing / Granting Allies 3 stacks of "Ublockable" packet damage and the user 1 stack of said "Ublockable" packet damage. -- Presumably to set up for the Staff 4 which is a cc/pull. Now, (I'm guessing because ANet combined the functionality of both the offensive+defensive versions, but made the offensive portion trigger 2nd,) if you "hit" an enemy with the aoe at all -- aka. Basically if you use the skill in combat, even though the move no longer does damage to enemies it will apply the Unblockable buff to the user, which will be immediately consumed by the Weakness Application. You can still "jank it" by targeting off in space so that you don't hit any enemies with the 360 aoe end "roar" in order to heal yourself/allies/ensure you get your 1 stack UB buff. But if the skill is objectively better to use by asking your allies to "run away from the fight you're currently engaged in" imo that doesn't really lean into the "offensive nature of Warrior as a support" as they described it. It's entirely possible that only the Weakness is "supposed to be unblockable" now. But that feel antithetical to how the weapon was originally designed/described as well as to the GIANT FLASHING AOE they added for your enemy to add some counter-play to the Staff 4 that cc's/pulls so there would be some counterplay to what was presumably an unblockable aoe pull. I was (c)hoping that this bug as shown on the preview stream or any of the existing Bladesworn bugs that I had detailed before got fixed before this week's release. But I just just thought I'd make a post on this really quickly explaining this interaction while there are some eyes on the game, and pleading with ANet to Reverse this sequence. Please make the Offensive(Weakness) portion apply FIRST and then the Defensive(Heal/Unblockable Buff) portion. Thanks!!! ❤️

Made a Separate Thread for this. But in an effort to get some eyeballs on this while-it-matters(tm) I'm gonna post it over here as well. So feel free to delete either if one is in the more correct place. :) | I want to Preface this with: Warrior Staff is Mostly Great! Thank you for taking feedback on it!! | But: Explanation: Warrior Staff 3, aka. "Targeted Greatsword 5 Rush" used to have it's functionality split between "damaging / weakening" opponents if you targeted an enemy AND Healing / Granting Allies 3 stacks of "Ublockable" packet damage and the user 1 stack of said "Ublockable" packet damage. -- Presumably to set up for the Staff 4 which is a cc/pull. Now, (I'm guessing because ANet combined the functionality of both the offensive+defensive versions, but made the offensive portion trigger 2nd,) if you "hit" an enemy with the aoe at all -- aka. Basically if you use the skill in combat, even though the move no longer does damage to enemies it will apply the Unblockable buff to the user, which will be immediately consumed by the Weakness Application. You can still "Jank It" by targeting off in space so that you don't hit any enemies with the 360 aoe end "roar" in order to heal yourself/allies/ensure you get your 1 stack UB buff. But if the skill is objectively better to use by asking your allies to "run away from the fight you're currently engaged in" imo that doesn't really lean into the "offensive nature of Warrior as a support" as they described it. It's entirely possible that only the Weakness is "supposed to be unblockable" now. But that feel antithetical to how the weapon was originally designed/described as well as to the GIANT FLASHING AOE they added for your enemy to add some counter-play to the Staff 4 that cc's/pulls so there would be some counterplay to what was presumably an unblockable aoe pull. I was (c)hoping that this bug as shown on their preview stream or any of the existing Bladesworn bugs that I had detailed before got fixed before this week's release. But I just just thought I'd make a post on this really quickly explaining this interaction while there are some eyes on the game, and pleading with ANet to Reverse this sequence. Please make the Offensive(Weakness) portion apply FIRST and then the Defensive(Heal/Unblockable Buff) portion. Thanks!!! ❤️

Do you play on NA or EU?: NA What team were you on during January 12-26?: Reaper's Corridor What team were you on during January 26-February 2?: Seven Pines If there is a day of the week and time of day you usually play, what are they?: 8pm - 1am (ish) EST Did your world restructuring matchups feel more or less balanced than your regular WvW Server matches? Very Balanced, Possibly moreso than usual. Altho we're usually stuck fighting MAG on SoS & the player numbers in general were possibly inflated b/c of the beta. Did you select a WvW Guild for the beta? Yes Was your guild part of a larger alliance guild?: No. Were there usually commanders around during your normal playtime?: Yes. Which week felt most balanced and enjoyable for you?: The first. What part of world restructuring felt the most well executed?: Most of it worked flawlessly this time around. What part of world restructuring feels like it has the most room for improvement?: Communication of how it works so we can better choose which guild to use as our WvW Guild.' -- I lead / am part of a ~450-member PvX NA Guild. However this is not the Guild I used / told my members to use for the beta. The only information we've ever been shown/the community seems to be aware of is the one chart showing how, back when Alliances were going to be a thing, each "Alliance Team" would be made up by Total Guilds Numbers: Which would basically amount to a couple large Guilds + Smaller ones + assorted roamers. -- As only about 50/our 450 Members usually WvW with us we funneled these members to our smaller alt Guild for the beta. However, after talking with folks in our main Guild as well who forgot to switch+used that instead both our matchup teams seemed quite good. >> However it's still unclear as to how exactly the beta actually structures teams. From searching through Community notes / feedback it seems to work on an initially Opt-In vs Opt-Out system for a Guild Team. Which is good! This prevents the problem of being in a PvX Guild of 500 people for example only 50 of whom actually WvW but being treated as a full 500-WvW Stack for alliance' determination every matchup. However I worry about the 2nd part that seems to be Opt-Out once you select a team'. In that you could conceivably tell everyone that is in your Guild to "set it as your WvW Guild" but if those people don't play fo long stretches/if they go afk/new members are recruited to the Guild you may be stuck with an over-inflated Guild Tag for the purposes of determining your matchup. -- So maybe?* having to Opt-In and select' your Guild before every matchup rolls over might be better. Unless there's some magic going on behind the scenes to account for sfk members. | I understand that revealing too much on how the current system works may enable people to game-the-system and lead to a MAG1, MAG2, MAG3 situation. But, if possible, more Communication on how the system actually works now would be amazing for PvX Guild Leaders like myself. So we know better whether it would be better for everyone in our prospective matchups for us to use our larger Main Guild(s) or funnel our members into smaller, Alt Guilds. 😄 Thx for reading! Looking forward to what is to come!!

[Sigil of Cleansing] is ubiquitous in PvP, and is basically mandatory on every WvW Roaming build and some Zerging builds right now. And yes, I know that you can go to gw2crafts and level up a profession to 400 to craft it. Asking a new player/friend that you're trying to get in to the game to go do that is kind of an insane vertical wall. I'm not asking for it to be instant. I know it has value. But if it could have the same / similar vendor requirements as [Sigil of Absorption] / [Sigil of Draining] or just cost like 3g + 100 Badges I think that'd be ok. I can't think of any other piece of gear that's both simultaneously as "necessary" and as readily "inaccessible" as this. And as someone who is not a fan of weird, unnecessary, gatekeeping imo. this would very much like more not fewer people playing the game mode I think this would go a long way to helping that. Maybe even a "Major" version that only cleanses 2 conditions if we must go that route. But that seems like solving a problem that doesn't already exist. 😄

I'll probably get railed on the Revenant forums for saying this but I really like the idea of a reverse-gap close/mid range Weapon. Scepter felt really solid. My 2 cents tho: 1. 360 AoE (while obviously awesome) seems a little much for a base weapon. -- Maybe tons it down to 300 or 240 (still quite a lot imo) or the target cap down to 3 and tone other "Expanded Melee Range" modifiers that need updates/might make sense like Reaper Shroud-autos, or War GS auto (if it ever gets a rework) up to match. Imo. A "super form" should beat out a regular weapon. But solid idea I honestly love it. 2. Tether should be 600target/broken at 900 or 900target/broken at 1200. Cool idea great visuals. Looking forward to the Feb release! Cheers guys & gals.

While I appreciate the resolve from the community, and while obviously love Build Crafting. It was not my intention exactly to turn this thread into a design / balance discussion. Moreso my point was that this is an enormous game-wide change, the intention of which really should have been communicated better. I do however think it's important to highlight that even within the comments that I've gotten on this and the main thread there is an ENORMOUS disparity both within the Community as well as seemingly between the designers of, what this class should "do," what it's role should be in PvE, PvP, and WvW and how it should "do that role," aka. function. And I think that's the main problem. --- Another Wall of Text for those who Would Like to Read it: --- Most of the Community suggestions will likely come, as mine did, from the playstyles that we've all had to create / adapt as Bladesworn has progress through being basically 4 different elite specs throughout it's life. Similar to how fighting game nerfs/buffs can cause a Character to play radically different between seasons. --------------------------------- ANet clearly too, has had many MANY different visions for the class, deep or as not-deep as they may have been. > In the first Beta you even had to be in in Gunsaber to enter Dragon Trigger. Then that went away. [Tactical Reload] used to reload everything, and then that exploded. (Good imo. But this was still not replaced in their power budget anywhere, except maybe by leaving [Unshakable Mountain] alive. Which is also unhealthy for spam' / class identity pollution reasons.) Let's not forget that Dragon Trigger was originally 5s to charge, not 2.5s. The class used to be covered in single-stack stability skills to ensure that IF the stars aligned and you managed to combat>bullets>flow>DT it could actually be cast. And those have all left us. There's been more changes too. Until recently most of these have been things like sacrificing PvP/WvW traits + skills like the evade distance / evade window on [Dragonspike Mine] so that the class can do it's seemingly "1-envisioned role of Melee Power DPS in PvE" a-la the 2nd Berserker rework from 5 years ago. Even when they added ranged "projectiles" to Gunsaber Cal cited this as a PvE change because "Getting off the boss and not being able to hit it at all feels really bad." Which would be fine if the projectiles worked and did their damage packets properly. --------------------------------- | Talking Grandmasters: | [Daring Dragon] used to be a unique way to actually modify/take advantage of your class mechanic that sacrificed big-hits for a bunch of small ones + burst trait triggers (but you had to save up a ton of Flow still to get any kind of value out of this playstyle. But this exploded in service of PvE alacrity w/ reduced DT damage. The Protection from [Immortal Dragon] used to compliment the Stability that you got from [Dragonscale Defense] so it made sense. But then Dragonscale's Stability was changed to Protection so [ID] is completely redundant. And now that, for good or for ill, the stun on [Unyielding Dragon] is gone, it can no longer be used as a setup tool. (This is worth mentioning but it's not my main point that: it really doesn't do as much damage as you think it does, so this was really the only use.) And all of the Grandmasters, which are supposed to define your playstyle on an Elite Specialization play exactly the same. | Systems - Lots of Them | This also does not even begin to address the issues with the 6+ competing systems that Bladesworn all has pulling in different directions. Explosions, Flow, Ammunition, Armaments, Loading Bullets, Dragon Trigger, Dragon Slashes, and then all of the underlying "Actual Warrior" skills and traits, all of which trigger on / off of different situations. And while this could work, if you were trying to create hyper-specific definitions and combat circumstance triggers for things. From an outside perspective this seems like a TON of misguided effort when you could instead just channel your energy making the less-fun things more fun/usable if we are going to keep Bladesworn this way, and just tone down the numbers on the overused tools. That's why I think, in this one specific case, a Specialization Overhaul is in order. It does not have to be mine. What I proposed was not finished and is not perfect. Biased as I may be I do think that there are good ideas to pull from there, as well as in the Community at-large. And that, failing this, ANet needs to figure out how they can do small informed tweaks to what's not working to start melding all of the systems back together. The cynical part of me wants to say that these changes were actually made so that they can have even more PvE "design space" to give Bladesworn back it's F1 so it can actually heal using staff. And weird as that is I'm fine with that. But I'm fine in a way that makes sense as outlined here. And if it comes with communication so we can understand why. Making the DT2 feel worse to both use and play against because your metrics say l that it's the most used one. - So that, (again theoretically because we don't know,) people will use the other two Dragon Slashes in PvP is not a healthy direction for the class or the game. Bladesworn"s concept is good and it's there. But the above ^ is why I keep coming back to a complete overhaul of the class' actual implementation and execution. Maybe one day we'll get an explanation. But hopefully these changes give ArenaNet enough design space to figure out what they want the class to do in PvX, implement it in a way that's FUN for everyone, and hopefully it's not just single-target-power-melee-DPS.

For those who don't Bladesworn I thought I'd link a short clip illustrating the problems with the gamewide delay that ANet added to Dragon Trigger 2 - Boost: | https://youtu.be/F8yb1lKRYeQ | TL;DR :: It's Actually a PvP "Buff" Just in the weirdest possible Game-Design Way. Putting a .25 second "lag" delay on [Dragon Slash - Boost] (the 2) varies the same "explosion" animation between all 3 Dragon-Slashes, but with different actual slash timings. Meaning that, in addition to Boost no longer "feeling" good or even like the other two slashes to use + Eliminating it's functionality as a mobility skill entirely, Your opponent can no longer counter-play the timing of the slash because they have no idea which slash is coming. (Which I can only assume was the intention of adding a 0.25s additional lag "delay" to this skill because all of the other Bladesworn changes were specific to PvP.) Which leads me into the other, small, point I want to make here and that's: The lack of communication around all of these changes is the biggest problem and feels awful. Whether you still attempt to use this statue in PvP or whether you use it to Cancel the Dragon Apocalypse in PvE, this change will affect you for a minimum of the next 3 moths. And none of these changes were in the preview or explained in the notes at all. |Meaning that: | a) They had the Bladesworn changes done, and intentionally left them out because they knew how negatively people would react. (I personally don't believe this one.) or. b) These were last-minute (or at the very least done in the 4-week-gap between the preview until now) to attempt to wrest some power budget away from Bladesworn in PvP. (This wasn't the problem, Bladesworn's sustain is at least in my experience + opinion. And these changes did nothing to address that. But that's a different discussion.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ANet look, I know there's 36 variants in this game. I know this affects probably ~sub < 1/36 people out there. But it does affect those people. For the first time Bladesworn PvP jank is starting to affect PvE instead of the other way around. And an explanation of why would be nice. I don't want to go into the full thing again. Bladesworn has 6+ competing systems on it all pulling in different directions. But there were better ways to do this. If you're interested in some rando, who's played a ton of this class but is ultimately not a designer's opinion go check out my compilation post here. >> Instead of taking the "fun" off of Dragon Trigger Boost, why not tone down the damage and add some "fun" to Dragon Trigger 1 & 3? Maybe if we need to get fast changes through the 1 could inherit a 0.5s daze? (Reminiscent of the stun Removed from UD) and the 3 could have a slightly larger hitbox, do a bit more damage, or go further? As it is this "buff" isn't fun for anyone and just exacerbates the problem of one specific system or skill on Bladesworn being "readjusted" so that everything on it is even out of wack. I know that a full Rework is probably out of the question. But if you need Easy, Concrete, Constructive ways on how to Fix the class I provide them here. | P.S. Also please add a buff icon for when [Heightened Focus] is ready on your buff bar. Or better yet, give it a better Trigger condition. It's also currently impossible to use and counterplay for the same reasons. | - Hope this explanation helps and May the "Which F*cking Dragon Trigger Did He Just Use!?" odds be ever in your favor. - Cheers, o/

TL;DR :: Bladeworn's anemic PvP / WvW implementation and balance are affeting it's design across all game modes. [Unshakable Mountain] is absolutely carrying now both the power-level of Bladesworn, and along with [Tactical Reload] are dictating the Balance Direction of the class, instead of their actual class mechanic of Dragon Trigger. Which is unhealthy and needs to go. So I'm in this awkward position of being able to provide all of this experience / feedback but I'm not really sure how to do it because if I a) Make short posts, they frequently leaves out details that I end up having to fill in later or b) Make a long, detailed posts, that largely gets ignored by both the community, and (hopefully not) by the Balance Dev Team. But, "Welcome to the internet" I guess. For those who want it: The information's here, and for those who don't the TL;DR above should suffice. But if ANet truly, really, wants constructive feedback. This is what 1,000+ hours of Bladesworn feedback, papers, and compiled projects look like. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today's Patch: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you're not a wandering Gun-Samurai you probably won't know that ArenaNet heavily GUTTED my boi. Likely to avoid back-to-back stuns being possible with the reworked [Heightened Focus] which allows you to reset your Burst Skills every 12 or so seconds. *Altho if it was this specific I'm not sure why this was a problem seeing as both old [Daring Dragon] and [Dragonspike Mine] already were in the game. And these weren't a problem / no one used those outside of niche PvP builds and PvE rotations for the latter. | And while I have very knowledgeable Bladesworn friends who currently lament the loss of their stun setup combos. I actually played a more niche build when I got top 250 / do not use [Unyielding Dragon] and largely don't have a dog in this fight. | *2nd Side note [Heightened Focus] still doesn't have any visual indicator by the way, and is on an awkward and invisible 12s icd. - So, as I posted on their preview feedback thread, there's no "prepping double burst" because you'll likely be out of adrenaline / flow when it randomly triggers if you were to use it in PvP anyway. And there's not counterplay to this because your opponents have no idea when a double-burst is potentially up. I expect that they intent [HF] to be only functional-enough to be used by mashing the healing on the F1 for Raid Berserker Staff healers. But if this is the case then it shouldn't be solely affecting Bladeworn [UD] functionality/balance... anyway different discussion. What I can tell you is that this came along with some more, very damaging, additions to the whole kit that on balance make the class feel even worse than it already did to play. The most damaging of which, being the effective doubling of the cast time of [Dragon Slash - Boost] (the 2'nd one that's a dash,) from .25s to .5s. This may not sound like much, but this is basically an eternity for Bladesworn players. The larger problem that I have with this tho, is that this does nothing to nerf the actual power level or "value" of the skill because (because of how Dragon Trigger tracking works as a whole) you still continue tracking your target before Boost actually casts. Giving it effectively the same functionality, but just making it feel like absolute butt to use now. To compensate for this, or more realistically because someone on the balance team finally slotted in Bladesworn to try to figure out what was up with it this past season in PvP, they shortened the aftercasts of Gunsaber 2 and 3. And while this is appreciated, all it really does is enhance your ability to spam [Unshakable Mountain] like a troglodyte more effectively. Effectively side-stepping the ditch where we were already straddling the main issue of the class, and off potentially into a field of no-return. It also does nothing to fix any of the myriad of bugs (listed below) notably that Gunsaber 2 will often hit / explode but not do it's damage - because it does not "attach" to your target like power damage packets such as enemy spider's spit attacks, or current necro swords multi-hitting damage packs, or that Gunsaber 3 has such a long cast time that it just "goes straight up into space" half the time. These collectively happened a total of 28 times on my stream last night alone. Not to mention actual functionality problems such as that it still doesn't work properly with [Lush Forest] in PvP or WvW because it's not technically "at max 3 stacks" because it literally can't be in these game modes and doesn't display breakbar values at all. ANet, look, I know you have limited resources for Balance Devs, despite this game's combat being the actual best that has ever existed in any MMO. And not all of them can main' every class. I get it. I wouldn't know where to start with something like Revenant. I never thought I would like Bladesworn, but what I do know is Warrior. And honestly this Spec might as well just be renamed "Unshakable Mountain" at this point. Because that's all it does. I made this point in my full Bladesworn dissection video as well but the sheer existence of [Unshakable Mountain] and [Tactical Reload] are hamstringing the functionality of this class everywhere. No where is that more apparent than today's patch. | So what can be done? | However, I do not believe in criticizing something without putting in actual work & providing actual, actionable, constructive feedback. I have already put numerous(1) posts(2) on their forums(3) detailing how sacrificing pieces of Bladesworn's already anemic PvP / WvW kit in service of making it something even barely approaching functional in PvE, has really only removed the actual few "fun" aspects that it barely had, and has done nothing to actually nerf it's PvP power level. As well as said 200+ work hour video detailing the problems with the fundamental design of this class and how to fix them. Below I will also list an unfinished proposed rework for the design of this class that I was cooking, as well as the 2+ pages of still unfixed bugs this class has, as well as try to link to examples of the ones that are not easily replicable. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An (In)complete List of Bladesworn Bugs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *While you may consider some of these "features," I have reported all of these bugs multiple times. And none of them have been fixed. So here we are I guess: >> + Weapon Swap Timings for switching into/out of Gunsaber are STILL desynched from the F1 vs Weapon-Swap buttons. And have been since the introduction of Bladesworn. Making it more advantageous to F1 swap to/from Gunsaber if you have alacrity on you but more advantageous to use the Weapon Swap button if you are afflicted with chill, as said button's cool down is unaffected. << + The error message "Cannot Drop Bundles Wile Airborne" will display when attempting to swap from Gunsaber while in the air via the weapon-swap button, but not the swap Gunsaber F1 button. + Gunsaber skills 1, 2, & 3 are all listed as 900 range. But all go different distances, none of which are 900 range. + Gunsaber skill 2 frequently just fails after colliding with a target and will not do damage even if the explosion triggers especially if the target's hit ox is slightly elevated. -- Wurms in the Desert WvW borderlands are a good example of this. + Gunsaber skill 3 does not work with [Lush Forest] in PvP and WvW because it is never at "max charges" (3). + Dragon Trigger 2 - Frequently just fails on open, flat ground. + Dragon Trigger 3 - If the hitbox of this skill ever has to travel "up and over" terrain or an object to hit an enemy on the opposite side, the hit ox of this skill will frequently just continue up and over said terrain/object, over the enemy, and miss them. + Dragon Slash 1 & 2 are jumpable and 3 is jump - dogdgeable with correct timing. (This is due to the jump elevation and not the dodge frame as the attack will not be marked "evade".) + The UI is bugged and has been for over a year. Despite Untamed's UI both becoming similarly bugged and being fixed within that timeframe. + [Furious Burst] Does not properly interact with burst skills and only grants Fury if Dragon Trigger ends not when Dragonslash is cast or before. (Depreciated) + [Dragon Trigger] will continue tracking / homing a selected target even if they move out of the selectable 5,000 range. (And about 50% of the time if they enter stealth, but not reliably.) + [Flow Stabilizer] can inconsistently be double-tapped without gaining the benefit of the additional cast similar to the problem with old mantras. + If the cast for [Tactical Reload] finishes slightly after a cast of [Flow Stabilizer] it will inconsistently not reload this charge. + [Artillery Slash] Does not display breakbar values in any game mode. | Other stuff that bothers me: | + Discounting the 1-frame static image tied to Dragonslash 1 and 2, [Flow Stabilizer] is the only unique animation that Bladesworn got. And it was reused on a pack of Gemstone skins. + You STILL cannot actually sheathe your Gunsaber. Despite the bundle F1-swap skill being called "unsheathe Gunsaber." You also pull the Gunsaber out-of-nowhere off your back like an idiot despite the draw animation off-the-hip for the [Grenade Kit] swap animation already being in the game. + [Flow Stabilizer] no longer provides Stability and has not been renamed. + You still can't actually cancel [Dragon Trigger] by pressing F2 again. (Add a 1/4s micro cd as on reaper shroud to prevent double-taps) and must mash your movement buttons in the most awkward way possible to cancel [DT]. + You can aim your Dragon Slashes in Action Camera but not Free Cam. + You can't dye, or otherwise customize the look of your Gunsaber. At all. And it inherits none of the properties of any of your Legendaries. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Healthier Bladesworn Remake: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + Remove the cooldown from Gunsaber Weapon Swap and all ammunition charges from Gunsaber Skills. Have each 1-4skill have 0 cooldown but cost various amounts of "Bullets" to use. (See Below.) + Class Mechanics: Add an F3 to manually' load flow > bullets. Make this load bullets at a rate of 1/.5s and have a .25s icd. Set "Max Bullet Level" to 9. *Giving this a .5s/charge interval makes this essentially the limiting-factor in Dragon-Slash / Burst Skill Use interval, just as it is now. -- Similar to how the old cooldown on F2 DT stance was. (F2) does not exit until you move or all Bullet charges are consumed. As well as the effective cooldown on the following: + Give Bladesworn back Core Burst skills.++ Have ^ Trigger levels based on the #of Bullets currently loaded / used. 1-3 = level 1, 4-6 - = level 2, 7-9 = level 3, + By default have Dragon Trigger is your burst skill when Gunsaber is equipped only. It consumes all of your bullets to do proportional "exponential" scaling damage as now. + Rework all of the "on ammunition use" traits to scaled down/balanced equivalents of "on bullet charge." *Since there are very few remaining ammunition skills that even still function as such in Bladesworn's remaining Kit. + Give [Flow Stabilizer] a reduced effect, but 3 charges by default with a higher CD. + Make Tactical Reload instead automatically refund half of all of the bullets used on your last Burst Skill or DT and reset your Burst Skill Cooldown. Keep [Tactical Reload's] existing cooldown to prevent burst skill spam. ++ That's it! *Other notes that will help make this "work:" ++ Change the Grandmaster Traits actually affect interesting functionality so they don't all play the same. ++ Fix ALL of the existing Bladesworn and Gunsaber bugs. ++ Change Gunsaber 2 & 3 skills to actually do something meaningful other than damage. Or at the very least: pierce targets. + Profit! *I still don't think this fixes many of the problems that Bladesworn has mechanically. But I think this rework would be easy enough to implement and would go a long way to affording Bladesworn Design Space for the Addition of interesting things to it's supposed class mechanics of Gunsaber/Dragon Trigger. Instead of revolving everything/every balance decision around what has become it's real class mechanic, and ultimately a detriment to affording it interesting mechanics elsewhere: [Tactical Reload]. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion: Get rid of [Unshakable Mountain]. If there's budget for it, rework the class entirely. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Which leads me to my last and final point: Designing / Balancing a class fully around ammunition isn't ideal. Giving a bad skill ammunition doesn't make it good or usable. It just artificially jacks up the power level as we've seen with [Kick] and ["On My Mark]. So it follows that an entire class based around this should (and does) simply have an artificially steroid-infused power level as well. [Unshakable Mountain] and [Tactical Reload] continue to be the class's actual Class Mechanic/Fulcrum around which the implementation of Bladesworn in every game mode swings, and the class really just needs to be redone entirely. If you want an explainer for why' go read my above ^ rework post and/or watch the video. But if you want the TL;DR on that: Half of Bladesworn's "armaments and ammunition skills" don't even function as true ammunition' skills - they consume "all charges to do x," and again, this was just in service of adding PvE functionality where it didn't belong. - Thanks for Reading! I will hang around to try to answer any questions people might have below. - Pseudo

@Aaron.1294 The problem is this doesn't change anything: DT - Boost doesn't have any animation starting or otherwise. None of the slashes do. They just have 2 static pose frames. So with how Dragon Trigger tracking actually works you still continue tracking your target until it "casts" the skill. All this change does is make it feel worse to use without adding counterplay.

Heya Tyria! | TL:DR :: MASSIVE Giveaway Free to Enter. Monday @ 9:30pm. EST on both Twitch & on YouTube! Heroic Codes + Deluxe Upgrades for the Heart of Thorns(HoT) or Path of Fire(PoF) Expansions! Lots!! | As part of my ongoing effort to showcase how absolutely freaking awesome Build Crafting and the Combat in MMOs can actually be, I'll be giving away FULL copies of GuildWars2 this coming Monday complete with enough gold to Upgrade to the Deluxe Version of either the Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire Expansion, (via ArenaNet's current Black Friday Deals,) if you own the Base Version! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Caveats to This The What: 1) What you will get if you Win: A Heroic Edition code and enough in-game gold to>convert to gems to buy the Deluxe Edition(s) of either Heart of Thorns (HoT) or Path of Fire (PoF). *Note: You MUST OWN the base version of HoT or PoF to redeem this. So if you do not congrats on your alt account and ~300 gold or subsidized copper-fed I guess. 🙂 2) The codes that I have are Genuine but expire ~2 weeks after this giveaway. I do not believe they are region-locked, but if they are apologies. 3) The HoT or PoF expansion promotion price will expire Tuesday at 9am. EST. -- Sorry for the late notice. But I had 0 idea if this would even be possible with their Black Friday pricing structure, and put this together as fast as I could. 4) As with all of my content, this is 1000% NOT MONETIZED. If you get an add on YT or Twitch, that's on their end. I stream / do these events purely on my own dime because I love this game, and they are not sponsored by or associated with ArenaNet. So don't yell at them, and if this post, or giveaway somehow violates this sub's posting-guidelines or Twitch's Giveaway policies, I'm apologize. But regardless this is happening. So tell your friends if you like! 😄 5) Anyone with an account in good-standing with ArenaNet and my Channel (literally everyone to my knowledge for the latter,) will be able to enter. Unless you're being colossally stupid, and unable to follow my usual incredibly simple chat rules of "Use your brain" or have otherwise angered my extremally chill mods. 6) Giveaways will continue until my ~2 hour window expires or I run out of codes + Giveaway Gold. - Whichever comes first! The How: Giveaway codes will be answers to weird GuildWars2 build crafting and systems trivia that I think is neat, relevant to new players, or just especially weird. Fear not new players! All answers/codes will be given out before each Giveaway. So everyone will have equal chances to win! The Why: Because Build Crafting rules. The systems in this game rock. And for the first time in my 11-Year GW2 Career I have the In-Game money to fund something like this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have any questions feel free to throw a comment under here or ask on the day-of and I'll try my best to answer to the best of my knowledge! Rock on & I'll see you in Tyria! o7

Moving this over to "Community Events." b/c I missed that tab entirely. ❤️

TL;DR : [Heightened Focus] Needs better trigger, and possibly a better/worse effect if that trigger is going to have a longer/shorter cooldown. e.g. On-elite-skill-use. Maybe move + a unique effect for [Stalwart Focus]. Other changes are very solid. ----- First off: I really like a lot of the PvE changes for most if not all classes. And the new dude's work on Ranger pet work is solid. It's great to see pieces of anyone's kit that are pretty outdated getting some love. Also. Thank you for previewing/taking feedback on this a month in advance! More communication from you guys+gals is always appreciated. ----- That being said here's my 2 cents: Note 1: The [Heightened Focus] rework*? ^ is good. But possibly in the wrong spot imo. It could also be in the location currently occupied by [Dual Wielding] (the fairly useless Arms Grandmaster.) It's also definitely not replacing the what people enjoyed / Bladesworns lost with the [Daring Dragon] rework. It's also fairly unclear as to how new Heightened Focus is going to trigger. I understand the concern with adding any kind of "reset" to Burst Skills. But as I wrote in this post the reason people liked the reset on old [Daring Dragon] was because it created a unique playstyle (for then Bladesworn - and now potentially other Warrior flavors) where you no longer had to hit with your slashes but you severely hamstrung your burst skill's power but could potentially wiff a burst skill in favor of getting the mobility from [Dragonslash - Boost] or aegis-stripping/vulnerability-stacking potential from [Dragon Slash - Reach] when used with [Sundering Burst] in Arms. My proposed change to [Heightened Focus] to make everyone happy: EITHER: (More Realistically) >> (Edit 1:) Leave it in Discipline and have [Heightened Focus] give you a buff for 10s (to match Tactical Reload's faster bullet loading buff) that reduces your burst skill cooldown to 0 on elite skill use for 10s. -- If You're concerned about double Bladesworn PvE burst balance with current traits+ skills it is literally impossible to generate enough flow to pull off more than 1&1/2 consecutive 10-bullet Dragon Slashes, (which you line up with Dragonspike Mine reset anyway) even with full flow generation traits. On top of this PvE Bladesworn does not even take Discipline currently. So taking this trait line at all I'll severely hamstring your DPS. OR Move it to the [Dual Wielding] spot in arms and make all burst skills hit as one tier or 2 bullets-less with a minimum of tier-1 / 1 bullet but automatically refresh your burst skills 1+1xtimes the tier of adrenaline/flow used or just if they're cast with tier-3 or tier-2 efficacy. >> This way people can spec into either getting their critical hit chance from the newly augmented Burst Mastery OR Spec into some more precision so that you can have a higher chance of your weaker burst skills hitting critical hits with the new [Deep Strikes]. -- Thank you for this change and leaving the signet trait alone btw. ----- Note 2: It's also very unclear how new Stalwart Focus works / what it does. If it simply "increases incoming / outgoing healing effectiveness" I'd advise taking a second look at this because nothing else in Discipline works with or complements this healing in any way. And Warrior's Sprint is still Warrior's only real, reliable source of movement speed. Instead since Discipline is the "More Warrior Stuff" trait line I'd rather see the banner trait moved here and in the place of Double Standards something along the lines of "Whenever you remove a non-damaging condition from an ally remove a damaging condition from them and heal them for ~300hp" put in this slot. That way Discipline could augment the somewhat mediocre healing of Tactics rn. If people chose to spec into it. Thanks for reading & considering! The condi mirage changes look amazing btw. Rock on Balance Crew! o/

* When I sold my bags the price was 5.01s / bag. It has since dropped ofc. But if you stockpile + wait 2-3 months it will go back up. It's also actually around ~860 bags / hour tho so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ take from that what you will! 😁 Enjoy all! + Hmu with any questions!!

@Gilavin.2145 There IS action camera mode that you could try! While it's not native controller mapping you could definitely rig up something with a cheap program like xpadder or reWASD. I believe you get a free license of reWASD if you have a device with an AMD CPU too! 🤔

What do y'all think? 🤔 Do they need to / how could downstates be rebalanced? 😄

What are your favorite under-rated Skills or Traits? & Which do you think are just plain bad? 😄

------- Shoutout to all my fellow Gamers with accessibility issues. Long-story-short: I play GW2 on an XBox controller because I have back issues and it's more comfortable than using a Keyboard. At least for long periods of time. With the rise of these control schemes becoming more popular (with handheld gaming) I wanted to give a shot in the arm to everyone out there tweaking their controls schemes for GW2! Any content can be done with such a setup! You just have to practice with it. ^^ Amazing job, as well, to my VoA crew that did prog with us for this fight! It's definitely a marathon not a sprint. But very rewarding now that we've cleared this fight twice. ------- I can verify that my controls can be adapted to both Steam Deck as well as GPD handhelds. They may not be for you, but I'll try to hang around in the comments to answer any questions people might have about getting started with a similar setup! Thanks ANet, for this awesome (if kinda buggy) fight! It was truly a capstone to the Dragon Cycle as well as a great milestone in my now 10-year Guild Wars 2 "career." Rock on! & I'll see you in Tyria! \o/

I made a thing!! \o/ Still pretty new at making these. So if you have any Suggestions or ideas of what you'd like to see lmk! 😄 Hope you enjoy. Cheers!!

While I'm somewhat relieved to see other people sharing this sentiment, I think this thread lost the plot a bit: + To @NeverLoseGuy.3894's Point: Yes old [Daring Dragon] DID suck in PvE. But that's like saying "[Eternal Champion] sucks compared to [Bloody Roar] or [Thermal Release Valve] sucks for power damage compared to [Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit] or [Photonic Blasting Module]. [Daring Dragon] was never designed for / billed for PvE at all. This reflects a common problem I've been observing, not only in the Warrior section, but through all the "profession" sections on this forum, and thus also the game, where: There seems to be a huge, stark divide between people who play all game-modes and those who only play one gamemode and for whom the others might as well not exist. (Usually just PvE but not always.) And I have observed, especially post this-most-recent-balance-patch, that whenever someone makes a post they tend to assume that all other players also play either "PvAll" or "just PvY" and expect others to have context for their ideas. This is why my main point was that I really, really don't like the [Daring Dragon] change by ANet because it reflects a shift towards endorsing this mentality of unnecessarily sacrificing pieces of PvP/WvW kits in favor of turning these pieces into just PvE tools that perform, but clearly don't perfectly slot into a Specialization's designed "kit." (As they did with the 2nd Berserker rework years ago -- before it was proven that there was an easy middle-ground between gaining more adrenaline or duration on Rage Skill Use depending on what gamemode you were in.) And while I think there are definitely ways they could/can hybridize traits for all game modes: (e.g. Just put alacrity on the repeated slash OG trait, and/or make the alacrity granted be *per-bullet and have different scaling in each game mode.) They just didn't, and instead took away another piece of Bladesworn's already waning PvP kit so that it could do "X current design goal in PvE" -- in this case dump out alacrity. Which I honestly, don't think is healthy, aligns with their original vision of cross-gamemode-impactful-gameplay, or is at all necessary. Hopefully they revert or revise this at some point. But it's mainly worrying because they sacrificed a more functionality-oriented trait when there was objectively a better and more redundant option: [Immortal Dragon]. *I do just think it was easiest with the damage target that they were trying to hit since the trait already had the 5-reduced bullet coding. (Especially since they still, at time of writing, either have still not implemented the stated increased damage-per-bullet scaling -- no one seems to be sure if this existed & then immediately went away, or the double charge rate per-bullet.) Warrior is not the only profession in the game, but it's clearly the most lacking. And ideally I'd really like to see more care paid to Warrior and hybrid traits like the above implemented. Failing that, I'd like to at least see the existing alacrity trait just moved to [Immortal Dragon] or ideally [Lush Forest] since having the 2 effects seems redundant and old [Daring Dragon] revived or the current broken tooltip implemented. *Or revived with ancillary alacrity added to it or a different boon (realistically, honestly:, stability and/or resistance for PvP/WvW) -- since Bladesworn currently has 0 and this might be a good way to give it some -- i.e. having some stab+resistance for successive slashes (if not the first) which would retain the existing counter-play of being able to CC bladesworn while they're charging the first slash, while still giving in PvE. As far as PvE goes: I understand why they just went with the flat 10s of huge aoe alacrity in PvE that obviously feels so powerful: a) Tbh it was probably easy because the coding was simpler. & b) They likely suspect that a LOT of players don't understand how Dragon Trigger works, at all. And don't want there to be a huge 'punishment' for accidentally moving/canceling your DT stance with wasdqe. But if that is the case I'm just gonna say: "Look, Anet, if people can figure out how to charge 10 bullets to do damage, they can figure out how to charge 5 to give alacrity." I know you want to make content like Raids and CMs more accessible. I do too! But have some faith in both your PvE community (that they can read) as well as your Build Crafting Community (that you supposedly want to encourage) that we can come up with clever ways to use the cool & fun, gameplay-altering tools that you put in the game like: Old [Daring Dragon]. Please bring back old [Daring Dragon] and stop only seemingly listening to the loud people shouting that "a thing sucks because they don't understand how to use it." The people who aren't shouting are probably not doing so because they're actually having fun with your game! Meme' builds are only memes' until they win a monthly EU Automated Tournament. Then they're "Broken as F*ck" and "So good a monkey could play it." -Just 2 of the quotes I got while using this EXTREEMLY FUN build to top PvP, despite it having a ton of nuances that you actually had to learn, because I enjoyed it. (See that thumbnail for more proof ^.) And I know I'm not the only one. It *is,* however, my biased AF opinion that: "Fun and unique builds should exist and be balanced, not be deleted" as Cal has stated numerous times. Especially if there is a better option that's also simpler. And there is. It's on the top row of the Grandmaster line in Bladesworn. And I hope this can align with your macro game design philosophy too. Thanks for reading & Cheers!! \o/

As the person who DID make that video, I don't disagree with what you said. But your tone sucks. I tried to make something constructive by putting a butt load of effort into playing, researching, testing, verifying, writing and editing that into a format that was hopefully both informative and entertaining enough that it might get the attention of a merciful ANet dev enough to augment Bladesworn. A profession that deserves so much more & that clearly you & I would both like polished up. I know you're frustrated, I am too. But please don't undermine that. Constructive feedback helps, just dumping does not.

This actually reminds my of one of the first theory writeups I ever did. The full post is viewable on reddit here. The TL;DR is that most of the skills would actually be 3-hit chains or series of skills-that-flip-over that don't reset until you do the next step. So you could essentially weave in and out of combos kind of like DMC. ----- Relevant Skills Taken From Post: Weapons Skills: Spear 1.1 - Thrust - Thrust your spear forward in a line & apply bleeding. 1.2 - Gouge - Sweep your spear in a small cone in front of you applying bleeding & vulnerability. 1.3 - Rip & Flip - Flip over your spear forward closing a small distance & applying slow (0.5s) to your enemies & swiftness (1s) to yourself. 2.1 - Engage - Throw your spear & inflict cripple (0.5s) & bleeding. 2.2 - Ensnare - Throw 2 spears in succession, the first inflicts vulnerability, the second inflicts poison. 2.3 - Impale - Wind up & then throw a spear with such force that it pierces & inflicts burning. 3 - Pinwheel - Spin your spear around your head reflecting projectiles & applying vulnerability to enemies in melee range. (15s cd) 4 - Harpoon - Throw a spear with a chain attached. If it hits an enemy this skill becomes. (“Reel Em’ In) (20s cd) 4.2 - Reel Em’ In - Pull your target & any targets they hit on their way to you. 5.1 - Seismic Strike - Slam down with your spear causing magma to burst forth from the earth that cripples & burns foes in an area around you. 5.2 - Volcanic Wave - Pulse the ground again causing a 2nd eruption in a slightly larger aoe that also releases volcanic smog that poisons foes. 5.3 - Eruption - After a brief delay strike down with such force that it causes a pillar of fire to erupt from the surface that burns & launches nearby foes. (Finishing this whole chain has a 45s cd, similar to the thief elite skill.) ----- I strongly push at least the idea of a Thrown Spear and/or one with both a melee as well as a ranged auto attack. 😄

Pretty much anything for open world, that's why they give it to you as lvl 80 gear now. The best imo are: Ele (any) Guard (any) Rev (any) -- Renegade excells tho & can even be used in raids if spec'd correctly. Note: SAVE YOUR LVL 80 CELE AQUABREATHER for that character. Regardless of what you end up doing, this is one of the best and only ways to get a decent stat'd lvl 80 one. 😄 Cheers & hope this helps!

To the above ^ it also wouldn't have relied on the problems that Warrior/Bladesworn has always had of: a) actually being in combat b) building 100 flow and then c) channeling + casting the slash. I can't tell you how many times Bladesworns or Warriors in my HTCM group or similarly bugged instances drop combat for no reason and have to build adrenaline/flow up to get their DPS going again. Now imagine that at a pivotal point in the raid & affecting your entire group because you're now the source of Alacrity. Altho, if [Lush Forest] is going to do it, the trait should proc off any charge use imo. That way it could avoid the playstyle of "staying at the last charge" that the Devs mentioned they want to avoid with Bladesworn play. (Altho imo, you kind of end up doing that anyway.)