Leyris.3507

Unlike every previous expansion, and even most Living World seasons, it just doesn't seem to add anything. No new traits, no new elite specs. No new classes or races. No new crafting or gathering professions. A whopping one new weapon... next year. No new mounts. No new fundamental capabilities like gliding, or even fishing or skiffs. No new stats. Not even any new combinations of existing stats. No new boons or conditions. No new equipment. At best there are relics, but that just moved things from runes into a different slot, rather than actually adding anything. No updates to visual customization. Still the same few faces/bodies/hairstyles that we've had for ages. Still no way to adjust things like makeup separately from face. Still no way to mix and match parts of "outfits" with "armor skins." Still no way to dye weapons. Not even so much as a preview window that shows your entire character. Nothing new or changed for PvP or WvW. I gather that for people who are super into the lore/story, it might be interesting. But in terms of game systems, there seems to be a complete lack of anything new.

Incidentally, all those "has joined recently" badges on so many people's icons here should be a sign. My account goes back to 2012. The fact that so many people who have been playing the game for years and have never felt the need to use the forum until this patch came out should be a clear indicator of how unprecedentedly poor its design is.

Some of the problems introduced by the 6/27 patch are more fundamental than can be resolved by twiddling with damage coefficients. Sand shade duration isn't a power issue, it's a fun issue. Sand shades could last a minute, an hour, or forever, and it would not make Scourge more powerful, it would just make it more pleasant. And even more fundamentally, Scourge had a unique niche that has been taken away. Scourge was uniquely capable of provided a constant and massive amount of barrier, and of quickly bringing back up any people who still managed to die. I'm aware that's less desired in highly skilled raid groups, but that's the point: it's a different set of capabilities that are good--great!--for a different thing. The uniqueness was beautiful, and it has been taken away just to make one more bland boon emitter. And speaking of boons, Necromancer's unique ability to apply a ton of boon corruption is also a tragedy to lose. The idea of boons not only being meaningfully strippable, but possible actually risky is an additional layer of depth that the game should embrace rather than remove. Similarly, blandifying Confusion into just another Torment is also a loss of interesting depth. The idea that players might sometimes be at risk from their own boons and their own abilities, and might actually want to make tactical decisions about whether and when to use them, provides an axis of depth and complexity that it is a tragedy to lose. Please note that none of this is about asking for Necromancers and Mesmers to be more powerful, it's that we want them to be more interesting.