cheese.4739

Arcane Shield and Arcane Brilliance are nice. Arcane Power has always been, and will always be, a bit useless unless it gets a proper rework. I still wanted Arcane Wave to get given a couple of seconds of Revealed and otherwise stay the same. It would've been so nice to have at least a wee bit of counterplay against stealth bursters.

I had managed to get over my initial negativity on seeing the balance preview last month... but Arcane Wave now has a cast time? That completely removes all of its previous utility, turning it into a potential assault skill for close-range weapons and becoming useless for anyone who had any fun with it before. I'd really hoped that 'leaps' was just in reference to a teleport. I know that melodramatically posting here to whinge about it won't do anything, but I'm really pissed off about this. It was a key part of my survivability as an instant blast finisher for Staff Catalyst, but now it's a janky forced move, with cast time, which doesn't even evade. And now that the change has been made to completely break it, I know it's not going to get reverted any time soon. Rest in peace, Arcane Wave. I hope someone else can find a use for you in their PvP build, because you're now dead to me.

Near to launch, there was a lot of concern about having each profession have a unique 'feel'. ANet really didn't want Engi kits to lose their identity as a special type of skill for that profession. Since then, of course, all sorts of overlaps have appeared between the professions. And conjured weapons have been incredibly niche for so long, with only the shield occasionally being brought out in PvP or the frost bow being an awkward CC against some bosses in PvE. I'd like them to be reworked into 'temporary kits', which could be swapped into and out of at will but only for a fixed duration (and with no second copy on the ground). I'm thinking maybe a 33-50% uptime for them? After the change to kits was implemented they could have their skills tweaked as necessary, but they definitely need to become less awkward than they are now before it becomes worth trying to balance them around their constituent skills. As things are, the frost bow should just be replaced with its #5 skill alone to be an easy CC utility.

I made a longer comment on the oveview post in which I strongly disagreed with the proposed changes to Arcane Wave but, having thought on it, they've grown on me a little. I'm still a bit bothered about the range/radius reductions and forced moment for that skill, since it feels like another buff to close-range Ele weapons and significantly reduces its utility for me as a Staff user, and I'd still personally prefer it to apply Revealed to a daze - but having the skill do meaningful damage would be a nice upgrade. Right now I primarily cast it for the Elemental Surge conditions and/or combo finisher, with the damage it does only being occasionally relevant. This all still goes out the window if the skill gains a cast time or interrupts other skills though. And making it a leap finisher instead of a blast (implied by the wording of the notes) would make it much more selfish - not a huge deal but making it less useful for anyone running support builds.

As what feels like the only Elementalist who ever runs Arcane Wave + Elemental Surge... I don't think I like this rework. Arcane Wave has been a consistent part of my arsenal for many years as an instant long-range AoE blind or immobilise, and it got really fun after End of Dragons dropped since that added the perk of allowing it to proc combo/aura synergies for me as a Staff Catalyst. I'll often make use of that brief immobilise or chill to keep an incoming opponent out of a capture point for a moment longer or hold someone in range of my ground-targeted skills, or I'll pop the AoE blind to help secure a stomp or react to a big incoming attack, or I'll use the combo to get off a cleanse or access an aura or gain a bit of stability without having to interrupt another skill or reposition myself. Having the skill's range cut by a third and forcing a teleport on there removes so much of its utility - especially for me as a Staff user since I lack close-range defenses and have to manage distance to stay alive, and I don't think the daze and potential practical benefits of a (short!) blink compensate for those losses nearly well enough. It sounds like you're trying to rework the skill into a close-range brawler attack to give Hammer/Dagger Eles even more to play with, further reducing the options for a longer-range Staff player. And if 'leaps' means it's going to have its blast finisher effect changed to a leap finisher, or even worse if it's going to gain cast or travel time... that basically ruins the skill for all current users. And from the PvE side of things: it's an incredibly useful tagging skill when running large group content. I don't want to lose out on loot! I've gotta say that I do like the sound of the change for Arcane Brilliance, and the Elemental Surge interactions with Arcane Brilliance and Arcane Shield; Arcane Shield in particular has felt undertuned for a long time, since attack rates on all professions have gone up but it's stayed at just those three wee blocks before shattering (which are often just entirely ignored since there's better access to unblockable skills now too). And I'm not necessarily averse to an Elemental Surge rework changing from the current condition infliction to something else. But I'll be sorely disappointed if Arcane Wave loses its range (both casting distance and AoE radius) and forces me to land on top of enemies if I cast it. What I've actually wanted from Arcane Wave for a long time is for it to apply Revealed for a couple of seconds. This would add a lot of practical use to the skill without hurting any builds that currently use it, and applying a brief Revealed in an area would have practical benefits for all weapon playstyles. Please consider using this as the skill's 'flavour' instead!

Tip for anyone bothered by those chests: you can set them to hide in your F11 options tab. Under "Dynamic HUD", set Rewards to Never Show and all bouncy chests will be invisible until you press the Alt key (or whatever you have mapped to 'show ally names'. And when you change maps, all but the most recent 4 bouncy chests are automatically opened for you - including just changing Amnytas instances after the meta forces your original one to close. Obviously having to do this isn't optimal but it beats having to either click in two places over and over (with delay) or have those annoying animations visible all meta. The huge number of forced-view meta chests is one of several issues I have with Amnytas, along with the badly implemented participation (you get most of your participation from killing basic-tier kryptis in the early events, and half of the stuff done in the meta - including yoga and killing tentacles from your skyscale - doesn't count and can cause you to lose credit) and the utterly stupid number of repetititve pop-up tutorial windows. I enjoy the general design and flow of the event chain, but it's got so many really basic issues that make it so frustrating to do regularly.