Nothing.8564

Normally I do not post my builds but in order to cure the metasheep population of their preconceived notions here it is 😄 ============================= Valor - 1 - 1 - 1 Honor - 1 - 2 - 3 Firebrand - 3 - 3 - 3 Rabid amulet Rune of the Druid Relic of Lyhr(Or Relic of [Defender/Monk/Herald] if you do not know how to make use of Lyhr without dying) Staff | Sigil of Transference/Smoldering Mace / Shield | Sigil of Transference/Smoldering Utilities Signet of Resolve Signet of Mercy "Stand your Ground!" Mantra of Lore Mantra of Liberation =============================

A choice of any existing grandmaster trait from any class. ... At least then theorycrafters would be busy.

ty, 10/10 for ANET for giving two skills the same name on the same profession.

The only class thats been bursting me down lately is ranger so I've been looking at my combat log vs them more and noticed in my last fight Maul double hit me instantly. This was a 1v1 fight and combat log shows two instant 5,046 hits of maul from the same player. He was a soulbeast, so I read over their traits and whatnot and do not see anything that stands out to make this possible. My build has perma regeneration which ticks every 1 second, the double maul hit me instantly within this 1 second window, not even quickness + alac paired with #5 combo or quickdraw trait could pull that off so I'm probably missing something that makes this possible. Thanks in advance for the info to whoever knows.

More content has been removed from PvP than added. This continues to happen and is killing the game. Give us back all of the removed sigils, amulets, damage on CC, traits/skills/utilities that were gutted for PvP, in fact, just give us back everything at this point.

From what I've seen the only changes to combat are: Weapons no longer restricted to elite spec New weapon for each profession 6th piece armor rune bonus mechanic separated from rune choice Isn't weapon choice the easiest and first part of theorycrafting? As someone who's made pretty much every single build I've ever played in the 10k hours since launch, weapon choice is often the most boring part of theorycrafting as its generally the first step in making a build. I also happen to main engineer and our weapon choices are bad on top of not even having a weapon swap. As for the new mechanic splitting off from existing armor runes, this will actually make theorycrafting easier as now you have less of a balancing act to perform when trying to chose the best options. I've often spent days testing and optimizing builds for PvP and have had amazing success(until the build gets deleted by 'balance patches'), meaningful theorycrafting challenges comes from having meaningful options. Every profession I've played is still being watered down into a bland boring shell of its former glory. It's like being a cook in a kitchen where everything tastes the same. Maybe if they threw in utilities in addition to weapons, that would have had much more impact on build creation but to be honest I was hoping for something along the lines of giving all builds access to 4 specialization choices instead of 3. (I remember in vanilla GW2 when you had access to all 5 specialization trees at once, so builds would be something like, 10/30/0/30, or 5/15/30/30)

A few good points brought up here, just a reminder that this suggestion is for core engi only. 1) Double heal Yes this would be strong for personal survivability, but how many other professions have immense survivability? Additionally, I don't think anyone would feel pigeonholed into this as there are amazing diverse options for the F1 skill, AED(dmg), Toss H(boons), Regen mist(water field), ect. I personally would pick up the AED stun. 2) Core is bad in competitive modes Build diversity would instantly be through the roof specifically for this under performing core profession. Engineer historically has always been a swiss army knife, capable of a vast array of different things at once. Its why I played the absolute kitten out of the class. Once Elite specs rolled out, an 'identity' was attempted to be ironed into the profession which gutted so many utilities for the sake of 'balance'. Core would be able to find a place in competitive modes if this change were to happen. 3) Cheese builds becoming cheesier Historically Engi has had many different cheese builds and I do see some potential for some new ones to pop up under these conditions, but nothing OP or nothing that other elite specs couldnt cheeze harder. 4) Toss X Toss X is nice, and we used to be able to double cast it at one point thanks to a trait, but in times where you want damage, orbital strike is better, or more healing, Med pack drop. I dont see any ability being 'locked in' as a necessity. 5) Some skills would never see the light of day This may be true, however, it would be true only for core engi. TL;DR version: Core engi would return to being a swiss army knife of options, and I dont see this outshining anything else that exists.

I miss the old school engi feel before its identity began to erode away. If core engi exclusively could choose its toolbelt skills independently of the utility chosen, core engi would return in all its glory.

These patch notes will cover only 3 topics: 1) Alacrity & Quickness reworks 2) Introducing new mechanics exclusive to Core builds 3) PvP(HotM) - 'The Great Reset' 1) Alacrity & Quickness There is no doubt in their current iteration these two boons have significant impact and play a significant role in not only group composition but also build design. Having permanent uptime on these two boons creates two gameplay experiences, one with them and one without. Without them, players experience begins to feel slow and sluggish for most builds which created a negative experience. Trying to make these two boons work in terms of balance has begun to sacrifice profession identity which is the opposite desired outcome. Alacrity is being phased out, all traitable cooldown reductions will be applied to players skills as a result. Traits that applied alacrity will be reworked to offer other benefits. Players access to Quickness will be reduced and no longer be shareable to other players. This boon will still play a role in players builds and play-styles, however it will return to its origins of being applied intentionally for quick controlled bursts. 2) Introducing new mechanics exclusive to Core builds Many players have voiced their desires to see core builds compete with elite specs. The changes listed below will give the core variant of each profession a unique gameplay element, some of which are reminiscent of their original design while others will emphasize the core feel of their profession. Elementalist: While attuned to an element, every successfully completed attack with the weapons #1 skill reduces all of the remaining cooldowns of that elements abilities by 1 second. Necromancer: Every third completed #1 attack will corrupt boons in an AoE radius(1 second cooldown), if no boons are present then a condition will be applied based on the weapon that triggered it. (Death shroud #1 is also included) Mesmer: Phantasms remain active and will repeatedly attack in the same fashion as their original design. Engineer: You can select your toolbelt skills independently of your utility skills. Warrior: Every 5 seconds gain a buff that makes your next weapon skill cooldown not trigger when activated. Guardian: Granting boons to yourself or others increases all of your stats by 1% for 10 seconds, stacks up to 15 times. Revenant: Legend swap CD reduced by 3. Ranger: Both pets can be out at once. Thief: Initiative cost reduced by 1 for all skills. 3) PvP(HotM) 'The Great Reset' In order to restore and maximize build and plays style diversity we will be adding back all amulets, sigils, and runes, and additionally reintroducing damage on CC skills.

The human element mixed into the complex system does make it exponentially more difficult to balance. Before diversity was 'balanced' out of the game, the amount of build diversity was insane. I often would take breaks from the game and return to a meta that could easily be broken by creating a counter build. The main issue PvP faced back then was that the human element consisted of too many sheep that didn't break from the meta which gives devs the difficult choice of either breaking the balance or telling players to try new things. A very long time ago the devs stated warrior was in a good state when the class was poorly received by the community, then a hammer warrior build popped up out of nowhere and smacked the meta into a new phase. Around this time I made a condi 1vX warrior build that dominated the meta and even won a few tournaments with it. Honestly, throughout most of this games history the main balance problem was the community flocking to meta builds and ignoring the possibility that they had counters. What I absolutely loved about GW2 was that I could spend a few hours theorycrafting a build and end up with something amazing that I could play for months and months while being unmatched and unmirrored. This game has immense potential but 'balance' seems to be a spotlight that randomly moves to different areas highlighting the good while leaving the rest in the shadows. Its only nowadays that the light the spotlight casts is shrinking leaving us with less than we ever had.

I agree, the original rifle was one of the reasons I've spent 1,500 hours on engi. When stability was up, the launch+jumpshot combo was so insanely satisfying that it was the most iconic GW2 weapon experience for me still to this day. I honestly havent been able to use the 'new rife' as it just feels like a cheap knockoff of the original.

Both Quickness and Alacrity are 100% bad game design when they can reach permanent uptime. Fundamentally it is bad to change the tempo that players are playing under, this will never change. To highlight this principle take an extreme such as Sword Weaver DPS. Attack speed AND cooldown reduction significantly alter the speed in which you the player have to perform under, AND the rhythm of your cooldowns which you have keep mental tabs on. The nature in which you're playing the game shifts dramatically under these two boons, which causes a huge problem for actually enjoying the game as a Weaver as now you're experience is split into two experiences: One with these boons, and one without. As weaver cannot provide either of these boons on their own, playing solo will now feel 'slow and sluggish'. This is fundamentally a bad experience to give players. To those that remember quickness before it was a boon, its role was to execute a quick 'long cast' ability such as 100 blades, heartseeker spam, pistol whip, ranger longbow 2, ect ect. This felt great and rewarding as your access to Quickness was severely limited but you could make an attack which already felt great, feel even more satisfying. This doesn't adjust a players tempo but instead offered a high intensity burst that was short lived. This was when Quickness was a great game mechanic. Alacrity is just bad design with no room for a balanced spot. Why? Circling back to the tempo aspect of game design, how are you going to balance a blanket cooldown reduction that doesn't dramatically shift the rhythm of your gameplay? Its going to feel great when you have it and awful when you dont, and as a player you'll have to become accustomed to these two modes of gameplay. On a side note, I'm actually surprised to see so many voices of reason on the forums regarding these two boons being problematic, it gives me hope that a change might happen.

What actually prompted me to write this thread was that they removed almost all of necromancers corrupt boons in the preview for this upcoming patch. I don't even play necro anymore so this on paper would be a 'win' for me as Engi and Ele get hit hard by corrupts, but instead its a super depressing change where they're just further marching towards stripping classes of their identity.

Yeah. Its crazy to think about, but really the game's new balance design boils down to literally what boons a build can/cant give. What happened to a class being defined by its kitten abilities/art/playstyle/uniqueness.

From someone who's seen every state of the game, from its best, to its worst. 10,000 hours /age, I started a few months after launch. 16,500 PvP games 4,600 on Engineer 3,645 on Ele 3,400 on Necro 2,000 on Thief 1,000 on Warrior Speaking only for myself, it pains me to see the direction game 'balance' is heading for this game. Removing amulets, sigils, & runes. Removing dmg on CC skills. Removing class identity by nerfing or removing what made a class unique. When this game was at its best, amulets such as vipers and diviners were in the game, high boon up time but necros had a significant amount of corrupt. Classes felt unique, I remember reading a dev post when they increased necro's corrupting capabilities saying that it was an essential part of their unique design and they wanted more emphasis on it. They tried emphasize each classes unique aspect and it was great. From a veterans perspective, everything feels watered down or gutted. The S tier builds now are just braindead beefy brawlers. When this game was at its worst, probably was after HoT's release when the 'nothing died' meta began, where nothing would die. However, this new era of PvP balance is like watching the life be drained out of what was once amazing, which feels worse. Its too late to do anything for this new era, but hopefully someone on the balance team will come along that can do this amazing game justice.