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Allarius.5670

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  1. Accepting these new elite specializations have observably less synergy/interaction with core trait lines, I don't see this is a surprising trend. An alternative that generates higher levels of diversity is unquestionably desirable, but considering historical balance practices tend to gut core traits and abilities while maintaing existing synergies suggests it is impractical given whatever limitations ANET is experiencing. This trend may very well be a conscious decision given their current capabilities and evaluations of their historical balance and design approaches rather than made in ignorance.
  2. Well said on all accounts! The rotational bit is especially important considering that appears to be intrinsic to Tempest and Weaver. It is absolutely all about perception. Players struggle to see equivalence in a full package and I'm not sure I've seen any particular commentary from the devs elaborating on their vision of (equitable) tradeoffs to help steer those perceptions.
  3. Numbers Vs design. Numbers can be cranked up and down to make anything meta or not-meta. The call for equivalence isn't just about effectiveness, it is about design and the relationship between the two. Isn't this exactly why we've seen Firebrand gutted in PvP? It gave far too much with the only effective option available to adjust numbers until its use was dramatically lowered.
  4. That is an unreasonable interpretation. Players expect a sense of equivalence between what is given and what is taken. Instant Activation is huge, no doubt about it, but 3 instant activation skills are not equivalent to 5 skills with a resource limiter each that can contribute the same effects + more.
  5. SUMMARY -Hammer needs more fields and finishers to make use of its traits as much as, if not more than, core weapons. -Hammer needs more accessible healing, cleansing, and defense. -Hammer needs some minor cast time and damage tweaks. -Hammer's circular projectiles need quality of life improvements to make them easier to utilize. -Hammer needs a little more reach/range to help better carve it's own niche. -Augments lack payoff for extreme setup requirements. -Address the accessibility and useability of Jade Sphere. SPECIFICS Hammer's Combo Fields and Finishers -Catalyst is the only time hammer can see play and core elementalist weapon sets take advantage of Elemental Epitome in a much more significant way due to their access to low cooldown fields and finishers. -Hammer lacks the ability to effectively utilize Catalyst traits by comparison because of this. It would feel much much better if hammer had at least enough fields and finishers to be synergy equivalent if not more. Hammer's Active Defense -Hammer feels like it lacks effective defensive options. It has no options that can be effectively utilized without an opponent to hit or be hit by. This dramatically reduces hammer's ability to effectively sustain itself in dynamic situations. -Add strong base healing to Crashing Font on top of its heal per target hit. -Add 2 condition cleanse base to Cleansing Typhoon that is increased further to 1 additional condition cleansed per target hit. -Whirling Stones needs something additional because it's current cast time to damage ratio is incredibly low: cripple and weakness on hit, protection on hit, projectile reflection, barrier + barrier on hit, or some combination of these defensive effects. -Combined with more fields/finishers and increased aura access from Elemental Epitome, these suggestions may be sufficient. Hammer's Damage/Cast Times -Using Scrapper Hammer skills for comparison, most of the damage numbers look appropriate for a bruiser playstyle but some of them would feel better with minor cast time/damage adjustments. -Do note the defensive nature of Scrapper's hammer skills, meaning the damage to defense ratio on Catalyst hammer does not feel properly aligned at the moment. -Lower Wind Slam and Stonestrike cast times to 1/2 second. -Add a bleed application to Stone Strike. -Remove the projectile from Shock Blast and make it a bolt from the sky. Hammer's Circular Projectiles -Quality of Life Suggestion: If a circular projectile is not out and the associated skill is on cooldown when Grand Finale is not on cooldown, make Grand Finale replace the skill so it can still be activated. -Circular projectile uptime feels low. The flow of skill activations required to upkeep these skills versus the need to activate other skills feels off. Either their immediate payoff feels too low to warrant activation and upkeep effort or the upkeep effort feels too high and is too easily punished. -It is very very easy to miss an activation and lose the upkeep/payoff. -This may be less an issue with more fields/finishers, increased aura access from Elemental Epitome, and more effective active defense. Improving hammer's effectiveness in these other areas may open up space to better focus on circular projectile upkeep. Hammer's Dynamic Range -Hammer's range variance feels very fun and dynamic, but it could use a touch more reach to help solidify its identity and compete with the defenses/cc of daggers and focus, the instant cast and high burst of scepter, and the sheer volume of AOE + support of staff. -Increase the range of Wind Slam, Hurricane of Pain, Shock Blast, and Grand Finale to 900 range. Augments -Augments feel like they have very low value compared to other options even with their secondary effects. Setting up optimal activation to achieve the secondary effect does not feel like it is worth the effort from all the hurdles and feels very unlikely in dynamic situations. -Remove the Jade Sphere requirement to gain access to the secondary effect for the heal and utilities, require only the associated attunement. Keep the Jade Sphere requirement for Elemental Celerity only. -Add a cooldown reduction to the Augment when activated in any Jade Sphere, not just the Jade Sphere with the associated attunement. Jade Sphere and Energy -Something feels off about accessibility and timing. Maybe this is only because Hammer has zero fields and few finishers at the moment. -Consider a built in mechanic that lowers the cooldown based on how little time the Jade Sphere was deployed. Shorter deployment time would equate to a shorter cooldown. This would allow for a more dynamic playstyle that works better for dynamic situations without removing it's current functionality. Hammer and Jade Sphere Dynamic -The Jade Sphere is equally available to other weapon sets that have more combo finishers, lower cooldown combo finishers, and actual fields than Hammer. -If Jade Sphere is supposed to replace combo field access for Hammer, then Hammer alone needs a very powerful mechanic to have Jade Sphere up when it needs it (a way to remove or dramatically lower the Jade Sphere cooldown, for example). -If Hammer receives fields and finishers at a frequency at least as equivalent to other weapon sets, then this issue is not a concern. With these suggestions I believe hammer could become a viable option that contends with other weapon sets, albeit for its own unique niche.
  6. I'm failing to follow your reasoning on this one. Please help me to understand where you are coming from with the specific tradeoffs you mentioned. Catalyst: Gains Jade Sphere for free. Unless the addition of the Jade Sphere mechanic is equivalent to other Minor Adept traits or is otherwise paid for via purposefully lack-luster traits, but neither appears to be the case. Virtuoso: Mesmer has built in tradeoffs via clones destroyed for a scalable instant cast effect. Clones provide target saturation and auto-attack effects (defense and offense potential) and are destroyable by opponents. The Mesmer actively decides to trade clones for instant cast effects that are more effective for each clone destroyed (offense, defense, and control options). Virtuoso gains a non-destroyable resource but loses the target saturation and auto-attack effects of clones. Virtuoso also loses instant cast shatters for ranged shatters with a cast time. Mesmer shatters and Virtuoso shatters both have counterplay, clones can be destroyed during transit and bladesongs have projectile counters. Instant cast dramatically lowers counterplay potential in melee. In combination with Illusionary Persona effects, this promotes a melee centric playstyle for Mesmer. The Virtuoso gives up Illusionary Persona effects and instant cast for ranged pressure potential. Willbender: Willbender gives up passive effects with instant cast team oriented activations for on-hit effects that trigger for a period after activating cast time skills that have mobility + effect. The built in trade off for core is whether maintaining the passive out values the activation. The Willbender has a different built in trade off, whether to maintain a currently active virtue effect or cast a different virtue and gain that effect instead. Does the activation effect out value swapping virtue effects?
  7. It looks like this is assuming hammer is being run, in which case I can see where this commentary is coming from. Dagger focus works just great with Catalyst, which is not entirely unexpected considering the strength of the skills, and can utilize Catalyst traits in a superior fashion. Would be nice if hammer was designed to take advantage of Catalyst traits in a way that is superior to core weapons because, you know, it's the only time hammer can be run.
  8. I think a lot of what we are seeing is not a trade off design issue. I think what we are seeing is (1) learning curve, (2) a numbers issue, (3) missing quality of life tweaks, and (4) a lack of proper trade offs for existing elite specializations. 2 and 3 are what the beta is all about. Numbers are a numbers fix. Quality of life (cast times, after cast, movement while casting, etc.) should smooth out gameplay where it feels clunky and disjointed. We saw the same problems for previous elite specializations and they didn't even have proper trade offs on release. 4 is an issue that probably won't get enough attention until post-EoD release when we get promised full time balance resources. HOWEVER, some of the design choices are all over the place and do need more work. For example, Catalyst doesn't even have a tradeoff and Hammer lacks fields and finishers to synergize with traits. Jade Sphere and Hammer can be made to FEEL better with number tweaks and quality of life alone, but the internal synergy is missing and needs more design time. Some of these inconsistencies are surprising, but I don't think their existence is unexpected.
  9. I agree with the sentiment that not all specs have been sufficiently updated to properly meet tradeoff design requirements. Don't quote me, but I think part of the Holo tradeoff is locking the player into Holoforge and disabling kits for that initial period, trading free kit access to create a pseudo weapon swap. As Engi is theoretically balanced around free kit access, temporal denial may have seemed to be an adequate trade off to the developers, alongside the F5 toolbelt skill. Certainly the F5 and overheating alone is insufficient tradeoff. In fact, as overheating shouldn't be happening without a player mistake or intent, I think the overheat mechanic (in combination with the time lock) is meant as a tradeoff for the increased effectiveness of Holoforge skills compared to most weapon skills rather than justifying Holoforge altogether. Overheating is a cap to how long you can use the skills. Trading the elite slot, rather than the corresponding toolbelt skill, would feel more appropriate as it directly contends with a potential kit slot (or other great elite option). I cannot fathom a tradeoff for Firebrand. Maybe they thought tome cooldowns, time spent casting tome skills rather than weapon skills, and the page mechanic was sufficient tradeoff? Clearly it isn't. Maybe, and it's a big maybe, if they also lost a weaponset it would be closer to balancing out. Weapon skills for tome skills, but are the cooldowns and page mechanic sufficient to justify three different sets of tome skills? Obviously this is about design bloat and not current numbers/meta. As for Bladesworn, and most of the other new specs, at least design decisions are approaching some consistency. Weaponset for Gunblade weaponset, adrenaline for flow, weapon specific bursts for Dragon Trigger burst options plus some additional quality of life skills to help execute those bursts. Technically, the third burst option and skills on Dragon Trigger 4 and 5 are icing on the cake to help with execution and making bursts only accessible in Gunblade + lack of weaponset choice more palatable. There is still a lot of design bloat in previous specs ANET needs to tackle. Unfortunately their failure to do so paints new specs and their design goals poorly.
  10. I mostly just PvP. Conceptually I find them all to be original enough if not thematically great, even if the theme doesn't personally appeal to me. What I'm not so sure about is whether they feel like they transform the play patterns of the profession enough to feel uniquely different. Virtuoso - It just feels like a shatter Mesmer, full stop. The trade off between clones and blades is a great start but it does not feel transformative enough on its own. Skill design still forces (near)melee shatters to control projectile pathing. Harbinger - Mobility and boon support are new tools, and the mobility itself opens up a new play feel for Necromancer. However, from what I hear, the optimal PvP strat is to just abuse the life force heal mechanic and play passively ... Passive tankiness is already Necro's M.O. With some tweaks this may be sufficient. Willbender - Mobility at the cost of some support. From a non-Guard player, this just seems like core Meditation Guard with a bit more mobility once gameplay is tweaked to be smoother. Does it transform enough? I guess that depends on if an abundance of mobility is sufficiently transformative ... Not entirely dissimilar to Harbinger. The newest set previewed look more transformative. Vindicator - The new legend interaction should create a new/unique ebb and flow feeling while the dodge forces new play patterns to work around it. Bladesworn - Forcing the gunblade is inherently transformative by mandating use of their skills. Trading traditional bursts for burst-options in Dragon Trigger creates a new scenario where a new set of decisions need to be made. Catalyst - This feels more like the first three previewed specs where the play will not be sufficiently transformed from core play patterns. Furthermore, adding an F5 without a tradeoff raises questions of design bloat EVEN IF F5 will be of questionable effectives and is locked behind an energy resource. I guess what I like to see is more emphasis on forced changes because they mandate a gameplay shift so it doesn't feel the same. Virtuoso forces a change in this way, but the change does not feel sufficiently transformative. It's like with Chrono, the shatters are basically the same but now you lack the defense core is balanced around for the opportunity to create high impact with a single high cooldown. It doesn't feel transformative (other than trying to survive), it just feels like more of the same core offers.
  11. Isn't the sustain issue a Mesmer-wide problem? Providing a solution for Mirage only doesn't help core, Chrono, or the upcoming Virtuoso.
  12. Shouldn't match making and low population be the target of that toxicity?
  13. We can rage into the void in response to frustrating changes and choices, but the only real recourse is to just stop playing and remove ourselves from the equation entirely ... Or just accept the game on the terms with which it presents itself. This is all especially so if you don't have a voice in the discussion that would/could be listened to for whatever reason, reasonable or not. The constant refusal/inability to directly address problematic mechanics and the affordance/willingness to only touch everything else around them instead ... It has left a bad taste in my mouth too. It feels like they try to put out a fire in the oven by putting something else to cook on the stove. Just what?! There must be someone or some decision that makes them present themselves as so unnecessarily stubborn, right? It's a mess and it is taking so long to sort, if they even can/are allowed to. Without given more genuine glimpses into their thinking and reasoning, rather than just memes (though those are appreciated too), it is hard to find common ground and mutual understanding, much less direction. Even so, there will always be those that refuse to try based on principle, wholesale conceptual misalignment, or perceived malicious intent. Btw, I always appreciate your commentary, it helps me to see more nuance to the game, its continued development, and the community.
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