Raolin Soulherder.3195

GW2 Cantha is quite different from GW1 Cantha

😞 ugh, that trailer...such a random chaotic clown show. "jade" tech is like bleach in the eyes.

Doubt it. The tv series is very very different from the books. It's not like they just trimmed out things to make it shorter. They completely changed loads of things (even plot-centric ones) that had nothing to do with screentime, making the story worse and making the characters' decisions look completely nonsensical. And added in unnecessary things that weren't in the books.

depends. if it's gonna take them 4.5 more years to make the next one, some other mmo's may come out that leech away customers, possibly reducing or eliminating the financial prospects of making an another expac.

Yea. GW1 seemed more weighty and real. Serious and compelling, and yet still beautiful. GW2 oftentimes just feels cartoony and kidsy, w/o much threat. Or at least not threats that feel long-lasting or with a maintained serious tone. And maybe it is also all the jokes the different playable races make about each other that anet always feels like they need to sprinkle in everywhere.

Depends on the IRL jade. They could have made it more like #36 thru #41 on your link. imo, regardless of the purported lore reasons, the new stuff is painful to look at. And the whole dragon-jade-tech angle is just weird and random to me.

Yea, regardless of what a lot of jade is IRL, the stuff in that trailer hurts my eyes. I liked the gw1 aesthetic a lot better. I suppose the reasoning they’ll say is that in the lore, this is not the same jade as the jade from gw1. And that all of that gw1 jade is now liquified. And the only reason that this gw2 jade is still solid is because of dragon-magic that happens to also make it more green.

Preach. I like that Anet tries to be creative with all aspects of their game, but some stuff just feels *so* off-the-wall random and out-of-left-field (ie. Catalyst, Willbender, Bladesworn, Harbinger). We've had some thematically weird stuff like Dragonhunter before, but this expac seems to load up on it. & the names are almost all strange. Each of these spec's doesn't really feel like a cohesive vision, for most of them.

Didn’t see this poll earlier. Yea, this one struggles alot in the competitive modes, & especially WvW. Due to the AI, it’s very easy for the mech to get out of position and then mobbed and melted by loads of enemies. The ranged projectiles are so slow that it’s hard to hit targets (would help if the skill was a ground target, so you could attempt to lead the target manually with the lobbed shot). The melee skills put the mech in way too much danger to be melted by being close to large groups. Its break bar is easily sliced through and it doesn’t really provide any protection. And it moves too slowly to responsively react and stay on the outskirts of a jinking enemy group. Once it gets amongst an enemy group it’s quickly dead, w/ no way to escape since it doesn’t have the stunbreaks or condi clears or blocks, or gap-closers of a real player and moves slowly. Its one clear is too slow and seems to make it want to start attacking enemies again instead of continuing to flea. And if you try to set it on ‘passive’ and keep it in your hip pocket as a support mech, it still somehow finds a reason to get out of position or go running off into the enemy group or aoe’s. The engineer, itself, is also less survivable due to losing so many stunbreaks on the toolbelt. And alot of utility condi-clear options have been handicapped like the elixir and elixir gun. The mech cleanse is unreliable so you need to waste a traitline buffing up another cleanse like Alchemy for the elixir or Inventions for the protection cleanse. Which leaves you only one trait line for buffing your damage. And the mech doesn’t feel like it makes up for the damage loss due to enemy kiting, poor durability/uptime, and slow/unreliable attacks.

It'd be interesting to see this poll broken down by game mode. It seems to work horribly in WvW, especially in large encounters. I'm not exaggerating when say it's one of the worst specs I've ever tested across many expacs, despite many attempts to make it work. But maybe it's the polar opposite in PvE. Unfortunate, since the aesthetics are nice.

Additionally, Mechanized Deployment (15% recharge reduction on tool belt skills), from the Tools traitline, does not work in WvW, though it does work in PvE.

1. I had the mech set on 'passive' and it was sitting beside me as we watched some server-mates fighting enemies in front of us on the bridge by Lowlands Keep. I used the "Crisis Zone" skill and the mech started running forward far ahead into the scrum, even though I hadn't moved and I didn't have any enemies or allies targeted. 2. I jumped down off the Stonemist Castle inner-wall to engage some enemies below but the mech didn't follow. You have to be very far from the wall for the mech auto-port to you. So if the enemy stays near the wall and you jump down to fight, you will be fighting by yourself as the mech watches from above. 3. Certain areas, the mech can't traverse, such as the little step you can hop up on the cliff that is between Klovan and Stonemist. The mech will not auto-port to you either once you're up there. Furthermore, if you try to use the shadowstep from Shift Signet while you're up on that plateau, it will not work at all (neither for yourself nor for your mech) since your mech doesn't have a path there. Even if you de-spawn the mech, you can't use the shadowstep while up on that hill. I am unsure if this is intended or not. Do other professions' shadowsteps work once you have hopped up on that plateau?

Mechanist- practically everything No toolbelts. lose 1/2 of stunbreaks and a ton of other functionality. lose Elite, because you have to dedicate it to re-summoning the Mech once the Mech gets melted. lose 1/3 traits once Mech goes down. 90% of utilities are handicapped w/o toolbelt. Lose control abilities, since so much positioning and damage is outsourced to the mech, which has stupid AI. Lose responsiveness since mech attacks are so slow (especially projectiles). Lose fight-initiative since mech won't follow you off of WvW walls until you're very far away from it. Lose build customization. Lose sanity w/ the continuous hovering sound-effect. not to mention what all engi's have already lost, which is weapon swaps.

yet another problem in WvW. The mech is very reluctant to follow you when you jump down off of walls. Even with it set to "passive" where it should be trying to stay by your side. it will not follow you until you get *very* far away from the wall.

This spec feels awful in WvW. Really outdoes all the other specs in the clunkyness department. Projectiles are slow as molasses. Mech is almost ALWAYS out of position to use the bubble or other proximity skills. Even if you have it set on 'passive' stance. It will not stay by your side. Hit the 'return to me' button and it will take forever to get back to you. You will be dead by the time it gets back to use any proximity abilities. Build diversity is zero. Almost forced to take signets. Need to burn an Elite slot just to mimic ranger-pet functionality if mech goes down. And you're predictably useless when your mech goes down. 90% of the base utilities are now sabotaged w/o toolbelt's. Not to mention that you still have to deal with not being able to swap weapons. Half the stunbreaks are gone since they were toolbelt's. "Mechanized Deployment" trait does not reduce recharge of F-skills, hurting the Tools traitline. Other traitlines indirectly hurt since that had traits that used to buff *both* utility skills and toolbelt skills (ie. HGH-elixir recharge). the list goes on... getting sick of even listening to the repetitive sound effect when the mech uses its jets to hover over to you.

I’m not talking about PvE.

It might be fine in PvE, but there are major concerns for PvP/WvW. literally half the engi stunbreaks are toolbelt skills, as is a ton of other functionality. That's not something you can easily fix by just tweaking numbers one way or the other. Losing toolbelt handicaps loads of utility skills. Mech's probably gonna get melted in WvW, and/or have its projectile attacks reflected. And if anet tanks it up to compensate, that could easily make it overpowered, giving you a projectile sponge to hide behind in small-man encounters unless they are piercing projectiles. Seems like it will be hard to balance. And that's before talking about the AI/pathing issues. And aside from the balance, it just feels like buildcrafting will be boring. The mechanist trait selection is so dumbed down, it's almost pigeon-holing you to select an entire trait row, depending on whether you are condi, power, or support. There doesn't seem much incentive to mix/match on traits. Feels like they are trying to treat their player base like kindergarteners w/ all the hand-holding. With all the base utilities handicapped, what would recommend any of those skills over the signets, which are specifically balanced around not ever having tool belt skills? One of the most fun things in both GW1, and, to a lesser extent, GW2, was the buildcrafting. I'd hate to see that aspect of the game get oversimplified.

This spec is kinda disappointing tbh. Golem & skills are pretty-looking, but golem probably will get melted and/or reflected in WvW. tough to lose toolbelt skills too.

I don’t think it’s great design to practically mandate certain traits. and if you are forced to take Daring Dragon, now you can’t take Unyielding Dragon, so opponents have even more ways to completely mitigate your damage down to zero. They’d be able to blind or block you in a myriad of ways, plus what they can already do: -LOS you -dodge you -stroll out of range -abuse minor elevation differences to cause complete misses. -CC to interrupt your charge they have all those mitigations, & the mini-charge doesn’t really do much more damage than 5s of autoattacks.

Yea, the accidental cancellations were a major annoyance. But I suppose if they changed it, there would be other people that would start to complain because they don't like anything forcibly locking them in place. tbf, there is the "Unyielding Dragon" grandmaster trait, which feels almost mandatory. And Flow Stabilizer provides a quick stability, though unfortunately not enough to cover the whole DS. But yea, it's still hard to fight on a capture point in pvp. You are getting nuked from every direction and have pulsing fields that will easily wipe away the aegis from Triggerguard. Due to the way adrenaline/burst works, half the core-warrior synergies with Bladesworn end up incentivizing you to use DS (adrenaline/burst) as much as possible, but there just isn't enough stability to safely use it that often. The pvp stability's only cover half the charge-up, and have super long CD's, so you're stuck doing a partial charge-up which does hardly any damage, or having a high failure rate of using the skill.

The amount of time needed to charge up an effective DS seems a bit high, especially in PvP. You'd think this would be an effective skill for fighting on a capture point, but it seems like most of the time, it is *much* more dangerous to the user than the opponent, as you are tanking so much damage while standing still and waiting, even assuming that you can scrape together enough stab and aegis to avoid interrupts. Which is a 50/50 proposition due to the prohibitive CD's of all the stab skills (Last Stand can only be used like once per match). Even with shout-heals traited and the triple-Combat Stimulant and a few other things, your hp just gets melted if you wait in one spot. The skill itself is still pretty easy for opponents to mitigate. If you fire it prematurely, it barely tickles and even at full charge, the damage feels mediocre. And they can easily LOS you, dodge, or leisurely stroll out of range, or just move to a slightly different elevation and it misses entirely. Or block/blind you if you don't take the obligatory Unyielding Dragon grandmaster.

is it just me, or do the flow generation boosters not stack? I have a ton of things traited to boost flow, but don't really feel much flow gen. The only thing that seems to boost it much is Flow Stabilizer. Seems like flow works like regen, where there are only a couple skills that grant you multiple stacks simultaneously & everything else just stacks duration.

To their credit, Bladesworn has good utilities/elite and does a better job of synergizing with the rest of its class compared to the other e-specs. However, the payoff of sitting stationary so long seems a bit feeble, at least for pvp. People aren't going to sit right on top of you and let themselves be hit. I feel like you risk so much sitting in one place while the other team whales on you (AoE's, etc) as you charge up, and then the damage you finally dish out doesn't compare to the damage taken. It's such a big telegraph and buildup that it is easy for opponents to pull out of range or simply LOS you, wasting all of your buildup. Or forcing you to use it prematurely in its weakened state just to ensure a hit. It's like a worse version of Gun Flame (no movement, much less range) or Kill Shot (much less range), unless the enemy is stupidly standing right on your face. it will be useless in WvW fights with all the movement, and only really good for killing NPC's to PPT. Seems like purely a PvE spec.

Been tinkering. It is an interesting concept, but I just can't seem to make it work with the 1 dodge. Even after loading up with all sorts of vigor/endurance sources & traits (minus Energy Sigil, since I can't use the TP on beta character). At least not w/o going the healing direction w/ "Saint of zu Heltzer" grandmaster. The spec doesn't give enough defenses to balance out the loss of a dodge, *especially* in WvW. Feels too clunky (a recurring theme for Anet lately) for my tastes. Rev was already that way for me w/ the legend/utility locking and this spec makes it worse with all the irregular skill-flipping. The aftercast on the dodges is also annoying, with the pause upon landing. The animation is a giant telegraph to enemies to get their CC's ready for after you land. Chalk up another e-spec I will probably not be playing if I buy the expac.

This is one of the clunkiest specs I’ve played. -Hammer doesn’t really seem to synergize with the traits, with the scarcity of auras and fields. F5 energy and the hammer #3 are both really slow buildup & feeble payoff for all the juggling you have to do with them. -& speaking of juggling, the augments are all handicapped unless you take special care to position properly & have your F5 active. It’s just got alot going on, & on a profession that *already* has alot to keep track of. -Stationary F5 & accompanying augments are maybe ok for fighting on a static node, but ineffective in a moving WvW battle. -nothing exciting about the elite or augments. In general, this jade orb stuff just doesn’t feel good at all.