Dadnir.5038

Elementalist: Longbow -> Skills #2-5 got no CD but need "arcane arrows" as a ressource that are created by switching attunment. Engineer: Off-Hand dagger -> Skill #5 allow you to "merge" the off hand dagger with the main hand, changing the skill effects of the main hand weapon (On pistol it will become a bayonette and give you melee focused skills, It will transform mace into a throwing axe and for sword... well... it's up to your imagination) Guardian: Warhorn -> This weapon should focus on light aura, granting it and "transmuting" it. Mesmer: Main-Hand pistol -> This weapon would have a different skill#3 for each off-hand equiped (Just taking a bit of the thief's tools for the sake of adding some new flavor) Necromancer: Shield -> The skills would be similar to elementalist's elite skill Glyph of elementals and Glyph of lesser elementals. (That would create a whole new brand of minion master for necromancer.) Ranger: Focus -> Skill#5 would summon. Revenant: Rifle -> A rifle with a skill#5 as an upkeep that would generate a bayonette at the tip of the riffle and change skill #1-4 into melee skills. Thief: Torch -> This off hand would have a set of dual skills (skill#3) that would create an ashen clone to fight alongside the character for a set duration (you get a flip skill to shatter this clone). Skill 4 and 5 would focus on blinding and revealing foes (Ashen clones could inately inflict burn on hit to revealed foes...) Warrior: I like Fueki's idea of a scepter thrown like a javeline.

I don't think you really understand how Protection and Weakness "stack" nor do I think you understand how weakness work. First of all, weakness don't prevent critical hits. Weakness have a 50% chance to reduce outgoing strike damage by 50%. So, effectively, it would be a 25% reduction in outgoing strike damage through the duration of weakness. Protection is a 33% incoming damage reduction. Both stack multiplicatively which mean: Weakness(1-0.25) x Protection(1-0.33) = 50% damage reduction (no matter the gamemode) The aura also give the opportunity to apply those. It's a 1 chance out of 3 to apply either weakness, protection or both with a 1s ICD. (I'm not going to bother trying to calculate the odds of getting the rigth combination of boon/condition through the duration of the aura but that's a factor that drop down the "effectiveness" of the damage reduction of the aura). Objectively, chaos aura's defensive effectivness is close to frost aura (chill increasing skill recharge can reduce damage output by quite a lot), shocking aura (disabling a foe for 1 second every 2 second is, effectively, a 50% damage reduction) and magnetic aura (make you "immun" to projectile attacks with no ICD). The difference being that elementalist can tie a lot of boons to those auras, protection included. As for the change to chaotic transference itself, I don't think it's a "bad" thing. Not because it was "OP" but because this redefine more accurately the purpose of the trait itself. It's purpose wasn't to provide chaotic aura to the mesmer's allies but to provide regeneration. A nice side effect will be that it will also reduce visual pollution.

There are a lot more things other than "not being persistent" that take them away from GW1 spirit feel. Spirits in GW1 are a double edge swords and that's not something that GW2 spirit ever was. The "active" part also take them away from GW1 feel... Well, you get me, GW2 spirit feel have always been very far away from GW1 spirit feel. The more I look at GW2 the more I think that GW1's skills and build/profession mechanic were superior in design.

That's probably gw1 influence in the early arts. GW1 Mesmer skills art often pictured "demons". I imagine that after that they choose to take the path that led to mesmer farting clones. That might disappoint you but what you're looking for is clearly the physical elite skill Rampage. I seriously doubt that the devs will introduce new weapons in the game. Maybe kits/conjure/"shrouds" but definitely no new weapons. Ah... Gosh! I wish they would! From the moment they start talking about elite specs I've been fantasizing about such a spec... Well, objectively, daredevil might be give a "lara croft" gameplay feel. I wish thief had a torch and a "whip kit" (thought, engineer could also fit the bill for such a spec) I do agree that GW2 could be much more. However, I must say that I'm quite disappointed by the way the last batch of especs and the new weapons have been integrated in the game. It's like they just want the later to be independant from the professions/specs that use them and, ultimately, it fall short of expectation.

I don't think the devs limit themself with thought like "we won't ever do that again". On another hand, they like to tease the playerbase with the possibility that "they might do it again".

I disagree. Fact is that harbinger is a lot more durable than what you seem to think. It's durable to the point that people facing them in competitive modes believe that harbinger are close to unkillable. So, no, it wouldn't "kill" the spec. Objectively, It's not the 2nd health bar of reaper shroud that make reaper popular but the fact that it's shroud skillset "feel good" to use (And, unfortunately, there is few skillsets in the game that offer such experience). That said, diversity is nice so I don't think that reaper shroud should become something like harbinger's shroud. Thought, it's disappointing that reaper shroud does not have his own twist, it's just Death shroud with a different skillset. As for the playerbase being pissed of by something Anet would do... Let's be fair, everything the devs do kitten off the majority of the playerbase. And even when they don't do anything it kitten of the majority of the playerbase 😅. Nowadays, the main issue I have with the devs is that they have great ideas but they don't give these ideas the room to live to expectation. Both harbinger and necromancer's dual swords are perfect examples of this impression of mine. Harbinger have been left rotting in a semi finished state since it's release. The amount of work it need is huge yet it's like the devs purposefully look away from the spec issues since it's release. They could make this spec so much more interesting by just reworking the traitline that direly lack in imagination. As for the dual sword, they sold us a poorly thought out "sacrifice" mechanism with 0 support from any traitlines leading to a bland weaponset with skills that that barely step outside of what the other necromancer's weapon skills offer. You don't even get more damage output out of this "sacrifice" mechanism.

I'm all for removing quickness and alacrity share from the various profession abilities. Relics are certainly a solution as long as those specifics relics can't be used in competitive modes. To limit players even more, they could even tie those boons to runesets with the relic only increasing the base duration of either alacrity or quickness your character generate. For example: Superior runes of volubility: 25 concentration 10% alacrity duration 50 concentration 20% alacrity duration 100 concentration Grant nearby allies Alacrity for 4 Seconds after entering combat. (Cooldown: 10 Seconds) Relic of Sogolon: Increase base alacrity duration of your skills, traits and runes by 20%.

The game is made in such a way that the difference between support, bunker and dps is thin. Or should I say that everything is a dps with various amount of survivability and support?

Except that since then condi hate have been massively powercrept.

It's not that conjured weapons are bad, some of their skills are, in fact, pretty powerful. From my point of view, Conjured weapons have 4 problems: The ground targeted 2nd weapon: it's a relic of the past, nowaday, it mainly act as an unwelcome pollution on the field. Some are unwieldy (especially fiery axe): The gameplay "flow" of some of the conjured weapons is atrocious if you add to this "flow" the pointless shenanigans that are supposed to "increase" the output through forcing the player into a juggling with skills... It's just an horrendous experience. The "extra stats" associated: I cry a little deep in my heart each time I see healing power and expertise slapped onto the Ice bow. I also cry a little in my heart each time I see the pathetic amount of ferocity given to ligthning hammer. The trait: Why is such a pointless and useless thing wasting a trait slot in fire magic? Hell no! I'm sorry to have to say it, but the only thing that somehow redeem those conjured weapons is that they aren't tied to any specific attunment. From my point of view: The most needed thing is to remove the 2nd weapon spawned on the field. At worst, if the devs really want to keep the possibility, the 2nd weapon should be tied to the conjurer trait. The second thing to do is to simplify the kits. Simple is good. There is no point in forcing someone in using 2 AA to get 2 additional impact on a skill that land 24 impact and lose 10% damage on each impact. The third thing... make weapon kit coherent in gameplay and skills. I want to use an Ice bow not a water bow. I want my Ice bow to deal damage, why is my ICEBOW plagued with this unsightly waterbow Auto Attack? Fiery axe... Please, pretty please, make this weapon AA a melee cleave! Each time I use this skill kit I just want to rage quit beacause the flow of the weapon bring me close to the foe but I end up throwing my crappy axe to the face of my foe. And the worse is that I'm punished if I use more than 1 AA in between skills... Why am I punished? Why do I need to be "fired up!" in order to deal less insignificant damage to a single foe once (not twice, not thrice, not even for the full 4s duration of the "fired up!" buff... Only once!). The design choice of those conjured weapons just drive me crazy. As for the extra stats... Please make those consistent and make them feel rewarding. Healing power on a weapon that only heal with it's AA is just infuriating. Expertise on a weapon that produce barely useful short lasting condition feel more like an insult than anything else. 75 point of ferocity when all other stat increment are in the 180 range is laughable, can't we have a bit of consistency here? As for the trait... Please make a real trait. 4s of fire aura when picking up a conjured weapon is just insulting and wasteful.

Still better than a mechanic that hold meaning for none of the elite specs or even the core profession. Look at necromancer's swords they get a "token" life sacrifice mechanic with 0 support in any traitline and using this mechanic barely bring the sword at the level of the other weapons. I mean, at this point, necromancer use life force, conditions, maximum life (blight) and health as ressource. What's next? Will the following weapon ask the necromancer to use "endurance" as ressource? Or maybe like spellbreaker's healing skill they will break their own boons for nothing?

You're a year late... Which is somehow concerning because it mean that their "plan" to balance boons in WvW is already a year old and while they continue to kick boon hate in the nuts, boons don't seem to dwindle much... Who am I kidding, I know perfectly that they lay down ambitious objective and systematically fail to reach them... At this point they are just aimlessly destroying boon hate when the vocal majority complain about boons.

Come on... You're looking down on AI. Joke aside, the balance team is halfassedly trying to reach everchanging objectives while keeping an illusion of balance, creating some room for new game elements base on a "power budget theory" and keeping player interested in the game. At the end of the day, none of the objectives are ever fully reached while the "power budget theory" is used poorly resulting in imbalance and incomprehension from the player base.

The combo mechanic is a nice idea but, unfortunately, it lack both consitency and support from the traitlines. Personally I would first streamline the base effects: Projectile/whirl finisher applying a condition based on the field. Blast finisher applying a boon based on the field. Leap finisher granting an aura based on the field (with auras all brought down to the level of fire aura) Then create a variety of traits to support the base effects like elementalist does with auras. Life drain on projectile/whirl finisher (thematically fitting for necromancer/thief/revenant) Healing on blast (Engineer used to have it, but this is also thematically fitting for elementalist/ranger/guardian) Additional condition for projectile/whirl finisher (Fire magic could have a trait that add a burn, Air magic a trait that add confusion, Earth magic a trait that add bleed, Water magic a trait that add vulnerability/chill, Death magic a trait that add poison, Harbinger/Scourge traitline a trait that add torment, Duelist traitline a trait that add confusion... etc.) Additional boon/conditions on blast (More might for warrior, a blind for guardian, something based on the legend used for revenant... etc.) Effects on aura gain for professions that aren't elementalist (A revolutionary idea, right?) ... etc. All of those are suitable for both minor trait and major traits based on the profession. Obviously it shouldn't be "easy" to stack to many such trait in a build.

That's how peoples thought 4 years ago, until a "raids completion competition" showed that the Full dps teams weren't more effective with their "higher kill speed" than more balanced teams. You're not wrong and at the same time you're not right. In general, barrier is the mechanic which is OP. The way barrier work make it possible to ignore the need for any investment just by stacking barrier sources and that's a design flaw that players easily exploit. Instead of working on the faulty barrier mechanism, the devs choose to "limit" the barrier builds. Scourge as the leading figure of the barrier buisiness ended up being on the receiving end of the nerf bat many time. Note that the devs like to repeat their mistakes again and again as they released mechanist which quickly replaced scourge as the leading figure of the barrier buisiness and the new weapons like Revenant's scepter. Still, you should take note of the fact that this thread is about WvW, the only gamemode where scourge lost it's "newfound" ability to provide Alacrity, not PvE.