Dadnir.5038

I think it's more a matter of the devs reaching the limits of their imagination than a matter of "room for new specs". And this is despite players continuously feeding them with new ideas. That said, personally, I do think that there is still a lot of room left to introduce new "character content" through different mean than what they already offer. There is also still a lot of room for polishing what each profession already have access to.

The necromancer's community was already asking for that 12 years ago at game release. Through all those years, the only things we got out of the countless things we asked for minions is a somewhat better pathing, the underwater golem (which look alright) and a bit of work on the shadow's active skill Haunt. Yes, somehow the devs have managed to look away from minions poor visual appeal and the kitten state of their active skills for 12 years. (The most impressive skill is taste of death which hasn't been touched in any way by the devs since 2012, they must think the skill is perfect as it is. Rigor mortis merely got skill fact clarification, which is impressive for a skill that seldom hit it's foes despite it's a very long CD and long cast time)

At least the color of the pet is in line with the color scheme of the ranger. I'd rather have an Hyleck as a pet, thought.

Like I said it's barely a few more skills than what they would need to create a 2 handed weapon for elementalist anyway. If there is one thing that the devs aren't affraid of create it's skills for elementalist. With the current weapons of the elementalist they would just need to create 28 skills, which isn't much considering that they've already created 54 skills for weaver (counting dual skills and sword skills only, AA chains counting for a single skill, else it would be 62... 69 if you take into account the utilities). You're limiting yourself to a "norm". It might be an unsaid rule that an e-spec gain no more than 6 utility skills but the devs can very well break this rule if they really want it. Again, look at weaver, making skills in itself isn't an issue for the devs, they can shower the game with skills if they are really motivated. Also, it would allow racial skills to be used an open up again the possibility for "shared" utilities between professions, which could free some room for "new content" when it come to mini expansions. That's not an issue in itself. Not every core profession have 3 mechanics that can be tinkered with. Most often it's just a single mechanic. I mean, it feel like you're complaining that thief have to many main mechanics and that the only one you'd hope to see being tinkered with can't be tinkered with (which, again, is arguable as they could just slap CDs on thiefs' weapon skills for an e-specs and use initiative in a different way).

I do believe that you are twisting a few thing here and there. Thief have 3 main mechanics: Steal, initiative and stealth attack. And the devs don't have any issue tinkering with at least 2 out of these 3 mechanics. Elementalist is as tied to attunments than necromancer is tied to shroud mainly due to the overwhelming amount of core traits that affect those. That said, elementalist could have a single skillset on all it's weapons instead of 4 skillsets per weapon and use attunment swap in a different way than merely accessing new skills. Introducing this would barely be more work than creating a single 2 handed weapon skillset for elementalist. Legend swaping on revenant could work differently as well. They currently all offer their own utility skillset but there could be a common utility skillset which would be "tainted" by the legend channeled.

I'm not saying that thief players don't exploit stealth, I'm saying that doing so is not the primary purpose of stealth and that as long as this primary purpose exist it would be difficult to remove stealth.

I do agree on the fact that (long)bows have been left out of the weapon lottery for far too long despite them having a lot of potential. But I also agree with Fueki when they say that bows in GW1 wasn't a ranger's defining weapon (and that's especially true in PvP where foes are less predictible than in PvE). Don't get me wrong, bow in GW1 had a lot of potential for damage and could be used for that with the right team and a steady strategy in some niche content (Urgoz maze). However, beyond such niche content, a bow was best used for interupting and pulling foes as going further than that would usually backfire on your team. In GW1 ranger is not a "tank" (even if he can avoid a lot of things through stances) while the aggro system often glue mobs to the first character that hit them or catch their interest. A balanced party in GW1 is often wiped because their ranged party members are a bit "hasty". Now, GW1 is GW1 and GW2 is GW2. Weapon skills in GW2 are a way to express the tools and thematic of the profession and bows can certainly contribute a lot in doing such a thing. My fantasy is tickled by the possibility of an arcane archer (Elementalist's thematic with some inspirations from the dungeon and dragon universe) or a bone archer (Necromancer's thematic with some inspiration from the bone specialization of diablo 2's necromancer).

I don't think "mitigation" is the main point of stealth for thief, in term of mitigation thief got plenty of evade and there is room to add damage reduction coefficients (for example, thief used to get 30% incoming damage reduction when revealed via a trait) as well as weapon skillset that offer skills similar to dardevil's bandit's defense. Before anything else, Stealth for thief is a ressource that they can chose to consume for various effects or keep in order to reposition themselves to get back the initiative in a fight.

You forgot underwater elementalist, Ele have a smoke field on earth skills underwater 😉 That said, stealth isn't going to be removed from the game. The developpers would have to fully "rework" thief which rely on stealth on many level and such a rework is unlikely to happen.

I'd say that it depend a lot on what you want to do in open world. If you're going to run around alone through the gathering point, I do think thief is the best option as you got easy access to stealth and movement skills. If you're going to go through the jumping puzzles, from experience, necromancer is the best option (spectral walk is incredibly handy in jumping puzzle). If you intend to port some friend, thief or mesmer will be superior thought. If you're going to kill packs of random mobs alone, Reaper is a good option but that is also true for many specs vomiting strike damage aoe. If you're going to tackle defiant foes alone you'll have a whole bunch of dedicated builds. If you're going to join the fun with the PvE farming zergs, you'll want range lingering aoes and a good control over them. I'd say that, again, necromancer is a good option. If you're going to tackle boss fight meta events with the zergs, a balance of offensive boons support with good damage output is a good option. ... etc.

I think he just want to see less Spellbreakers.

Oh! It's a "Look peoples play this profession! Nerf it!" thread...

Well can we really say that the opponent is defenseless when he got a skill that grant him an evade frame?

I wouldn't say that no other rework landed so poorly. I mean, thief's trap reworked into "preparation" landed pretty poorly, same goes for necromancer's off-hand weapons, the many versions of scrapper (which was reworked every 6 months at some point), elementalist's MH dagger leap attacks,... etc. Objectively, most reworks land poorly (and the legendary renegade's stance is average in term of rework), players just feel more affected by the reworks on their favourite profession. It's to the point that I've been affraid of the devs talking about "rework" since HoT release.

Maybe, the OP just don't use the right tools to face thief? I mean, it's not like as an engineer they don't have access to tools that would make this thief's life almost unbearable.

Which spec need buffs? Mine obviously... On another hand all other specs need nerfs. More seriously, some core professions need an "extra" that would not carry over to their e-specs in order to be competitive and attractive. Core elementalist is probably the profession that lack this "extra" the most but core warrior also need a little something.

Repeatable legendary equipement (consumed upon use): Black lion legendary chest Black lion legendary chest key

Well, in term of design both mechanist and bladesworn were bound to be failed specs for PvP. It's hard to really label one as worse than the other from a competitive mode point of view. Come on, on one side you got a spec that revolve around a mechanic that root the character for a few seconds to charge an attack that hit like wet noodle in competitive modes while on the other side you got a spec that rely on an AI mechanic (something that players can't stand losing against and is thus balanced to simply be "mediocre").

GW1 and GW2 are very different game, they merely share some background lore. Minion master build not being vable in GW2 WvW is not a matter of the game not being balance, it's a matter of AI not having the logical thinking routine of a player and not having access to active defense. In GW1, playing minion master was all about generating minions and applying enchantments on them while managing your energy. That's not a gameplay that the current GW2 can reproduce. As for WvW itself, the devs don't want minionmancers to be able to generate to many minions because it affect the majority of the players game experience negatively.

I think they should go for the opposite and remove the 100% cap instead. Players should need 300% to 400% boon duration via concentration in order to be able to keep up boons. (that should also be true for expertise and condition duration). If 2 characters with 0 investment in concentration can casually replace a the support of a full concentration character then it mean that investing is not really worth it. If you need 4 to 5 character to replace the fully invested support then it mean that the investment have some worth.

If they mix they will still lose some amount of raw stats compared to now so that's effectively some power De-creep.

Personally I'd focus mainly on a rework of the stat sets. - I'd limit the maximum of stats offered by armor stat sets to 3 stats and runes would focus on 2 stats. - I'd separate the healing power stat into 4 stats: Constitution: Increase incoming healing and barrier effects. Fervor: Increase outgoing healing and barrier effects. - I'd make sure that all conditions on AA can only be applied on a critical hit (to force "condi dps" to get precision in order to be potent).

Objectively, from a PvE point of view, both weaponset are outdated. They are somehow balanced around traits and mechanics that have long disappeared from the metagame. Dagger: Fire: For all intent and purpose, Ring of Fire is just a fire field which used to be useful for building might (and fury) via blast finisher. Fire grab was already bad in 2012 at release, it has barely seen any improvement in 12 years. Water: Both skills are "alright" I guess (I wouldn't have said that before sword was made available for all specs) Air: Barely any usefulness in these 2 skills from a PvE point of view (the only thing that redeem these skills is that there is a bit of breakbar damage on Updraft). Earth: Both skills are fine no change needed (I'd prefer if they were more responsive but the devs like to balance by making skills cluncky so I don't have much hope in some QoL) Focus: Fire: Just like ring of fire, Flamewall is outdated. Flame shield/transmute fire are somehow fine, I'd like a lower CD on flame shield if possible as fire aura is the worst aura of the game (a 10s CD on the skill like dagger's frost aura would be more than enough). Water: Both skill are bad and have always been bad outside of using comet for building might through blast finishers in 2012-2014. Air: I'm not even sure if nowadays swirling wind even block projectiles in PvE end game. Again, 2 skills that seriously lack impact in PvE. Earth: Both skills are lacking in PvE and that's especially true since they made obsidian flesh a chanelled skill in 2020 for the sake of the competitive modes.

The more armor you have, the lower the strike damage you receive. There is a big difference of damage done to and opponent with 2k armor and and opponent with 3.2k armor. Beyond that, you have to manage your active defense in such a way that you can face properly an eventual burst from your foe. And, without a doubt, OWP is a burst component.

In Guild wars case you'd need to have warrior as primary or secondary profession to get hammer skills and if you do have this profession then being able to use a hammer is a given. As for your idea, you're basically describing bundles and Masteries would be the way to unlock those and limit them through the various gamemodes. Just like Path of fire offer a variety of mount with their own skillsets, you could have masteries that offer a variety of "bundles" that are limited in use to specific areas in the game. This way, one can be the cool kid that wreck havock with his volcano hammer in some open world PvE maps without ruining PvE end game balance and competitive modes.