Benkorah.6048

I'm interested in joining. May I have an invite?

I am primarily a pve player. Ranger isn't my main, but it's one of my most played alts. I tested the spec in special forces training area, Metrica Province DWM, and Tangled depths, with primarily Berserker gear, though I also messed around with Viper's. The Good: 1. Untamed essentially feels like an elite version of core ranger, which in my opinion is exactly what ranger needed, since the other 2 elite specs seem to turn ranger into something entirely different. 2. The hammer feels good to play - especially the unleashed version. The concept of switching to defensive mode while working on a breakbar and then going damage mode when the bar is broken also seems good (mostly). 3. Normally, I don't gravitate toward utilities that just deal damage, but that cantrip with the exploding spores both looks great and feels good to use. 4. The moa heal might actually be useful now that I can control it. 5. As simple as the unleashed mechanic is, it will take some time to master its use, and easy-to-learn-but-difficult-to-master is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. The Bad: 1. The damage increase from unleashing the ranger only applies to power damage, which limits build diversity. 2. I found that it took everything on the hammer and then some to break a defiance bar, and then I unleashed and all my damaging abilities were on cooldown, because they were the same as my cc abilities. Feels bad. If we're meant to be adapting roles on the fly, then maybe it's fine, but the spec seems to be designed to capitalize on cc, but it takes everything you've got to actually cc anything in the first place. Or maybe it's a pvp spec. 3. **Several traits say that they give effects when disabling an enemy, but the effects are given when a disabling ability is used on an enemy, regardless of whether the enemy is actually disabled (i.e. the trait activates when doing defiance bar damage, or even when the defiance bar is recharging). I suspect this is intended, since there is a similar trait on core ranger which does the same thing, but the tooltip is misleading.** 4. For damage-oriented pets, I don't really want to micromanage their abilites. 5. **comment withdrawn, as it was based on a false assumption.** Suggestions: 1. Allow the damage done/taken tradeoffs to apply to condition damage as well as power in order to promote build diversity (although taking less damage while doing full condition damage could also be interesting...). Possibly also allow "Ferocious Symbiosis" to affect conditions. 2. Allow players the option to revert the pet controls to their base functionality, rather than always having full control. Better yet, provide a separate checkbox for each pet, so I can control when the moa uses its heal, but the iboga can just do its thing and deal some damage for me. **Edited negative comments 3 and 5**

Engineer is one of my 2 most played classes. I primarily PvE, and enjoy support roles. I tested with Diviner's, Viper's, Seraph, and celestial in the special forces training area and in the Gendarran Fields DRM (1 player, no challenges active). The Good: 1. The mech is pretty cool, and fits the class fantasy well. 2. Engie builds have historically been fairly complex, so it's nice to have an option that's a bit simpler to play. 3. The new support options seem especially nice, easily providing 100% alacrity, and potentially providing 100% might, fury, or protection if you build for them. 4. Although I can't speak for the exact balancing, an explosives condi build seemed to do respectable damage while being simpler to play than some previous iterations of condi-engineer. The Bad: 1. The pet is often a bit derpy, and tends to lag behind, making it slow to enter combat. A notification which tells the player why the pet is refusing to use its skill at any given moment might help ("mech is stunned", "mech can't figure out how to get in range", etc) 2. The engineer doesn't have access to a self-heal when taking the med kit (I'll also miss all the stun breaks and blast finishers on the toolbelt, but that heal is the biggest game changer). 3. I hear talk that certain other classes can provide alacrity and/or might to 10 players. As long as 10 player boons are a thing, 5-player boon support are unlikely to be welcomed into 10-player content. I can't speak to whether it's better to buff one, or nerf the other, but the mechanic should be more consistent. 4. Here's the big one... the player has very little agency over whether the pet dies, but is punished severely if it does, since most of the spec is tied to the mech, and the cooldown is quite long. Although mine didn't die at any point in testing, it did get to about half health, and I was hardly doing the most difficult content. Suggestion: The engineer gains stacks of "Nerd Rage" every second in combat when the mech is not active. At 10 stacks, the engineer gains access to the "Rant" ability, which provides a nominal amount of confusion to nearby enemies, in addition to effects which are determined by the mech's loadout, essentially providing the same boons and conditions as the mech, but to a lesser degree. I could also see Nerd rage having negative tradeoffs (like providing boons to allies, but weakness, blindess, cripple to self). Alternatively, just provide some passive benefits to the engineer in each trait, and allow access to most toolbelt skills while the mech is inactive.

I tested Willbender in open world with the default marauder's gear, and in Ascalonian Catacombs with a diviner's/commander's mix. The Good: 1. The spec seems to open up possibilities for selfish dps builds for Guardian, which is OK, I guess. 2. The spec grew on me the more I played it. 3. Constant aegis while virtue of courage is active? yes, please. The Bad: 1. I don't see myself ever using offhand sword. It doesn't offer much utility besides a bit of damage, and the damage felt "meh". (I probably won't use the physical skills either, but honestly it's hard to compete with core guardian skills anyway.) 2. Virtue of resolve was somewhat annoying to use since its value is tied to constantly attacking while it is active, but it frequently puts you out of range and facing the wrong direction when you use it. 3. The Phoenix Protocol trait, when combined with the Battle Presence trait, does not seem to grant alacrity to allies, which is a dirty shame. Conclusion/Suggestions: I'll probably run this with shouts or meditations instead of physical skills, but that's ok, because shouts and meditations are awesome. Virtue of justice is appropriate, virtue of courage is amazing, virtue of resolve could use work. Please allow Phoenix Protocol + Battle presence to apply alacrity to allies; that would be awesome.

After testing PvE Harbinger a bit in the open world (fighting awakened in the Desolation), here are my thoughts... The Good: 1. Pistol was fun, felt good to use, and synergizes well with Necro's life-steal mechanics. 2. The aggressive shroud skills and a couple of strong elixirs were a nice way to allow me to build tankier (I tested with Celestial) but still gain some burst damage by sacrificing some of that survivability. 3. On a glassier build (I used berserker), the passive health gain was a nice QoL thing when I wanted to focus on movement. The Bad: 1. Elixir icons all look a bit samey. They're serviceable, but seem out of place because other skills have more variety in the artwork. 2. Elixirs in general are a bit boring. The Mixed: 1. On glassier builds, I don't see myself using elixirs or spending time in shroud, so a lot of the Harbinger's kit may be wasted when I run zerker or viper gear. On the other hand, there seem to be a lot of players who favor maximum damage all the time, so those players may like it. 2. The biggest source of blight seems to be elixirs, but the first trait choice is between lowering the cooldown of elixirs or turning blight into an offensive tool. Maybe it's balanced to choose between stronger elixirs or elixirs on a shorter cooldown, but it still felt bad. In Summary: Overall I enjoyed build-crafting and playing harbinger more than I thought I would, given it's glass-cannon theme, and I believe the class offers utility for multiple playstyles. However, I have somewhat mixed feelings about the elixirs.

Willbender doesn't appear to have passive effects associated with virtues, either in the tooltip, or in the combat log, even though the tooltip for Lethal Tempo suggests that virtue passives should still trigger. Also, the Virtues specialization tree has a couple traits related to the Virtue of Resolve passive, so it's unclear what these traits are supposed to do if Virtues no longer have passive effects, so I'm guessing the removal of Virtue passives is unintended.