Naxos.2503

Weapons should have a dedicated purpose or niche to fill. As it stands, spear Does seem to find some interesting uses, but it's a bit of a stretch. I'm liking spears as they are, but find myself wondering how tridents would be different than spears or staff. I'd rather they explore unconventional uses for existing land weapons. Even though I dont use them, I find what they did with revenant scepter relatively interesting for example. I also seriously question how often we see Focus in use.

This is STILL occuring. How has this been left in for so long ?

I loathe the research note system, so i'd be all for it : the pure concept of having to craft something to then destroy it feels stupid. It's a currency with 3 extra steps. And the game is stingy with the amount received, compared to how many are actually required to get a single item (generally in the 3 digit price range, when you generally get a single digit per craft)

The Lupicus remains one of my favorite boss fight, in spite of all the more recent bosses. Movement, position and timing have to be on point for the fight, but taking it down legitimately is a bloody "Feels Good" moment. Arah does veer off in the "too long" category of dungeons at times, but if memory serve, some paths are shorter than others.

You got it entirely right. It's rather refreshing to see someone gets it still. Fractal is the only the relic that applies burning, it requires using Earth to trigger Bleeding. On a fire themed character, Runes and specializations are all tweaked toward Burning, not Bleeding, hence I'd have to waste a sigil and improve crit chance to trigger a Sigil of Earth, which is woefully inefficient, or go Earth Specialization which is even Less efficient. Relic of Fractal just doesn't work on a thematic level, nor does it even work on a practical level. PS : You also pretty much devined what I used for my Flame Shaman, which is indeed : A charr, camping Fire at all times, using Glyph of Elemental Harmony for healing, Glyph of Firestorm, Signet of Fire, Glyph of Lesser Elemental and Glyph of Elemental. Specialization in Fire, Arcane and Weaver, all of it to specifically boost fire. I used Baelfire Runes used to be, they'd also shift 7% of my power to Expertise which was a benefit to my setup, and made the build viable on PvE and WvW even if I didn't build it for efficiency

Apparently, they seem Really against the idea of anything creating an entity, so I dont know whether they will bring that back in the same form it used to be (as a non controllable entity). I just miss thematic upgrades. I have a fire elementalist character without any fire related relics. How is it sensical for my flame shaman to use a relic for Poison or torment damage because that's the only condi relic allowed ? Give Me FIRE ! My inquest engineer also feels sad without his golem, but at this point I'd settle for a relic that activate on crit every 20/30 seconds to trigger a crowd control attack and gives me something like Protection or Fury as it despawns, I dont know, just to have a bit of identity back to my chars.

Honestly, most people who used and enjoyed Summons from runes liked them for thematic reasons, it could be as simple as summoning them similar to a mesmer Phantasm on a 30 sec cooldown to deliver a specific attack. It would be Something, and it wouldn't bug Anet or whoever else got annoyed at summons for some reason, since it would be summoned and despawned after the attack. It doesn't even need to be a physical entity

9 months post release : No summon relics. No Burning synergy relics. In fact pretty much most of the condi users beside Poison got scuffed. Very little synergies for crowd control. Some relics are entirely useless to a good number of classes, Ressource relics in particular. And many more that I'm not using but others are prolly also missing. So much diversity and fun lost. For what ?

I have read it, and it doesn't adress anything I've expressed since the release of that content. Thus, I feel no obligation to give it any more time than I have already given to it by expressing my feedback post release. I'm not disliking the post or anything, merely stating the fact that the game no longer seems interested in having me play it. I haven't played since SoTo released and the post doesn't give me any reason to engage with it, since it's basically a "Everything going on schedule" post.

The lack of answers regarding that specific issue from the devs -have- led me to drop the game semi permanently. My biggest interest in the game has been thematic character builds, which this update has ripped to shred, and nothing has thus far has compensated for it. Now, if the devs said "Not to worry, we'll add all the effects back over time" then I'd probably be playing less, but still playing. It's been months after Soto dropped, and i've not seen it mentionned. Much more worrying for me though, is that they've also not said the opposite. Which means they know it's an issue, and seem to be purposefully avoiding to adress it. I've not felt any desire to come back and play since that update dropped, and that is not going to change, as I now believe they fully intend on Not adding them back. I still check the forum to see whether or not this is adressed but every time I have less and less reasons to check. And for those who feel like quitting because of that is overblown : Dont judge. We all play differently and for different reasons. I dont grind. Ever. I gain gold very slowly, and every ounce of it went into my chars to be tailored to use a very specific build. Their appearance is tailored to match that build. That's how I play the game. That update ruined 9 of my 12 chars. No relic has been able to make it work, because none of those relics go beyond the theme of "Numbers go high !". It was a bland update. I got nothing from it, and lost from it. I have no reasons to login because I'm missing pieces of my chars that Anet hasn't said they'd give back.

To be fair, none need any complicated and flowery language to make a point : The rune system as it was had more content than the relics do, and thus more overal choices. The relic system while it has more freedom as a System is woefully unfinished, and thus the "more choices" arguments hold little to no water.

Something bothered me with that statement, and I now can explain why. Other games expansions certainly do -not- work like this. An expansion is a self contained content patch. It's released -in full-, from the moment it is paid for. This is not it. Everyone paid full price for 1/4 of an expansion, and the expectations that we'll get the rest of the content later. Personally I did not see that mentionned anywhere when it was announced, if it was, it certainly wasn't advertised. There is a very clear difference between an expansion, and a paid patch. With the current amount of new content (next to nil) that cannot be considered an expansion. I will elaborate : No new weapons for any classes. There is an unlock of Existing weapons, but there was no new asset added, nothing beyond ticking a box to allow weapon usage. No new Elite Spec, we knew that, but it still bites, as currently no class had a significant gameplay change. No new mount. The skyscale is an existing mount, though it has genuinely been improved, artificial limitations initially set when it was first created were simply loosened. The only new element added was the Fireball which is a notable feature. 3 maps, of which 1 reuses existing assets entirely. 1 map is still missing and will be delivered piece meal Relic system is literally Rune system being tweaked and split. It's an existing system. It's only saving grace is that it technically isn't part of the expansion, but the expansion supposedly heavily leans into it, which is a gray area at best. 40 core relics, 12 new effects, out of 100 existing rune effects, of which it was not confirmed that they'd add all the missing effects on a 1 to 1 basis. So, what did this expansion currently add ? A new daily system replacement with the Wizard's Vault, which is significantly different enough to count, despite it's pitfalls. It is also not specific to the expansion and is in fact released to every player, with it benefitting expansion holders more. So, in the same way as the relics, calling it an expansion feature is debatable and at best, a gray area. 3 new maps, which no matter how they're decorated are still 3 new areas 2 armor sets A couple of masteries. A storyline. Now if we sum it up, this expansion brings paying players : A story, 3 new maps, one of which reuses assets heavily, 2 armors, some masteries. None of these Needed to be in an expansion and could have been released as a living story episode with more focus to each of it's parts. I do however believe that calling it a Living Story episode would have raised the issue of it being paid for on release, as opposed to previous Living Story episodes. In this particular case though, the content released is simply not expansion worthy.

You're not, but apparently voicing criticism and expecting some sort of answer from the devs is a high crime of treason and punished by ostracism and ridicule. I'll take my chances and weather out this situation onto other games. I was hoping to see a statement before I do, but I suppose this is fine regardless. I hope the story's okay for everyone that's playing through, in most releases story was generally decent and interesting, so here's hoping the only thing they fumbled was the system.

Where did that even come from ? Did I do anything to deserve to be compared to a bot ?

It's perfectly fine to enjoy the game. Enjoyment however, is subjective. I wish you good fortune ahead.