Kilometal.6495

Shortbow, or maybe dagger. I know it's not what engineers need the most right now, but it bothers me that medium classes don't share a common weapon while heavy and light classes do (Sword, mace and hammer for heavy. Staff, scepter, and focus for light).

Spirits feel weak and clunky to use. I don't know if there is an ideal solution, but I will just list my problems with them. They die way to fast, even in the context of pve. And that is with the trait equipped. Without it, they die even faster. They are immobile as the active skill that moves them has 20s CD, which has to be spammed for alacrity. Coupled with point 1, this means you can't get them out of hostile aoes. I think they might benefit from responding to your F3, the one that calls your pet to your location. Boons are pulsed around spirits rather than you. This may be just me, but a while back when they were pulsed around the ranger, it allowed some degree of mobility as I could cast them aside and do my own things instead of hogging around the spirits, which was a very nice excuse for enemies to throw aoe at me and hit spirits as collateral damage. The boons they pulse are rather inconsequential. Protection is nice, and fury interacts with remorseless, but the rest just doesn't cut it. I suspect there is a discrepancy between how devs and player value boons. Spirits without the trait are terrible. I guess I am just repeating point 4, but how many of us equip spirits without the trait? Spirits need to be useful as a stand alone utility. It doesn't help the recent design trend seems to be "spam utility skills of category INSERT THE BLANK to grant alacrity/quickness" while removing everything else from said category. Yes chronomancer wells, I am talking about you. Spirit summon has 20s CD and 1s cast time. Before the rework, spirits passively gave unique and highly valued buffs, so the CD and the cast time were justified. But now, spirits only give common boons. It raises the question if we still need them given all the budgets have been moved from passive pulse to active skills. I think either cast time or CD need to be reduced, preferably both.

This would require massive amount of balancing the game is not ready for. On the other hand, some of the core classes are in dire need of weapons, such as engineer power main hand or necro power weapon other than axe/focus. So what if, core classes gain accesses to these weapons after fully unlocking their respective specialization, while elite specs are forced to "specialize" in the weapon. For example, core mesmers can use shield, axe, and dagger after training chronomancer, mirage, and virtuoso traitlines. Chronomancer is still limited to shield only, mirage axe only, and virtuoso dagger only. This would open up some weapon combinations on core classes and slightly bridge the gap between core and elite. I also don't think weapons on core classes would be overpowered since they do not have support from profession mechanism and traits, meaning no ambushes/dual attacks/heat etc (except maybe sword ele, which is better than dagger ele without having to play with dual elements).

After trying the class, here are the issues I have with this class: Profession Mechanism: Unequal trade off: The new specializations seem to promote the idea of trade-offs, or "Lose X to gain Y". Ideally X should be equal to or equivalent to Y, but with willbender spec, I find X greatly outweighs Y. Dragonhunters gain cast time or longer cooldown for modified or stronger active effect. Firebrand virtues have minor cast time and lose immediate effects in favour of tome skills that require commitment and lock out weapon skills. With willbenders, they have these drawbacks: loss of passive effects: probably the biggest and the most obvious drawback Cast time: a minor one, but it is there Require commitment to one virtue as activating another virtue cancels the first one. It does not promote tactical choice. Instead, it limits them. Require multi-hit combos to fully enjoy the benefits of activated virtue: Another major drawback And in return, it gains ..? Willbender flames: It helps trigger virtue effect, but otherwise it feels like an inferior version of symbols, both in size and damage. Movement. However, they are too short to make significant impact. Justice, flowing resolve, and crashing courage: Justice feels like core passive with strike damage. Flowing resolve is only marginally better due to phoenix protocol. Courage is the only one that feels like an upgrade. I feel that drawbacks need to be reconsidered such as removal of #3 and reduction of #4. Now, on to individual profession skills: F1: For some reasons, there are two cast bar, one before movement and one after movement. Hopefully it is an oversight because it makes clunky gameplay. F2: It needs to be ground targeted instead of directional, or at least stop at first available target. It overshoots player if you cast it right next to your target, forcing you to walking back or use movement skills, reducing time for triggering flowing resolve. F3: As mentioned above, the only virtue that feels right Tooltips: All of them mention "Consecutive attacks do X", which is a confusing way of saying "Do X every 5/3 attacks". It is also inconsistent with the description on core passive "Burn foes every few attacks" Weapon With virtues that emphasize on multiple hits within short duration of time, the off-hand sword surprising lacks a multi-hit ability, especially on single target. I have better results of triggering virtue effects with torch and focus. This needs to be addressed as the spec weapon does not complement spec profession mechanics at all. Skills I don't have comments on utility skills, but I think the tooltips for Reversal of Fortune need work. It has the largest wall of text out of all skills in the entire game, with long sentences and lots of condition clauses. It could use a rewrite or a second paragraph. Traits T1 traits don't feel good. It is a problem when not picking a trait is an equally valid option. At least power for power sticks to the idea of "lose X and gain Y". The other two feel like "lose X and gain X". Another problem is they are mostly stat gain, so there is no little change to play style regardless your pick. Other traits are alright, although I feel like restorative virtues should be baseline.

I would very much like a hotkey for deposit and another for compact than playing with UI menu.