Reworking, renewing or tweaking; what core skills need a new coat of paint

[Phyrak.7260]

Hey there,

 

As the next expansion slowly draws closer, I've been reading through each class forum again and looking which weapon or utility skills need a tweak to full reconstruction.

 

Let me begin.

 

Guardian's hammer:

The epitome of slow, heavy and feeling almost unwieldy to attack with.

Speeding up or exchanging attacks to bring them up to par with 2021 e-specs could certainly do much to have it draw favour in the eyes of the community once more.

 

Consecration:

Much the same at least I find - though, a personal opinion; giving them a joint structure of sorts. 

A passive PBAoE that buffs you or damages the area around you with the active calling down the effect in an area or straight line attack of burning light.

Anything to have them field more play.

 

Engineer's turrets;

No doubt an unoriginal idea but changing turrets to act as spirit weapons of the guardian could certainly see them gaining more play with power/condition damage playing a larger role onto the summon weapon itself.

Gaining charges to drop multiple turrets at a time could further boost the effectiveness of such a build.

 

Warrior's banner; 

In the same vain as guardian's consecrations - gaining both a passive and active.

Changing them from a bundle into something that gives active play for the passive role they fill.

Also with the inspiration of the samurai with banner's on their back - such would fit the warrior's aesthetic for heading the charge.

 

Imagine this in WvW.

 

These are a few thoughts on what needs a rework, tweak or meat to the bone.

 

Which core profession weapon, utilities or even mechanics could do with a little bit of an update?

 

Low chance of having such things see the light of day but there's always a chance 😛

 

Thank you for reading,

 

-Phyrak

 

[Kodama.6453]

Alright, here we go again. Since I main engineer, I will just comment on which engineer skills could use some tweaks.

Rifle

The weapon doesn't do too bad, but I think there are some improvements which could be made. What I would like to see the most would be to add the explosion tag on blunderbuss (rifle 3).

This would allow rifle to thrive even better as our core power option by giving it synergy with the explosion trait line, allowing us to trigger traits by using our rifle instead of being forced to use utility skills to trigger them. 

They already did the same thing for electro whirl (hammer 2) and I think it was a great change. All engi power weapons in the future should have an explosion in the kit to trigger our power traits (sword can go without, since photon forge already provides an explosion with corona burst).

Pistol

Let the auto attack apply the bleed in AoE. Currently, just the tiny power damage portion of the skill is AoE, but you apply the bleed just on the primary target. For a condi damage weapon, this makes no sense. It made sense to not let it bleed in AoE when we used to have a trait that made pistol skills pierce, but it is gone for years already. Just give us the AoE bleed.

Also increase the fire rate of poison dart volley (pistol 2). It really doesn't need to be so slow.

Turrets

As you mention, they clearly need a full rework. The spirit weapon approach would be great, but there were other great ideas on the engineer forum floating around as well.

Gadgets

Utility goggles need help. This skill just gives stunbreaks and a short duration  of resistance, it needs more stuff. The blind removal feels redundant, since you already get resistance. It should at least also grant resolution and the boon durations should be buffed. Additionally, the toolbelt skill needs something added, like granting fury to allies in the AoE or giving a unique damage buff. Currently it only applies revealed, which is useless 99% of the time in PvE. I don't think a skill should read "do nothing" in any game mode.

Slick shoes should get slow added. It fits the skill (already applies slow in the underwater version) and with our many CC tools, it currently feels underwhelming. Toolbelt skill literally is just self superspeed, maybe could also get something added since it gets heavily powercrept by our superspeed sources. Maybe stability?

Elixirs

I would like to see elixir r completely reworked. I never see it used for the endurance and the toolbelt skill is now simply outclassed by the function gyro. Maybe make this one an offensive elixir, perhaps a reverse elixir c which you throw at enemies to corrupt their boons? We could use some more boon removal.

Elixir x also needs a complete rework. RNG sucks and Anet acknowledged this by changing all our other random elixirs into something reliable, except this one. Make this a unique engineer transformation, maybe turning into a big ooze with a new skill set instead of stealing tornado and juggernaut from other classes...

These are the most important for me so far. Traits could use some help, too, but since OP just asked about skills, I won't talk about them here.

[Tseison.4659]

Core

To be able to Dual wield Pistols. (Allow to be used in our Off hand as well)

Blink - a staple skill, makes me wonder if people would like it it had two charges to it? 

Veil - Cooldown reduced or stealth increased. Still can’t justify in bringing it in WvW with a 2s stealth when Thief + Scrappers are better as well as our Mass Invisibility regardless if Veil has no limit).

Null Field - Amount of targets increased from 5 > 10 and/or increase amount of boons stripped.

Time Warp - Revert or add Alacrity.

Clones - to be honest, I’d put Mirror Images + Decoy under Manipulations and move Phantasmal Disenchanter + Defender onto a weapon.

Signets - Signet of Inspiration reverted or have it grant a number of random boons to nearby allies and not share boons currently on you. It still makes no sense that Harbinger is being given what SoI previously did before it’s nerf but again, it’s the usual Anet giving every other profession our stuff.

Mantras - Need tweaking or a rework.

Overall, for the future I would love more area control like skills. I love Glamours and hope we get more.

Chronomancer

Wells - Need to go off at Mesmers location with the exception of Gravity Well, that can remain targeted.

Mirage

To be able to Dual Wield Axes (allow us to wield it in our Off hand as well)

Deception - Illusionary Ambush + Mirage Advance combined. Sand Through Glass changed into something else.

Crystal Sands - Should deal damage and confusion at the targeted area per pulse and then once it finishes, it summons a Mirror. The current effect doesn’t seem as impactful. From my opinion.

Edited September 17, 2021 by Tseison.4659
Clarified due to ‘dual wielding’ not being clear…

[Kodama.6453]

1 hour ago, Tseison.4659 said:

Core

Dual wield Pistols.

I assume that you mean core mesmer should be able to dual wield pistols, since all other changes you suggest are mesmer related and you seem to be a mesmer main, but you should probably still clarify here that.

[Tseison.4659]

2 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

I assume that you mean core mesmer should be able to dual wield pistols, since all other changes you suggest are mesmer related and you seem to be a mesmer main, but you should probably still clarify here that.

Okay so I’ll edit it… I’m still referring to the same thing. For the Mesmer profession, I HOPE they implement the capability to Dual wield Pistol, having us able to wield it not only in our Main hand, but also in our Off hand. 

[Knighthonor.4061]

●○●Revenant○●○

 

♤♧Weapons♧♤

 STAFF-  

needs better support or be made into a better combat weapon. With the nerf to Staff 5 in WvW/PvP, the weapon deserves a buff in other areas. Especially Support,  since it was originally designed to be a support weapon. I wouldn't mind if skills on it were designed to heal allies based on the damage dealt or healing power (whichever is higher), this way it scales for both power builds and support builds but not both at the same time.

 

Revenant need a new baseline midrange weapon.

 

HAMMER-

well Hammer is Hammer 🔨 😢😭

Some how this weapon need to be redesigned so both Shiro/Heralds make good use out of it, but also non Shiro/Heralds. Its not even a good tagging weapon when you not using either of those two legends. Somehow address this issue along side the bugs and other issues that Hammer currently has.

 

☆☆Legends☆☆

 

VENTARI-

This need to have Ventari Will cooldown reduced. Get rid of the healing aspect if you have to. This cooldown has to go do. 

I also suggest changing Natural Harmony into an upkeep skill with adjusted healing output. 

I firmly believe that when the tablet isn't on the field, such as after it explodes from the elite skill, Ventari should have some skills of its own, with skill 6 resummoning the tablet to start the cycle over.

Ventari was a great warrior in the past after all. Not sure why we can't tap into those echos of ventari along side the peaceful Ventari as well.    

This could make Ventari more accessible to non Support builds as well, increasing our build diversity overall.

[Bomboed.5697]

Entire Engineer profession requires a lot of reworking and balancing. We have to many useless skills, broken skills and outdated mechanics.
Entire Turret skill type requires a complete rework.
Most of Gadgets require a lot if tuning and balancing.
Pistol #1 should have an Explosion Tag for synergy with traits. Pistols in general need some love.
Kits require a lot of rebalancing, because some of them are mandatory for most of builds, while others are completely useless.

These are realistic changes. But ideally I would love to see entire Engineer profession mechanic to be changed from Toolbelts skills to Kits slots.
Also rework Bomb Kit into Rocket launcher Kit. Engi needs a proper 1200 range power-based Kit without ground-targeting, which could be used with regular weapons like Scrapper Hammer or Holo's Sword.