The Elite Specs we Should Have Gotten

[draxynnic.3719]

It's giving something different to do with the pet.

 

I don't think the 'for casuals' label is really fair because Untamed has a higher APM load than core ranger does. You have to activate all the pet skills (except the autoattack) manually, and manage swapping the Unleashed effect and using those skills manually as well. The benefit to that extra APM load, of course, is that you can make sure that specific pet skills like CCs and combo finishers happen when they have the most impact. Maybe that interface will be moved to core ranger, but maybe they've specifically chosen not to because of the added complications it brings to playing ranger for new players, making this more of an advanced spec for more established players who can make the most of it. Unleashed, like it or not, is also a significant enough effect on playstyle that you wouldn't just add it to core. Sure, it's not as revolutionary as some, but it's probably at least on a similar level to Daredevil.

 

In short, it gives players who wanted a deeper interaction with their pet than core offers an option to get that.

 

I can recognise wanting a different interaction, such as making the pet (or group of pets) a temporary summon, but just because it's not the specific mechanic you were looking for doesn't mean it's wrong. I don't like mechanist golem as a mechanic but you'll note I didn't group it among the 'got it wrong from the very concept' set of elite specialisations.

 

Meanwhile, I can only roll my eyes at the claim that it'll be a sucky teamfighter just because it relies on the pet to do things. In my experience, pets rarely die in teamfights because it's almost futile to target them in the first place, and it's rare for them to take more damage than the ranger can handle through swapping and the occasional heal. If it turns out to be a poor teamfighter it will be the ranger's own durability that lets it down, not the presence of the pet. Which is an implementation issue, not a conceptual one, and my post was focusing on whether the overall concept was the appropriate one to use at this time.

 

 

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

20 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I bounce between professions, but I've been playing mesmer in upper gold for the past couple of months, and that's on ~300ms ping. Although I fully expect this to be responded to with an argument that I don't count because I'm not in platinum or something.

 

There's definitely some issues with virtuoso that need some extra polish, but that applies to pretty much all the new elites (willbender's Justice virtue is also so slow it can be sidestepped), and in Virtuoso it's mostly stuff that can be polished out. The core concept is sound. 

 

Most of your claims are also exaggerations. Condi weapons rely on clones for a portion of their damage (and the virtuoso condi line really doesn't compensate for that), but the damage from clones with power weapons is basically nothing, and virtuoso is mostly power. You still have mobility and CC from core mesmer skills, you don't have to go pure Virtuoso, and you also have most of the defences of core mesmer (F4 is arguably better than Distortion if the enemy doesn't have unblockables), as well as additional defences from Virtuoso traits and skills if you choose them. A three-clone Mind Wrack at point blank has a total of a 2.8 coefficient in sPvP, while a 4-blade Bladesong Harmony is a total of 2.94, so either your claim that a 2-clone shatter is stronger than a 5-blade bladesong is wrong or the wiki is. While blades are supposed to be able to be generated by anything that would normally produce a clone, and where it doesn't it's probably a bug. (I certainly didn't have any problem stacking them at a reasonable rate, especially since they didn't die like clones do.) And it's not like there aren't ways to prevent a clone shatter from reaching you unless the clones are already pretty much next to you.

 

Could possibly use a faster projectile speed, I'd like to see a trait that allows bladesongs to ignore projectile hate for WvW, the condition traits need to be improved (or discarded and just accept that condi Virtuoso will never be a thing) and core traits need to be better integrated into the elite spec, but this is polish rather than the core idea being bad.

 

Would I take it into sPvP as presented in the beta? Not sure, but I'd take it into sPvP over Willbender or any of the second beta elite specs as they were in the beta any day of the week and twice on Sundays. And I can certainly think of other environments where I think Virtuoso will work better than traditional mesmer.

The concept is trash. It has no defined role, it is what a ranged damage dealer? If yes, than it really isn't since it doesn't have the tools for that. And it is what lore wise? A psionic? A musician? A mind blade? 

Try staff or scepter without the clones portion of damage and tell me it is fine either way. 

As for power, yeah, except on gs2, try it without clones and have fun having one or two bounces.

Regarding cc and mobility, every elite spec got it except for Virt which Funnily needs it for its role. 

F4 is better than distortion? A block is better than invuln? 

MW scales based on number of clones, Virt F1 deals fixed damage per blade.

With all modifiers you can MW for more than 12k with 2clones at pb. 

With Virt 5blade F1 you deal, if all stars align, 12k, more often than not you deal half that. 

It's harder to get 5blades than 3clones, I mean it's math. Mesmer weapons are design around the 3 clone idea not the 5blades, hence why they tried to band-aid that by forcing blade generation trait. 

As for the last bit, helseth, tried it on pvp with numerous builds and even abusing the 40stacks of confusion bug, didn't win a match and dropped to gold tier. 

[Lazze.9870]

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Meanwhile, I can only roll my eyes at the claim that it'll be a sucky teamfighter just because it relies on the pet to do things. In my experience, pets rarely die in teamfights because it's almost futile to target them in the first place, and it's rare for them to take more damage than the ranger can handle through swapping and the occasional heal. If it turns out to be a poor teamfighter it will be the ranger's own durability that lets it down, not the presence of the pet. Which is an implementation issue, not a conceptual one, and my post was focusing on whether the overall concept was the appropriate one to use at this time.

 

And I roll my eyes at claims like this. WvW zerging is already off the table, you already admitted that.

How few people are we talking about being part of a teamfight before we stop calling it a teamfight alltogether? It doesn't require more than a fire weaver spamming its skill on a small area point in pvp to render that pet borderline useless. It will die to the aoe. Add some dragonhunter traps, or a scourge, general aoe CCs that will stunlock your pet. Dying is one thing, relying on the pet to do things is a question of whether it can pull off whatever you want it do as quickly and reliably as it would be simply doing it yourself.

Not a conceptual one? It's based on the same mechanic that core has been dealing with for 8 years. They weren't gonna fix any of those issues by "implementing it differently" for an elite spec, I made a wall of texts arguing why that is before Untamed was revealed to have a pet. There are way too many issues for this mechanic to be as reliable as it could have been without it alltogether. It is a conceptual problem when you could already tell they wouldn't do the necessary changes to make it work. The fact of the matter is, we now have two ranger elite specs that could have performed their intended roles (support healer and bruiser) much better if the core pet mechanic was put aside for something else. I'm not saying both druid and untamed should have been petless, but one of them definetely should have been. Which also would have made the argument for a beastmastery-type spec next much more valid.

 

I think "your experience" isn't that of a ranger main whom has played this class on a high level in both pvp and wvw for years and years.

[Dadnir.5038]

On 10/29/2021 at 1:20 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

It's giving something different to do with the pet.

Is it? From my point of view it doesn't.

Oh, sure it give you some amount of control over the skills the pet use but I wouldn't go to the lenght of calling that "giving something different to do with the pet". The pet do the same things as ever which isn't much. And to be fair, the ranger as a whole should have much more control over what it's pet do, baseline! What this spec do don't even come close to the controle over it's pet that the ranger should have.

There is 0 difference of gameplay with core ranger apart from chosing between a buff that either increase your damages at the cost of your defenses or increase your defenses at the cost of your damages.

[oscuro.9720]

I swear I’m the only person who plays competitive who likes bladesworn. Why’s everyone hating on my bb?

(though yea, it does need some buffs pls)

[Dadnir.5038]

6 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

I swear I’m the only person who plays competitive who likes bladesworn. Why’s everyone hating on my bb?

(though yea, it does need some buffs pls)

It's not that it's "bad", it's just that I hate the iai cliché gameplay concept and find the concept of a gunsaber ridiculous. Not for me.

[oscuro.9720]

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

It's not that it's "bad", it's just that I hate the iai cliché gameplay concept and find the concept of a gunsaber ridiculous. Not for me.

See, when blades worn comes up, people keep using words I don’t understand and say it’s cliche. I really think I’m missing something. What is “iai”?

As far as the concept, I can understand that, but I also find giant robots, tigers taking commands from asuras, and thieves being able to jump 20 feet in the air ridiculous as well, so I guess I have just suspended disbelief 🙂 

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, oscuro.9720 said:

See, when blades worn comes up, people keep using words I don’t understand and say it’s cliche. I really think I’m missing something. What is “iai”?

As far as the concept, I can understand that, but I also find giant robots, tigers taking commands from asuras, and thieves being able to jump 20 feet in the air ridiculous as well, so I guess I have just suspended disbelief 🙂 

"iai", short for "iaido", is the concept of drawing the sword for more power and, ironically, attack "speed". You find many reference to the style in the asian literature, which is why I find the spec "cliché".

[oscuro.9720]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

"iai", short for "iaido", is the concept of drawing the sword for more power and, ironically, attack "speed". You find many reference to the style in the asian literature, which is why I find the spec "cliché".

Thank you for the explanation. I did not know what this meant. I would assume this is frequently used in anime, since many people call the spec an “anime” spec? I have not watched many anime, so I don’t really have the same biases, but if it is not your cup of tea, that’s perfectly respectable :) 

[Dadnir.5038]

10 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Thank you for the explanation. I did not know what this meant. I would assume this is frequently used in anime, since many people call the spec an “anime” spec? I have not watched many anime, so I don’t really have the same biases, but if it is not your cup of tea, that’s perfectly respectable 🙂

I don't know specifically for "anime" but asians sure are fascinated by the concept, you can find references in many of their novels.

[Seku.6928]

Another hybrid support espec for revenant and lazy design - paired with the dissapointment of the rest of the especs is the nail in the coffin for me

was hoping id switch from rev to thief but again its just another support

[Dawanarth.4601]

10 hours ago, Seku.6928 said:

was hoping id switch from rev to thief but again its just another support

But no other Thief espec was a support focused though ?

[genjonah.1253]

I was sooooo excited at even the first trailer for Vindicator. Then came the beta…

 

turn the new ‘dodge’ into an F5 mechanic or something, and give regular dodge back. Then it would at least be viable in casual-starting difficulty stuff (seriously, imagine doing Boneskinner with that ‘dodge’ mechanic)

 

I like the concept for, frankly, all of them. I just think that Vindicator (especially), Catalyst, Untamed, Spectre, and Willbender were veeeery poorly executed 

[Seku.6928]

4 hours ago, Dawanarth.4601 said:

But no other Thief espec was a support focused though ?

As in revenant got a 3rd support spec and was hoping I would switch to thief, then got presented with another support spec 

[Xenash.1245]

Perhaps if someone couldn't win even a single match with the new mesmer spec in the chaos that is spvp, while abusing a bug as it was put, that speaks more about them then spec itself irregardless of any issues it might have.

 

Also greatsword two will probably be fixed for the spec in the next beta, as it genuinley just seems like an oversight on the devs part. They already redesigned sword three so I see no reason why they couldn't do the same for the greatsword.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

14 hours ago, Xenash.1245 said:

Perhaps if someone couldn't win even a single match with the new mesmer spec in the chaos that is spvp, while abusing a bug as it was put, that speaks more about them then spec itself irregardless of any issues it might have.

 

Also greatsword two will probably be fixed for the spec in the next beta, as it genuinley just seems like an oversight on the devs part. They already redesigned sword three so I see no reason why they couldn't do the same for the greatsword.

Yup. 

Clearly one of, if not the best gw2 player needs to l2p. 

As for the GS2 is not an oversight, staff and scepter both suffer from the same issues.

Unless by oversight you mean an half-assed spec. 

[Mesket.5728]

On 10/27/2021 at 5:02 PM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Bladesworn: Should have been a support themed class with staff, like a monk.

 

For me, it should've been a support staff class,..  I agree... but a Pact Commander. Staff as a fighting banner (mix of melee hits and ranged buffs from the commanding movement perhaps) and the skills should've been minions like necro but from the pact, like: healing priory caster with a scepter or staff as heal or protector fighter from vigil with a shield buffs protection or something or  whispers assassin as condi dps, you get the idea...

 

All this of course, tweaking Berserker to be the true dps spec on par with other classes full dps builds

Edited November 9, 2021 by Mesket.5728

[Obtena.7952]

On 10/27/2021 at 5:02 PM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

I dont expect a lot of these elite specs to stay popular unless they are balanced to have meta dps.

Well, for the small fraction of the populations that worship the meta in instanced content, that might be true. Lucky for the rest of us, what is popular is based on something much different than meta. Besides, not everything can be meta, so meta is a pretty bad reason to consider changing anything. 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

8 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Lucky for the rest of us, what is popular is based on something much different than meta.

That is the whole point im making. A lot of these specs hardly appeal to anyone because of their poor design.

[Obtena.7952]

21 minutes ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

That is the whole point im making. A lot of these specs hardly appeal to anyone because of their poor design.

I don't think you have anything but anecdotal data to support that claim. I mean, even for those that are poorly designed ... they still have appeal to people. We see some people like and some don't on the forums. That's not statistically relevant to make a point that the specs don't appeal to people for any reason. 

I mean, we HAVE to expect that not everyone will like every spec. That would be unreasonable in the first place, so it's not really a problem that people think they need to continue to highlight. 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

Double post (why is this happening?)

Edited November 9, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Opopanax.1803]

10 hours ago, Mesket.5728 said:

 

For me, it should've been a support staff class,..  I agree... but a Pact Commander. Staff as a fighting banner (mix of melee hits and ranged buffs from the commanding movement perhaps) and the skills should've been minions like necro but from the pact, like: healing priory caster with a scepter or staff as heal or protector fighter from vigil with a shield buffs protection or something or  whispers assassin as condi dps, you get the idea...

 

All this of course, tweaking Berserker to be the true dps spec on par with other classes full dps builds

If NOT a support, for the love of all that is good it shouldn't have been a THIRD POWER MELEE SPEC... sheesh!  Seriously... I just keep shaking my head at the direction they went with warrior...

[Kodama.6453]

3 hours ago, Opopanax.1803 said:

If NOT a support, for the love of all that is good it shouldn't have been a THIRD POWER MELEE SPEC... sheesh!  Seriously... I just keep shaking my head at the direction they went with warrior...

Tbf, while berserker is melee, it got designed as a condi based spec more than a power based one.

[Dawanarth.4601]

Wasn't Berserk supposed to be all about inflicting burns ?

Gladiator/Retiarii Condi Melee spec with Trident for bleed, torment, fear and Resolution/Resistance or barrier (Burst become more supportive/defensive, and more showy) also have way to turn condition into boons, use Mantra

Spoiler

[Healing] Mantra of the Murmillo: (2 charges, medium recharge rate) By blocking enemy strikes the Warrior show his fighting spirit, turning allied condition into boons and enemy boons into conditions

Mantra of Andabatta: (3 charges, slow recharge) Cleanse Blind, stun-breaker, if a Stun is broken in less than 1 sec, cleanse stun of allies (5)

Mantra of Cestus: (2 charges, fast recharge) Stun Foes, give alacrity (5)

Mantra of Rudarius: (3 charge, medium recharge) Replenish Endurance and give Protection (10) and might

[Elite] Morituri te salutant: (2 charge, long recharge) gain Undying (can still lose health), if you kill a foe you regain vast health to allies (5)

Dodge become Pollice verso: Work like Mirage's dodge, but instead of being intangible, block attack, give a free charge  for F2

Burst remain as is but F2 become a secondary skill: Ad Ludum Gladiatorium

Spoiler

[Burst]Trident: Sea splitter: Jump and hit the ground with the Trident, causing a forcewave around the landing point

[Ludum]

Trident: Deep Strike: Leap at target, Cause Weakness and Torment, if it hit cause Fury, if kill cause Fury and Might

Hammer: Stop, Hammer time: Block incoming strike, hit back causing knockdown

Greatsword: Blade breaker: Heavy strike, cause Weakness

Sword: Pommel Strike: Dash and stun, cause Quickness

Axe: Shield breaker: Heavy strike, cause Vulnerability

Mace: Resonating strike: Strike multiple times, give Protection or Might

Longbow: Solar Shot: AoE, cause Burn and Alacrity in area

Rifle: Incapacitating Shot: Shot in a cone, all foe hit get daze and vulnerability

Harpoon: Depth Stalker: Slow shot, Give stealth and Fury if hit

Spear: Caudal Strike: Hit foe pushing them backward, followed by a dash to strike them a second time, cause torment and give quickness

Pillager Condi Ranged with Shortbow for burn torment, Alacrity and Vigor, skill type being "Trick" for movement based abilities or Preparations, to show the Strategist that the Warrior is

[Mesket.5728]

2 hours ago, Dawanarth.4601 said:

Wasn't Berserk supposed to be all about inflicting burns ?

No, that just a myth brcause they gave it a torch... fact is berserket is meant to be our dps spec either power or condi. It did gave warrior a condi option because it was non existant before. It would be so stupid to make it just condi and name it after the most iconic power gear set... oh wait, this is anet after all so who knows