End of Dragons Elite Specialization Updates

[Ignigknawt.7869]

I'm not seeing anything about the action-camera issues with Specter, which is worrying. That was a HUGE problem with me being able to enjoy and play the class properly, really hope it's fixed in beta 4.

[Gorem.8104]

5 hours ago, Smoosh.2718 said:

Bladesworn

Pistol still on offhand? how have they not fixed this game breaking bug for Bladesworn yet? It made the class feel really horrible to play with this bug, I really hope they get this sorted for the release of EoD.

True, I forgot that feedback as well with many of us saying that it should be mainhand, that way we have access to our great offhand choices that we already have, unlike the mainhand choices we have. 

[Lyanna.9875]

I don't know if someone already said it BUT the thing that should have been best for the Catalyst and that we asked in our feedback was to not only modify Jade Sphere but to change completely the Hammer #3 skill so it could become integrated in the Catalyst dynamic in a combo with the Jade Sphere. So it can be used with ALL weapons and not just Hammer that feels clunky and really slow.

Like the orbs that rotate around you could have been summoned at attunement change, THAT would have increased survivability by A LOT! 

Neither this nor the traits master have been changed. These with the change you made about the Jade Sphere were our feedback. You just took 1 of the 3... 

Better than nothing of course but still...

Edited November 25, 2021 by Lyanna.9875

[Aedil.1296]

Alacrity to Willbender on a PASSIVE...are you kittening serious?

Like guardians needed to cover that role as well? At least alacrigade presses a button, but no guardians has it on a passive 😂

What about truly fixing Catalyst that is still a meme despite the changes? 

You're taking away every last drop of love I have for gw. All this injustice between classes is unbearable. 

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Aedil.1296

[Madja.1369]

Some good stuff here. Especially happy to see that Vindicator will no longer automatically switch between utilities. I might actually play it now.

 

A bit sad to see no reduction in the effect on Specter wells as it is very bright and it's difficult enough to see enemy circles as it is.

 

[decease.3215]

right..virtuoso  have no healing, no mobility, no cc... and now they have no damage as well... why??????

[hugo.4705]

Well. After playing all those betas there were 4 elite specs that i'm goinf with with EoD:

-Harbringer, Bladeworn, Catalyst and Mehanist.

I am very disappointed with Catalyst. And frankly, as I said since the start, I would have preferred an elemental shooter with longbow or rifle to shoot and do massive artistic animations and explosions. I can't tell if those fixes will make catalyst better, but a lot of skills animation are reused from already existing specs, very obvious, and well, it feels so slow, non damaging, noneffective that even my weaver can do better. So for this one can't really tell until next week.

Harbringer? Well i personally like the fact of ground targeted elixirs skills, because, well, if you take palawadan, the alchemist are throwing potions like grenades, they aren't like, alcoholic that keep sipping a vine bottle. So yes, good change, will see for blight change, but blight is an interesting mechanic, just need to be implemented correctly..

Bladeworn? Well will play it. It feels so like a bomber holosmith in my point of view, it is dynamic, good looking skills. Will see next week too.

Finally Mechanist. The resummon cooldown change is apreciated, the fixes of responsiveness of the mech related to command skills are interesting. Will see for the decrease of mech health if is too much or not. But really, i didn't see it in the fixes, but mechanist should be able to have toolbelt, really needed because mchanist without mech is hard. Plus, like said, there should be more synergy with kits, other weapons of engineer. Traits for mech and mechanist but also affect others engie weapons an tools giving them bonuses. Ans that is a thing totally absent of your fixes patch.

[GrayHawk.7560]

In general looking very positive.  Will just comment on my two favourite specs/mains-

 

Vindicator - looking really good, thank you for taking on all the feedback.  Only real comments are:

 

1. I'm disappointed the Urn wasn't reworked totally, the skill is just plain awful, hopefully the changes to it will make it a bit better to use;

 

2. Spear needs a better damage modifier, surprised that was left untouched;

 

3. F2 could do with a bit more flavour all around but I have no doubt doubt that will probably be worked on as you guys get more time to do so.

 

Mechanist - cautiously optimistic, very happy to have proper pet controls, that's a huge plus.  My biggest concern is getting rid of the Mechs autos and trying them to the mace, similarly a bit concerned regarding a lot more interplay between the Mech and Signets.  As much as I love to see the mace and Signet buffs as a profession Mechanist is feeling quite restrictive, you're basically now tied in to mace, probably mace shield, and either full or close to full signets.  That's not too awful subjectively because I really enjoyed the Mech, mace and signets and I can see the design vision which I think is being executed well.  It's just quite a shift from regular Engi which is often played for its versatility.  Will also need to see how the new scaling feels.  All in all as I said, I'm cautiously optimistic provided one enjoys the design you are going for with it (which I do).

[Dadnir.5038]

I'll be honest and say that I'm wondering if this is really what they gathered from the feedback...

- "Our solution for catalyst is to encourage you to go even closer to your target so that your skills connect!"

- "We've added an F6 and F7 to the pet for mechanist and Untamed!"

- "Virtuoso seemed to have to much damage, we nerfed most of the skills coef."

- "We've overbuffed elixirs on harbinger and reduced survivability so that players will use elixirs."

- "Hammer second set of skills was awkward so we keep it and intend to add in the futur ambush skills on skill#1 of other weapons. No data yet on those ambush skills but the traits will make them worthwhile... Maybe."

- "We've added a secondary legend swap button (F3) when using alliance legend."

- "We've effectively halve the damage but doubled the rate at which you can unleash your burst skill on bladesworn so that you waste less time between each slash"

Let's say that's was not what I expected to be understood from the feedback.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

Next time you open a thread for feedback be sure to write "you can write your feedback here but we won't read any of it" 

What a bunch of time wasters. 

[HotDelirium.7984]

43 minutes ago, hugo.4705 said:

Well. After playing all those betas there were 4 elite specs that i'm goinf with with EoD:

-Harbringer, Bladeworn, Catalyst and Mehanist.

I am very disappointed with Catalyst. And frankly, as I said since the start, I would have preferred an elemental shooter with longbow or rifle to shoot and do massive artistic animations and explosions. I can't tell if those fixes will make catalyst better, but a lot of skills animation are reused from already existing specs, very obvious, and well, it feels so slow, non damaging, noneffective that even my weaver can do better. So for this one can't really tell until next week.

Harbringer? Well i personally like the fact of ground targeted elixirs skills, because, well, if you take palawadan, the alchemist are throwing potions like grenades, they aren't like, alcoholic that keep sipping a vine bottle. So yes, good change, will see for blight change, but blight is an interesting mechanic, just need to be implemented correctly..

Bladeworn? Well will play it. It feels so like a bomber holosmith in my point of view, it is dynamic, good looking skills. Will see next week too.

Finally Mechanist. The resummon cooldown change is apreciated, the fixes of responsiveness of the mech related to command skills are interesting. Will see for the decrease of mech health if is too much or not. But really, i didn't see it in the fixes, but mechanist should be able to have toolbelt, really needed because mchanist without mech is hard. Plus, like said, there should be more synergy with kits, other weapons of engineer. Traits for mech and mechanist but also affect others engie weapons an tools giving them bonuses. Ans that is a thing totally absent of your fixes patch.

I do like the direction they are heading in. I'm fine with celestial builds ( they are good in PVE) but why the focus on that for a catalyst? Feels tacked on since every attunement is different- in water attunement sure I'm healing a lot but what skills do I have that generate damaging conditions? When balancing specs I do hope they remember to balance them in ways that are viable if someone chooses to use all attunements or always stay in one attunement. My other issue is the combo's and aura traits. They rely on fields so much its going to be frantic running around deploying fields and hoping to combo in them to generate auras ...from what 1 or 2 skills? None of our utility skills create auras nor combo to create auras. That I think is the next tweek.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Bladesworn.... 

 

 

Ahahahahahahahahahahhahaahhaha!!! 

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahhahaha!!! 

 

 

[HotDelirium.7984]

7 hours ago, Skyroar.2974 said:

I still don't understand why Vindicator's alliance stance couldn't simply be split into 2. This revenant-inside-a-revenant concept is a bit silly. Why have a F3 button to swap between (alliance's) legends, when you already have F1 for that? Just split Kurzick and Luxon sides into two different legends, and give the player the choice if they want to use them together or not...

Instead, Vindicator is going to suffer the elementalist's design bloat problem: where they'll have an entire extra skillset available that will likely be ignored in PvE. So why bother? If I'm playing DPS revenant, I likely won't use Ventari as one of my legends, so why should I be forced to have a support side with Alliance that is there-yet-not-there? Again: like an elementalist that rotates between fire-air (or fire-earth for condition builds) while ignoring the remaining attunements. It's bloat for the sake of bloat, IMO. Just split it into 2 and let players equip them only when they need them.

Outside of that, Greatsword is a very exciting weapon that any revenant player desperately wanted to gain access to, but most of its skillset still feels flat and bland. #5 is definitely an exciting skill, even more so with the QoL changes, but everything else is so generic/vanilla. It doesn't seems to have any interesting rotation/combo, IMO.

 

For Virtuoso, its defensive utilities remain underwhelming, and should get a look at. I also feel that the "blade tooltip" mechanic remains underdeveloped. Giving bleeding to sword and greatsword through traits is nice, but outside of condition builds, I feel there's a lot of untapped potential to make these two existing weapons play differently - which just doesn't happens when all the "blade tooltip" mechanic offers for power builds is extra vulnerability, a very passive condition. Also, dagger #2 should create two blades: one if it hits any target the first time, the other if it hits again when it gets back to you (unless it already does that and I missed it).

I do think we are all heading in the right direction with the specs if they made these changes over the last month. We'll be in a great place by time EOD comes. Aegis is a fine skill but I think the duration should be longer and maybe even some passive traits like damage reduction per stocked blade that way if you you have options for being more dmg or defence and can double dip some in between bladesongs- I.E. the rotation would be like *the 10 second blade refresh is happening*, you fire a bladesong and get the dmg buff, immediately start stocking blades again for defence in the meantime, reassess combat, repeat!

[Kolzi.5928]

The changes broadly seem good, I think Harbinger especially comes out quite well. The Virtuoso changes leave me feeling a bit uninspired. The buff which encourages spacing out your bladesongs is definitely a nice touch, and it will present gameplay decisions based around sustained damage by maintaining the buff for longer or bursting at the expense of wasting buff time. I would have maybe made the buff a little stronger to emphasize this more. Still, the traits feel very one-note and uninteresting to me, and the bladesongs are mostly just projectile versions of the shatters so while I think there is something cool here, it is still missing a strong addition to the classes repertoire in my view.

 

The Catalyst and Willbender changes will need to be played with to really evaluate at all, I feel. Glad to see Untamed is getting support for the other weapons.

[Rym.1469]

A bit sad you are going with the Blight removing mechanic instead of embracing Blight more, giving a way to copy it and implementing some 55 hp monk aspects, but maybe it was too ambitious for the majority of the community who are after simpler gameplay.

We will have to see how big of an impact cutting HB mobility and removing healing will have on the game. Nice to see Shroud 3 and 4 getting some attention, but there was a potential for more cross-ability interaction, even with adding combo fields or combo finishers.

Where are the trait changes though? Elixirs were boring but few of them were useful, meanwhile traits were in the real alpha state, especially grandmasters. Hopefully we can convince you to change them for the release.

 

 

 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Rym.1469

[Tarragon.4302]

Catalyst changes may as well be non existent. These wont do anything for the core design of the spec. I don't understand who at anet thinks these adjustments are meaningful. Don't ship catalyst in its current state.

[Shinigami.5230]

I really appreciate the direction of changes for necromancer (blight interaction)and bladesworn (lower charge and the interrupt CD removal) and guardian (animation cancel or at least reduction)

However,the nerf of harbinger modifiers to 12.5% max even for some health increase at max blight (1/8 of max health more than before),it's just not enough. some runes give +10% modifiers and combined with 5% of the sigils that's more than the whole trait can get,besides people will just pick scourge for higher modifiers and utilities at this point,and if the nerfs are because of the damage on utilities are that good, if they are, it means they will need to be nerfed cuz that's just broken, harbinger on the 1st beta didn't out benchmark already existing classes that much,even with runes that aren't in the beta package.also the condi decrease to half on skills and increasing CD is just too much imo. But still the blight interaction is much appreciated and as a direction in general too.

As for bladesworn,the premise behind the whole spec was that it's heavy damage and hard to execute so that's it's not completely broken so I'm fine with 300k on a single strike. but modifiers just got gutted and the speed on the 3d dragon slash nearly halfed???? The only thing that was bad about it was the CD on dragon trigger if interrupted, adding the faster charge is insanely good quality of life and reducing the CD to 1/2 sec but why the damage nerfs that heavy on a heavy damage intended class.willbender is just a big thumbs up,it definitely needed the animation cancel/reduction, though the removal of trade offs in the first 3traits is a bit out flat buff,but it will probably prove necessary

Glad Anet is listening to feedback and hope keeping it up

 

 

 

[snh.7091]

You know, for the first time in a long time I feel good about my decision to purchase, and I went with the Ultimate Edition.

I've been a strong ArenaNet critic (and rightfully so, for all the wrong decisions they have made in the past, and the neglect they have demonstrated, mainly towards the competitive user base + their parent company has a very bad reputation overall).

I like the new (or perhaps not as new? - correct me on this, please) direction they are taking, considering community feedback, adding new stuff, especially the WvW part I'm looking forward to, tweaking, the new elite specs are very nice, so overall I'm very much looking forward to this.

What I'd like to see is more open Beta testing, like ESO does with their PTS.

Please don't disappoint us again.

[Urphen.2857]

Congratulation 👏

you ignored all Feedback for Virtuoso and made again change that doesnt solve any problem, instead you nerfed the only thing it was good for, now we have no dps, no support/utility, stuck again with the same gameplay since core because as so many said in the Feedback that you clearly doesnt have read changing the animation of shatters and giving them new name doesnt make a new mechanic, better now you gave Guardian alac so why you dont call this game Guardian Wars since now you dont rly need any other class more.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Urphen.2857

[Esorono.1039]

Well, I expected each Elite Spec to get better, not worse as they are trying to actually sell these to us currently. They weren't good in their previous 'strong' phase, now besides a handful of nuggets of viability almost all of them got trashed and had tiny buffs that don't matter. I don't even play mesmers and I feel so bad for Virtuosos, their spec was one of the worst and now it is nerfed to oblivion, it doesn't do anything and has a whole line of useless traits. I am not even sure how Harbingers are supposed to survive, their defensive options were god-awful before, now with no passive healing and no mobility on top of no way to avoid damage reliably it's just dead in the water. Untamed got buffed mostly, but I am still cautious about its viability. Spectre got the nerf bat a bit too hard even though it kind of needed some nerfs, but it also needed some buffs in some areas too...At least Willbender got some very strong and noticeable buffs to the point it might actually be viable, so yay? 1/9 E-Specs now seem good on paper before testing, makes me glad I was able to calm my hype for EoD before I bought it. Maybe for next expansion, it might be best to skip Elite Specs, it seems clear that besides knowing Alacrity and Quickness are really good boons, there doesn't really seem to be a clear vision on any of the specs. They are all trying to do everything from support to direct damage and condition, and it just doesn't work. Ask yourself 'What niche is missing from this profession? How can I incorporate it into their toolkit in a way that works with the rest of the profession? Am I changing this for the sake of changing it, or is it to open up new avenues?' and not 'Is this class missing alacrity or quickness? If yes, give it one of them. Does this look cool despite the various problems that will arise? Add it anyways. How can I shove every playstyle into one elite spec?'

Please for the love of everything, dump these changes and focus on focusing the elite specs and give them something distinct and some sort of direction. They should be getting better, not worse. A lot of these are design disasters, and may not be salvageable just due to how the mechanics of them work for the sake of changing them. But if they at least have a focus and fill a niche the professions don't have already, they might be used occasionally in one game mode under very specific circumstances.

[Awn.1327]

Thank you for the information and trying to incorporate feedback.

This post is targetted at virtuoso, which is the spec I tested the most (PvE and WvW). I do not play sPvP so I cannot comment on that game mode. The feedback I read on the forums (and agree with) after beta 1 was:

1. virtuoso is completely shut down by projectile reflect/block. this is especially an issue in WvW, where an enemy group will have reflects/blocks up permanently (more or less)
2. cast time on the bladesongs
3. no (group-)utility whatsoever
4. no mobility whatsoever
5. no self-sustain whatsoever
6. condi traits extremely lackluster

Out of which only #6 was addressed, but probably not effectively (but granted, numbers can change easily).

And then you went ahead and nerfed the only thing it was somewhat OK at: PvE power damage.

I fail to understand how you come to the conclusions you did. Maybe I am playing a different game or I lack (a lot of) critical information. Where did the feedback you addressed come from? How was it prioritized?

I personally find the flavor and idea (no clones) of the spec wonderful and would love to see it in a comparable power range as other specs. But frankly, currently it is a mile off. From a pure gameplay / mechanics perspective, I do not see a single reason why I (and probably anyone else) would play this over mirage in PvE and chronomancer in WvW.

I would implore you to revisit the possible builds for this specialization and compare them with what established builds for other specializations provide and adjust accordingly. Thank you.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Awn.1327

[xareo.2596]

For virtuoso, Anet claimed to address an issue (difficulty to generate blade), which is actually never an issue (any one tested virtuoso in beta 1 should have no problem to generate blade). Ignored all other higher priority issues (projectile, cast time, delayed shatter, no defense, no utils, no mobility, no cc). Nerfed the only workable thing (PVE pdps). 

why bother to create such an E spec, which is even worse than the core mesmer?

 

 

[tetrodoxin.2134]

Not gonna lie, this feels like they only read feedback on reddit, not their own forums. Doesn't mean all changes are bad (some of them are quite nice, actually), but I feel sorry for the people that posted quite detailed feedback posts in their respective class subforums.

Curious about Untamed ambush skills (and if they wil be enough).
Catalyst still seems underwhelming.
Vindicator now seems less clunky to use, thats good.
Virtouso will still be a very dull, dumbed down core-Mesmer spec with nothing new to offer.

[Levetty.1279]

12 hours ago, dou.7083 said:

People crying about the condi variation and relying on the fact that Mirage is a "condi spec" need to be hard forced into queues with all the power Mirages in PvP and WvW until they forget that Virtuoso exists and start crying about the sword ambush instead, so that we can redirect useless feedback somewhere else until the release

Mirage's differences from core do nothing to make a Power weapons worse, it actually adds to them due to the ambush attacks. 

 

On the other hand Virtuoso removing clones guts the damage of its condi weapons as they are designed around clones constantly auto attacking. This is made even worse by core's already existing bleed on crit trait not working for virtuoso because of the removed clones. All virtuoso adds to the class are a bunch of aoe power damage skills. Its condi traits only work for these power skills. If Virtuoso was actually a new elite spec instead of trying to pretend that removing clones from Mesmer makes it better somehow they could make condi and power builds work for it in different modes like Mirage and other specs. Instead we have 3 traits trying to turn basic power damage weapons and skills with no utility into condi skills by adding a bleed on crit.

[Alarm.7286]

if you are balancing classes, please don't change game play mechanics between pve and pvp/wvw like you did for mirage dodge or reduce the number of skill charges.

it is huge setback for players who likes to play those classes.