Reflect Reflect,Block,Reflect,Block.

[coro.3176]

12 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

What you wish for doesnt change how the game currently is. Its kitten in in these situations - your weapons are too slow.

I mean, yes? That's what this thread is saying. Projectiles are kitten in these situations. It's not good when an entire class of skills is not able to be used in an entire game mode. That's bad. We should say so. Perhaps on the forums?

[Justine.6351]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Yes, you brought a condi engie to a boonball fight. Gratz, you played yourself.

But even if we assume your side could have been more effective, the presumably triple minstrels healbots (2x firebrand + scrapper) and permaboons still make the argument of reflects look pretty lame.

Yeah the only thing that would have helped win that fight is maybe a nasty power boon corrupt reaper. But I heard nades were strong 😁

This is why people play reflect. Not everyone likes eating ranged damage spammed all day long. If you guys want to play range but not eat projectile reflect try playing a greatsword mesmer or something.

[Justine.6351]

1 minute ago, coro.3176 said:

I mean, yes? That's what this thread is saying. Projectiles are kitten in these situations. It's not good when an entire class of skills is not able to be used in an entire game mode. That's bad. We should say so. Perhaps on the forums?

lol? Ranged builds blow up people in wvw every minute of every day.

[ArchonWing.9480]

3 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

A picture is worth a thousand words. A video is worth 24 thousand words per second. Behold.

 

kitten's ridiculous. Between the tempest auras, the scrapper / guardian bubbles, various other projectile destruction like Swirling Winds, and the mesmer skills, it's just a massive pain to try and use projectiles in any kind of medium sized or larger fight.

With all the hate, you'd think projectile skills would be insanely powerful if you ever do manage to land one, but no. They're often even weaker than their non-projectile alternatives.

Honestly, in this clip if I'd just swapped to a flamethrower build and ran around pressing 1 1 1 1 1, I'd be doing 10x as much damage. That's dumb.

The problem isn't really the reflects. You would have done nothing even if they didn't exist. The problem is condi builds are ineffective against a comp of that size (though you won anyways).

Also ditch the Tool Kit. It hurts my eyes seeing you constantly pry bar air. Take a stunbreak or something.

The enemy group was all sustain and no dps/cc too. They could have easily locked you guys down.

Edited December 29, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[coro.3176]

1 minute ago, Justine.6351 said:

lol? Ranged builds blow up people in wvw every minute of every day.

Ranged, but not projectile ranged. The majority of it is non-projectile like scourge aoe, CoR, etc. Projectiles are third-class citizens in WvW - only useful if any of the opposing players manage to not have their anti-projectiles up.

[saerni.2584]

Overall, I'd like a slight nerf to aura share magnetic aura duration. That and the nerf I mentioned to Wall of Reflections cooldown in WvW. 
 

Otherwise I think no one is naming specific skills they think should be nerfed so it's just talking in circles at this point.

[Justine.6351]

4 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

Ranged, but not projectile ranged. The majority of it is non-projectile like scourge aoe, CoR, etc. Projectiles are third-class citizens in WvW - only useful if any of the opposing players manage to not have their anti-projectiles up.

and when they dont, they get obliterated...

[coro.3176]

Just now, ArchonWing.9480 said:

The problem isn't really the reflects. You would have done nothing even if they didn't exist. The problem is condi builds are ineffective against a comp of that size (though you won anyways).

Also ditch the Tool Kit. It hurts my eyes seeing you constantly pry bar air. Take a stunbreak or something.

That too. That's another problem with the same root cause: support skills protect the full group, but conditions stack, so one player cleansing can mitigate all incoming condi (eg. one player cleansing an entire blob's bleed).

 

This is my roaming build that just happened to wander into a zerg fight, so that's why I'm not running flamethrower or something. Still, I'd *like* it to be at least playable in this situation and not completely shut out of doing anything. Re: Toolkit, the pull/pry-bar combo is long and vulnerable to lag. To make it stick, I find I have to commit regardless of whether the pull lands. It's also invaluable survivability with the 2 second block, and the toolbelt skill is good cover condi in small fights. Egun or Elixir S would also be good, but I have tools, not alchemy in that build.

[Justine.6351]

2 minutes ago, saerni.2584 said:

Overall, I'd like a slight nerf to aura share magnetic aura duration. That and the nerf I mentioned to Wall of Reflections cooldown in WvW. 
 

Otherwise I think no one is naming specific skills they think should be nerfed so it's just talking in circles at this point.

yeah I was thinking actually engi bubbles and firebrand valiant bulwark.

[Justine.6351]

2 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

This is my roaming build that just happened to wander into a zerg fight,

welcome to wvw.

[coro.3176]

13 minutes ago, saerni.2584 said:

Overall, I'd like a slight nerf to aura share magnetic aura duration. That and the nerf I mentioned to Wall of Reflections cooldown in WvW. 
 

Otherwise I think no one is naming specific skills they think should be nerfed so it's just talking in circles at this point.

Okay. Specific skills

• Defense field - Nullifies projectiles in a big area while moving with the player. Can be chained to provide 100% protection to the entire group. Just 5 scrappers (pretty common in a WvW blob) can cover the whole zerg indefinitely. Suggestion - reduce the bubble radius so it doesn't shield so many players unless they are tightly stacked on the scrapper.
• Magnetic aura - uptime is too high. Needs to be cut in half

Edited December 29, 2021 by coro.3176

[ArchonWing.9480]

6 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

That too. That's another problem with the same root cause: support skills protect the full group, but conditions stack, so one player cleansing can mitigate all incoming condi (eg. one player cleansing an entire blob's bleed).

 

This is my roaming build that just happened to wander into a zerg fight, so that's why I'm not running flamethrower or something. Still, I'd *like* it to be at least playable in this situation and not completely shut out of doing anything. Re: Toolkit, the pull/pry-bar combo is long and vulnerable to lag. To make it stick, I find I have to commit regardless of whether the pull lands. It's also invaluable survivability with the 2 second block, and the toolbelt skill is good cover condi in small fights. Egun or Elixir S would also be good, but I have tools, not alchemy in that build.

Well, to be fair, I'm pretty salty because core engi weapons suck so hard.  They also happen to be projectiles but yes that makes it worse. But I assure you if the weapons were closer to ranger ones, this wouldn't be the case. So it's more 50/50 projectiles have issues but also the weapon itself is flawed to have no counterplay. Rangers have barrage while you need to equip an entire offhand to stand a chance and probably not.

So Condi Engi is not in a good place, and then you look at the Necro Pistol....

But like I said, they really couldn't kill you either.

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[coro.3176]

21 minutes ago, Justine.6351 said:

and when they dont, they get obliterated...

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison_Dart_Volley

Better have that projectile hate up or you might get tickled to death by poison at 900 range (not even 1200)! 

Meanwhile...

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Coalescence_of_Ruin
shorter cooldown, longer range, AoE, hit's like a kittening truck.. ain't no thing

Edited December 29, 2021 by coro.3176

[Infusion.7149]

27 minutes ago, saerni.2584 said:

Overall, I'd like a slight nerf to aura share magnetic aura duration. That and the nerf I mentioned to Wall of Reflections cooldown in WvW. 
 

Otherwise I think no one is naming specific skills they think should be nerfed so it's just talking in circles at this point.

Exactly my point pages ago. Gross generalizations do nothing if there is no cogent suggestion. As I suggested earlier the one skill that you could consider even worth changing is valiant bulwark since FB is a staple WVW class.
 

19 minutes ago, Justine.6351 said:

yeah I was thinking actually engi bubbles and firebrand valiant bulwark.

I'd slightly disagree on engineer bubble since it is literally one skill even if it is mobile and doesn't reflect. If it is nerfed to only subgroup or in duration (from 5s) maybe but then it would need to be WVW specific since in PVE some people would want to use it for raids and having it affect one subgroup makes it far worse support. In PVP it has 40s cooldown, but using that as a balance factor means stability on scrapper is greatly reduced. It is 240 radius.

Firebrand on the other hand could probably use a valiant bulwark skill split for cooldown since you can chain valiant bulwark for 25s on 5 page FB (5 valiant bulwark = 25s), although you will be doing close to nothing else in the process. That also doesn't change the fact that if you have 3+ firebrands you can reflect people but only if the fight is more or less stationary. That is why groups that are up to date with the meta use superspeed to close the gap and melee since ranging isn't that strong right now due to scrapper sustain and superspeed.

16 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

Okay. Specific skills

• Defense field - Nullifies projectiles in a big area while moving with the player. Can be chained to provide 100% protection to the entire group. Just 5 scrappers (pretty common in a WvW blob) can cover the whole zerg indefinitely. Suggestion - reduce the bubble radius so it doesn't shield so many players unless they are tightly stacked on the scrapper.
• Magnetic aura - uptime is too high. Needs to be cut in half

Lowering radius means nothing if the subgroup is tightly stacked.

Magnetic aura isn't nearly as much of a problem as you make it out to be, plus an aura tempest heals for less than scrapper does and doesn't have stealth or superspeed in bulk. You'd take away one of the primary reasons to run a tempest in the process as I assure you nobody runs tempest for fire aura or frost aura. Shock aura maybe, magnetic aura situational at best. The only way cutting duration in half would work is if it is half for shared auras (see Leader of the Pack on soulbeast).

---
@kamikharzeeh.8016
If you have 2 scrappers in a subgroup it is pointless to run 2 heal scrappers unless you want to overheal and have near no damage output because you'd have firebrand almost always , leaving you 2 slots for damage. A DPS scrapper can still slot purge gyro and sneak "stealth" gyro.

57 minutes ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

bulwark is quite situational - against low dmg groups that rely heavily on CC it does really well, basiclly when the swap to elexir gun makes no sense bc not the raw dmg kills your group.

ah, small edit: DONT run dps scrapper.... heal scrapper is a backbone in any squad, while dps variant is just not worht the slot :S

Edited December 29, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[coro.3176]

2 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I'd slightly disagree on engineer bubble since it is literally one skill even if it is mobile and i doesn't reflect. If it is nerfed to only subgroup or in duration (from 5s) maybe but then it would need to be WVW specific since in PVE some people would want to use it for raids and having it affect one subgroup makes it far worse support. In PVP it has 40s cooldown, but using that as a balance factor means stability on scrapper is greatly reduced. It is 240 radius.

Engi bubble is actually one of the worst offenders because it is mobile and on a short cooldown. It moves with the zerg, so across a group of 25 players, say, each with a support engi in party, you have 100% projectile invuln. (pretty common to see that anyway because of stealth + cleanse. I play one)

[kash.9213]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Tempest's magnetic aura is on 30s cooldown on staff, even chained together that is 8s out of 30s so less than a third uptime since it is 4s duration. That is overload earth is 20s cooldown and isn't reset with fresh air (and requires aurashare), magnetic aura on sand swell is 30s cooldown (and requires aurashare), "aftershock" 30s cooldown and not part of meta build.
4/20+4/30+4/30= 46% uptime. In a large group scenario because it is not a ground targeted reflect it only affects 5 players.

Firebrand's reflect is primarily on Valiant Bulwark which is 5s and 5.25s cooldown in Tome of Courage (due to Loremaster) which itself has a 60+ cooldown. People running Wall of Reflection are at a disadvantage because you lose cleanses/stab (why would you do this)/healing.

Winds of disenchantment was an ally one else it would be a black bubble, anyone who plays WVW often would know this. It's also 90s cooldown and doesn't reflect.

Feedback bubble is quite rare even though it is seen on your video. It is 32s cooldown and didn't seem to have any major impact there , especially when you consider it lasts 6s total.

You're running med kit and a shield so either you're playing memes or you're a support scrapper. Projectiles would not be a primary way of dealing damage unless running grenades and roaming.

I actually paid attention to the projectiles I reflected while on guardian and by far the most common was fireball (ele staff) and grenade (which people shouldn't run in largescale).


---
edit so as not to spam thread


I hope you realize that even weakening charge is better on average than anything on dagger right now. Initiative is 3 on both Weakening Charge and Heartseeker and if you need stealth for backstab and positioning chances are you won't have a flanking bonus. That isn't even counting staff power bonus from staff master or endurance return.

It's not "just running the numbers" as I have played staff daredevil in WVW.

You're probably right, but that's my experience so I gotta disagree. I can survive, cover, and support people in zerg fights with dagger/?, especially with SA, where a Staff+Vaulting build pretty much just piggy backs on the core of a zerg, plus dagger/? scales better if the fights morph any, at least from my perspective. If you have the core squad attention and Vault cleaving is what you're doing, than ya, the numbers are going to win out if your zerg's got you. 

Punishing Strikes is nice though and kind of worth it, I feel like Weakning Charge or Debilitating Arc should have that also (Debilitating Arc would actually be an awesome looking Reflect but then it would be stacked).

Edited December 29, 2021 by kash.9213

[Infusion.7149]

25 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

Engi bubble is actually one of the worst offenders because it is mobile and on a short cooldown. It moves with the zerg, so across a group of 25 players, say, each with a support engi in party, you have 100% projectile invuln. (pretty common to see that anyway because of stealth + cleanse. I play one)

So you're saying players are going to delay their stab just to put up bubbles in a staggered fashion?

You do know that means they are vulnerable to any CC non-projectile counterbomb right?

---

If you're in a squad with a firebrand in party and doing 10K vaults and generating downs instead of feeding off of singles <25% I wouldn't call that piggybacking. Scrappers already generate stealth far more effectively so running SA isn't of much help , running staff you can use anything with pistol offhand between fights for smoke field if not slotting a smoke field utility.
If you're on dagger thief and nobody wants you in squad for obvious reasons then can't help you there.
 

25 minutes ago, kash.9213 said:

You're probably right, but that's my experience so I gotta disagree. I can survive, cover, and support people in zerg fights with dagger/?, especially with SA, where a Staff+Vaulting build pretty much just piggy backs on the core of a zerg, plus dagger/? scales better if the fights morph any, at least from my perspective. If you have the core squad attention and Vault cleaving is what you're doing, than ya, the numbers are going to win out if your zerg's got you. 

Punishing Strikes is nice though and kind of worth it, I feel like Weakning Charge or Debilitating Arc should have that also. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[coro.3176]

1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

So you're saying players are going to delay their stab just to put up bubbles in a staggered fashion?

You do know that means they are vulnerable to any CC non-projectile counterbomb right?

Typically groups are also running some form of Guardian in party for stab as well. Yes. I am saying they will rotate bubbles in response to projectile pressure, and there's nothing projectile users can do to counter it because it covers the whole group. When I suggested a reduced bubble size, I mean really really reduced - like barely covering the width of 2 players.

[Infusion.7149]

31 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

Typically groups are also running some form of Guardian in party for stab as well. Yes. I am saying they will rotate bubbles in response to projectile pressure, and there's nothing projectile users can do to counter it because it covers the whole group. When I suggested a reduced bubble size, I mean really really reduced - like barely covering the width of 2 players.

Fair enough, but what is the reduction then? Currently it is 240 radius on defense field. Reducing it to the width of 2 players I'd assume is to 180 (lava font/ untraited symbols/traps as well as mantra of solace and sword of justice on DH) or less (melee  range 130 radius , grenade radius default 120 and also druid CA auto)?

Walking speed is 80 units in any direction, running speed is 180 units strafing.

---

edit:
actually I would say that the addition of superspeed and quickness to gyros without a split for WVW was far more harmful for WVW than projectile blocks ever were.
Shared superspeed in WVW could be cut to 1.5s  instead of 3s (5s in PVE currently), see Master of Manipulation on mesmer which does have a split. In addition, quickness isn't split for WVW which makes heal scrapper heal more than when quickness was added.
 

8 minutes ago, Za Shaloc.3908 said:

If I could have it my way I would revert the change of giving unblockable a set amount of charges. While having so much projectile denial uptime is not fun to fight against, it conversely is not fun to fight against a ton of Rangers doing 3k autos from 1800 range out of harm's way. Sacrificing a utility skill for strictly unblockable attacks is IMO the most balanced way of approaching it. I don't think they could give charges to projectile denial skills because that would be both hard to balance and also how would something like Ventari bubble work when it is an upkeep-based skill? 

 

In terms of simple QoL, I still can't stress enough how frustrating I find the icon change to auras. When you are in the heat of combat trying to track multiple things, the icons for the auras don't have the immediate color signifier like they used to. For myself at least, it slows down my split-second reaction time, and also even looking as the player themselves to see which aura they have on them can be deceiving when they have multiple auras stacked. I would deeply encourage ANet to reinstate different colors for each aura icon. Additionally/alternatively, ANet needs to implement an icon that shows when a player is within a projectile denial bubble. In large fights, animations get culled and it is frustrating to throw your full burst into an invisible projectile bubble.

 

In terms of actual balance, I agree with @coro.3176that mag aura and Scrapper bubble are the most egregious. However, I think mag aura is a huge niche for Tempest though and if you are basing your whole build on this, it is much more one-trick pony and has noticeable sacrifices in builds. I have no issues with Wall of Reflection or Feedback for the same reasons. With Scrapper, I would prefer ANet to look at the absolute overproduction of group superspeed that the espec produces before touching other too much else on it. If there is anything that is unhealthy about the spec, it is the insane uptime on superspeed.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Justine.6351]

22 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison_Dart_Volley

Better have that projectile hate up or you might get tickled to death by poison at 900 range (not even 1200)! 

Meanwhile...

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Coalescence_of_Ruin
shorter cooldown, longer range, AoE, hit's like a kittening truck.. ain't no thing

if you ever played a hammer rev you would know just how useless it would have been in that exact same scenario.

[coro.3176]

3 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Fair enough, but what is the reduction then? Currently it is 240 radius on defense field. Reducing it to the width of 2 players I'd assume is to 180 (lava font/ untraited symbols/traps as well as mantra of solace) or less (melee  range 130 radius , grenade radius default 120 and also druid CA auto)?

Yeah, something like 130-180 radius - large enough that a player can take cover under it, but small enough that the engi can't just pop it and cover their blob unless that blob is unusually disciplined and stacked very tight.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

If I could have it my way I would revert the change of giving unblockable a set amount of charges. While having so much projectile denial uptime is not fun to fight against, it conversely is not fun to fight against a ton of Rangers doing 3k autos from 1800 range out of harm's way. Sacrificing a utility skill for strictly unblockable attacks is IMO the most balanced way of approaching it. I don't think they could give charges to projectile denial skills because that would be both hard to balance and also how would something like Ventari bubble work when it is an upkeep-based skill? 

 

In terms of simple QoL, I still can't stress enough how frustrating I find the icon change to auras. When you are in the heat of combat trying to track multiple things, the icons for the auras don't have the immediate color signifier like they used to. For myself at least, it slows down my split-second reaction time, and also even looking at the player themselves to see which aura they have on them can be deceiving when they have multiple auras stacked. I would deeply encourage ANet to reinstate different colors for each aura icon. Additionally/alternatively, ANet needs to implement an icon that shows when a player is within a projectile denial bubble. In large fights, animations get culled and it is frustrating to throw your full burst into an invisible projectile bubble.

 

In terms of actual balance, I agree with @coro.3176that mag aura and Scrapper bubble are the most egregious. However, I think mag aura is a huge niche for Tempest that it should have, and if you are basing your whole build on this, it is much more one-trick pony and has noticeable sacrifices in its overall versatility. I have no issues with Wall of Reflection or Feedback for the same reasons. With Scrapper, I would prefer ANet to look at the absolute overproduction of group superspeed that the espec produces before touching too much else on it. If there is anything that is unhealthy about the spec, it is the insane uptime on superspeed.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Za Shaloc.3908

[ArchonWing.9480]

Well heal ele in general is obnoxious in small scale since they negate a lot of things, but ele is also not in a good spot in the meta as a whole and has a very precarious position in large scale. So it's a bit difficult atm.

[coro.3176]

8 minutes ago, Justine.6351 said:

if you ever played a hammer rev you would know just how useless it would have been in that exact same scenario.

Yeah, engi pistol pew-pew-ing single-target projectile poison at 900 range is definitely going to compete with that

[kash.9213]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

So you're saying players are going to delay their stab just to put up bubbles in a staggered fashion?

You do know that means they are vulnerable to any CC non-projectile counterbomb right?

---

If you're in a squad with a firebrand in party and doing 10K vaults and generating downs instead of feeding off of singles <25% I wouldn't call that piggybacking. Scrappers already generate stealth far more effectively so running SA isn't of much help , running staff you can use anything with pistol offhand between fights for smoke field if not slotting a smoke field utility.
If you're on dagger thief and nobody wants you in squad for obvious reasons then can't help you there.
 

SA for Life leech on pistol off hand or Rending Shade. You might be generating downs with Vault. Or you might/likely are just hopping around while the other side shrugs you off, unless the other side sucks pretty bad.