Changes rangers need from the perspective of a mechanist main [PvE]

[Kodama.6453]

7 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Only in PvE tho, in PvP FS is the better choice. And it's not like there aren't many other traits, that are the only viable choice in a game mode. FF is op when looked at in a vacuum, but it's the only thing that makes untamed viable in PvE. And since untamed isn't really problemetic or unhealthy in PvE and it's questionable whether they can come up with something better, changing it in PvE should be low priority.

I get that untamed is not in a great spot and basically is just relevant because of this broken trait. But that just means it requires a greater rework (which is not unheard of, they also basically rebuilt scrapper from the ground, so why not do that for another spec).
Also you are ignoring the main point I provided against it's existence, which is what Anet has shared to be their new balance philosophy. Here is the point they said about the concept of purity of purpose they want to apply to balancing decisions:

Quote

Purity of purpose is the idea that a skill (or trait, or weapon, etc.) should have a well-defined identity. In other words, skills should not do too many different things at once. Some common skill identities include damage, defense, support, control, and mobility.

 

This is quite literally the polar opposite of FF. It does absolutely everything, every little detail about your build is improved by it. All the "common skill identities" they mentioned there are included in this one trait.

If they want to uphold purity of purpose as a design guideline, then FF can't exist in it's current state. It is really that simple. This trait makes a mockery of this design principle.

[Zyreva.1078]

43 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

This is quite literally the polar opposite of FF. It does absolutely everything, every little detail about your build is improved by it. All the "common skill identities" they mentioned there are included in this one trait.

Skill =/= trait. Most cd reduction traits affect more than one thing and that's ok. And since FF requires a lot more player input and is much more situational than those passive 20% cd reduction it is only fair if it's stronger when utilized well, no?

They should not dumb down traits like this into boring passive bs, just for the sake of "purity of purpose". Aside from this cc and nothing else is literally THE identity of said trait (and to some extent the entire spec), so technically it does not do more than one thing, it just does affect more than one thing. Not neccessarily the same.

Generally they should not start making blanket changes just for the sake of fitting it to their "balance philisophy", without considering overall game balane and adressing actually problematic stuff first. We have been there with that CC = 0 dmg and "specs need trade-offs" nonsense and it didn't work out great.

Edited November 3, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Unfortunately, that's pretty unhealthy design and should actually get changed....

You say it yourself, "it is the engine of any build I make". There is no reason to take any other grandmaster trait on untamed as long as fervent force exists. And according to the balance philosophy they have presented to us, this should not be a thing. Traits should have defined niches, instead of literally always being the best choice no matter what you try to achieve.

The only skill that negatively interacts with Fervent Force is Path of Scars. If they just increased its cooldown or even better replace the 20% cooldown reduction Trait then the playstyle would be much healthier.

Most of the utility skills that can trigger Fervent Force reliably come from a Trap, Cantrap and Spirit. These are somewhat passive playstyles so it already is very hard to get this to work correctly. Hammer is the best weapon but it only serves to reset Utilities so more survivability.
Again the problem weapon is offhand Axe.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

I get that untamed is not in a great spot and basically is just relevant because of this broken trait. But that just means it requires a greater rework (which is not unheard of, they also basically rebuilt scrapper from the ground, so why not do that for another spec).
Also you are ignoring the main point I provided against it's existence, which is what Anet has shared to be their new balance philosophy. Here is the point they said about the concept of purity of purpose they want to apply to balancing decisions:

This is quite literally the polar opposite of FF. It does absolutely everything, every little detail about your build is improved by it. All the "common skill identities" they mentioned there are included in this one trait.

If they want to uphold purity of purpose as a design guideline, then FF can't exist in it's current state. It is really that simple. This trait makes a mockery of this design principle.

 

You really going to come in this sub as an engi main talking about 'purity of purpose' 😂.

Considering the 'do it all' boon spam puke engis have, you cannot be having a serious discussion right now.  

I mean we can start with this if you really want to go down the 'fervent force flies in the face of the design doc' discussion:

Shift Signet - Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W)

Otherwise, it'd be wise to admit that FF is only good in instanced PvE rotations to get DPS up; it's bad in literally every other scenario.  The same goes for alac on spirits--good in instanced PvE, bad everywhere else as they die too fast for the meager passives you get.  

Edited November 3, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Vordrax.5243]

5 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

You really going to come in this sub as an engi main talking about 'purity of purpose' 😂.

Considering the 'do it all' boon spam puke engis have, you cannot be having a serious discussion right now. 

Wait, Kodama is on the design team and created the Mechanist elite spec? That's pretty rad.

[Mell.4873]

20 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

The same goes for alac on spirits--good in instanced PvE, bad everywhere else as they die too fast for the meager passives you get.  

You know you can heal your spirits, a better complaint is that mounting destroys them which it should not.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Gotejjeken.1267]

5 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

You know you can heal your spirits, a better complaint is that mounting destroys them which it should not.

 

I fail to see how that is a better complaint when mounting to destroy them is useful for repositioning them (i.e., outside then inside of a keep or tower).

Healing them you can really only reliably do on a druid, but having to babysit your spirits makes you 100% less useful to the actual people you should be supporting.  

So yes, spirits are awful everywhere outside of instanced PvE.  You may be able to work them into one of your builds though, considering most of those are about as off meta as a mountain trail 🙃.

[Mell.4873]

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

 

I fail to see how that is a better complaint when mounting to destroy them is useful for repositioning them (i.e., outside then inside of a keep or tower).

Healing them you can really only reliably do on a druid, but having to babysit your spirits makes you 100% less useful to the actual people you should be supporting.  

So yes, spirits are awful everywhere outside of instanced PvE.  You may be able to work them into one of your builds though, considering most of those are about as off meta as a mountain trail 🙃.

Mounting is objectively worse than the teleport from the active spirit skill, especially for the Spirit of Nature.

Healing Spirits as a Druid again is objectively better than if it didn't exist becouse it can help get back Celestial Avatar. Spirits only get healed after a player so any excess healing goes into the spirits after the player is topped up. 

Again the mean reason they are bad outside instanced content is that you need to cast to spawn them, then cast to provide Alacrity. Most of the time in the open world you would have killed what ever you are fighting by then. 

[Kodama.6453]

5 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Skill =/= trait. Most cd reduction traits affect more than one thing and that's ok. And since FF requires a lot more player input and is much more situational than those passive 20% cd reduction it is only fair if it's stronger when utilized well, no?

They literally wrote in that segment that it applies to "skills (or traits, or weapons, etc.)", they just then continued to talk about skills to make it shorter instead of always repeating "skills, traits, weapons, etc.". Purity of purpose is supposed to get applied to everything, not just skills.

5 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

They should not dumb down traits like this into boring passive bs, just for the sake of "purity of purpose". Aside from this cc and nothing else is literally THE identity of said trait (and to some extent the entire spec), so technically it does not do more than one thing, it just does affect more than one thing. Not neccessarily the same.

CC is just the trigger, not it's identity. Fact is that it is improving every aspect of a build, may it be damage or healing or CC or boon distribution. There is a reason it is used for alacrity builds as well as dps builds.

4 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

The only skill that negatively interacts with Fervent Force is Path of Scars. If they just increased its cooldown or even better replace the 20% cooldown reduction Trait then the playstyle would be much healthier.

I don't think this will change the fact that the trait is used for all kinds of builds. At least in PvE, there is still no reason to take any other trait than this, because fervent force still does literally everything while the other grandmaster traits have an actual design niche.

4 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

You really going to come in this sub as an engi main talking about 'purity of purpose' 😂.

I literally complained about mechanist being an absolute design fiasco ever since they revealed it. But go off, I guess?

[Gotejjeken.1267]

4 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

I literally complained about mechanist being an absolute design fiasco ever since they revealed it. But go off, I guess?

 

Probably should go champion that on the engineer forum then. 

Not that I care too much about Mechanist--essentially, I provided you the simple example of shift signet as one skill that does too much. 

Fervent Force on the other hand actually fits the 'purity of purpose' mantra because it does exactly one thing, lower the CD of all skills when you CC something.  If it also gave you stability or removed condis or something else, then it would be violating PoP.  

Complaining about FF is like complaining about AED because AED has very little tell, and if popped at the right time can be an instant second wind for an engineer even if you see it, as it's not always possible to stop the engineer from taking lethal damage (i.e. very powerful in sPvP where you can't control the entire teams damage).  

By your logic AED doesn't fit PoP because its powerful in certain scenarios, just like FF.  

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

Mounting is objectively worse than the teleport from the active spirit skill, especially for the Spirit of Nature.

Healing Spirits as a Druid again is objectively better than if it didn't exist becouse it can help get back Celestial Avatar. Spirits only get healed after a player so any excess healing goes into the spirits after the player is topped up. 

Again the mean reason they are bad outside instanced content is that you need to cast to spawn them, then cast to provide Alacrity. Most of the time in the open world you would have killed what ever you are fighting by then. 

 

EDIT: I may have misunderstood your 'mounting' as for WvW when you could have been talking about PvE.  

As I have seen zero use cases in WvW for casting the teleport for the spirit when your group is entering an objective--they don't go nearly far enough for that to be viable.  If you are for instance outside a keep, mount, enter the keep, set up siege, etc. your spirit will well be off CD by then.  

Edited November 3, 2022 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Kodama.6453]

28 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Not that I care too much about Mechanist--essentially, I provided you the simple example of shift signet as one skill that does too much. 

Everyone knows that it does too much. Even Anet admitted that it does too much. They did it because it is a bandaid fix for mechanist.

I discussed this skill alot, too. Give the boon share effect with the mech to a minor trait, then nerf shift signet and mechanist as a whole accordingly (since this would open up a skill slot, stuff like damage and such will go up, so we have to nerf these things to bring mechanist down again).

28 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Fervent Force on the other hand actually fits the 'purity of purpose' mantra because it does exactly one thing, lower the CD of all skills when you CC something.  If it also gave you stability or removed condis or something else, then it would be violating PoP.  

Anet gave a list of "common skill identities". Damage,defense, support, CC, mobility. FF does all these things by being able to reduce the cooldown of all your skills.

There is a reason why alacrity is the most powerful boon in the game. Because it improves the performance of the entire squad, no matter what their role is.

FF is basically a supercharged permanent alacrity buff for untamed, way stronger than the boon, which is already considered extremely powerful because of it's effect. And you can get it on top of actual alacrity.

I can see your argument that it "just does one thing", because of how simple it is designed when it comes to it's trigger. But since they specifically mention these common skill identities, which FF fulfills all when it comes to functionality, I see it as violating PoP still.

28 minutes ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Complaining about FF is like complaining about AED because AED has very little tell, and if popped at the right time can be an instant second wind for an engineer even if you see it, as it's not always possible to stop the engineer from taking lethal damage (i.e. very powerful in sPvP where you can't control the entire teams damage).  

By your logic AED doesn't fit PoP because its powerful in certain scenarios, just like FF.  

The scenario you describe here for AED has nothing to do with PoP.

PoP is the question "what aspects of my build does this improve?" (with aspects being stuff like damage, defense, support, CC, mobility).

For FF, the answer is "it provides literally everything, it improves my ability to heal myself, it improves my damage, it improves my boon generation, etc.".

For AED, the answer is "it provides me defense, since it can give me a health reset and strong condi cleanse, and some CC, since it can get traited to provide a shocking aura". AED will not help you improve your mobility, damage or support capabilities.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The thing that makes AED strong in PvP you mention (little tell, not always possible to prevent the proc, etc.) are fair arguments about AED potentially violating another aspect of their design philosophy, the "play vs counterplay" part. These things have to do with counterplay and if it is efficiently possible to play around that ability.

It's a fair discussion to have about this skill, but it has nothing to do with PoP. AED does have PoP, but it might be lacking in counterplay. These are 2 distinct things.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Kodama.6453

[Zyreva.1078]

@Kodama.6453With your definition like 75% of skills and traits need to be removed from the game, because a lot of things can be utilized in multiple ways. I really doubt that's what they meant when talking about Purity of Purpose, nor would it be healthy for the game. It's more like skills and trais shouldn't do too much things on their own, not one thing (eg any(!) form of cd reduction) that can be utilized by players in multiple ways.

[Kodama.6453]

28 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

@Kodama.6453With your definition like 75% of skills and traits need to be removed from the game, because a lot of things can be utilized in multiple ways. I really doubt that's what they meant when talking about Purity of Purpose, nor would it be healthy for the game. It's more like skills and trais shouldn't do too much things on their own, not one thing (eg any(!) form of cd reduction) that can be utilized by players in multiple ways.

But don't you think that FF is a major exception compared to other cd reduction traits?

Usually, these traits just work on one single skill type. Like how rangers can reduce the cooldown of their survival skills, which will improve these aspects of their builds, true, but it also heavily limits your available skill choices. Because that trait just works on survival skills.

So yeah, you can improve your CC, mobility, healing, etc. by using the respective survival skills. But this is a very limited skill pool to chose from.

Meanwhile FF will reduce the cooldown of literally everything. The only build limitation it has is that your build has at least one hard CC ability in the entire kit, that's all. Which is basically no requirement at all (especially since the big majority of weapon sets for ranger come with at least 1 hard CC in the kit).

As said, there is a reason why no one ever picks anything else than this trait in PvE. Because it offers all you could ask for, while the other 2 grandmaster traits are limited. Ferocious symbiosis just offers damage and mobility, but has no effect to improve support, defense or CC features. Restorative strikes improves your defense, without any effect on support, CC, mobility or damage.

Am I really the only one here seeing this as a major design flaw?

Also as a small side note: Anet has been working to remove cooldown reduction traits for a while now... And that for a good reason.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Kodama.6453

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

9 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

You know you can heal your spirits, a better complaint is that mounting destroys them which it should not.

Try healing spirits in a WvW zerg, or in a PvP midfight.

 

Actually, better idea- try retreating from a WvW zerg fight while keeping your spirits alive. Oh wait, you'll get beyond the max distance by the time you can fully disengage from that fight.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

23 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Am I really the only one here seeing this as a major design flaw?

Also as a small side note: Anet has been working to remove cooldown reduction traits for a while now... And that for a good reason.

1. While yes, it is a design flaw from the completely inflexible standpoint you've taken, you completely ignore their stance that "Hey, in order to make some things work, we'll need to bend or completely break that rule!". They explicitly mentioned that they might break the mold in their philosophy breakdown. Fervent Force is just one if those cases where people in PvE who wanted a dps pet spec found a way to make it work, and Anet doesn't want to remove that especially since FF isn't actually that much of a problem from a reality standpoint. Untamed isn't helping get new WRs insanely fast or carrying noobs to victory just by picking it.

2. They haven't outright removed that many cooldown traits afaik. The only one I can really remember them removing in recent memory is the Druid glyph trait, and that was to make room for protection on glyphs as a trait (as awful as it is, 4s in pve is a joke) as well as removing the Seed of Life on the trait due to the new timings on it. It was a rework to ensure it'd remain balanced as opposed to "cooldown trait bad".

Edited November 3, 2022 by RainbowTurtle.3542
Typo

[Kodama.6453]

5 minutes ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

1. While yes, it is a design flaw from the completely inflexible standpoint you've taken, you completely ignore their stance that "Hey, in order to make some things work, we'll need to bend or completely break that rule!". They explicitly mentioned that they might break the mold in their philosophy breakdown. Fervent Force is just one if those cases where people in PvE who wanted a dps pet spec found a way to make it work, and Anet doesn't want to remove that especially since FF isn't actually that much of a problem from a reality standpoint. Untamed isn't helping get new WRs insanely fast or carrying noobs to victory just by picking it.

2. They haven't outright removed that many cooldown traits afaik. The only one I can really remember them removing in recent memory is the Druid glyph trait, and that was to make room for protection on glyphs as a trait (as awful as it is, 4s in pve is a joke) as well as removing the Seed of Life on the trait due to the new timings on it. It was a rework to ensure it'd remain balanced as opposed to "cooldown trait bad".

1. True, they might break some rules when it makes sense. But the only argument I have seen so far in favor of FF is that it's basically the only thing untamed has going for it.

Which is true and I think that is something that needs fixing. But I still think that FF as a design by itself is a problem and should get fixed alongside giving untamed better tools to work with in general.

That "pet dps build" isn't even utilizing the pet much, it is entirely carried by FF and the spam of splitblade (at least if you are talking about that condi untamed build, tell me if you mean something else). Which is sad, because there is a dps trait which actually works with the pet right there, but it is not taken because FF is simply better.

2. Off the top of my head, they removed cooldown reduction from the shield traits for engineer and warrior, removed the cooldown reduction trait for warrior mace. There are most likely more, but these are some others I remember right now.

We used to have WAY more cooldown reduction traits in general, but there is a trend of removing these.

[Zyreva.1078]

55 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

But don't you think that FF is a major exception compared to other cd reduction traits?

Well yes, unlike those other cd reduction traits (and alac) FF is way more situational, not guaranteed and does not have additional benefits. FF is way more fun and skillful to use than all those passive traits and in the current state of the game it does not result in balance issues. I'd rather have Restorative Strikes reworked, instead of having fun and interative stuff removed, because that trait isn't only garbage, it is also very boring.

Edit: Many traits got removed. Just because a few of them have been cd reduction traits doesn't mean those are targeted specifically. And we still have a lot of them and it doesn't look like they are going anywhere anytime soon.

Edited November 3, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Mell.4873]

7 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Try healing spirits in a WvW zerg, or in a PvP midfight.

 

Actually, better idea- try retreating from a WvW zerg fight while keeping your spirits alive. Oh wait, you'll get beyond the max distance by the time you can fully disengage from that fight.

Who uses spirits in PvP I meant Open World alone.

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

5 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Who uses spirits in PvP I meant Open World alone.

Exactly. Spirits have issues in other modes.

 

Open World, while important due to how they've structured a lot of the game, should never really be your deciding balancing factor. In fact, a change that would positively affect spirits in WvW would more than likely be a major positive for Open World as well, since with spirits specifically a lot of the issues for both zones overlap.

[Mell.4873]

On 11/4/2022 at 1:52 PM, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Exactly. Spirits have issues in other modes.

 

Open World, while important due to how they've structured a lot of the game, should never really be your deciding balancing factor. In fact, a change that would positively affect spirits in WvW would more than likely be a major positive for Open World as well, since with spirits specifically a lot of the issues for both zones overlap.

"The same goes for alac on spirits--good in instanced PvE, bad everywhere else as they die too fast for the meager passives you get."

We did start this primary talking about PvE, the mounting problem i outlines really onlu impacts you there.

 

If we did want to talk about PvP then Spirits are bit useless outside I guess the ultimate skill. I mean most Druids can use the Glyphs in PvP which are infinitely better (Glyphs are just bad in PvE). For PvP you want to react to a situation so Spirits make no sense but maybe they a health buff could help, who knows.

Edited November 5, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Forum Moderator.3419]

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