Herald feedback; herald of each legend

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Phyrak.7260 said:

Fair criticisms;

A camping spec in the future would perhaps solve this and give rise to highly tuned/strengthened legendaries and their utility skills.

Looking across professions thematically: Soldier.

Warrior is martial - little reference to magic outside of spell breaker 

Guardian is the archetypal paladin

Revenant therefore being the death night/spell sword 

Appealing to typology is how people enjoy particular play styles. I have a thread similar to this discussion in the elementalist forum discussing how camping would work in the spec and how it would be a beneficial niche/type of play depending on camp style.

The same can be be said for revenant - perhaps I didn't go about the best way with how people are enjoying a swap style of play with Herald.

This leaves open a place to play the spell sword archetype that focuses on one legend to the maximum extent.

I can see the threads of hammer catalyst and jallis, thief and shiro etc.

It's play style niche in combination with base core concept of the class itself. I suppose I will wait for the next expansion and pray that there will be a camping spec which gives rise to this particular niche, as the swapping spec - in boon share/healing and ranged condition and melee power are there to play.

Yeah, I've been involved in the elementalist thread - I don't think it's practical to go single-element, but I think two elements and a modified attunement recharge system so you can dip into the second element and right back into a primary element as long as you don't do that too often could have legs.

 

I do disagree somewhat regarding your typologies:

Warrior is martial... at its core. But that's a foundation on which they can put just about anything else. Berserker can be interpreted as introducing a fire elementalist secondary, albeit channeling that magic through berserk rage rather than academic understanding. Spellbreaker you acknowledge, and bladesworn went more into an engineer direction. Thematically, they can add a slice of pretty much anything - the main limitation is that they're beginning to run out of realistic melee weapon options.

Guardian has paladin elements, but it's a lot broader than that. Paladin is generally... pretty much the GW1 W/Mo. You have protective and healing magic, but not much in the way of offensive magic unless the enemy is undead. I think guardian, though, is also the spellsword of the group. It has teleports, conjures flames, and a lot of the magical effects it generates apart from flames are very similar to mesmer effects, albeit blue instead of purple, and it has a lot of what D&D would call force effects that go well beyond what a paladin would generally be packing, and more along the lines of what you'd expect an arcane knight build to pull out. One of the oddities, in fact, is that guardian is probably the profession that can best replicate a witcher (you can't replicate Axii because the GW2 combat system doesn't have that effect, but you can more-or-less replicate the rest).

Revenant...it isn't a death knight. That's the reaper. For that matter, it isn't really an antipaladin either - it's willing to draw from legends that were villains, but it's equally willing to draw from heroes and thus far most legends available to PCs have been heroes (although it has been established that both Scarlet and Joko are potential legends, the PC would just rather not channel one of their own nemeses unless absolutely necessary). I also don't think it's a spellsword - even ignoring the above, while the revenant uses magic, it's not casting its own spells, but instead drawing on the powers of the legend. Instead, the theme behind it is essentially one of mimicry - it channels the legend to access powers associated with the legend. Due to the nature of the Mists, this mimicry is imperfect - most of the abilities granted aren't as strong as those the legendary figure had, and some of the abilities are more in the form of echoes of important deeds or principles that the figure were associated with rather than things that the legendary figure would actually use as part of a fighting style - but the point is that revenant doesn't really have a theme so much as it borrows the themes of the legends it channels (keeping in mind that even the core weapons, with the exception of underwater weapons, are linked to legends, so between traits, weapons, and stances, it is theoretically possible for a single revenant build to be drawing from all four core legends plus an elite specialisation legend, although there's no guarantee that such a build would actually be good).

This makes it hard to label with a single term that most fantasy fans would recognise. It does, however, have some close relatives - dervishes channelling the avatars of the gods and blue mages from Final Fantasy come to mind. 

[Jobber.6348]

On 12/28/2022 at 6:34 AM, UncreativeGreen.2019 said:

Now I'm just imagining Warrior warhorn blowing out a bunch of sand whenever they use it and Scrapper/Holo quickly reaching down and throwing sand on themselves when they attack.

Honestly wish they made a generalized SFX and FX for Barrier. It's kinda jarring for non sand related aesthetics to get that sand sfx when getting barrier. 

For example even though Holosmith uses Zephyrite crystals, they don't really just throw sand around, they're making shields and swords out of sunlight and then using their Photon Forge to focus it. Not much of a "sand" aesthetic going on. 

And with some core traitlines and skills getting Barrier, the aesthetic clash is more noticeable. 

[Phyrak.7260]

8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Yeah, I've been involved in the elementalist thread - I don't think it's practical to go single-element, but I think two elements and a modified attunement recharge system so you can dip into the second element and right back into a primary element as long as you don't do that too often could have legs.

 

I do disagree somewhat regarding your typologies:

Warrior is martial... at its core. But that's a foundation on which they can put just about anything else. Berserker can be interpreted as introducing a fire elementalist secondary, albeit channeling that magic through berserk rage rather than academic understanding. Spellbreaker you acknowledge, and bladesworn went more into an engineer direction. Thematically, they can add a slice of pretty much anything - the main limitation is that they're beginning to run out of realistic melee weapon options.

Guardian has paladin elements, but it's a lot broader than that. Paladin is generally... pretty much the GW1 W/Mo. You have protective and healing magic, but not much in the way of offensive magic unless the enemy is undead. I think guardian, though, is also the spellsword of the group. It has teleports, conjures flames, and a lot of the magical effects it generates apart from flames are very similar to mesmer effects, albeit blue instead of purple, and it has a lot of what D&D would call force effects that go well beyond what a paladin would generally be packing, and more along the lines of what you'd expect an arcane knight build to pull out. One of the oddities, in fact, is that guardian is probably the profession that can best replicate a witcher (you can't replicate Axii because the GW2 combat system doesn't have that effect, but you can more-or-less replicate the rest).

Revenant...it isn't a death knight. That's the reaper. For that matter, it isn't really an antipaladin either - it's willing to draw from legends that were villains, but it's equally willing to draw from heroes and thus far most legends available to PCs have been heroes (although it has been established that both Scarlet and Joko are potential legends, the PC would just rather not channel one of their own nemeses unless absolutely necessary). I also don't think it's a spellsword - even ignoring the above, while the revenant uses magic, it's not casting its own spells, but instead drawing on the powers of the legend. Instead, the theme behind it is essentially one of mimicry - it channels the legend to access powers associated with the legend. Due to the nature of the Mists, this mimicry is imperfect - most of the abilities granted aren't as strong as those the legendary figure had, and some of the abilities are more in the form of echoes of important deeds or principles that the figure were associated with rather than things that the legendary figure would actually use as part of a fighting style - but the point is that revenant doesn't really have a theme so much as it borrows the themes of the legends it channels (keeping in mind that even the core weapons, with the exception of underwater weapons, are linked to legends, so between traits, weapons, and stances, it is theoretically possible for a single revenant build to be drawing from all four core legends plus an elite specialisation legend, although there's no guarantee that such a build would actually be good).

This makes it hard to label with a single term that most fantasy fans would recognise. It does, however, have some close relatives - dervishes channelling the avatars of the gods and blue mages from Final Fantasy come to mind. 

It's just a matter of getting the on swap triggers to occur through other means and perhaps applicable buffs to them when used - the same could be said for Revenant.

Fair thoughts on the e-specs and their archetypes.

Well said with your particular point on revenant; I think for camping to work, it'd need to be a slight numbers game and giving the channeled skills more meat to the bone - leaning into the legend more would remove the focus on other legends.

Hence the attuned legends gaining bonus or new skills would be a good place to start - a greater amount of energy/energy upkeep would also make it viable.

That could be a good baseline - whether or not to make the weapons play into it and just have the focus on the heal/utility/elite skill might make it easier to work with when it comes to the actual creation of a new camping spec 

[Anonynja.3172]

On 12/26/2022 at 9:00 AM, Fueki.4753 said:

The issue with Revenant may be that it wasn't intended to be played without Elite specializations.

I don't think the core Legends were ever meant to work well with each other.

Hard disagree! Core rev suffers the same general inferiority to especs as every other spec, but the core legends work awesome together. I don't even bring Alliance stance when I play Vindicator. Check out ShaoAZ's videos for great core rev examples. Shao plays with non-meta builds intentionally, so they have extreme examples. But you really cannot go wrong with Shiro + Jalis, even on condi builds (you use Phase Traversal and Ancient Echoes to make your combos unblockable; Impossible Odds becomes a source of mobility rather than damage). I've used every combination of legends in serious pve and pvp.

[Fueki.4753]

6 hours ago, Anonynja.3172 said:

Hard disagree! Core rev suffers the same general inferiority to especs as every other spec, but the core legends work awesome together. I don't even bring Alliance stance when I play Vindicator. Check out ShaoAZ's videos for great core rev examples. Shao plays with non-meta builds intentionally, so they have extreme examples. But you really cannot go wrong with Shiro + Jalis, even on condi builds (you use Phase Traversal and Ancient Echoes to make your combos unblockable; Impossible Odds becomes a source of mobility rather than damage). I've used every combination of legends in serious pve and pvp.

Just because something can work, doesn't meant it was intended that way. If one is good enough as a player, a lot of things can work decently well.

And seeing how your point is one of practicality, while mine is one of intend, I don't think it counts as a disagreement.

[Jobber.6348]

5 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Just because something can work, doesn't meant it was intended that way. If one is good enough as a player, a lot of things can work decently well.

And seeing how your point is one of practicality, while mine is one of intend, I don't think it counts as a disagreement.

And inversely, just because something isn't intended to work together doesn't mean it should remain so, especially when we're talking about class health as a whole. Anet should be lifting Core Revenant up instead of beating it down whenever one of its Especs become "troublesome". 

And they have kept doing this since launch. Just constant beatings after beatings of Core. And when a general issue with Revenant was finally tackled, some of the nerfs still remain. Just a couple of examples: 
- IO damage nerfed and Quickness Removed, Sword 4 still slow as heck 

- Damage from CC removed, SotM still retains its windup (still don't know why this is a thing, period) 

Not to mention when they significantly rework some Core stuff, they conveniently leave behind design decisions from an older version of the skill or trait, example:

- Mallyx-Corruption rework but Empowering Misery still retains Conditions, especially Poison which absolutely screws with Mallyx players on the daily. 

And let's not forget:

- Ventari no stunbreak (this has been a hot topic for YEARS, and unlike Jallis, there isn't even an excuse of not using Stability) 

Alot of these things still need looking at in order to make them up to par with any other single profession out there, nevermind work with each other or elite specs. 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[Anonynja.3172]

12 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Just because something can work, doesn't meant it was intended that way. If one is good enough as a player, a lot of things can work decently well.

And seeing how your point is one of practicality, while mine is one of intend, I don't think it counts as a disagreement.

Fair enough. I unironically think core revenant is pretty good and not particularly behind other core specs aside from hmm, guardian and engineer. Those can really benefit from using 3 core traitlines competitively with e-specs. Maybe core thief in pvp but I feel bad for thief overall, they're kinda OP in super narrow ways and undertuned in the grand scheme of things. I don't know about ANet intending core rev to be weak, but I'm sure you're right at least in the sense that launching a new class alongside its first espec influenced its design.

Sure, stunbreak on Ventari would be great, no disagreement there. But I am also wary of power creep, especially in PvP (let us have fun in PvE, it's whatever) so my inclination might be to tone CC output down rather than make sure every defensive bar has a stunbreak. I have more problem with Spellbreaker + Chrono + Harbinger low-effort stunlock combos and prefer disarmament over arms race xD The stunlock issue is really with repeated stun applications, not individual stuns. One stunbreak gets you out of Jade Wind or a single hammer war knockdown. But when you immediately lay on another stun, like Harbinger's shroud5 pulse, that's problematic.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Anonynja.3172

[draxynnic.3719]

Yeah, the reapplying CCs are getting a bit out of hand. Chrono and Spectre are at least long-cooldown elites with a clearly marked area, so there's counterplay. The harbinger thing, though, is basically an I-win card on a 25s cooldown unless you have a lot of stability.