Dream patch: perks, skills, fixes and e-specs

[Phyrak.7260]

Hey there,

A bit of a fun thread to discuss anything and everything about what would be rad to see in the future of the game. Maybe an idea or two could land in the lap of the balance team or an animator might read it and be able to implement it? 

Who knows! 

Discussion is always fun!

 

Spears, tridents and spear guns.

You know it!

Once the issue of animation implementation is resolved, it would then be about the role that is filled. Using the respective trait/perk lines along with general flow of style in combat/theme - such would be a good way to bring the weapons above the water and make them distinct.

Eg. Elementalist staff and trident.

Perhaps one of the easiest comparisons to make. A trident above the water would fill in a more offensive or single target role as opposed to the AoE - single to 3 targets to give some variety.

Water being used in maximizing vulnerability and chill and dealing damage spikes as opposed to its nominal role of healer/support.

On the contrary, bringing other weapons under water could also be interesting to see - daggers and pistols make the most sense from terrestrial weapons to bring under.

 

Still keeping to ele, a major rework on conjures into something with more purpose. Fair chance I am in the minority that enjoys playing a camping style of elementalist - having a conjure that acts as a focus to refine an element to the greatest degree could allow this play style to work without stepping on the toes of other elite specs and make sticking to a single element worth its while; think Sozin's Comet while attuned to fire or Toph when attuned to earth while having the appropriate conjure equipped. Then the elite would be one of these normal conjures given a little bit of meat to the bone to fill out all utilities. Just a matter of changing the animation from weapon to using the elemental rings surrounding the wrists of the PC.

 

Ranger spirits and warrior banners both feel similar yet are distinct in their stylings.

Rangers spirits could look incredible passively circling and providing buffs - then called down upon an area dealing appropriate damage/cc.

Banners could do the same being displayed on the back of the warrior as semi transparent mist born banners pulsing boons - then called down in display changing the battlefield.

And finally, the real pipe dream! 

A grandmaster perk for druid that would let you be an Moonkin - burns, bleeds and cripples a plenty. Giving druid an offensive focus when in astral form and the staff a chance to be an offensive tool.

Pallet swap the blue to a purple with a dash of red for meteor/sun burning skills and white for comet chill skills. Pet can disappear for all I care in this form XD

 

What are your dream reworks for skills?

Is there a profession mechanic you'd like to see in a future e-spec? 

What trait line would you change to give it a little more meat on the bone? 

Is there a perk or theme that could work if a trait line was refreshed? 

 

Thank you for reading,

🙂

-Phyrak 

[Vinny.7260]

I'd love to see a Gravelord theme for Necromancer.

 

They could use Consecrations and get a shroud built around defense and crowd control.

Their Consecrations scale effectiveness based on their Life Force pool %.

Inspiration and Dueling on Mesmer need their identities fleshed out. Same with Arms on Warrior.

 

I'd love to see a Hex-based theme for Mesmer. (Like GW1).

Lose clones to instead mark a target to inflict Hexes and effects based on the number of 'strikes' or 'marks' to the enemy.

 

[Phyrak.7260]

30 minutes ago, Vinny.7260 said:

I'd love to see a Gravelord theme for Necromancer.

 

They could use Consecrations and get a shroud built around defense and crowd control.

Their Consecrations scale effectiveness based on their Life Force pool %.

Inspiration and Dueling on Mesmer need their identities fleshed out. Same with Arms on Warrior.

 

I'd love to see a Hex-based theme for Mesmer. (Like GW1).

Lose clones to instead mark a target to inflict Hexes and effects based on the number of 'strikes' or 'marks' to the enemy.

 

Hammer or mace would suit the theme of the grave lord well! 

Hex themed with either bow of either kind or a main hand pistol would work very well to have that action/reaction play style of forcing the enemies hand in a certain manner - really good idea! 

How would you like to Mesmer and Warrior's respective trait lines fleshed out and given more identity? 

[Dadnir.5038]

I've always wanted:

- Pistol main hand on mesmer.

- A Tomb Raider e-spec for thief with torch off-hand, a steal skill which is a gap opener instead of a gap closer.

- A necromancer e-spec with a shroud skill kit allowing the use of utility skills and a set of glyphs (like druid but not focused on healing.)

- A revenant spec that would channel legends like norn channel their totem. (Yes it mean 5 transformations but we have the right to dream)

- A ranger spec that lose access to the traditional pet list but have spec specific familiars.

- Lich form getting kicked out of the game and replaced by a non-transformation skill.

- Elementalist's conjure skills without the additional ground targeted bundle (so no need to ground target the skill).

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Put me down for spears as a terrestrial weapon. Not including them is downright irreverent to the concept of hand to hand combat and warfare in general. 

[Phyrak.7260]

7 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I've always wanted:

- Pistol main hand on mesmer.

- A Tomb Raider e-spec for thief with torch off-hand, a steal skill which is a gap opener instead of a gap closer.

- A necromancer e-spec with a shroud skill kit allowing the use of utility skills and a set of glyphs (like druid but not focused on healing.)

- A revenant spec that would channel legends like norn channel their totem. (Yes it mean 5 transformations but we have the right to dream)

- A ranger spec that lose access to the traditional pet list but have spec specific familiars.

- Lich form getting kicked out of the game and replaced by a non-transformation skill.

- Elementalist's conjure skills without the additional ground targeted bundle (so no need to ground target the skill).

Necro and the Rev are the personal stand outs from your comment.

Utility in shroud; getting those spectral skills a little more bang for the buck - brilliant across the board!

Norn legend with baseline 1-5 while transformed, then generic utilities that add flavour and strengths depending on what totem you're in? 

Scepter or focus would be ideal - focus moreso and leave scepter for Master Togo? 

 

6 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Put me down for spears as a terrestrial weapon. Not including them is downright irreverent to the concept of hand to hand combat and warfare in general. 

Well said!

Let alone how much variety there is for spear combat in the weapon class itself.

The same could be said for the spear gun and its application as a crossbow to be in parity with the rifles, pistols and bows

[Dadnir.5038]

9 hours ago, Phyrak.7260 said:

Norn legend with baseline 1-5 while transformed, then generic utilities that add flavour and strengths depending on what totem you're in? 

Yes and No.

Yes, because it would a set of skill 1-5 while transformed and per totem/legend.

No, because the idea isn't to use norn's totems but your current legend as a totem. Leading to a transformation into either: Shiro, Mallyx, Ventari, Jalis or whatever legend associated to the e-spec. Personally I'd like the last legend to be Ameyalli with the transformed form being an Itzel hunter from HoT but it could be anything or anyone.

[Phyrak.7260]

10 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Yes and No.

Yes, because it would a set of skill 1-5 while transformed and per totem/legend.

No, because the idea isn't to use norn's totems but your current legend as a totem. Leading to a transformation into either: Shiro, Mallyx, Ventari, Jalis or whatever legend associated to the e-spec. Personally I'd like the last legend to be Ameyalli with the transformed form being an Itzel hunter from HoT but it could be anything or anyone.

Rad idea! 

I really like it!

Full 1-5 per transform with the utility to match; if this were a camping spec instead of switching legends - you could almost get away with borrowing other e-specs without the weapon and trait line 😛

Though, that'd be a little more of a wild idea 

[The Boz.2038]

You can make an entire expansion just off the "each profession gets one water weapon on land in this e-spec" idea.

[Phyrak.7260]

53 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

You can make an entire expansion just off the "each profession gets one water weapon on land in this e-spec" idea.

Wooden Potatoes did an interesting discussion video about the undersea entity that drove the quaggan et al to the surface - it'd be a rad way to do it! 

Though, my hope would be to get the core aquatic weapons to the surface, then let there be an expansion of others - guardian with speargun/crossbow would be a good example.

Then use spear and trident above the water for core. Giving F2P players a little more content and those who buy the expacs as they please a way to refine play styles as they go 

[The Boz.2038]

2 minutes ago, Phyrak.7260 said:

Giving F2P players a little more content

There is no reason to spend resources on F2P content.

[Phyrak.7260]

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

There is no reason to spend resources on F2P content.

Fair call 🙂

[crosknight.3041]

being an ele main and like i've said in plenty of other threads, ele has some of the weakest utility in the game so cantrips, conjures, and arcanes are on my hitlist.

conjures: make them like guardian spirit weapons. ele already juggles 20 weapon skills, dont need more complexity.
Cantrips: very selfish skills. and only some actually get some use in pvp/wvw. would like to add team utility to them
arcanes: i cannot remember the last time they were even touched. would love to see offensive support added to them, such as boon strip or defensive support like barrier

moving over to traits i would love to see ele traits get a rework, specifically targeting the traits that "while in x attunement" or "while swapping to x attunement". for example for the "swapping to x attunement" trait, sunspot currently is "Gain fire aura and damage nearby enemies when attuning to fire, also triggers on overload" (only fire overload). my rework would change it to retain fire aura and damage when swapping to fire, but add in gain might (2-3 stacks) on all attunement swaps. also make it trigger on all overloads instead of just fire overload.
for the example of "while in x attunement" Stone Heart currently is "cannot be critically hit while in earth attunement". my rework would be "cannot be critically hit while you have barrier"

[Dadnir.5038]

19 hours ago, crosknight.3041 said:

conjures: make them like guardian spirit weapons. ele already juggles 20 weapon skills, dont need more complexity.

I disagree with that, the fact that they provide a skill kit is actually helpful in the way that it allow the elementalist to avoid being pidgeonholed in either melee or range gameplay.

19 hours ago, crosknight.3041 said:

Cantrips: very selfish skills. and only some actually get some use in pvp/wvw. would like to add team utility to them

True. Those are pretty strong on the paper but quite underwhelming in practice outside of competitive modes. The issue is there, they actually are semi decent in competitive modes which probably make it difficult for the devs to "buff" them. Personally I'd buff the trait to provide it's boons party wide.

19 hours ago, crosknight.3041 said:

arcanes: i cannot remember the last time they were even touched. would love to see offensive support added to them, such as boon strip or defensive support like barrier

Arcanes are in a similar situation to Cantrips. I'd say the main issue with them is that they provide combo blast finisher and, while it used to be invaluable, it's now a thing of the past.

[Phyrak.7260]

On 1/13/2023 at 12:02 AM, crosknight.3041 said:

being an ele main and like i've said in plenty of other threads, ele has some of the weakest utility in the game so cantrips, conjures, and arcanes are on my hitlist.

conjures: make them like guardian spirit weapons. ele already juggles 20 weapon skills, dont need more complexity.
Cantrips: very selfish skills. and only some actually get some use in pvp/wvw. would like to add team utility to them
arcanes: i cannot remember the last time they were even touched. would love to see offensive support added to them, such as boon strip or defensive support like barrier

moving over to traits i would love to see ele traits get a rework, specifically targeting the traits that "while in x attunement" or "while swapping to x attunement". for example for the "swapping to x attunement" trait, sunspot currently is "Gain fire aura and damage nearby enemies when attuning to fire, also triggers on overload" (only fire overload). my rework would change it to retain fire aura and damage when swapping to fire, but add in gain might (2-3 stacks) on all attunement swaps. also make it trigger on all overloads instead of just fire overload.
for the example of "while in x attunement" Stone Heart currently is "cannot be critically hit while in earth attunement". my rework would be "cannot be critically hit while you have barrier"

The generalization of traits to make the on swap style a little more flowy would be good - also in turn a way to make camping an element a little more meaty as a trade.

Both could be in GM tier to make sure they both have meat on the bone and worth taking 🙂