Reworking very unpopular weapons => build diversity

[Riba.3271]

Focusing on reworking weapons like Warrior maces, Revenant shield, Guardian hammer, Mesmer pistol etc. would be a great choice keeping all gamemodes interesting

[draxynnic.3719]

Improving, sure. Reworking tends to translate into "make it more like the other weapons", which I think would actually reduce overall diversity. It's okay for a profession to have a couple of niche weapons as long as it's because they're generally being outcompeted by other weapons on the profession rather than being just plain bad.

And I wouldn't say that mesmer pistol qualifies as very unpopular? It's a mainstay on non-virtuoso condition builds, and it probably would be on condi virtuoso too if Duelist's Discipline wasn't competing with Phantasmal Fury.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Improving, sure. Reworking tends to translate into "make it more like the other weapons", which I think would actually reduce overall diversity. It's okay for a profession to have a couple of niche weapons as long as it's because they're generally being outcompeted by other weapons on the profession rather than being just plain bad.

And I wouldn't say that mesmer pistol qualifies as very unpopular? It's a mainstay on non-virtuoso condition builds, and it probably would be on condi virtuoso too if Duelist's Discipline wasn't competing with Phantasmal Fury.

Disagree. Niche weapons generally lead to scenarios where your character's preferred aesthetic or concept is unusable in 90% of builds. 

It's fine if a weapon has a unique aspect that can round out a niche build, but all weapons' skill sets should be viable for general use, so people can actually use them if they like the concept and flavor. 

Edited January 12, 2023 by Gaiawolf.8261

[draxynnic.3719]

28 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Disagree. Niche weapons generally lead to scenarios where your character's preferred aesthetic or concept is unusable in 90% of builds. 

Disagree with your disagreement. That line of thinking ultimately leads towards making every weapon the same so that your weapon choice is purely flavour. 

28 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

It's fine if a weapon has a unique aspect that can round out a niche build, but all weapons' general skill sets should be viable for general use, so people can actually use them if they like the concept and flavor. 

Sure, all of the skills should be useful, but you're not going to have every weapon equally effective in every situation. And in environments where the most important thing is DPS, there can only be so many best-in-slot DPS weapons.

Addendum: Part of the fun of the system, for me, is finding the right weapon for the right situation. Guardian hammer, for instance? Generally don't bring it for endgame group content, so I'm not surprised it doesn't show up for endgame builds. It's quite good as a sustainy weapon when playing solo, though. And maybe at some point guardian will get a build that plays to hammer's strengths, rather than hammer being reworked to be more like other weapons. Herald shield is commonly used on condi heralds in competitive or solo builds for defence and sustain, and on heal heralds in endgame (heal herald just isn't yet as popular as healbrand). Warrior maces have fallen in usage with the fall of power berserker, but used to be common with that build for CC.

Edited January 12, 2023 by draxynnic.3719
Added addendum

[Esufer.8762]

I'm surprised at this point we haven't had an expansion where they've given each core spec a new weapon to play with in lieu of creating an entirely new specialisation and all the balance issues that come with the new traitline, abilities, and weapons etc.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Disagree with your disagreement. That line of thinking ultimately leads towards making every weapon the same so that your weapon choice is purely flavour. 

Sure, all of the skills should be useful, but you're not going to have every weapon equally effective in every situation. And in environments where the most important thing is DPS, there can only be so many best-in-slot DPS weapons.

Addendum: Part of the fun of the system, for me, is finding the right weapon for the right situation. Guardian hammer, for instance? Generally don't bring it for endgame group content, so I'm not surprised it doesn't show up for endgame builds. It's quite good as a sustainy weapon when playing solo, though. And maybe at some point guardian will get a build that plays to hammer's strengths, rather than hammer being reworked to be more like other weapons. Herald shield is commonly used on condi heralds in competitive or solo builds for defence and sustain, and on heal heralds in endgame (heal herald just isn't yet as popular as healbrand). Warrior maces have fallen in usage with the fall of power berserker, but used to be common with that build for CC.

You don't need to run best in slot for every situation. That's meta thinking. 

I guess we just value different things here. I value concept and flavor over mechanical benefits in an RPG. That's what puts the RP in the G. Although I admit gameplay is important and there's a lot of fun in that too, especiallysince GW2 is part action game too. 

[Dadnir.5038]

To be fair I'd like if they could go to the end of their current pet project before focusing on something else for once.

I know it's frustrating to see that some weaponset don't see much use but, wouldn't it be awesome if, for once, they could finish thoroughly one of the objective they told us they are working on?

I mean, years ago they said: "We want weapon trait to be useful even if you don't use the specific weapon" and this would have been awesome if it allowed to see some use for these trait in any kind of environment yet after a round of change to some of the most used weapon traits.

• Spellbreaker's sun and moon force you to use a dagger,
• Ranger's light on your feet force you into shortbow,
• Necromancer's soul mark force you to use staff,
• Guardian's stalwart defender force the use of a shield,
• Guardian's focus mastery force the use of a focus,
• Firebrand's unrelenting criticism don't work for anything but axe,
• Mesmer's bountiful blade only work for GS,
• Mesmer's duellist discipline only benefit pistol,
• Mesmer's warden feedback only work for focus, 
• Mesmer's malicious sorcery only work for scepter,
• Mesmer's mirror axe only work for axes.

I mean can we have those 11 traits updated so that they can at least have some effects while used underwater? The same goes for utility skills traits with utilities that can't be used underwater, I think of:

• Elementalist's conjured weapon trait conjurer,
• Druid's glyph trait verdant etching,
• Dragon hunter's trap trait piercing light,
• Chronomancer's wells trait All's well that end well,
• Renegade's all for one,

I mean, that's 16 traits with 0 use underwater. I know that underwater content isn't the priority but can we at least have the decency to not ignore it?

So, yeah, update to underused weapons would be great but, so would be many other projects that the devs talked about and never saw their end.

[Asum.4960]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Addendum: Part of the fun of the system, for me, is finding the right weapon for the right situation. Guardian hammer, for instance? Generally don't bring it for endgame group content, so I'm not surprised it doesn't show up for endgame builds. It's quite good as a sustainy weapon when playing solo, though.

It looks like it might be on paper, it isn't though. 

I can't even recount how many times and for how many hours I've tried to make Guard Hammer work, but it's simply outperformed by all other options. 

Perma Prot is nice, but then you are just Auto Attacking, and there are better options to get Prot without throwing out 1/3 of your DPS by using Hammer - and for Symbol focused builds you are better off cycling between two better weapons and their Symbols than camping Hammer AA as well. 

It's genuinely just bad.

[Zaret.1450]

The thing is that each weapon is better at something, for example guard mace has a good set for healing and tanking, or hammer is good for cc, the thing is that moat times you can just use an axe and get a similar result on those things while getting more dmg and fury instead of regen, pistol is similar, i used it on mirage condi builds for raids, but maybe now theres something better or you dont need the specific set pistol gives.

Maybe they could study this topic and come up with bosses and other places where less used weapons can shine more

[draxynnic.3719]

22 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

You don't need to run best in slot for every situation. That's meta thinking. 

I guess we just value different things here. I value concept and flavor over mechanical benefits in an RPG. That's what puts the RP in the G. Although I admit gameplay is important and there's a lot of fun in that too, especiallysince GW2 is part action game too. 

I agree, but usually when a weapon is "unpopular", it's often because it's not being used by one of the meta builds. And sometimes the weapons that are just plain bad continue to be used because the profession doesn't have any better options, at least not without an elite specialisation.

 

20 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

It looks like it might be on paper, it isn't though. 

I can't even recount how many times and for how many hours I've tried to make Guard Hammer work, but it's simply outperformed by all other options. 

Perma Prot is nice, but then you are just Auto Attacking, and there are better options to get Prot without throwing out 1/3 of your DPS by using Hammer - and for Symbol focused builds you are better off cycling between two better weapons and their Symbols than camping Hammer AA as well. 

It's genuinely just bad.

What builds have you tried, and for what purpose?

It's not really suitable for competitive, unfortunately. It's a bit too slow and telegraphed for the current balance environment for the payoff. That can be addressed without demanding a total rework, though.

It's fairly effective solo to get through things that a more DPS-oriented build might have trouble surviving through. Run Writ of Persistence to get that extra sustain while almost doubling the ticks you get from each symbol. If you take this approach, you might consider running Zeal to double down on symbols, but you don't have to. It's not the glass cannon weapon of choice, to be sure - it's a choice for where you want to be a tank and you want to make anyone around you a tank as well. When you don't have a pocket healer, you can make up for that DPS loss by not having to worry so much about avoiding attacks.

The main problem is that it's a somewhat support-oriented weapon, but the only elite specialisation guardian has that's really oriented that was is firebrand, and firebrand has so many other sources of protection that the hammer doesn't help it much. But I don't think that's a "this weapon will never be good without a rework that completely destroys its current identity" issue.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Fwiw, warrior had confusion on interrupt until 2018. I'd like to see confusion returned to warrior maces.

Mace 3 should apply confusion, more if the foe is weakened.

Mace 4 should apply confusion, more of the target is CCd.

F1 should hav confusion that scales with Adrenaline spent.

[Asum.4960]

On 1/13/2023 at 2:58 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

What builds have you tried, and for what purpose?

It's not really suitable for competitive, unfortunately. It's a bit too slow and telegraphed for the current balance environment for the payoff. That can be addressed without demanding a total rework, though.

It's fairly effective solo to get through things that a more DPS-oriented build might have trouble surviving through. Run Writ of Persistence to get that extra sustain while almost doubling the ticks you get from each symbol. If you take this approach, you might consider running Zeal to double down on symbols, but you don't have to. It's not the glass cannon weapon of choice, to be sure - it's a choice for where you want to be a tank and you want to make anyone around you a tank as well. When you don't have a pocket healer, you can make up for that DPS loss by not having to worry so much about avoiding attacks.

The main problem is that it's a somewhat support-oriented weapon, but the only elite specialisation guardian has that's really oriented that was is firebrand, and firebrand has so many other sources of protection that the hammer doesn't help it much. But I don't think that's a "this weapon will never be good without a rework that completely destroys its current identity" issue.

I've mainly tried to make it work for Celestial Solo builds (as I quite enjoy Fractal Solo Challenge runs and the like), and mainly on FB bc the weapon is unbearable without Quickness. With Writ of Persistence ofc - but over the years I've tried just about everything with Hammer.

I've even tried to make (both old and new) Stoic Demeanor builds work to synergise with Hammer's CC, as well as all forms of Symbol builds, but I haven't found any way to make Hammer worthwhile. 

 

Other weapon combinations and cycling Symbols of all GS, Sword, Axe or Scepter just provide far, far more DPS on pretty much every setup (Condi, Power, Hybrid, Core, FB, DH, WB..) - while as you say especially FB, with which Hammer works the best, already has Prot fairly covered, esp. for Cele FB with Mantra of Solace and Protector's Restoration with Writ of Persistence. 

 

In terms of sustain, slotting in Utilities like Bow of Truth, while using better weapons and rotating their symbols, just provides both still far higher DPS as well as better sustain than relying on Hammer AA with just Writ of Persistence and the like.

 

I understand the weapon looks like it might be good for solo play, especially on paper - I've thought so too, that's why I went through all the trouble to theorycraft, test and compare all imaginable builds around it desperately trying to make it work, but unfortunately it's genuinely just not good. 

/E:

To clarify what a good solo build is to me and how I stress test them is to check them for at least ~15k DPS while having enough sustain for me to be able to at least somewhat comfortably solo T2 Fractals with them (while there are builds with more DPS that can solo up to T4, I feel that's a good baseline for builds for me to recommend for general play). 

Since Zeal got screwed over in May 2021 I believe it was, Guardian counterintuitively actually struggles quite a lot compared to many other professions to get both decent Damage as well as Sustain into one build for solo play, as both Virtues and esp. Radiance superseded Zeal as DPS lines, although without the solo play appeal of Zeal also providing easy and sufficient Might and especially Vuln - leading to a situation of either having good DPS with Zeal+Radiance, Radiance+Virtues and the like but being very lacking in sustain, or having okay sustain with Honor plus just one of those, but lacking in Damage. 

Hammer AA camping Symbol builds beyond that even struggle with Fury, which is otherwise a freeby through Sword or Axe, while already being lower in DPS otherwise - and generally don't manage to break even just 10k DPS solo, while the sustain from Writ + Symbol of Protection (even with Celestial) is frankly in no way enough to compensate for such a low DPS build, especially a melee one (even more so due to the best Spec for such a solo build, FB, already having good Prot coverage). 

So while Scepter can provide range as Utility, as well as buffer some Might, esp for non-Zeal builds which are struggling with that, and Axe provides Fury and Utility in a pull, GS providing Mobility, pull Utility, minor heal etc., Hammer (along with Mace, really) stands out as just not having a place with it's low Damage and mediocre sustain. 

Yes, it has some (although also far too slow) CC, but you get that with combining Axe, Scepter and GS too (while their CC, esp. in Axe and GS is also better at trash control, setting up a cleave environment), all while also getting all their boons, other Utility, more DPS, and still good Prot from other sources.

 

Edited January 17, 2023 by Asum.4960

[Obtena.7952]

It's a fallacy that reworking unpopular weapons will increase diversity. The diversity is already there, even if people choose to not use those choices in significant numbers. 

Simply, diversity isn't a reason to buff things ... diversity is simply based on options people have to them, regardless of their popularity. 

What I think would be ideal is better delineation of weapons into different specialties, which Anet does do in lots of cases already. Where the issue is when there is lots of overlap, like Warrior hammer/mace setups applying similar effects. Alternatively, Anet can design encounters where these unpopular weapons have more significant impact, as these weapons tend to have effects that aren't as valuable as the highest DPS setups.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Gaiawolf.8261]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I agree, but usually when a weapon is "unpopular", it's often because it's not being used by one of the meta builds. And sometimes the weapons that are just plain bad continue to be used because the profession doesn't have any better options, at least not without an elite specialisation.

 

What builds have you tried, and for what purpose?

It's not really suitable for competitive, unfortunately. It's a bit too slow and telegraphed for the current balance environment for the payoff. That can be addressed without demanding a total rework, though.

It's fairly effective solo to get through things that a more DPS-oriented build might have trouble surviving through. Run Writ of Persistence to get that extra sustain while almost doubling the ticks you get from each symbol. If you take this approach, you might consider running Zeal to double down on symbols, but you don't have to. It's not the glass cannon weapon of choice, to be sure - it's a choice for where you want to be a tank and you want to make anyone around you a tank as well. When you don't have a pocket healer, you can make up for that DPS loss by not having to worry so much about avoiding attacks.

The main problem is that it's a somewhat support-oriented weapon, but the only elite specialisation guardian has that's really oriented that was is firebrand, and firebrand has so many other sources of protection that the hammer doesn't help it much. But I don't think that's a "this weapon will never be good without a rework that completely destroys its current identity" issue.

The idea that a weapon is popular or unpopular because of the meta I think is a gross misconception by the guild Wars 2 community. I have a strong suspicion that the vast majority of players don't follow the meta or even know what it is.

Popular weapons are ones that casual players find useful. Unpopular weapons are ones that the average player can't get to work properly. Niche weapons undoubtedly fall into the latter category, because the average player has no idea how to turn that into a build, And they have a poor experience with the weapon. Which is the biggest problem with making a weapon niche.

[kharmin.7683]

23 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

The idea that a weapon is popular or unpopular because of the meta I think is a gross misconception by the guild Wars 2 community. I have a strong suspicion that the vast majority of players don't follow the meta or even know what it is.

 

Probably not, but I'd wager the majority of forum-goers here probably do follow the meta and end-game content, from what I gather, requires significant investment in the meta ... so we get threads like these.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

18 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Probably not, but I'd wager the majority of forum-goers here probably do follow the meta and end-game content, from what I gather, requires significant investment in the meta ... so we get threads like these.

Oh for sure! I'm just trying to look out for the regular Joe's and Jane's. After all, the first goal mentioned in the balance philosophy is to make the game fun for the most amount of players.

Case in point, someone mentioned guardian hammer. I have a friend who chose that weapon because she found a really cool skin and like the idea of her paladin swinging a big heavy weapon.  So a little while later she's walking around town with the hammer, but when we go out to do some  bounties, I noticed she switched out of it.

Her reply? "Oh yeah, hammer sucks. I wish Anet would fix it, so I can actually use it."

She wasn't using Honor because she thought that was mostly for support, and she just wanted to run around and hit things really hard like a hammer is supposed to do. I told her about Writ of Persistence, and now she uses the hammer for regular mobs but still switches to greatsword for anything "hard." 

[Matoro.9708]

There are certain weapons like Engineer pistol that simply do not fire along the stated autoattack cast time, and the poison darts interact with some objects by passing straight through them. Removing old 2012 jank is a good start for a lot of these core weapons.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Oh yeah sure, we've seen how it worked with Engineer rifle. It's been in a good state post rework then nerfed because of Mechanist then nerfed again and recently made complete garbage in PvP / WvW and complete unfun in PvE. Meanwhile Engineer pistol which has been arguably one of the worse if not the worse offensive weapon in the game for years now is left untouched for no reason. 

 

There are a fair number of weapon that could receive the same level of rework as Rifle engineer received but be carefull for what you ask for. Anet showed they are capable of reworking weapon but they also showed they are incompetent enough to make a reworked weapon in worse state in some gamemode than its pre rework state 

[Dadnir.5038]

8 hours ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

Anet showed they are capable of reworking weapon but they also showed they are incompetent enough to make a reworked weapon in worse state in some all gamemodes than its pre rework state

I corrected your slight mistake.

[draxynnic.3719]

@Asum.4960, @Gaiawolf.8261

 

I feel that both of your statements can be succinctly summarised as "Hammer doesn't provide enough to make up for the DPS loss".

 

Couldn't this issue be resolved by adjusting the damage numbers upwards rather than requiring functionality changes?

 

(I would note that Zeal being hit probably does disproportionately hit hammer, due to hammer's reliance on symbols and zeal being the DPS symbol traitline.)

[Asum.4960]

13 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

@Asum.4960, @Gaiawolf.8261

 

I feel that both of your statements can be succinctly summarised as "Hammer doesn't provide enough to make up for the DPS loss".

 

Couldn't this issue be resolved by adjusting the damage numbers upwards rather than requiring functionality changes?

 

(I would note that Zeal being hit probably does disproportionately hit hammer, due to hammer's reliance on symbols and zeal being the DPS symbol traitline.)

The Zeal changes in Symbolic Power and Eternal Armory definitely "killed" an already struggling Condi/Hybrid Hammer setup (which was the only somewhat decent setup for the kit). 

With those Traits in their Prime, Zeal+Honor Hammer AA Cele FB would probably be a decent solo build at least (minus still the Fury issues). 

 

Just more DPS on Hammer definitely would be a solid fix towards viability. But personally I'd like to see more changes on the weapon in terms of usability and Utility as well. 

I do think a combination of the Symbol being on Mighty Blow instead of the AA, a then faster and smoother AA, shorter cast times on Zealot's Embrace and Banish, as well as a rework of Ring of Warding (or at least speeding up it's animation and making it less prone to movement cancel, as well as potentially adding Projectile Defense) would make the weapon drastically more attractive. 

 

With Mighty Blow on such a short CD it would still be the premier Symbol Weapon, while imo feeling a lot more satisfying to play around than relying on just the clunky AA chain. 1.25 seconds for an AA hit is imo ridiculous and disruptive, no matter the pay-off. 

It would also reduce the incentive to just camp the weapon for it's AA, allowing it to be more comfortably paired with something like Axe or Sword (for Fury) especially, looping in 2-3 symbols via Mighty Blow on Swap - but also feeling better even if just camping it (maybe with a 1;2;1 Radiance, 3;3;2 Honor Cele FB Setup).

[Gaiawolf.8261]

13 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

@Asum.4960, @Gaiawolf.8261

 

I feel that both of your statements can be succinctly summarised as "Hammer doesn't provide enough to make up for the DPS loss".

 

Couldn't this issue be resolved by adjusting the damage numbers upwards rather than requiring functionality changes?

 

(I would note that Zeal being hit probably does disproportionately hit hammer, due to hammer's reliance on symbols and zeal being the DPS symbol traitline.)

I don't think hammer needs a rework. It can be a good weapon with some tweaks, but not necessarily just to coefficients. The changes to Zeal traits hurts, but I also don't think a weapon should rely on traits too heavily. Traits should be there to make a weapon pop for a certain build, not to make the base weapon skills viable.

Hammer's main problem comes down to useability. It simply feels too janky in PVE and has too many telegraphs in PVP, especially without quickness (it doesn't feel terrible for a solo QFB actually, but you gotta keep quickness up or it feels rough again). The weapon has some cool utilities (CC), but they don't always work together well, and you just feel punished by leaving the AA chain too much. Smoothing out and quickening some of the animations would go a long way to fixing most of these problems. Some adjustments to coefficients would handle the rest.

Also, Banish needs a decent follow up skill on a reasonable CD.
(EDIT: Oh yes, I forgot the god-awful movement cancel on Ring of Warding, dreadful without quickness. Get rid of that, even in PVP, but especially in PVE.)

Edited January 16, 2023 by Gaiawolf.8261

[Riba.3271]

On 1/16/2023 at 3:28 AM, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

 

Also, Banish needs a decent follow up skill on a reasonable CD.

That is a great idea. I think for guardian hammer following changes would be reasonable:

 

• 3rd AA symbol duration 2s -> 3s
• Mighty blow dash distance 300 -> 400. Cooldown of Mighty blow 4s -> 7s. Charge amount 1 -> 2.
• Banish (4) refreshes 1 charge of Mighty Blow (2) on succesful hit

[Mik.3401]

If it was well implemented then sure. However, in reality the balance team has hands full of work when it comes to fixing the ongoing issues with the skills and weapons which are actually being used.

They progress very slowly so it seems they find it very difficult, and throwing all new skills and weapon uses to the mix would make balance even harder to attain

[Yasai.3549]

I just want Herald Shield to: 

Shield 4: Pulse Heal and Protect around you in an AoE.
Shield 5: Recast to knockback and deal damage.