Armed with Dual Pistols, Guardians Rain Down Bullets of Justice!

[draxynnic.3719]

14 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

If you are played ranged in PvE, the pulsing from hitting an enemy only matters ones the enemy closed in on you. This also means, the enemy (if it's a melee enemy) would have left the symbol, if it spawned below the enemy, Thus, having the symbol under you benefits you more.

I think you're missing a lot of scenarios here. A ranged enemy won't approach you. An enemy that is focused on another player won't approach you. A "prop boss" - the big ones that are mostly stationary - won't approach you. Most raid/strike bosses are fairly stationary if the tank is doing their job. And if the enemy is going to approach you, and you don't have the means to control them so they don't, then... wait until they're in melee before you drop the symbol and it won't matter. Pretty much the same modus operandi as with any other persistent AoE. I see very few situations where a ranged weapon is better off with a melee symbol, and many where it's a handicap.

14 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I don't think they had much of competitive in mind when they designed the Pistols. Both WvW and sPvP feel like little more than afterthoughts since at least 2015.

As I wrote above, if you can't easily remain on (or return) to your symbol, you probably have other things to consider than only doing as much damage as possible.

But if the symbol is on the enemy, it can continue to sit there, pulsing damage, while you do whatever it is you have to do. And often that "whatever it is you have to do" doesn't stop you from continuing to attack with a ranged weapon, it just means you can't stay where you are.

14 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

This includes playing around enemy mechanics and enemies running around/away a lot.

Just because it has been done before, doesn't mean they have to repeat it.

Also, not everyone likes ground-targetted abilities, so turning all Symbols into ground-targetting would inevitably reduce the fun of playing Guardian for some people.

Seriously? It's one skill on the set, not like we're talking about engineer grenade/mortar kits here. And every other guardian ranged weapon has a ground-targeted symbol.

Being different for the sake of being different is not a good thing, and I'd expect that putting a melee symbol on a ranged weapon is going to "reduce the fun" of far more people than those who are turned off by having to place a circle once every 10-20s (or whatever the recharge is).

[Loules.8601]

14 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

EDIT: Also claiming burning themes from GW1 is disingenuous. Monk had precisely ONE skill that inflicted burning, Ray of Judgment. Paragon had a few more skills: Anthem of Flame, Blazing Finale, Blazing Spear, Burning Refrain, Burning Shield, Holy Spear, and Glowing Signet, but honestly there isn't much Paragon in either Guardian or Warrior outside of shouts. Arguably Warrior's banners and icon take more from Paragon than anything Guardian has.

Well, to be fair, story-wise Guardians as profession: 

“The guardian is one of the newer professions in Tyria, having evolved from a mixture of older, mainly human traditions; in particular, the heavily-armored, supportive paragons of Elona and the deeply religious monks, who would often appeal to the human gods Dwayna and Balthazar for the magical fortitude to heal and protect their allies and smite enemies. Today, guardians can be found amongst all races, and as a result many have moved away from this religious approach, wielding their magic in a more immediate, pragmatic manner than spellcasters.”

From the wiki. 
 

Additionally, Balthazar’s famous feature (and iirc part of divine domain too) - a lot of fire 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Loules.8601
Additional info

[Fueki.4753]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think you're missing a lot of scenarios here. A ranged enemy won't approach you. An enemy that is focused on another player won't approach you. A "prop boss" - the big ones that are mostly stationary - won't approach you. Most raid/strike bosses are fairly stationary if the tank is doing their job. And if the enemy is going to approach you, and you don't have the means to control them so they don't, then... wait until they're in melee before you drop the symbol and it won't matter. Pretty much the same modus operandi as with any other persistent AoE. I see very few situations where a ranged weapon is better off with a melee symbol, and many where it's a handicap.

But how many enemies are actually ranged?

How much time do you think is spend in raids or other group content by the entire player base?

Outside of group content, how often do you actually attack random monsters that focus on other players, in comparison to random monsters that focus on you?

While I can't say anything about SotO encounters, the rest of the game has mostly melee enemies. And sharing random fights with other people isn't too often either. Raids and other instanced group content isn't played much in comparison to the rest of PvE.

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

But if the symbol is on the enemy, it can continue to sit there, pulsing damage, while you do whatever it is you have to do. And often that "whatever it is you have to do" doesn't stop you from continuing to attack with a ranged weapon, it just means you can't stay where you are.

You may not realize this, but not everyone is proficient at keeping up a good amount of damage or are able to place a ground-targetted AoE while being busy doing mechanics and avoiding AoE.

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It's one skill on the set

I've seen people dislike and not using weapons and abilities for that same (or a similar) reason.

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

And every other guardian ranged weapon has a ground-targeted symbol.

Just because every other Symbol on ranged weapons is a ground-target doesn't mean the Symbol on Pistol have to be the same.

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Being different for the sake of being different is not a good thing, and I'd expect that putting a melee symbol on a ranged weapon is going to "reduce the fun" of far more people than those who are turned off by having to place a circle once every 10-20s (or whatever the recharge is).

People don't have any fun with it yet, so there is no fun to could be reduced.

It might not simply be "different for the sake of being different". Unless we learn more about the designer's intention, we have no way of knowing the reason.

If it ended up being ground-targetted, people who feel the need to place the Symbol every times it comes off cooldown might even feel worse than they would with a click once and drop at your feet symbol, because they'd have to spend a few seconds trying to place it correctly.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Izzy.2951]

When the gun does the backflip the symbol should disappear before, it doesnt look good that way.

[Arken.3725]

Sucks it looks like the PvEr's in this forum have come out of the woodwork to proclaim this will be a good weapon.....makes me sad.  

[Doctor Hide.6345]

12 minutes ago, Arken.3725 said:

Sucks it looks like the PvEr's in this forum have come out of the woodwork to proclaim this will be a good weapon.....makes me sad.  

Well considering most of the game is PvE focused with WvW and SPVP still being to the side even with the WvW changes coming, I would say it is an ok thing that the guns will be good in PvE. The main reason I don't like WvW that much or SPvP is because of the projectile hate, so I am glad they make just PvE weapons for us that enjoy it. Not unless you want them to make pistol unblockable which I am ok with to counter all the kitten projectile hate the WvW and SPvP modes have.

[Trejgon.9367]

On 11/18/2023 at 7:28 PM, Nero.7369 said:

Not sure if you worded the skill 3 projectilbehavior just strange and this is just a fire combofield with the additional effect that it will also pulse burn when comboed. Or all sort of projectils will inflict burn now.  I guess this will be just a combo field and we get some 100% projectil combo finishers.

All symbols to date are combo field: light, and I do not think this one will be any different. The description provided makes me think that it has a mechanic where striking foe that is inside the symbol with something else will cause symbol to give them burning, and projectiles specifically when shot through that symbol allow to carry out this burning proc to enemies beyond the symbol.

[Arken.3725]

11 minutes ago, Doctor Hide.6345 said:

Well considering most of the game is PvE focused with WvW and SPVP still being to the side even with the WvW changes coming, I would say it is an ok thing that the guns will be good in PvE. The main reason I don't like WvW that much or SPvP is because of the projectile hate, so I am glad they make just PvE weapons for us that enjoy it. Not unless you want them to make pistol unblockable which I am ok with to counter all the kitten projectile hate the WvW and SPvP modes have.

I get that but having skills where you have to standstill for benefit are not fun elsewhere.  Players actually move, npc's do not

[draxynnic.3719]

13 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

But how many enemies are actually ranged?

Enough. Depends on precisely which zone you're in, of course, but if you're assuming that the enemy is always going to be in melee with you anyway, why bother with a ranged weapon at all? (If the answer is "so you can kite away from them", well, you just kited away from the symbol at your feet anyway.)

13 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

How much time do you think is spend in raids or other group content by the entire player base?

More than your disingenuous wording suggests. I say "disingenuous" because your use of the phrasing "raids or other group content" implies such content is as rarely done as raids. Most world bosses are stationary, or at least predictable enough that you can drop a persistent AoE on them easily enough, and they probably represent a large portion of playtime for the majority of the player base.

13 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Outside of group content, how often do you actually attack random monsters that focus on other players, in comparison to random monsters that focus on you?

Define "group content". Bounties, rifts, events with a champion in general, and so on are regularly played by typical PvEers and often have at least a small group.

13 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

You may not realize this, but not everyone is proficient at keeping up a good amount of damage or are able to place a ground-targetted AoE while being busy doing mechanics and avoiding AoE.

Darn sight easier than making use of a feet-targeted symbol under the same conditions. Just because both can be challenging doesn't mean that one can't be more practical than the other.

13 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I've seen people dislike and not using weapons and abilities for that same (or a similar) reason.

Usually when it's the entire freaking bar that's like that. I'm in that boat - one of the things that has caused Engineer to fall near the bottom of my playlist is because pretty much all of the good builds have grenade kit or mortar kit stapled to the bar.

One ground-targeted AoE on the bar, though, is not a big deal, especially when it makes the weapon far more functional than, say, an otherwise ranged weapon that can only drop their symbol at their own feet. The overwhelming majority of complaints I've seen on the matter have been people complaining about RSI from ground-targeting skills being all they're using... which is mostly an engineer problem because engineer has two heavily used kits that are 100% ground-targeted.

13 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Just because every other Symbol on ranged weapons is a ground-target doesn't mean the Symbol on Pistol have to be the same.

Different for the sake of being different. There are clear and evident practical reasons why a symbol on a ranged weapon should be able to be used at range.

13 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

People don't have any fun with it yet, so there is no fun to could be reduced.

Dude. People aren't idiots. They can see what the end result of a choice is going to be. That's theoretically why we get balance patch previews - so players can give feedback if there's something they can tell by looking at it that it's not something they're going to enjoy.

13 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

It might not simply be "different for the sake of being different". Unless we learn more about the designer's intention, we have no way of knowing the reason.

If there's some big design reason why it has to be dropped at the player's feet, they can reveal that in the livestream. In the meantime, we can offer feedback based on what we see now. There's no reason, apart from you attempting to justify your contrariness, to think there's some big secret reason why they think it's better this way rather than that they simply thought of it primarily as a combo field and forgot that combo fields also work when placed on the enemy.

13 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

If it ended up being ground-targetted, people who feel the need to place the Symbol every times it comes off cooldown might even feel worse than they would with a click once and drop at your feet symbol, because they'd have to spend a few seconds trying to place it correctly.

Plant the reticle on the enemy, done, 90% of the time. Doesn't take seconds to think. Anyone who doesn't play melee pretty much exclusively should already have some experience with ground-targeted skills. Every profession has them (every current guardian ranged weapon and several utilities; warrior longbow; rev hammer, shortbow, and some utilities; engineer is overloaded with them, ranger longbow, spirits, and some elite specialisation stuff; thief shortbow staff, wells, and more; mesmer has one on every ranged weapon except scepter and several utilities; necromancer staff, wells, scourge shades, and more; elementalist has at least one on both current ranged options). I could see someone maining warrior managing to avoid them since longbow is really only used on condizerker and Electric Fence doesn't seem to be all that popular, but there are enough ground-targeted skills on guardian that anyone playing guardian should really already be expecting to use them. 

Seriously, why the ever-loving feline should a ranged weapon that isn't even available to free-to-play players (you know, the people who you'd normally expect to be newbies) be kneecapped just to cater to people who refuse to interact with one of the core mechanics in the game? 

Edited November 20, 2023 by draxynnic.3719

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I dunno why it wouldn't be ground targeted same as staff, longbow and scepter symbols.

[Fueki.4753]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Enough. Depends on precisely which zone you're in, of course, but if you're assuming that the enemy is always going to be in melee with you anyway, why bother with a ranged weapon at all?

Imagine playing a weapon because it's fun to you, even if it's not in its intended range. I'm certain there'll be people enjoying the Pistols in melee range.

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Darn sight easier than making use of a feet-targeted symbol under the same conditions. Just because both can be challenging doesn't mean that one can't be more practical than the other.

At least for me, it's easier to focus on the mechanics first and when I have some breathing room, I can just click it once and start fighting.

Not everyone is trying to do as much damage as possible when they focus on doing the mechanics. There's nothing wrong with just holding back the Symbol until one finds a break between mechanics to use.

How practical something is always depends on the individual player, so one option never is objectively the most practical.

It'd be like claiming that hitting keys to use abilities was objectively better then clicking them. And that's just wrong. Some people simply are better with one way or the other and that's not a matter of practice.

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Usually when it's the entire freaking bar that's like that. I'm in that boat

That's how you see it. Other people refuse to play weapons when it's less than the full bar they don't like.

In the end all comes down to preferences. Not everyone likes ground-targetting abilities, so those people will be happy with Guardian getting a ranged weapon that fits them more than Sceptre and Longbow.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Imagine playing a weapon because it's fun to you, even if it's not in its intended range. I'm certain there'll be people enjoying the Pistols in melee range.

If they'd done the warrior pistol offhand thing and made the whole thing melee, that would be understandable, but this is clearly (otherwise) a weapon that is intended to be used at range. Meanwhile, it's making it less fun for people who want it to be a practical weapon.

Seriously, at this point, you seem to have four core arguments, and they're all nonsensical:

Argument 1: "You'll end up in melee anyway!"

There are several counters to this argument - it isn't true in all cases, and if it was, well, might as well delete ranged weapons altogether, right?

Argument 2: "Things are allowed to be different!"

Things should still be functional in their intended role. Pistol is intended to be a ranged weapon from what we've seen, and the symbol being foot-planted undermines this. It also locks pistol to being used with offhand pistol, since none of the other guardian offhands happen to have suitable projectile skills to benefit from the combo effect (but they can benefit from the enhanced symbol pulsing effect, if the enemy is on the symbol). Pistol/pistol is still going to feel different from sceptre/torch, staff, or longbow with a ground-targeted symbol. But it would be far more functional.

Argument 3: "There might be some unknown reason why they've done it this way!"

An argument that there might be some reason for something that you can't think of yourself is, to put it bluntly, a pretty weak argument.

Argument 4: "There might be people who dislike using ground-targeted skills!"

As demonstrated previously (you avoided my trap of "forgetting" a ton of warrior ground-targeted skills), ground-targeted skills are a core mechanic of the game. If a player is so averse to them that having one on their bar is really going to ruin their enjoyment, then they're just not going to have a good time. Guardian certainly isn't going to be their profession, since while it isn't as heavy on them as engineer, ground-targeted utilities often represent a strong proportion of guardian utilities, and if they ever want to do anything beyond open world and story, pretty much every meta build uses at least one (pistol builds would most likely be using Purging Flames, and all elite specs have at least one ground-targeted skill in their profession mechanic. And for anyone for whom this really is a big deal, snap ground target exists. It'll put the symbol on the enemy rather than at your feet, but the majority of the time, that will be the best place for it... and you can set a hotkey as a toggle and begrudgingly engage in the universal game mechanic of ground-targeting if it is one of those few situations where placing it at your feet is better. In the meantime, everyone else, including everyone that plays guardian at a level higher than kittening around in open world on a core guardian build with no consecrations or spirit weapons because they just hate ground targeting that much, would be better off with the symbol being ground-targeted.

Seriously, at this point I'm beginning to think you're only making this argument because you want guardian pistol to be bad.

Meanwhile, my core argument is simple: The weapon would be more functional for the overwhelming majority of players if the symbol was ground-targeted.

Edited November 20, 2023 by draxynnic.3719

[Fueki.4753]

30 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Seriously, at this point I'm beginning to think you're only making this argument because you want guardian pistol to be bad.

We don't even know yet, if it'll be bad or not. If the right-handed Pistol somehow ended up being bad, I doubt it'd be because of the Symbol being placed at the player's position.

And I think having the Symbol spawn at the player's location is better than having the symbol spawn at the enemy's position. I doubt I'm the only one preferring it this way.

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Trejgon.9367]

8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Plant the reticle on the enemy, done, 90% of the time. Doesn't take seconds to think.

I guess I may want to enable the snap to target on my virtuoso, because doing exactly that everytime I tried places the ground targetted aoe at max range behind the fellow xD (action mode quick cast, in case you were curious)

[aymnad.9023]

Sounds like a really good weapon with a lot of pressure (maybe too much for 1V1 ?). It will be used, it just is not my favorite playstyle.

Edited November 20, 2023 by aymnad.9023

[Pyriel.4370]

This is gonna be epic, feels very Cross Marian / D. Gray Man.

Definitely gonna grab the biggest desert eagle lookin thing and let rip 😄 bye scepter!

[Jajo.1428]

Finally the mall cop elite specialization we've all been waiting for. Now the only thing missing is mobility scooter glider mount skin.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 11/20/2023 at 7:12 PM, Fueki.4753 said:

We don't even know yet, if it'll be bad or not. If the right-handed Pistol somehow ended up being bad, I doubt it'd be because of the Symbol being placed at the player's position.

And I think having the Symbol spawn at the player's location is better than having the symbol spawn at the enemy's position. I doubt I'm the only one preferring it this way.

 

As long as the symbol's pulsing damage is a significant part of the pistol's power budget, you're going to want the symbol under the enemy's feet if reasonably practical (which it WILL be more often than not). And what we've been told is that as long as you keep landing other attacks, each pulse will stack burning. We might assume that the first pulse will lack burning, but that's five stacks of burning if we assume a 5s symbol. That's significant even if we assume that the symbol does negligible damage otherwise.

Anyone who's paid attention to PvE balance knows that at some point it's going to be balanced according to what it can do in a golem benchmark. So any damage the symbol does directly will be included in balancing, even if there are many situations where you don't actually get it. If the symbol is dropped at the guardian's feet, you're going to be whatever-damage-the-symbol-does behind whenever you're actually trying to use the pistol as a ranged weapon. And that's without even considering the impracticality of combining the symbol as described with any other offhand.

Only way I see the symbol dropped at feet working is if the symbol works like Darkrazor's Daring - dealing no damage directly to targets for being within the symbol, but purely enhancing attacks that originate from or pass through the symbol. But as described, the symbol does pulse damage.

As long as the symbol itself is a significant contribution to damage, pistol will be a significantly more practical weapon if the symbol is ground-targeted or enemy-targeted rather than foot-targeted.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 11/20/2023 at 9:00 PM, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

I guess I may want to enable the snap to target on my virtuoso, because doing exactly that everytime I tried places the ground targetted aoe at max range behind the fellow xD (action mode quick cast, in case you were curious)

Ahh, yeah, I can see how that would happen. 😮

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

As long as the symbol itself is a significant contribution to damage, pistol will be a significantly more practical weapon if the symbol is ground-targeted or enemy-targeted rather than foot-targeted.

Practicality always depends on one's play-style and preferences in the content they play. For some players, ground-target may be more practical. For other players, it simply isn't.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[draxynnic.3719]

23 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Practicality always depends on one's play-style and preferences in the content they play. For some players, ground-target may be more practical. For other players, it simply isn't.

For a ranged weapon, I expect that the number of people that find it more practical to have a damaging skill nailed to their feet is a tiny minority. And for anyone for whom ground-target is that problematic, then guardian probably just isnt the right profession for them. You'd need to stick to core and rule out using half of the available utility skills to avoid ground-targeting on guardian. While no professions eliminate them entirely, there are certainly professions that are a lot more suited for builds that avoid ground-targeting.

If you don't want to deal with twenty skills across four attunements, don't play elementalist. If you don't want to have to deal with the occasional ground-target reticule, don't play guardian.

I'm pretty sure that if the skill had been described as ground-targeted, we wouldn't now have anyone jumping in to argue that it should be anything else.

Edited November 23, 2023 by draxynnic.3719

[Fueki.4753]

23 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

And for anyone for whom ground-target is that problematic, then guardian probably just isnt the right profession for them.

In a similar manner, one could argue that Guardian's Pistol is not the right weapon for anyone for whom the symbol not being a ground-target is that problematic. It's just a matter of preferences.

That aside, Guardian is perfectly viable to have fun with, even without using ground-targetting abilities.

25 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

If you don't want to deal with twenty skills across four attunements, don't play elementalist.

And this is simply not true. One can do reasonably well camping a single attunement on Tempest. You may do less damage than people who are proficient at constantly switching around, but damage isn't all that matters. And if you aren't too good at the whole switching style, you may even do more damage just camping Fire.

[draxynnic.3719]

Awww, heck, let's do this.

Profession Guide For People For Whom One Ground-Targeted Skill On a 10-20s Cooldown is Just Too Hard:

Elementalist: You'd want to avoid catalyst, staff, hammer, and scepter. We'll have to see whether pistol brings any. Focus is out because of flamewall, but I think dagger/dagger and sword/dagger are good. Warhorn... do ground-directed lines count, or is this an action cam thing?  

Engineer: I was going to say "don't even think about it", but a sword holo or mace mechanist might just pull it off? Having to use ground target to resummon the mech won't be an issue, will it? You'd be ruling out so much you wouldn't want to main it, though...

Guardian: Every elite spec mechanic has at least one, and half of the core utilities. No. You might be able to finagle together some sort of core build, but you'd be throwing out so much you might as well be tying one hand behind your back, especially if you want to go into any high-end content.

Mesmer: You're ruling out most ranged weapons, wells, most glamours, key mirage skills... again, you might be able to get a build together, but you'd be throwing out so much you'd be at a significant handicap.

Necromancer: You'd want to avoid staff, scepter, wells, a handful of other skills, scourge (since they reduced the duration of shades it's almost as bad as your typical engineer), and harbinger but a power reaper might just work!

Ranger: Druid is out, longbow is out, staff is out, spirits are out. Some pets are out on soulbeast, such as the jacaranda. Otherwise, I think you're good! 

Revenant: Hrrrmn, you could do some melee power revenant... but all of the elite stances have at least one ground-target on them augh dangit. Shiro/Jalis power build?

Thief: Shortbow, staff, and specter are out, but otherwise, apart from a couple of utilities you can probably do without, I think you're good!

Warrior: Longbow, hammer, banners, Stomp, and bladesworn (flicker step) are out. Greatsword depends on how you feel about Whirlwind Attack. Otherwise, I think you're good!

Sheesh, it's almost like ground-targeting is a core feature of the game that players are expected to be able to handle. But there are still much better choices than demanding that a guardian ranged weapon sacrifice utility to have one less ground-targeted skill on a build that is almost certainly going to have some already.

[draxynnic.3719]

37 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

And this is simply not true. One can do reasonably well camping a single attunement on Tempest. You may do less damage than people who are proficient at constantly switching around, but damage isn't all that matters. And if you aren't too good at the whole switching style, you may even do more damage just camping Fire.

(REDACTED)

As you've noted yourself, camping a single attunement is far from optimal play. You could probably not use the symbol at all, and still be handicapping yourself less than camping a single attunement on tempest (camping one attunement means less overloads, after all). More importantly, I don't see ArenaNet making any choices that are going to handicap the use of a weapon for everyone else just to cater for the fire campers. Closest you can expect is weaver builds bouncing between fire and some other element - because attunement-switching is a core aspect of elementalist's design.

The same for playing guardian without ground-targeting. Even if you've carefully chosen your weapon, you're giving up consecrations and spirit weapons (which include some of guardian's best utilities), F2 on firebrand, F3 and, depending on whether you count lines, F2 on willbender, and every skill 3 on a firebrand tome. While not using the pistol symbol on its own might be less of a handicap than a tempest camping fire, if you're giving up on a significant proportion of your profession mechanic skills and some of your best utilities, you might as well be playing while sitting on one hand as well. (Which, admittedly, WOULD make it hard to use ground-target skills. Is that your problem?)

Want to play without ground-target skills? Play warrior, thief, ranger, or maybe melee elementalist. Don't get me wrong, you'd still be handicapping yourself, but not as much. And you won't be handicapping everyone else who is willing and able to engage with a basic game mechanic in the process.

Actually, on second thoughts, I should respond to this:

"In a similar manner, one could argue that Guardian's Pistol is not the right weapon for anyone for whom the symbol not being a ground-target is that problematic. It's just a matter of preferences."

No, it's not. On a ranged weapon, being able to use a damaging skill on the enemy is objectively more useful than dropping it at your feet (even if you want to fall back on Argument 1 from earlier to refute this, if you're in melee anyway, putting it on the enemy still means it'll be on the enemy, it's just that you'll be in it too). This isn't a matter of preferences, it's a matter of having ranged skills on a ranged weapon. Only way to avoid this - for reasons previously discussed - is if the symbol has no damage attached to it, and simply augments other skills used from or through it.

I'm not the only person who has identified this flaw (it's being discussed elsewhere as well, but I'm not going to tell you where in case you get ideas), I'm just the only one who's still bothering to respond to you. But I don't think there's anything to be productive to be gained from continuing. 

Edited November 23, 2023 by draxynnic.3719

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Profession Guide

If people don't have fun with some abilities, they have the choice not to use them. There are many abilities on every profession. Most people are bound find at least some abilities that they enjoy.

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

As you've noted yourself, camping a single attunement is far from optimal play.

Let's go back to one of the basics of playing games. What is optimally playing a game?

Playing optimally means playing a game in the best possible way according to what one personally thinks is the best possible way to experience a game.

For some it is the achieving the numerical highest output they can. But that's not what everyone wants.

Others aim to get as much fun out of the game as possible in other ways, even if their numbers aren't reaching the heavens. And if that is camping a single attunement for some people, then they are playing the game in the way that's optimal for them.

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

On a ranged weapon, being able to use a damaging skill on the enemy is objectively more useful than dropping it at your feet

Once again, that's only subjectively better for some people, while it's the exact opposite for other people. Not everyone enjoys playing in the same way or has the same preferences.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Fueki.4753