A Followup to Tuesday's Bladesworn Post: Intentional, Varying, Lag is Bad both for You and Your Opponent - ANet Please Communicate Better About Why Big Class Changes Are Made.

[PseudoOAlias.4279]

For those who don't Bladesworn I thought I'd link a short clip illustrating the problems with the gamewide delay that ANet added to Dragon Trigger 2 - Boost:

| https://youtu.be/F8yb1lKRYeQ |

TL;DR :: It's Actually a PvP "Buff" Just in the weirdest possible Game-Design Way.

Putting a .25 second "lag" delay on [Dragon Slash - Boost] (the 2) varies the same "explosion" animation between all 3 Dragon-Slashes, but with different actual slash timings. Meaning that, in addition to Boost no longer "feeling" good or even like the other two slashes to use + Eliminating it's functionality as a mobility skill entirely, Your opponent can no longer counter-play the timing of the slash because they have no idea which slash is coming. (Which I can only assume was the intention of adding a 0.25s additional lag "delay" to this skill because all of the other Bladesworn changes were specific to PvP.)

Which leads me into the other, small, point I want to make here and that's: The lack of communication around all of these changes is the biggest problem and feels awful. Whether you still attempt to use this statue in PvP or whether you use it to Cancel the Dragon Apocalypse in PvE, this change will affect you for a minimum of the next 3 moths. And none of these changes were in the preview or explained in the notes at all.

 |Meaning that: |
a) They had the Bladesworn changes done, and intentionally left them out because they knew how negatively people would react. (I personally don't believe this one.)
  or.
b) These were last-minute (or at the very least done in the 4-week-gap between the preview until now) to attempt to wrest some power budget away from Bladesworn in PvP. (This wasn't the problem, Bladesworn's sustain is at least in my experience + opinion. And these changes did nothing to address that. But that's a different discussion.)

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ANet look, I know there's 36 variants in this game. I know this affects probably ~sub < 1/36 people out there. But it does affect those people. For the first time Bladesworn PvP jank is starting to affect PvE instead of the other way around. And an explanation of why would be nice.

I don't want to go into the full thing again. Bladesworn has 6+ competing systems on it all pulling in different directions. But there were better ways to do this. If you're interested in some rando, who's played a ton of this class but is ultimately not a designer's opinion go check out my compilation post here.

>> Instead of taking the "fun" off of Dragon Trigger Boost, why not tone down the damage and add some "fun" to Dragon Trigger 1 & 3? Maybe if we need to get fast changes through the 1 could inherit a 0.5s daze? (Reminiscent of the stun Removed from UD) and the 3 could have a slightly larger hitbox, do a bit more damage, or go further?

As it is this "buff" isn't fun for anyone and just exacerbates the problem of one specific system or skill on Bladesworn being "readjusted" so that everything on it is even out of wack. I know that a full Rework is probably out of the question. But if you need Easy, Concrete, Constructive ways on how to Fix the class I provide them here.
| P.S. Also please add a buff icon for when [Heightened Focus] is ready on your buff bar. Or better yet, give it a better Trigger condition. It's also currently impossible to use and counterplay for the same reasons. |

- Hope this explanation helps and May the "Which F*cking Dragon Trigger Did He Just Use!?" odds be ever in your favor.

  - Cheers, o/

[Langeball.9351]

Add the stun natively to DT1, add stability on DT2, do something with DT3 (like fixing all the bugs associated with it). Remove blind immunity from Unyielding Dragon and replace it with resistance boon. And lastly, remove the god awful delay from DT2.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

31 minutes ago, PseudoOAlias.4279 said:

For those who don't Bladesworn I thought I'd link a short clip illustrating the problems with the gamewide delay that ANet added to Dragon Trigger 2 - Boost:

| https://youtu.be/F8yb1lKRYeQ |

TL;DR :: It's Actually a PvP "Buff" Just in the weirdest possible Game-Design Way.

Putting a .25 second "lag" delay on [Dragon Slash - Boost] (the 2) varies the same "explosion" animation between all 3 Dragon-Slashes, but with different actual slash timings. Meaning that, in addition to Boost no longer "feeling" good or even like the other two slashes to use + Eliminating it's functionality as a mobility skill entirely, Your opponent can no longer counter-play the timing of the slash because they have no idea which slash is coming. (Which I can only assume was the intention of adding a 0.25s additional lag "delay" to this skill because all of the other Bladesworn changes were specific to PvP.)

Which leads me into the other, small, point I want to make here and that's: The lack of communication around all of these changes is the biggest problem and feels awful. Whether you still attempt to use this statue in PvP or whether you use it to Cancel the Dragon Apocalypse in PvE, this change will affect you for a minimum of the next 3 moths. And none of these changes were in the preview or explained in the notes at all.

 |Meaning that: |
a) They had the Bladesworn changes done, and intentionally left them out because they knew how negatively people would react. (I personally don't believe this one.)
  or.
b) These were last-minute (or at the very least done in the 4-week-gap between the preview until now) to attempt to wrest some power budget away from Bladesworn in PvP. (This wasn't the problem, Bladesworn's sustain is at least in my experience + opinion. And these changes did nothing to address that. But that's a different discussion.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANet look, I know there's 36 variants in this game. I know this affects probably ~sub < 1/36 people out there. But it does affect those people. For the first time Bladesworn PvP jank is starting to affect PvE instead of the other way around. And an explanation of why would be nice.

I don't want to go into the full thing again. Bladesworn has 6+ competing systems on it all pulling in different directions. But there were better ways to do this. If you're interested in some rando, who's played a ton of this class but is ultimately not a designer's opinion go check out my compilation post here.

>> Instead of taking the "fun" off of Dragon Trigger Boost, why not tone down the damage and add some "fun" to Dragon Trigger 1 & 3? Maybe if we need to get fast changes through the 1 could inherit a 0.5s daze? (Reminiscent of the stun Removed from UD) and the 3 could have a slightly larger hitbox, do a bit more damage, or go further?

As it is this "buff" isn't fun for anyone and just exacerbates the problem of one specific system or skill on Bladesworn being "readjusted" so that everything on it is even out of wack. I know that a full Rework is probably out of the question. But if you need Easy, Concrete, Constructive ways on how to Fix the class I provide them here.
| P.S. Also please add a buff icon for when [Heightened Focus] is ready on your buff bar. Or better yet, give it a better Trigger condition. It's also currently impossible to use and counterplay for the same reasons. |

- Hope this explanation helps and May the "Which F*cking Dragon Trigger Did He Just Use!?" odds be ever in your favor.

  - Cheers, o/

Basically sums up what ANet pretty consistently fails at doing, what many companies fail at doing in fact, but in this instance ANet very visibly just does not function well at all in this area, in fact it is what frustrates me the most about them. That and the bizarro balance changes they make.

Despite the very small strides ANet has made with communication to the playerbase they seem to still be stuck in 2010. You get more of a conversation out of Amazon Games Studios with Lost Ark and New World than you do ANet with GW2. Thats...kind of unfortunate.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

Stun should not be natively added to Dragon Trigger, especially with stun being added to Gunsaber 3 on a (comparatively) short cooldown in all game modes. However, I would say that Ignores Blind & Block should be native to all Dragon Slashes.

There's a large amount of investment & risk simply to access Dragon Slash---this would help with the payoff as the enemy has plenty of chances to interrupt the attack they know is coming from a mile away.

It'd be nice seeing a trait that provides a follow-up explosion (1-3, scales with Tier) after Dragon Slash as it would mimic the change they made for Gunsaber auto-attack. Plus would open up Explosions to be the focus of activating the Major Master Traits rather than ammunition.

I think changing up Dragonscale Defenses & Triggerguard would go a long way:

• Dragonscale Defenses - Gain Aegis 0.25s for every charged bullet. This would prevent stacking issues with Stability and have far greater value than the 1 stack for 3s on 8s CD that Bladesworn currently has.Functionally, Aegis works just like Stability with the added bonus of cancelling out the damage, and boon corruption won't immediately kick you out of Dragontrigger. However, Aegis gets corrupted into Burning, meaning that Necromancers can heavily stack burning, punishing players if they stay in Dragon Trigger for too long in a corrupting zone.
   
• Triggerguard - Gain stability 2s. Means you can stack 2 stacks of 2s duration Stability if you need the additional coverage while in Dragon Trigger, and provides a bit of synergy with Defense traitline (Stalwart Strength +10% Damage) for build diversity.

Edit: And for the love of Warriors, please make Fierce as Fire cause burning on explosions. This is such a small change and it would immediately provide Bladesworn is a condition-based build option, as well as making the Sword/Pistol weapon set used in the trailer for Bladesworn effective rather than the Axe/Pistol build we've been stuck with since EoD release.

Put the current Fierce as Fire effect (with +condi damage % as well) on Guns & Glory if you truly want to keep it.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Geoff Fey.1035
Fierce as Fire is a bigger tease than Countess Anise

[KryTiKaL.3125]

7 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

Stun should not be natively added to Dragon Trigger, especially with stun being added to Gunsaber 3 on a (comparatively) short cooldown in all game modes. However, I would say that Ignores Blind & Block should be native to all Dragon Slashes.

There's a large amount of investment & risk simply to access Dragon Slash---this would help with the payoff as the enemy has plenty of chances to interrupt the attack they know is coming from a mile away.

It'd be nice seeing a trait that provides a follow-up explosion (1-3, scales with Tier) after Dragon Slash as it would mimic the change they made for Gunsaber auto-attack. Plus would open up Explosions to be the focus of activating the Major Master Traits rather than ammunition.

I think changing up Dragonscale Defenses & Triggerguard would go a long way:

• Dragonscale Defenses - Gain Aegis 0.25s for every charged bullet. This would prevent stacking issues with Stability and have far greater value than the 1 stack for 3s on 8s CD that Bladesworn currently has.Functionally, Aegis works just like Stability with the added bonus of cancelling out the damage, and boon corruption won't immediately kick you out of Dragontrigger. However, Aegis gets corrupted into Burning, meaning that Necromancers can heavily stack burning, punishing players if they stay in Dragon Trigger for too long in a corrupting zone.
   
• Triggerguard - Gain stability 2s. Means you can stack 2 stacks of 2s duration Stability if you need the additional coverage while in Dragon Trigger, and provides a bit of synergy with Defense traitline (Stalwart Strength +10% Damage) for build diversity.

 

Just to clarify, Gunsaber 3 is a Daze at most in PvP/WvW. It only Stuns in PvE with 3 ammo, in PvP/WvW it maxes out on 2 ammo.

Also not bad suggestions, my only issue is that ANet shouldn't make players feel like they have to jump through these sorts of hoops like concocting complicated and deep alternatives because ANet went and made a weird, nonsense, bizarre change that was entirely unnecessary and does absolutely nothing to resolve the issue that is actually present with any given class and how it is performing. And then they didn't even communicate the reasoning as to why.

Like Psuedo said, we're going to be sitting on this for at minimum 3 months before we see anything done, if we even see anything for that matter. Which at this point ANet does not give me much confidence that they will actually do anything, or actually communicate the reasoning.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

20 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

Like Psuedo said, we're going to be sitting on this for at minimum 3 months before we see anything done, if we even see anything for that matter. Which at this point ANet does not give me much confidence that they will actually do anything, or actually communicate the reasoning.

It was a pleasant surprise when ANet included the Bladesworn tweaks on top of the already previewed balance patch.

Previously for both Beta Previews and Patch Previews: what you see is what you get. Doesn't matter if there's obvious glaring issues, weapon/spec-breaking bugs, or pages upon pages in the forum, game partners, and influencers specifically identifying a single issue that needs to be addressed: what you see is what you get.

Seeing them add extra stuff on top of the balance patch was lovely to see and I'm hoping this becomes a trend where they work on additional stuff beyond the stated scope.

The quarterly balance patches were promoted as allowing them to shake-up the meta. Unfortunately over the Summer they ended up breaking it so bad they had to put in an emergency patch just to keep the ship from sinking (June --> July) and it was a long wait to Nov 28th.

If they can keep this kind of QoL invigoration going that would be quite lovely to see.

 

[PseudoOAlias.4279]

While I appreciate the resolve from the community, and while obviously love Build Crafting. It was not my intention exactly to turn this thread into a design / balance discussion. Moreso my point was that this is an enormous game-wide change, the intention of which really should have been communicated better.

 

I do however think it's important to highlight that even within the comments that I've gotten on this and the main thread there is an ENORMOUS disparity both within the Community as well as seemingly between the designers of, what this class should "do," what it's role should be in PvE, PvP, and WvW and how it should "do that role," aka. function. And I think that's the main problem.

 

--- Another Wall of Text for those who Would Like to Read it: ---

Most of the Community suggestions will likely come, as mine did, from the playstyles that we've all had to create / adapt as Bladesworn has progress through being basically 4 different elite specs throughout it's life. Similar to how fighting game nerfs/buffs can cause a Character to play radically different between seasons.

---------------------------------

ANet clearly too, has had many MANY different visions for the class, deep or as not-deep as they may have been.

> In the first Beta you even had to be in in Gunsaber to enter Dragon Trigger. Then that went away.

[Tactical Reload] used to reload everything, and then that exploded. (Good imo. But this was still not replaced in their power budget anywhere, except maybe by leaving [Unshakable Mountain] alive. Which is also unhealthy for spam' / class identity pollution reasons.)

Let's not forget that Dragon Trigger was originally 5s to charge, not 2.5s.

The class used to be covered in single-stack stability skills to ensure that IF the stars aligned and you managed to combat>bullets>flow>DT it could actually be cast. And those have all left us.

 

There's been more changes too. Until recently most of these have been things like sacrificing PvP/WvW traits + skills like the evade distance / evade window on [Dragonspike Mine] so that the class can do it's seemingly "1-envisioned role of Melee Power DPS in PvE" a-la the 2nd Berserker rework from 5 years ago. Even when they added ranged "projectiles" to Gunsaber Cal cited this as a PvE change because "Getting off the boss and not being able to hit it at all feels really bad." Which would be fine if the projectiles worked and did their damage packets properly.

 

---------------------------------

 | Talking Grandmasters: |

[Daring Dragon] used to be a unique way to actually modify/take advantage of your class mechanic that sacrificed big-hits for a bunch of small ones + burst trait triggers (but you had to save up a ton of Flow still to get any kind of value out of this playstyle. But this exploded in service of PvE alacrity w/ reduced DT damage.

The Protection from [Immortal Dragon] used to compliment the Stability that you got from [Dragonscale Defense] so it made sense. But then Dragonscale's Stability was changed to Protection so [ID] is completely redundant.

And now that, for good or for ill, the stun on [Unyielding Dragon] is gone, it can no longer be used as a setup tool. (This is worth mentioning but it's not my main point that: it really doesn't do as much damage as you think it does, so this was really the only use.) And all of the Grandmasters, which are supposed to define your playstyle on an Elite Specialization play exactly the same.

 

 | Systems - Lots of Them |

This also does not even begin to address the issues with the 6+ competing systems that Bladesworn all has pulling in different directions. Explosions, Flow, Ammunition, Armaments, Loading Bullets, Dragon Trigger, Dragon Slashes, and then all of the underlying "Actual Warrior" skills and traits, all of which trigger on / off of different situations. And while this could work, if you were trying to create hyper-specific definitions and combat circumstance triggers for things. From an outside perspective this seems like a TON of misguided effort when you could instead just channel your energy making the less-fun things more fun/usable if we are going to keep Bladesworn this way, and just tone down the numbers on the overused tools.

That's why I think, in this one specific case, a Specialization Overhaul is in order. It does not have to be mine. What I proposed was not finished and is not perfect. Biased as I may be I do think that there are good ideas to pull from there, as well as in the Community at-large. And that, failing this, ANet needs to figure out how they can do small informed tweaks to what's not working to start melding all of the systems back together.

The cynical part of me wants to say that these changes were actually made so that they can have even more PvE "design space" to give Bladesworn back it's F1 so it can actually heal using staff. And weird as that is I'm fine with that. But I'm fine in a way that makes sense as outlined here. And if it comes with communication so we can understand why. Making the DT2 feel worse to both use and play against because your metrics say l that it's the most used one. - So that, (again theoretically because we don't know,) people will use the other two Dragon Slashes in PvP is not a healthy direction for the class or the game.

Bladesworn"s concept is good and it's there. But the above ^ is why I keep coming back to a complete overhaul of the class' actual implementation and execution. Maybe one day we'll get an explanation. But hopefully these changes give ArenaNet enough design space to figure out what they want the class to do in PvX, implement it in a way that's FUN for everyone, and hopefully it's not just single-target-power-melee-DPS.

 

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

A lot of the flaws in the espec that are still present where pointed out in the beta, and were never addressed. Many of us have spent the time making it work, but that is in despite of the flaws which still need to be addressed. Those flaws compounded with the issues listed above by Psuedo just make it badly designed.

Cal made this one, and it will require some crow eating on his part for any rework to move forward.

I like the idea that was suggested earlier about turning Dragon Slash into an Ambush type mechanic where it is available after the dodge. The type of slash could differ based on the GM trait taken. I also think that there is room for the dodge to be replaced by Flickerstep itself, where you flicker into the direction of motion or backwards by default, and set the number of dodges to three potentially. I also think that the Armaments should become more like weapon kits than Gadgets. And like Psuedo, I think something needs to be done, and not just what I've suggested.

The amount of jank and flaws in this spec's mechanics along with the unhealthy design bloat to keep it afloat need to be addressed. I realize that there are people who like the theme of it, don't get me wrong it is a good theme. But lets not let flavor get in the way of function. We can add all the flavor that is needed once the function is where it needs to be.

[Yasai.3549]

1 minute ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I like the idea that was suggested earlier about turning Dragon Slash into an Ambush type mechanic where it is available after the dodge. The type of slash could differ based on the GM trait taken. 

Oh god... the meme of Warriors just dodging into things to kill them is still fresh on my mind. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

19 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Oh god... the meme of Warriors just dodging into things to kill them is still fresh on my mind. 

To be fair it would be post dodge, so they'd have time to react. Not like it's a Mirage or Daredevil using stealth to cover the animation.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

For sake of argument, what if ANet doubled-down on the current design focus? 

Fierce as Fire (FaF) is really the only Master trait worth taking and activates on every ammo spent. Applying that design to the rest of the Master traits would  allow them all to capitalize on the success FaF is currently seeing, as well as synergizing with the Armaments (largely all ammo style skills).

• Unshakable Mountain - Alacrity & Resistance (1s), Radius 600
• Fierce as Fire - Burning (2s) 262 Damage, Radius 240
• Lush Forests - Strike Damage +1%, 15 Stack limit, 10s Duration

Guns & Glory is currently just a +Ferocity buff and is largely fire-and-forget with Pistol prior to Dragon Trigger. By moving the "while converting Flow to charges" aspect of the Grandmaster traits to this one it would have synergy with the "per ammo spent" design while freeing up the Grandmaster traits to focus on the expenditure of charges

• Guns & Glory - Counts as ammo spent when converting flow into charges. Explosions count as Ammo Spent.

The Dragon Slashes are fairly solid, although many miss the old Daring Dragon. By having the Barrier (healing build) split away from the "do as many Dragon Slashes as possible" trait, it provides build diversity by either having a solid healing option to go with Staff, an option for heavily weighting Dragon Slash like it's original reveal incarnation, and an option that allows you to get into Dragon Trigger frequently, thereby capitalizing on the effects of the Master Traits through the conversion.

• Immortal Dragon - % damage converted to healing; Barrier to allies based on charges spent
• Unyielding Dragon - Unblockable; consumes more flow per charge; Explosion per charge spent
• Daring Dragon -  Dragon Trigger no longer has cooldown; Positive Flow based on charges spent

Edited December 1, 2023 by Geoff Fey.1035