Mukluk Realizing that PvE Alacrity makes more sense on Spellbreaker after Playing Bladesworn for 8 Seconds.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

38 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

spellbreaker might be the variant that would work best with the constraints of Soldier's Focus, since it doesn't spam like berserker

I find I'm using bursts very nearly as much as Berserker, or more if you count Full Counter as a burst skill

[WingSwipe.3084]

11 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

It was just Tuesday for me.

Devs: "YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME YOU FURRY BERSERKER kitten!"

Azure while cleaving three of them in half:

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 hours ago, WingSwipe.3084 said:

Devs: "YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME YOU FURRY BERSERKER kitten!"

Azure while cleaving three of them in half:

 

Azure needs to grab a Thanos icon for forum profile reasons now.

[Leo G.4501]

4 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

I find I'm using bursts very nearly as much as Berserker, or more if you count Full Counter as a burst skill

Very true. Difference is, Spellbreaker benefits from using lots of bursts because it has 1 in the chamber at nearly all times. So when SF procs, you just swap weapons and burst, regardless of if you just bursted once or twice even, depending on your build.

Curious what people really want out of Spellbreaker now. I've seen calls to flesh out its condi dps but curious which people would prefer to add onto SB: condi dps, support boon dps or heal dps?

[KryTiKaL.3125]

14 minutes ago, Leo G.4501 said:

Very true. Difference is, Spellbreaker benefits from using lots of bursts because it has 1 in the chamber at nearly all times. So when SF procs, you just swap weapons and burst, regardless of if you just bursted once or twice even, depending on your build.

Curious what people really want out of Spellbreaker now. I've seen calls to flesh out its condi dps but curious which people would prefer to add onto SB: condi dps, support boon dps or heal dps?

I think an argument can be made for Spellbreaker to be able to fulfill both support boon power DPS and heal power DPS in PvE. It has the kit to accomplish it. A big step would be moving Alacrity onto it and not on Bladesworn and reworking its Utility skills. Having the single bar always "in the chamber" as you say can go a long way to providing consistent looping for burst triggers which would allow for stacking boon uptime during the course of a fight.

Berserker has condi squared, we don't need to move condi elsewhere, especially not Spellbreaker.

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

Very true. Difference is, Spellbreaker benefits from using lots of bursts because it has 1 in the chamber at nearly all times. So when SF procs, you just swap weapons and burst, regardless of if you just bursted once or twice even, depending on your build.

Curious what people really want out of Spellbreaker now. I've seen calls to flesh out its condi dps but curious which people would prefer to add onto SB: condi dps, support boon dps or heal dps?

Spellbreaker was already used as a support in sPvP for years, albeit not the meta support - throwing in some alacrity generation on top of staff would probably make it a suitable PvE boondps or healer, depending on the rest of the build, overnight. Conditions would be harder to pull off and probably have a lower impact overall. I think they're both worth considering, but I'd definitely prioritise the boon if I had to choose.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

14 hours ago, Leo G.4501 said:

Curious what people really want out of Spellbreaker now. I've seen calls to flesh out its condi dps but curious which people would prefer to add onto SB: condi dps, support boon dps or heal dps?

Honestly I'd like to see Spellbreaker's boonstrip abilities re-focused on.

I understand that ANet as a whole has completely invested themselves in a boon meta. While I have my personal misgivings on it, that's the direction of the game--any calls to change it means a complete revamping of all professions, not just one or two. So it's fine with that. But Spellbreaker constantly has its boonstripping skills getting nerfed which is like taking away someone cup of water when they're trying to fight a wildfire.

Meditations are simply a worse version of Core Warrior skills--with Break Enchantments being the sole exception.

• Natural Healing - Mending has a lower CD and activation time, allowing you to heal more and remove more conditions over the same period of time
• *Both of the below could be combined and "Shake It Off!" would still be a better stunbreak & condi defense
  • Sight beyond Sight - Could be replaced by Relic of the Daredevil, but PvE Spellbreakers usually already have high Crit Change making this single guaranteed crit pointless
  • Featherfoot Grace - Both Banner of Tactics & Berserker Stance are flat out superior in every way.
• Imminent Threat - Literally every single thing this skill does there are vastly better options:
  • Taunt: Breakbar damage you could take Kick and do more 4x more CC. Almost any scenario where you would want to force someone to activate your Full Counter you're better off baiting them in other ways (PvP, WvW) or they have a Breakbar (PvE)
  • Adrenaline: You have so many ways of gaining Adrenaline that this is utterly pointless
  • Resolution: 5s on a 35s CD. You could get pulsing Resolution with Banners, Defense Traitline (Blocks), or Staff, all with greater durations and lower CD's
• Winds of Disenchantment - Out of 11 updates to this skill since release:
  • 1 Visual update
  • 1 Bug fix
  • 1 Buff (2018)
  • 8 Mechanical changes and nerfs, all of which either lowers targets/duration, negatively impacts player activity/mobility/defense, or changed the nature of it so that "incoming boons" only have reduced duration instead of being outright stripped (i.e. not triggering traits)

[Jzaku.9765]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Spellbreaker was already used as a support in sPvP for years, albeit not the meta support - throwing in some alacrity generation on top of staff would probably make it a suitable PvE boondps or healer, depending on the rest of the build, overnight. Conditions would be harder to pull off and probably have a lower impact overall. I think they're both worth considering, but I'd definitely prioritise the boon if I had to choose.

Suitable, sure. It's kind of like saying you can be suitable in the role of PVP Thief just because you have a movement skill. It'll be slightly better off than current Alac Bladesworn because it has weapon swap, and looking at where Alac Bladesworn places on the pecking order of PVE builds, I wouldn't have such high aspirations of this hypothetical "Alac Spb".

[draxynnic.3719]

14 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

Suitable, sure. It's kind of like saying you can be suitable in the role of PVP Thief just because you have a movement skill. It'll be slightly better off than current Alac Bladesworn because it has weapon swap, and looking at where Alac Bladesworn places on the pecking order of PVE builds, I wouldn't have such high aspirations of this hypothetical "Alac Spb".

Half of the problem with alac bsw, especially alacheal bsw, is being committed to dragonslash and then being stuck in gunsaber, creating periods where you can't do much beyond dps, and even when an alacheal bsw is able to use their staff, they lose the staff burst. Support berserker is reliant on maintaining their rage, which becomes harder on healzerker builds because they're less able to afford utilities that extend their rage. Healbreaker neatly sidesteps all of these problems. 

You may or may not argue that warrior core's supportive traits and utilities aren't good enough (but as a support weapon, staff is pretty darn good), but spellbreaker would still be more suitable as a warrior healer than either, ESPECIALLY bladesworn. Swapping alacrity from bladesworn to spellbreaker - I'm not saying it's going to shoot straight to the top of the meta, but I'm pretty sure it'd at least be at a point where you'd be comfortable having one as alacheal for most content (which I wouldn't say for bladesworn). Worst case scenario, it would still be a LOT closer to being practical.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Half of the problem with alac bsw, especially alacheal bsw, is being committed to dragonslash and then being stuck in gunsaber, creating periods where you can't do much beyond dps, and even when an alacheal bsw is able to use their staff, they lose the staff burst. Support berserker is reliant on maintaining their rage, which becomes harder on healzerker builds because they're less able to afford utilities that extend their rage. Healbreaker neatly sidesteps all of these problems. 

You may or may not argue that warrior core's supportive traits and utilities aren't good enough (but as a support weapon, staff is pretty darn good), but spellbreaker would still be more suitable as a warrior healer than either, ESPECIALLY bladesworn. Swapping alacrity from bladesworn to spellbreaker - I'm not saying it's going to shoot straight to the top of the meta, but I'm pretty sure it'd at least be at a point where you'd be comfortable having one as alacheal for most content (which I wouldn't say for bladesworn). Worst case scenario, it would still be a LOT closer to being practical.

It can often feel like ANet is simply only doing things like this on Bladesworn simply because its the newest Elite Spec. Which is a terrible way to approach it...

However, yeah, Spellbreaker would be able to maintain the necessary "flow" between abilities and mechanics in PvE content to be able to maintain either healing or boon uptimes, or both. Alacrity would go a long way on Spellbreaker in PvE in that area, as well as possibly even reworking its Utility skills which there is absolutely room for because its not like they see any use outside of Break Enchantment.

On the competitive side of things the same thing can be said. Honestly they might have a concern for putting Alacrity on Spellbreaker in some capacity because it would bleed into competitive modes, but at this point...boo hoo. I have no idea why they are so averse to the concept of anything on Warrior having access to boons and just...tools like other classes have available to them and at the same time backloading all of Warrior's damage and that backloaded damage still being subpar compared to basically anything else (in competitive modes). Its weird.

[Trejgon.9367]

58 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

Honestly they might have a concern for putting Alacrity on Spellbreaker in some capacity because it would bleed into competitive modes, but at this point...

They have just split a number of traits to not provide alac in competitive modes, so I see no reason why spellbreaker couldn't have same treatment if alac in competitive is such evil.

I definitelly support the notion that alac would fit spellbreakers neatly both in theme and design. Spellbreakers are supposed to be direct descendants (in art) of sunspears, and those are generally associated with paragons, which is the Support class of GW1 (compounted even further after 15th anni new elite skills xD). Here is all the thematic link one would been to justify opening more support options for spellbreaker one should need.

1 hour ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

It can often feel like ANet is simply only doing things like this on Bladesworn simply because its the newest Elite Spec.

I am 100% sure that bladesworn got alac primarily because at the time it was the newest expac, and AN took the opportunity to try to push some additional sales there.

[draxynnic.3719]

I would note that while spellbreaker has historic links to Sunspears, lorewise it's more 'warrior picked up some mesmer magic' than actually being a descendant of paragons.

Which only makes alacrity even more fitting, since mesmer has always been associated with messing around with cooldowns.

PS Another thing I'd observe is that maybe it's just me, but staff just feels like a spellbreaker weapon? It has effects that are clearly magical in nature (in a similar fashion to dagger skills, spellbreaker utilities, and Full Counter), like that spherical golden shockwave that pops up with skill 2. Almost like when they took the heads off spears to make daggers, they kept the shafts too...

PPS Dangit, now I want Silence of a Thousand Years on a stick as a staff skin. The ironic thing is it would probably work even as a caster skin...

Edited March 6 by draxynnic.3719

[Geoff Fey.1035]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I would note that while spellbreaker has historic links to Sunspears, lorewise it's more 'warrior picked up some mesmer magic' than actually being a descendant of paragons.

Several of the Spellbreaker skills and traits are actually named after those used by Dervishes in GW:Nightfall

[draxynnic.3719]

33 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

Several of the Spellbreaker skills and traits are actually named after those used by Dervishes in GW:Nightfall

I'm aware, and considered mentioning it, but it wasn't really relevant to my point. ArenaNet has explicitly said that there's mesmer in the mix, and some dervish being in the mix doesn't really change much. There's also an argument to be made that most of the skills and traits in question are so different from the GW1 skills that they can only really be considered to be homages rather than actually being developed from the dervish skills.

Mind you, if we were to consider that connection, it only makes it make more sense for spellbreaker to be a good fit for the weapon that has scythe skins.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

9 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

There's also an argument to be made that most of the skills and traits in question are so different from the GW1 skills that they can only really be considered to be homages rather than actually being developed from the dervish skills.

100% agree with you on this one

[draxynnic.3719]

Partway through Laranity's review of the new weapons, and she's basically expressing the same thing: staff would feel really good if alac spellbreaker was a thing.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Partway through Laranity's review of the new weapons, and she's basically expressing the same thing: staff would feel really good if alac spellbreaker was a thing.

Anet being owned by NCSoft means that they'll be pressured by the parent company to listen to the streaming partners.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

7 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Anet being owned by NCSoft means that they'll be pressured by the parent company to listen to the streaming partners.

You would think...but ANet handles their own publishing now even if under NCSoft. Also ANet is stuck in like 2010 with marketing and community management.

[Iustitian.9176]

This could be a good rework: 

Weapon skills

Breaching Strike  (Burst skill)

-> Additional inflict daze for 1/2 second if your target has no boons.

= Better synergy with spellbreaker traits

Keen Strike  (Dagger skill 1 - 3rd chain skill)

-> Deal 15 % increased critical-hit damage.

= Deal increased damage like the chain skills before, not only one stack more might what is (nearly) useless if you have boon supporters in your team and no traits that benefit from getting the might boon.

Bladestorm  (Dagger skill 5)

-> Grant quickness for 5 seconds instead of barrier. 

= Better to compete with offhand axe.

 

Heal, Elite and Utility skills

Sight beyond Sight

-> Reduce ammunition cooldown from 20 to 15 seconds.

= Better usability, not only for stealth counters.

Imminent Thread

-> Grant stability instead of resolution. Reduce cooldown from 35 to 30 seconds.

= Better usability and useful source of stability.

 

Traits

No Escape  (Adept Trait)

-> Additional meditation skills grant superspeed for 3 seconds.

= Finally a trait to improve meditation skills.

Sun and Moon Style  (Master Trait)

-> Additional "Boons and conditions from dagger skills last 50 % longer."

= Better to compete with Loss Aversion trait.

Attacker's Insight  (Grandmaster Trait)

-> Change buff to "Attacker's Insight (3s): 150 Power, 150 Precision, 150 Ferocity" without stacks.

= Not bound to many CCs and Boon Removals anymore to get it's full potential.

Enchantment Collapse  (Grandmaster Trait)

-> Additional cast "Break Enchantments" on critical hits with 15 seconds cooldown.

= Better usability and more worthy as a grandmaster trait. Synergy with the new No Escape trait. 

Revenge Counter  (Grandmaster Trait)

-> Change effect to "Your burst skills grant alacrity. Boons granted by your burst skills will be shared to nearby allies. You can activate your Full Counter without being hit, but with lesser effectiveness." The Full Counter chain skill would be called "Early Counter" and would just do damage and daze to nearby enemies. So there is no stability, evasion or unblock ability anymore. 

= Alacrity group support and other boons to share available for Spellbreakers. 

Edited March 10 by Iustitian.9176

[KryTiKaL.3125]

2 hours ago, Iustitian.9176 said:

This could be a good rework: 

Weapon skills

Breaching Strike  (Burst skill)

-> Additional inflict daze for 1/2 second if your target has no boons.

= Better synergy with spellbreaker traits

Keen Strike  (Dagger skill 1 - 3rd chain skill)

-> Deal 15 % increased critical-hit damage.

= Deal increased damage like the chain skills before, not only one stack more might what is (nearly) useless if you have boon supporters in your team and no traits that benefit from getting the might boon.

Bladestorm  (Dagger skill 5)

-> Grant quickness for 5 seconds instead of barrier. 

= Better to compete with offhand axe.

 

Heal, Elite and Utility skills

Sight beyond Sight

-> Reduce ammunition cooldown from 20 to 15 seconds.

= Better usability, not only for stealth counters.

Imminent Thread

-> Grant stability instead of resolution. Reduce cooldown from 35 to 30 seconds.

= Better usability and useful source of stability.

 

Traits

No Escape  (Adept Trait)

-> Additional meditation skills grant superspeed for 3 seconds.

= Finally a trait to improve meditation skills.

Sun and Moon Style  (Master Trait)

-> Additional "Boons and conditions from dagger skills last 50 % longer."

= Better to compete with Loss Aversion trait.

 

Attacker's Insight  (Grandmaster Trait)

-> Change buff to "Attacker's Insight (3s): 150 Power, 150 Precision, 150 Ferocity" without stacks.

= Not bound to many CCs and Boon Removals anymore to get it's full potential.

 

Enchantment Collapse  (Grandmaster Trait)

-> Additional cast "Break Enchantments" on critical hits with 15 seconds cooldown.

= Better usability and more worthy as a grandmaster trait. Synergy with the new No Escape trait. 

Revenge Counter  (Grandmaster Trait)

-> Change effect to "Your burst skills grant alacrity. Boons granted by your burst skills will be shared to nearby allies. You can activate your Full Counter without being hit, but with lesser effectiveness." The Full Counter chain skill would be called "Early Counter" and would just do damage and daze to nearby enemies. So there is no stability, evasion or unblock ability anymore. 

= Alacrity group support and other boons to share available for Spellbreakers. 

The problem with the "if target has no boons" stipulations on Spellbreaker Traits and otherwise is that this is rarely ever the case in PvP/WvW because of how frequent boon application and reapplication is on the vast majority of classes, and ANet has only further been nerfing boon strip/corrupt. Breaching Strike removing 3 boons on classes that sit with 5+ active on a rotation every basically every 10 seconds? There are passive traits that even proc things like Regen or Protection or Aegis or Resolution after being CC'd so you can't even sufficiently "set up" Spellbreaker to effectively utilize such things.

Granted things are different in PvE because mobs might throw up some Might or something on themselves these days, but those are very easily stripped away and are not immediately reapplied.

Edited March 10 by KryTiKaL.3125

[Iustitian.9176]

14 hours ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

The problem with the "if target has no boons" stipulations on Spellbreaker Traits and otherwise is that this is rarely ever the case in PvP/WvW because of how frequent boon application and reapplication is on the vast majority of classes, and ANet has only further been nerfing boon strip/corrupt. Breaching Strike removing 3 boons on classes that sit with 5+ active on a rotation every basically every 10 seconds? There are passive traits that even proc things like Regen or Protection or Aegis or Resolution after being CC'd so you can't even sufficiently "set up" Spellbreaker to effectively utilize such things.

Granted things are different in PvE because mobs might throw up some Might or something on themselves these days, but those are very easily stripped away and are not immediately reapplied.

Yeah, the idea with Breaching Strike is focused on PvE. There are many enemies without boons and so Breaching Strike don't trigger some Spellbreaker traits. That's all.