why do people relegate a weapon to "utility" as an excuse for it being bad

[Cyninja.2954]

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:This isn’t just all about DPS. There is an element of RP and basic commonsense that needs to considered in the OP, considering this is PvE only.

I'm sorry, but balance beats RP any time in a game.

The amount of work required and potentially even split skills between pve and spvp and wvw would be insane.

Does it suck that some weapons are better at pve content and others see almost no use because they do not provide maximum damage, sure. Is this easily remedied? No.

If this were a pure pve game with no spvp and WvW I'd see the point of making all weapons similarly viable damage wise, and many only pve games do (making weapons a purely cosmetic choice).

GW2 combat system is way to far away from that though plus the competative game modes would be even more impossible to Balance.

[Astralporing.1957]

@bara yaoi.3824 said:When would I ever even get conditions on myself in pve? Why would I ever have the need to transfer them?You... haven't been playing condi necro much, did you?

@bara yaoi.3824 said:i'm sure there are also more weapons on other classes that are also ignored because they are "utility" so i will do more digging and find out what they are and make a case for them

Oh, i'm still waiting till someone finally brings up druid staff, and asks its damage to be increased, since it's so useless without it. I have popcorn already prepared for that discussion.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:This isn’t just all about DPS. There is an element of RP and basic commonsense that needs to considered in the OP, considering this is PvE only.

I'm sorry, but balance beats RP any time in a game.

The amount of work required and potentially even split skills between pve and spvp and wvw would be insane.

Does it suck that some weapons are better at pve content and others see almost no use because they do not provide maximum damage, sure. Is this easily remedied? No.As I may have not stated clearly, they don’t need to do the same damage. They just need to be in some useable damage range in PvE. Being 4-6k below max (for a start) is fine since there is ¿some? utility to balance the dmg offset. 8k below, it becomes highly questionable. Considering how much number% buffs anets randomly pumps out, and whilst some dedication would be required, it shouldn’t become ridiculously complex. Most weapons already have an AA and at least 1, if not 2 skills that already do dmg; we should work from these.

Utility becomes a skritt-tonne more effective in competitive game modes, so I wasn’t asking for damage there, and nor was/should the OP.

Perhaps we should start with the main offenders, the weapons that tickle even if you spec fully into dmg? We don’t need this to happen straight away. Bring the weapons up a big notch (but nowhere near over or even at max) and then fine tune them up to acceptable levels.

[Obtena.7952]

@bara yaoi.3824 said:

@Airdive.2613 said:

@bara yaoi.3824 said:

@Egorum.9506 said:

@"Draco.9480" said:the worst is staff for necros. weak and slow aa that regens life force by little, 2 condi marks, 1 utility mark to redirect condis and 1 more mark for small cc (fear). this is so bad. it's for healers, power type damage dealer nor damage over time type dealers. what kind of bad joke is that?

It's the main utility weapon on necro because it has everything you could want. Range, aoe, condi clear, unblockable when traited (big in pvp with sigil of annulment), and okay power damage.

If you aren't getting much out of it you aren't using it right =/

how is that a utility weapon? its just a bad weapon.. it offers no utility at all

it doesnt have

• teleport
• evasion
• stun
• boons
• damage
• defense
• healing

it is literally worthless because it is a weak mix of power and condi and can't figure out what it wants to do, and yet it is relegated to a "utility" weapon even though it has NO utility whatsoever

You might be doing it wrong. With the staff, you are able to land an unblockable AoE burst of chill, poison, up to 3 other conditions from yourself, then fear and bleeding to make it harder to cleanse, while building up life force to immediately follow up with shroud skills.You don't camp the staff, you use it for quick bursts or, less often, easy cleanses/fears, then swap weapons. Necromancer's shroud mechanic allows for such playstyle.

ok but this thread isn't about pvp. its about pve

Then you have just not recognized that not all weapons are optimized for PVE and there isn't a strong correlation between 'bad' weapons and being utility.

Again, simply put, you are wrong. There are good and bad weapons. There are weapons that are strong and weak in utility. They have no link between the two. Not everyone regulates bad weapons as utility.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:This isn’t just all about DPS. There is an element of RP and basic commonsense that needs to considered in the OP, considering this is PvE only.

I'm sorry, but balance beats RP any time in a game.

The amount of work required and potentially even split skills between pve and spvp and wvw would be insane.

Does it suck that some weapons are better at pve content and others see almost no use because they do not provide maximum damage, sure. Is this easily remedied? No.As I may have not stated clearly, they don’t need to do the same damage. They just need to be in some useable damage range in PvE. Being 4-6k below max (for a start) is fine since there is ¿some? utility to balance the dmg offset. 8k below, it becomes highly questionable. Considering how much number% buffs anets randomly pumps out, and whilst some dedication would be required, it shouldn’t become ridiculously complex. Most weapons already have an AA and at least 1, if not 2 skills that already do dmg; we should work from these.

Utility becomes a skritt-tonne more effective in competitive game modes, so I wasn’t asking for damage there, and nor was/should the OP.

Perhaps we should start with the main offenders, the weapons that tickle even if you spec fully into dmg? We don’t need this to happen straight away. Bring the weapons up a big notch (but nowhere near over or even at max) and then fine tune them up to acceptable levels.

Again, this means massive reworks in either utility provided (reducing it across the board on some weapons) or splitting weapon skills between pve and spvp and wvw which leads to additional work. I'm not seeing it.

Weapons that don't see any use in any game mode needs reworks, yes. I'm not sure there are that many offenders though of this, and usually Arenanet does rebalance very underused weapons.

This game has more than just pve.

[Draco.9480]

@Egorum.9506 said:

@"Draco.9480" said:the worst is staff for necros. weak and slow aa that regens life force by little, 2 condi marks, 1 utility mark to redirect condis and 1 more mark for small cc (fear). this is so bad. it's for healers, power type damage dealer nor damage over time type dealers. what kind of bad joke is that?

It's the main utility weapon on necro because it has everything you could want. Range, aoe, condi clear, unblockable when traited (big in pvp with sigil of annulment), and okay power damage.

If you aren't getting much out of it you aren't using it right =/

man who needs that. good for power? are you kidding me? it's so slow on aa and so weak in power and condi together. as power reaper it's just better to use a gs to pull enemies and one shot 'em with gs 3 and 2. staff barely does anything good for the condi scourge. i see a lot of utility weapons on other classes and they're used for pve and are even meta. what's necro staff? blood sage in pvp? that's it. you never use it outside pve and it's so weak and useless. even it's gameplay is so boring. 4 marks and pew pew "fun". it's really bad game design. look at ele, meteors, aoes blabla. look at druid, used both for pvp and pve, kiting, healing, blocking projectiles, disengaging. look at dd, good damage and evasion. look at fb/guard, good for wvw, pvp, open world and brings boons and mobility. look at rev, hk, pvp, survival. look at mesmer, good for chrono pve to buff people for damage, aegis and good for mirage pvp. look at necro, totally useless everywhere.

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Lexi.1398 said:there are quite a few great utility weapons but you wont ever find them on snowcrows or what have you because it's not optimal dps...engi sheild, ele focus, mesmer focus are the first that come to mind and on the higher end of the useful utility.

Actually, if you look at their guide they do mention using Mesmer focus. It's really useful in VG, Escort, KC, etc.

warhorn needs a little more love across the board, i'd also take a plunge and say that for necro focus and warhorn both need improvements.

Correct.personally though idc that some of those weapons do little to no damage...engi shield with sword is a popular alternative meta due to missing only a couple k dps for so much more cc. i think the bigger problem is utility is undervalued in PvE because it doesnt do much dps, and not everything needs damage to be useful. (granted, some weapons are much worse than others as dps is nearly the only important thing in PvE, most utility weapons see a lot more use in competitive game modes but a few still need help...xD)Well, that's a half and half problem... It's part player mentality due to how the game translated up until today. Remember that for the first 2-3 years there was only one build and one build only Berserker DPS, everything else was unwanted and useless. Only after the conditions rework in 2014 did condition builds even become viable, never mind useful. As for healing and support builds it took the first wave of elite specs and raids to make that kind of build viable (through druid, ventari rev/herald, tempest and chrono), before that the closest thing you had would be stuff like banner warriors: DPS builds that would sacrifice some of their DPS into having some support utility skills, like Warrior banners, Ranger spirits, guardian shouts and spirit weapons, etc.

The lack of viability for roles other than dps, or a dps with supportive skills ingrained itself in the way people play the game, and those strategies still carry over into current day game play, especially outside Raids, higher difficulty fractals and WvW (where there was always some use for some supporty builds, usually staff guardian).

The other half is is squarely on the devs, well you could argue that's all on the devs for taking so long to shake out the berserker meta to the point it became that ingrained. But, that aside, there's still the issue that, except in pvp and a few exceptions, there's no use for a lot of builds, stat setups and mechanics. Where in PvP will you ever see a Scourge reach it's potential, since barely any enemy will ever have boons on it? Why would anyone take a condi build in open world, especially with the less front loaded conditions, if everything drops almost immediately?Why would you play a open world support if you don't really get control of who gets your support? Remember that in open world there's usually 5 people out of 50 with a big percentage of the overall DPS!

Arena Net started out with a great ideal, of having a MMORPG that focuses on cooperation instead of competition, outside competitive modes of course. And they managed that very well to an extent. The problem is when you pass that extent, and go into the extremes, and the minutiae, and there, there it lacks a lot.It's still an awesome game that bred a great open world friendly community, one of the best in gaming, if not the best. It's still a game where you're more likely happy to see another player come to your farm spot (if there's such a thing) than not.But it's also a game that, because of this, allows for, in lack of a better word, laxity.A lot of players will not face any challenges, and will not even try to challenge themselves. Which can either make those players feel bored, or, idk what's worse, will become accustomed to this. Which is why you can look at a DPS meter and see just how poorly some people will participate in a fight. If medals at the end of an event were handled by % DPS most people wouldn't get past bronze.And there's the other end of the spectrum... Because it's so easy, so downplayed, it makes support and healing classes less useful in most of the game. This also leads to the more supportive weapons being less used, and thus more ignored in terms of balance.

[Lahmia.2193]

tl:dr. OP plays pve and wants weapons to only cater to that gamemode.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

@Lahmia.2193 said:tl:dr. OP plays pve and wants weapons to only cater to that gamemode.That’s not entirely an insightful view at the OP. It’s more likely they saw that ‘utility’ weapons (whatever they may be) did less than other weapon choices, probably on a dps build, and then asked why? Why, as it seems, is a very difficult idea to express to a majority of players. For example:

• Why is ele water attunement never destined to do damage?

The question above relates heavily to the topic at hand. It’s for support. So you say that water shall never see real useablity in a dps build? So you say that this will forever be the case? I KNOW that players will instantly disagree with my stance and send me to the depths of the mists - this thread is no different.

Utility in PvE. Does it really matter, if a weapon (MH or two-hand, druid’s staff, for example) is entirely kept back by this? Skill splits can be made; don’t just chuck this option out the window. Discuss - positively or negatively, but constructively. 1) for PvE, druid staff is entirely useless if you don’t build for healing. You can’t damage effectively and you can’t heal effectively; however, you get a nice long distance evade and a cool anti-projectile wall. I don’t care about wvw/pvp and I don’t want changes there. Is it worth the trouble?

This thread really needs to be read with different eyes to see it’s worth.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@Lahmia.2193 said:tl:dr. OP plays pve and wants weapons to only cater to that gamemode.That’s not entirely an insightful view at the OP. It’s more likely they saw that ‘utility’ weapons (whatever they may be) did less than other weapon choices, probably on a dps build, and then asked

why?

Why

, as it seems, is a very difficult idea to express to a majority of players. For example:

• Why is ele water attunement never destined to do damage?

The question above relates heavily to the topic at hand.

It’s for support

. So you say that water shall

never

see real useablity in a dps build? So you say that this will forever be the case? I KNOW that players will

instantly

disagree with my stance and send me to the depths of the mists - this thread is no different.

Utility in PvE.

There is no utility in pve. It's not needed across the board. The only places it is needed occasionally is breakbars in raids. The simple fact of the matter is: the game is designed in such a way that the only real significant factor in pve is damage.

Hence why people are disagreeing that this is an issue once you account for spvp and wvw.

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:Does it really matter, if a weapon (MH or two-hand, druid’s staff, for example) is entirely kept back by this? Skill splits can be made; don’t just chuck this option out the window. Discuss - positively or negatively, but constructively. 1) for PvE, druid staff is entirely useless if you don’t build for healing. You can’t damage effectively and you can’t heal effectively; however, you get a nice long distance evade and a cool anti-projectile wall. I don’t care about wvw/pvp and I don’t want changes there. Is it worth the trouble?

This thread really needs to be read with different eyes to see it’s worth.

Skill splits on weapons would be even more work. Have you taken a look at the time frame between balance patches? You want to add even more work to that?

This is not a question of "do people want this or not". I'm sure most people would love the opportunity to use whatever weapon they best fits their current playstyle or theme of character.

This is an issue of:"is it in any way sensible to ask for this kind of change and added work load". That is where most people who disagree will probably say: no it is not.

I would much rather have the developers be able to focus on way different things than getting skill splits for weapons done only so that every weapon is viable for 1/3 of the games modes.

[Trise.2865]

Why? because of the false assumption that "higher DPS = good" and "lower DPS = bad"... and a pitiful understanding of what Utility means or how to play it.

I ran into this same bias playing a Mesmer in the original Guild Wars, before they got their explosive damage spikes. "But you aren't doing anything!", followed by "Why are we dying so much?!"

[Opopanax.1803]

I don't know about "utility", but there are weapons that need to be worked on.

Warriors OH mace, not useful or dps worthy in any game mode, also has major targeting issues.

Warriors Rifle, outperformed by longbow regardless of power vs hybrid.

Engineer MH pistol is in a really bad place still, it should at least compete with kits.

Necro MH dagger needs a buff.

Mesmer sceptre needs a buff.

Those are all i can think of off the top of my head.

[Tails.9372]

@"Noodle Ant.1605" said:Why is ele water attunement never destined to do damage?It's not so much "why isn't X designed to do damage" but more like "just because Y exists doesn't mean that X can't do damage especially if that's what it's designed to do". Just because a weapon is primarily designed to do damage doesn't mean that its utility skills should be dysfunktional on a fundamental level to the point where it's overly situational (which should be avoided completely if the weapon set as a whole has a general lack of synergy between the individual weapon skills) and people generally agree with this statement but flip it on its head and people are willing do defend there not being generally usefull damage options at all because of some weird notion of "damage is never the solution" which seems to have developed as a counter movement to the whole "damage or GTFO" mentality.

[sorudo.9054]

@bara yaoi.3824 said:

@Egorum.9506 said:

@"Draco.9480" said:the worst is staff for necros. weak and slow aa that regens life force by little, 2 condi marks, 1 utility mark to redirect condis and 1 more mark for small cc (fear). this is so bad. it's for healers, power type damage dealer nor damage over time type dealers. what kind of bad joke is that?

It's the main utility weapon on necro because it has everything you could want. Range, aoe, condi clear, unblockable when traited (big in pvp with sigil of annulment), and okay power damage.

If you aren't getting much out of it you aren't using it right =/

how is that a utility weapon? its just a bad weapon.. it offers no utility at all

it doesnt have

• teleport
• evasion
• stun
• boons
• damage
• defense
• healing

it is literally worthless because it is a weak mix of power and condi and can't figure out what it wants to do, and yet it is relegated to a "utility" weapon even though it has NO utility whatsoever

hah wrong, it offers quite some damage enhancers and protects a group from critical hits with fear and heavy cond damage.i have bin using the staff since launch and never had a time where the staff was under performing, maybe you're just using it wrong.

[James.9071]

@Hesacon.8735 said:

@Tails.9372 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Any examples?thief shortbow

If you've spent any time in spvp or wvw, you'd know every single thief carries this weapon for movement. If anything it's the most important weapon in a thief's arsenal. Nobody is using it for damage.

Even in pve, it's useful to blast smoke fields to skip trash mobs. Admittedly this is most useful in dungeons, which haven't seen any love in recent memory.

I have beaten competent players in this game with sololy shortbow. and i've taken people from 50%-0 with it rather quickly. if the thief knows what they are doing. they can mess you up

[Algreg.3629]

adding huge damage to weapons that are strong on the "utility" side would make them greatly overpowered. There are certainly weapons that could need a boost, but not understanding the use for utility weapons pretty much explains why so many events fail that need more than just DPS (which players with a limited understanding of the game usually also do not provide). To add: I was adamantly against the introduction of "roles" into GW2. Now you have your healing/boon weapons, deal with it.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:Utility in PvE. Does it really matter, if a weapon (MH or two-hand, druid’s staff, for example) is entirely kept back by this?Are you really sure, that druid (that is already a pretty much unremovable fixture in raids and already considered by some to be too OP of a build) should also make respectable damage at the same time? Is this your idea of balance? Because if it is, i really don't want any of it.

for PvE, druid staff is entirely useless if you don’t build for healing.It's also very useful when you do build for healing. So useful that i just can't really support making it even stronger. How would you solve that? Skill splits are not a solution here, since we're talking about the same mode.(notice also, that Druid - the only ranger spec that can use staff - is a healer/support spec, not a dps one. If you want dps you most probably would not be picking it)

[otto.5684]

@Cyninja.2954 said:Can we sum this thread up as:

• pve player complains about some weapons being under used in pve because they do not provide sufficient damage

• same person fails to realise that other game modes exist which are less pure damage oriented

PvE is the most limited game mode in the game at the moment because it turns out, against predictable AI opponenets you are best off maximizing damage.

Not all weapons are balanced around pve, and neither should they because spvp and wvw are way more diverse in engagements. Overall game balance trumps personal desire.

Have not you heard, we anet has been skills splitting between various game modes. Also, good chunk of weapons do not work in any game mode. Example, Mesmer scepter. Why?!