Underwater Alacrity

[Celeste.9135]

I understand that underwater content is nowhere near as relevant as terrestrial however I do feel the need to point out, the fact that anet wants to make alacrity Mirage a thing in endgame content is a little flawed where fractals are concerned. Now I'm not talking about efficacy or whether or not Renegade will be better or worse and therefore x will be meta. I'm more so bringing up the fact that no matter what numbers are worked out and whatever future balance patches bring to these two classes, Mirage will never be able to perform the alacrity support role in every single fractal because the underwater one exists and its alacrity is tied to a weapon, whereas Renegade gets theirs off of a class skill, Orders from Above.

 

Considering that one of the reasonings behind the Boon Thief nerf for raids was to "allow for less squad role shuffling" it strikes me as inconsistent then that if a party were to run alacrity Mirage in fractals there would be guaranteed role shuffling whenever Aquatic is in the daily rotation. They would either have to forego alacrity or switch to a Renegade. A simple solution to this problem would be for the trident ambush to also provide alacrity.  I'm doubtful that any changes would be made but as someone who is looking forward to trying out a new alacrity support playstyle I feel like it would be nice for it to be consistently playable rather than land locked. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Celeste.9135

[Infusion.7149]

It was a change oriented toward raid/strike / 10 man content.

Mirage would not be a widely accepted class in fractals anyway due to the amount of trash mobs and No Pain No Gain / Vengeance. One of the strongest aspects of chrono is the boon rip on sword auto : if you run condi mirage with a staff you will be reliant on Null Field (removes boons per tick so it is slow), Arcane Thievery (not AOE), or some other utility skill to remove boons (Phantasmal Disenchanter) which is far less effective than Banish Enchantment. The only way you wouldn't waste a utility slot is if you utilize boon rip on shatter (Shattered Concentration) or on CC (Vicious Expression) which are in domination , a power-oriented traitline.

The boon thief nerf for raid (to 5 players) was baffling since essentially it's been killed off. There is little to no reason for someone to invest in it now. If there was quickness output on Trickery's Bountiful Theft that would be a different story, but for now it is too reliant on Detonate Plasma and that is only applicable in a few raids.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Celeste.9135]

Like I said I am not talking about whether or not Renegade or Mirage will be less or more effective than each other or what the meta will end up being in fractals and raids, just that in this scenario one literally cannot be run even if people would like to play the non-meta composition.

I tend to only play fractals and raids with my guild so what pugs will or will not accept isn't that relevant to me at least, we're pretty open to experimenting with different setups just to have fun instead of running the same thing every time. 

I agree that the Boon Thief change was bad and would like to see it reverted or changed entirely to be usable everywhere rather than dependent on a few bosses, but I brought it up only to highlight what is in my opinion an inconsistency in design philosophy.

[Curunen.8729]

On that note it's also unclear if the new chaotic potency is supposed to be affecting trident (I assume it must be).

 

Regarding the ambush - yeah this just highlights again the strange choice to put it on staff ambush in the first place. Aside from the auto, trident ambush doesn't have boons - and given it's a pretty strong spammable cc especially with IH it could be a bit loaded if they put alacrity on that too.

 

On the flipside, if it is going to be on staff ambush, then for symmetry it does make sense to put it on trident ambush as well.

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Curunen.8729 said:

On that note it's also unclear if the new chaotic potency is supposed to be affecting trident (I assume it must be).

I wouldn't be surprised if Trident got swept under the rug and loses its weapon trait.

[Infusion.7149]

It's probably they don't care about a single fractal (Aquatic Ruins) in the grand scheme of things. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[necromaniac.7629]

The thing is, no one cares about underwater fractals that much though, and there is literally only one underwater fractal anyways.

[Celeste.9135]

Perhaps, but unless Aquatic is removed it still matters in the context of fractal balance. Builds not translating when you move into underwater content is one of if not the biggest flaw in that system, this is just one instance of it being highlighted. I think it would be best to limit this happening if it’s impossible to make every build work underwater. But when both of Revenant’s elite specs don’t work underwater there are more crucial things to fix. I just don’t think that more should be introduced on top of the current flaws of underwater build craft.