projectiles as a class mechanic

[Alpha.1308]

On 7/29/2021 at 7:40 PM, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

the viability of non-grav wells was irrelevant to bursting people down with basically no counterplay.

yea, so, you're not even on the same topic, clearly 

 

i literally couldn't care less about the 1v1 potential of the class that already has 1v1 potential, that was the entire point

 

again, the whole discussion was based around virtuoso needing to not be "just another dueling spec", considering core, chrono, AND mirage already have that covered 

 

chrono and mirage offered nothing to a coordinated group that didn't put them at a disadvantage as an e-spec overall

that was the argument  

well, again, excluding grav well and.....  signet of inspiration pre nerf, but even signet wasn't chrono, technically

 

being able to burst one target is basically irrelevant to a group, especially when, uh, again, your burst is based on clones/phantasms, which is still core mechanic, and even GS was core... so... chrono just made it stronger??? which???

 

F5 being "tacked on" has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it still isn't actually reliable in a group, at least no for more than one ability 

 

 

virtuoso's channeled ability... again.... does nothing for your group...... so i have literally no idea what you'd bring it up

except for, of course, if the F skills are NOT projectiles, which is the entire problem to begin with 

in which case, it might actually be useful

 

 

 

lich form is just... so beyond irrelevant, you're talking about one skill that isn't used on the class that has some of the strongest, reliable group mechanics; WELLS

they're unblockable, they're ground target, they're zoning tools, they're massive damage, they're immediate damage/strip without even having to wait for a tick 

so?

i have absolutely no idea why you'd bother talking about this, because yea, this is one of those "liabilities" i keep repeating: it's awful, because it puts you in a terrible position that isn't helping your team at all, and in fact you're a detriment because now you're not doing anything else a necro can do like marks/greatsword/shade, and you're killing yourself on reflects 

 

so, difference being, this is one skill, on a good class

rather than core mesmer, which is its entire mechanic, and then getting even more per e-spec (wells being worthless minus their last tick, f5 being destroyable, and mirage getting useless utility skills [even crystal sands are projectiles... like... what.....] and getting basically nothing reliable other than GS ambush)

 

it's like trying to use condi damage 

one competent enemy cleansing and you're worthless 

which is.... any coordinated group

 

and speaking of, mirage was focused primarily on  condi, so i don't know why you're bringing up "mirage can damage during evades" like that even matters at all coming from condi damage, especially with it being so selfish to begin with

you know what else does damage in evade frames?

daredevil

you know what else isn't used in groups because that's not a thing that anyone actually cares about?

daredevil

 

but again, i guess it's because you're talking about something completely off topic

 

GS ambush is the only exception, as those clones actually deal decent damage, but again, they're... clones... good luck having them not die 

 

or blow up out of  nowhere???????????

 

clones have been literally killing themselves lately??????

 

what the holy butts is THAT garbage 

but we can go ahead and ignore that poor decision, as it's also not really on topic  

 

Edited July 31, 2021 by Alpha.1308

[Daniel Handler.4816]

1 hour ago, Alpha.1308 said:

yea, so, you're not even on the same topic, clearly 

 

i literally couldn't care less about the 1v1 potential of the class that already has 1v1 potential, that was the entire point

 

again, the whole discussion was based around virtuoso needing to not be "just another dueling spec", considering core, chrono, AND mirage already have that covered 

 

chrono and mirage offered nothing to a coordinated group that didn't put them at a disadvantage as an e-spec overall

that was the argument  

well, again, excluding grav well and.....  signet of inspiration pre nerf, but even signet wasn't chrono, technically

 

being able to burst one target is basically irrelevant to a group, especially when, uh, again, your burst is based on clones/phantasms, which is still core mechanic, and even GS was core... so... chrono just made it stronger??? which???

 

F5 being "tacked on" has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it still isn't actually reliable in a group, at least no for more than one ability 

 

 

virtuoso's channeled ability... again.... does nothing for your group...... so i have literally no idea what you'd bring it up

except for, of course, if the F skills are NOT projectiles, which is the entire problem to begin with 

in which case, it might actually be useful

 

 

 

lich form is just... so beyond irrelevant, you're talking about one skill that isn't used on the class that has some of the strongest, reliable group mechanics; WELLS

they're unblockable, they're ground target, they're zoning tools, they're massive damage, they're immediate damage/strip without even having to wait for a tick 

so?

i have absolutely no idea why you'd bother talking about this, because yea, this is one of those "liabilities" i keep repeating: it's awful, because it puts you in a terrible position that isn't helping your team at all, and in fact you're a detriment because now you're not doing anything else a necro can do like marks/greatsword/shade, and you're killing yourself on reflects 

 

so, difference being, this is one skill, on a good class

rather than core mesmer, which is its entire mechanic, and then getting even more per e-spec (wells being worthless minus their last tick, f5 being destroyable, and mirage getting useless utility skills [even crystal sands are projectiles... like... what.....] and getting basically nothing reliable other than GS ambush)

 

it's like trying to use condi damage 

one competent enemy cleansing and you're worthless 

which is.... any coordinated group

 

and speaking of, mirage was focused primarily on  condi, so i don't know why you're bringing up "mirage can damage during evades" like that even matters at all coming from condi damage, especially with it being so selfish to begin with

you know what else does damage in evade frames?

daredevil

you know what else isn't used in groups because that's not a thing that anyone actually cares about?

daredevil

 

but again, i guess it's because you're talking about something completely off topic

 

GS ambush is the only exception, as those clones actually deal decent damage, but again, they're... clones... good luck having them not die 

 

or blow up out of  nowhere???????????

 

clones have been literally killing themselves lately??????

 

what the holy butts is THAT garbage 

but we can go ahead and ignore that poor decision, as it's also not really on topic  

 

 

First off, you should care about the 1v1 potential of the class because when it gets to be too excessive the entire spec is changed. The devs aren't going to let mesmers be complete monsters in small scale wvw just because zerging also exists. 

 

And on zerging, my guess is you've been trying to run power chrono. Which yeah, that's rough being useful in a coordinated group for the reasons you outlined. But it also isn't the only build. Support chrono doesn't need non-grav wells or illusions to attack to benefit from shield/alacrity/cs/grav as a cc/utility bot. Its only drawback is the lack of distortion, and griefing yourself with cs. 

 

Virtuoso is similarly balanced. You have no distortion on demand and you can grief yourself. This means we probably won't see some crazy nerf in the future. 

 

As far as reliability. 

MoD + Sword of Decimation > Rain of Swords and then Bladeturn Requiem and sword auto seems good enough for when they have reflects up. 

 

Especially if their stab has already been stripped because then it does way more damage/boon rip. 

 

[Alpha.1308]

4 hours ago, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

First off, you should care about the 1v1 potential of the class

w

a

t

 

7 hours ago, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

The devs aren't going to let mesmers be complete monsters in small scale wvw just because zerging also exists. 

 

i have no idea where to begin with  

 

have you not seen guardians right now in group pvp?

necros?

i just don't think we're playing the same game if you think the devs care about "monsters" existing somewhere in whatever game mode anyone could be talking about 

 

7 hours ago, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

my guess is you've been trying to run power chrono.

wat

where why or how

i said i've WANTED to use power chrono, because their wells should have been their gateway to being useful 

but they just literally are not, at all, anywhere near usable or touchable for any form of pvp 

 

all i've been saying in probably every comment is that i believe GS ambush mirage is the only damage worth using for mesmer in large scale, because it's the only damage that basically even exists 

it's competitive and even tops charts, helps confirms kills, and it's a 1,200 range flamethrower 

and it still gets to bring null field/curtain, because those are core mesmer skills  

but that's all it offers, so it's mostly not even worth bringing to begin with, which is what i was hoping virtuoso would fix 

but it's what i've been using, just because i'd rather use that then the chrono tank that only offers grav well to a group and..... physically nothing much else of note

 

7 hours ago, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

Support chrono doesn't need non-grav wells or illusions to attack to benefit from shield/alacrity/cs/grav as a cc/utility bot.

 

i still just don't even understand the metabattle chrono

it's such wasted stats

 

it has no coefficients for healing power to be worth running minstrels

 

strip meta makes boon duration more or less worthless 

 

and quickness/alacrity is pooped out by scrappers/firebrands/renegades and even mirages for whatever Lyssa forsaken reason they decided to implement that for

 

so i don't know the other use it even brings 

chronos are the "CC bots" because of.... grav well?

just seems like an awful lot of wasted potential to get a 60s kill confirm button on maybe the 2-3 targets who get caught

because, again, curtain is core mesmer, and that one is ridiculously low cooldown

if your group can't coordinate killing inside that, then grav well probably wouldn't have done much, either  

it's still strong, though

i'm really not trying to say grav well is "bad"

i just don't understand why people believe it's worth losing so much of everything else over, at least, not for every comp all of the time  

 

8 hours ago, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

Virtuoso is similarly balanced. You have no distortion on demand and you can grief yourself.

 

 

that's.... not what a liability is.... not at all what i'm talking about

having a skill you can whiff and self-destruct on is one thing, that's like, any leap at all in the game... which is fine to have exist in the game

 

then, having counter play is another thing, but..... having the entire game mode being your counterplay? 

that's just a whole different story

 

NPCs and projectiles have absolutely no place in the game mode where there's more than 10 people who fart out projectile reflects/destruction with every other key press 

 

and in the game called "Guild Wars", guilds fighting other guilds should have had a better, stronger scene, but all we got was a sloppy GvG mess of a location in EotM because some random dude on twitch held tourneys apparently??? 

but it's simply not their priority, probably for money reasons, but, that's another topic

 

 

8 hours ago, Daniel Handler.4816 said:

As far as reliability. 

MoD + Sword of Decimation > Rain of Swords and then Bladeturn Requiem and sword auto seems good enough for when they have reflects up. 

 

MoD?

mantra of distraction...?

i hope that's not what you mean, because again, we must still not be on the same topic at all if you think anyone would ever slot that in for a not-1v1-scenario-when-running-power-block

 

also again, "reflects up" is going to be pretty much always, at least when it's necessary, because when you need damage, they'll know you need it, and they'll have a bubble prepared, and if they don't, i mean, they'd probably die to anything, and it really wouldn't have mattered what you used at that point because they're already breaking 

 

and i have already mentioned that i'm aware some of skills that do look very strong, and exactly what i was hoping for in this class (just figures because they should have been chrono wells..... then this e-spec could have been whatever they wanted, and i wouldn't have really cared, because 90% of this game could have be filled with mesmer?? i think they're already strong in spvp [i don't do spvp to know], and i'm fairly certain they're strong in pve[also don't do pve], they just needed a strong wvw spec, and they'd be more or less fully fleshed out, just missing a heal spec, which could have been mantras if they didn't absolutely mess up mantras, but, ya know, different topic) 

 

but the real question is, are they even going to even be worth bringing virtuoso at all over grav well or GS ambush, if it's only a few skills that can just "deal damage", when other classes already do that

 

the main problem with mesmer overall is that it's always relied on NPCs which are a massively useless mechanic in any fights above 10 players

 

hence, going full circle, again, as to why i was hoping for a reliable, not-a-liability-mechanic, such as projectiles, which are (almost) equally as useless in fights of 10+, as projectiles become more and more worthless as skill levels raise above clubbing baby seals that don't know what their rotations are or what their buttons do (considering you can even slap Bulwark gyro on every scrapper and have 100% uptime on destruction in a group of 25, and that's literally a single class with one ability, let's not pretend guardian doesn't exist)

 

the dagger might be fine, though, 1,200 range.... even if it's projectiles, i said pot shots are largely worthless, but that's really only mostly true for ranger, where they.... don't really offer much of anything else, not really for something like a necro that has access to so much area denial, which is what virtuoso should seemingly be doing, i dunno, i mean, more wait and see still is required

 

and also again again what i keep saying in all of my comments, i'm not completely doom and glooming this spec, as i keep saying, but it's still just so disheartening to go from NPCs that can be killed/cc'd to projectiles that can be removed 

 

(if that's what they are: F keys still might not be destructible? which i highly doubt, but i'm all for being pleasantly surprised, if F keys are not destructible, most of my complaints basically go away, the "extra projectiles" from the skills like dagger 3 and the ult itself turn into "meh i don't care as much anymore" rather than a "why is everything just more projectiles all over the place") 

 

 

 it just seems very tone deaf to have stayed stuck to the profession mechanic of "your enemy can just simply destroy this" to "your enemy can just simply destroy this", the same exact thing, and neither of which even has to be directly your target: any random player can remove it for another player, and that's where number scaling comes into play and royally screws up the whole concept of a "large fight"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Daniel Handler.4816]

 

8 hours ago, Alpha.1308 said:

w

a

t

 

 

i have no idea where to begin with  

 

have you not seen guardians right now in group pvp?

necros?

i just don't think we're playing the same game if you think the devs care about "monsters" existing somewhere in whatever game mode anyone could be talking about 

 

wat

where why or how

i said i've WANTED to use power chrono, because their wells should have been their gateway to being useful 

but they just literally are not, at all, anywhere near usable or touchable for any form of pvp 

 

all i've been saying in probably every comment is that i believe GS ambush mirage is the only damage worth using for mesmer in large scale, because it's the only damage that basically even exists 

it's competitive and even tops charts, helps confirms kills, and it's a 1,200 range flamethrower 

and it still gets to bring null field/curtain, because those are core mesmer skills  

but that's all it offers, so it's mostly not even worth bringing to begin with, which is what i was hoping virtuoso would fix 

but it's what i've been using, just because i'd rather use that then the chrono tank that only offers grav well to a group and..... physically nothing much else of note

 

 

i still just don't even understand the metabattle chrono

it's such wasted stats

 

it has no coefficients for healing power to be worth running minstrels

 

strip meta makes boon duration more or less worthless 

 

and quickness/alacrity is pooped out by scrappers/firebrands/renegades and even mirages for whatever Lyssa forsaken reason they decided to implement that for

 

so i don't know the other use it even brings 

chronos are the "CC bots" because of.... grav well?

just seems like an awful lot of wasted potential to get a 60s kill confirm button on maybe the 2-3 targets who get caught

because, again, curtain is core mesmer, and that one is ridiculously low cooldown

if your group can't coordinate killing inside that, then grav well probably wouldn't have done much, either  

it's still strong, though

i'm really not trying to say grav well is "bad"

i just don't understand why people believe it's worth losing so much of everything else over, at least, not for every comp all of the time  

 

 

 

that's.... not what a liability is.... not at all what i'm talking about

having a skill you can whiff and self-destruct on is one thing, that's like, any leap at all in the game... which is fine to have exist in the game

 

then, having counter play is another thing, but..... having the entire game mode being your counterplay? 

that's just a whole different story

 

NPCs and projectiles have absolutely no place in the game mode where there's more than 10 people who fart out projectile reflects/destruction with every other key press 

 

and in the game called "Guild Wars", guilds fighting other guilds should have had a better, stronger scene, but all we got was a sloppy GvG mess of a location in EotM because some random dude on twitch held tourneys apparently??? 

but it's simply not their priority, probably for money reasons, but, that's another topic

 

 

 

MoD?

mantra of distraction...?

i hope that's not what you mean, because again, we must still not be on the same topic at all if you think anyone would ever slot that in for a not-1v1-scenario-when-running-power-block

 

also again, "reflects up" is going to be pretty much always, at least when it's necessary, because when you need damage, they'll know you need it, and they'll have a bubble prepared, and if they don't, i mean, they'd probably die to anything, and it really wouldn't have mattered what you used at that point because they're already breaking 

 

and i have already mentioned that i'm aware some of skills that do look very strong, and exactly what i was hoping for in this class (just figures because they should have been chrono wells..... then this e-spec could have been whatever they wanted, and i wouldn't have really cared, because 90% of this game could have be filled with mesmer?? i think they're already strong in spvp [i don't do spvp to know], and i'm fairly certain they're strong in pve[also don't do pve], they just needed a strong wvw spec, and they'd be more or less fully fleshed out, just missing a heal spec, which could have been mantras if they didn't absolutely mess up mantras, but, ya know, different topic) 

 

but the real question is, are they even going to even be worth bringing virtuoso at all over grav well or GS ambush, if it's only a few skills that can just "deal damage", when other classes already do that

 

the main problem with mesmer overall is that it's always relied on NPCs which are a massively useless mechanic in any fights above 10 players

 

hence, going full circle, again, as to why i was hoping for a reliable, not-a-liability-mechanic, such as projectiles, which are (almost) equally as useless in fights of 10+, as projectiles become more and more worthless as skill levels raise above clubbing baby seals that don't know what their rotations are or what their buttons do (considering you can even slap Bulwark gyro on every scrapper and have 100% uptime on destruction in a group of 25, and that's literally a single class with one ability, let's not pretend guardian doesn't exist)

 

the dagger might be fine, though, 1,200 range.... even if it's projectiles, i said pot shots are largely worthless, but that's really only mostly true for ranger, where they.... don't really offer much of anything else, not really for something like a necro that has access to so much area denial, which is what virtuoso should seemingly be doing, i dunno, i mean, more wait and see still is required

 

and also again again what i keep saying in all of my comments, i'm not completely doom and glooming this spec, as i keep saying, but it's still just so disheartening to go from NPCs that can be killed/cc'd to projectiles that can be removed 

 

(if that's what they are: F keys still might not be destructible? which i highly doubt, but i'm all for being pleasantly surprised, if F keys are not destructible, most of my complaints basically go away, the "extra projectiles" from the skills like dagger 3 and the ult itself turn into "meh i don't care as much anymore" rather than a "why is everything just more projectiles all over the place") 

 

 

 it just seems very tone deaf to have stayed stuck to the profession mechanic of "your enemy can just simply destroy this" to "your enemy can just simply destroy this", the same exact thing, and neither of which even has to be directly your target: any random player can remove it for another player, and that's where number scaling comes into play and royally screws up the whole concept of a "large fight"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Whether you think the devs care about balancing guardians, they do nerf mesmers in response to community backlash. It is easier to build up from here (like adding stacks of unblockable) than going through cycles of nerfs because we have no perceived drawback.
2. The "whole chrono doesn't bring anything but grav well" argument is pretty weird. It uses core utilities, yes, but gets to use them more often because of alacrity/IA and CS. Shield is incredibly useful for CC, one of the only skills in the game that can affect an entire zerg. 
3. MoD is a ranged aoe cc to proc the double damage on sword of decimation, vuln/boon rip traits in domination, and potentially absorption sigil. there are other options of course.
4. Mesmer is just okay in PvP. Its been nerfed too many times because people complained about counterplay. See 1.

I don't disagree that it's tone deaf. At the same time. I think it's about the only way we will have anything remotely strong, because players will just whine about anything that doesn't have counterplay.

 

We'll just have to learn to play around it. (Albeit something far easier to do in PvP than in WvW)

 

[Leonidrex.5649]

On 7/29/2021 at 9:49 PM, anduriell.6280 said:

Projectiles are fine, if current projectile hate is fine for ranger it is fine for virtuoso too. 

never saw any ranger in zerg, other then heal bot druids, if RANGER cant cut it due to reflects, then GL virt.
I honestly think that F skills should not be projectiles, same for the utilities and elite.
dagger 3 should not be an proj, but things that shoot out should be, and in WvW they can just move the damage from the projectiles into the pulsing skill itself.
dag 2 and 1 being reflectable is fine.
But I do wanna see how elite being reflected would look like, since its 1200 range beam lol