These elixirs kinda suck

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

On 8/14/2021 at 3:19 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

Personally, I thought "Wow, exactly the spread of skills I want to see in a line" and to be fair, they do the right things for the right reasons ... but they do appear rather bland. They give a very 'made using a template' feel. I think a little more effort would bring them up a notch as I get the feeling that the 'standard' aspect they have indicates a work in progress. 

Now that's a first. We're both of the same opinion..

[DraconusShade.4590]

On 8/13/2021 at 7:59 PM, susana.7814 said:

That utility for quickness is much better than you realize, with traits it's gonna be possible to give 5 people perma quickness once you build into it since u also get it off elite and it pulses quickness when ur in harbinger shroud.  It's going to be used. 

Yeah the heal kinda sucks tho. 

I think they are talking from a DPS spec standpoint. Boon Support Harbinger is in a great spot, they don't build for that much damage anyway and with boon duration/condition hybrid armour the way Heal Renegade builds they will have enough and more health and they don't care about losing out on the offensive benefits of blight.

 

The main problem people have is the way the DPS spec of Harbinger has been handled. For the DPS spec the traits don't align properly, they also take immense punishment from blight and don't really have a way to manage it plus in PvP DPS Harbinger is going to have a hard time without nerfs to PvP version of Blight.

 

The Boon Support Harbinger is amazing and it doesn't care about having 11k health because it won't. It is there to grant perma quickness, heals and instant 5-man rezzes.

[DraconusShade.4590]

On 8/14/2021 at 5:33 AM, LucianDK.8615 said:

It will be hard for any support spec to compete with firebrands. They just have a far too large toolkit thanks to the tomes.

This is why I wish they would change quickness to alacrity so Harbinger doesn't compete with FB but with Renegade. That's a match up they can actually win or draw since necromancer brings amazing rezzing potential with powerful heals as well in support spec. 

The problem is that unless they strip the FB of some skills no other support spec is ever going to displace them unless they design one specifically to do so by just copying skills and reflavouring them.

[Asum.4960]

23 minutes ago, DraconusShade.4590 said:

This is why I wish they would change quickness to alacrity so Harbinger doesn't compete with FB but with Renegade. That's a match up they can actually win or draw since necromancer brings amazing rezzing potential with powerful heals as well in support spec. 

The problem is that unless they strip the FB of some skills no other support spec is ever going to displace them unless they design one specifically to do so by just copying skills and reflavouring them.

I agree Harbinger would have had a better shot at the Renegade Alacrity + CC + DPS, slot. That said, if they had given Harbinger at least a low cool down Stability and Prot Utility Elixier to share instead of the Fury and Might one, it would at least be a somewhat decent substitute for Quickbrand (while still lacking behind enormously due to lack of Aegis Spam, Reflect options etc. ofc), especially if it did more DPS while doing so. 

Likewise, such an Elixier might also have helped with PvP viability.

 

Although Harbinger might enable some fun meme stacking comps at least, if it's damage is high enough without the other GM's, 2-3 Deathly Haste but otherwise full DPS Harbingers, Alac Ren and Support Tempest could be interesting - and the Harbinger sure are going to need some rebound action when MAMA sneezes some red balls in their direction. 

 

But yea, in terms of meta, I really only see DPS as potential for Harbinger atm.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Sigmoid.7082]

29 minutes ago, DraconusShade.4590 said:

The main problem people have is the way the DPS spec of Harbinger has been handled. For the DPS spec the traits don't align properly, they also take immense punishment from blight and don't really have a way to manage it

Explain this to me, since whichever way I look at it condi Harb will have very high dps. 

Edited August 15, 2021 by Sigmoid.7082

[DraconusShade.4590]

2 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

I agree Harbinger would have had a better shot at the Renegade Alacrity + CC + DPS, slot. That said, if they had given Harbinger at least a low cool down Stability and Prot Utility Elixier to share instead of the Fury and Might one, it would at least be a somewhat decent substitute for Quickbrand (while still lacking behind enormously due to lack of Aegis Spam, Reflect options etc. ofc), especially if it did more DPS while doing so. 

Likewise, such an Elixier might also have helped with PvP viability.

 

Although Harbinger might enable some fun meme stacking comps at least, if it's damage is high enough without the other GM's, 2-3 Deathly Haste but otherwise full DPS Harbingers, Alac Ren and Support Tempest could be interesting - and the Harbinger sure are going to need some rebound action when MAMA sneezes some red balls in their direction. 

 

But yea, in terms of meta, I really only see DPS as potential for Harbinger atm.

The main problem is the Aegis spam of FB. Necromancer offers reflects, it offers healing and it ensures your party will never, ever wipe on any encounter. But the ability to straight up ignore boss mechanics with Aegis spamming is what makes FB so OP.

Unless they strip that, I wish them luck with finding a way to get anyone to play a new support class that grants quickness.

[DraconusShade.4590]

3 minutes ago, Sigmoid.7082 said:

Explain this to me, since whichever way I look at it condi Harb will have pretty high dps. 

DPS is not the point, people are complaining about the fragility of the class and if the enormous downsides will pay off properly in all gamemodes. They are complaining about trait synergy and managing blight. 

 

When it comes to just pure DPS and Boon Support Harbinger seems great. I don't DPS in PvE so I can't go into the details too much but stuff like losing out on Blight synergies for elixir cooldown(which is needed for blight uptime) is bad design.

 

[Infusion.7149]

30 minutes ago, DraconusShade.4590 said:

This is why I wish they would change quickness to alacrity so Harbinger doesn't compete with FB but with Renegade. That's a match up they can actually win or draw since necromancer brings amazing rezzing potential with powerful heals as well in support spec. 

The problem is that unless they strip the FB of some skills no other support spec is ever going to displace them unless they design one specifically to do so by just copying skills and reflavouring them.

The only skill really overperforming on cQB is mantra of solace right now which spams aegis. If that is nerfed to double cooldown but double personal heal (to be a party Shelter) I bet other quickness options would be more attractive. Sanctuary is only a stand in for when your renegade and BS are poor at CC, Stand Your Ground can be supplemented with the likes of Bulwark Gyro's Defense Field, Inspiring Reinforcement, and Mantra of Concentration. In the majority of cases you would have protection uptime from druid or renegade meaning protection isn't coming from tome of courage, only reflects.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[DraconusShade.4590]

5 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The only skill really overperforming on cQB is mantra of solace right now which spams aegis. If that is nerfed to double cooldown but double personal heal (to be a party Shelter) I bet other quickness options would be more attractive. Sanctuary is only a stand in for when your renegade and BS are poor at CC, Stand Your Ground can be supplemented with the likes of Bulwark Gyro's Defense Field, Inspiring Reinforcement, and Mantra of Concentration. In the majority of cases you would have protection uptime from druid or renegade meaning protection isn't coming from tome of courage, only reflects.

I don't know, it feels like the Devs don't really look into these things when designing specs for certain professions. Look at Willbender's design and Harbinger's design. WB has an answer to every situation and was designed with existing specs in mind. Harbinger seems like some randome idea they came up with combining random kung fu with pistol and on top of that they don't even think about the spec's place in the current meta.

 

So sick and tired of Guardian getting special treatment across the board. When they design a Boon Support spec for necromancer shouldn't they look at what class they would be competing with? Adding alacrity would have solved all problems without having to strip FB of anything (although I wish they did). I don't know with necromancer with every new thing they introduce there's always a massive caveat. They just managed to balance Scourge properly a few months before the drop of the new expansion and they wonder why other MMOs are more popular. At least they get their balancing act right.

[Asum.4960]

42 minutes ago, DraconusShade.4590 said:

The main problem is the Aegis spam of FB. Necromancer offers reflects, it offers healing and it ensures your party will never, ever wipe on any encounter. But the ability to straight up ignore boss mechanics with Aegis spamming is what makes FB so OP.

Unless they strip that, I wish them luck with finding a way to get anyone to play a new support class that grants quickness.

Well, Necro offers projectile destruction, no Reflects, but close enough (although FB gets more and easier access with both Courage Tome as well as Wall of Reflection, while nec only has CPC). 

 

I still kind of wish they would scrap the all Boon Elite, which just seems to promote super unhealthy PvP gameplay if anything, and instead make it a ~40 second CD Stability Elixier + some other support), and then a 25 sec CD 10 second Prot + Aegis Utility instead of the Might + Fury, or adding that to the Stunbreak one instead of Resistance- to refine the earlier suggestion. 

Idk, some combination of that - and it would be a lot more competitive for PvE as boon support, as well as probably healthier for PvP and WvW.

 

39 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The only skill really overperforming on cQB is mantra of solace right now which spams aegis. If that is nerfed to double cooldown but double personal heal (to be a party Shelter) I bet other quickness options would be more attractive. Sanctuary is only a stand in for when your renegade and BS are poor at CC, Stand Your Ground can be supplemented with the likes of Bulwark Gyro's Defense Field, Inspiring Reinforcement, and Mantra of Concentration. In the majority of cases you would have protection uptime from druid or renegade meaning protection isn't coming from tome of courage, only reflects.

It's not quite that simple. Just doubling Mantra of Solace would imo make it really awkward to play with the Mantra Cool Downs not aligning anymore. 

It would also be a fairly sizeable nerf to Liberator's Vow and Stalwart Speed (unless they increase Quickness duration to compensate), although that might be more justifiable than the gameplay pace disruption. 

I don't like the idea of just hacking into specs though. 

 

Maybe if they increased the CD's of all the Mantra's, while then compensating them all a bit (more heal for Solace as you said, more Burn Duration for Flame, Quickness Duration for Potence, etc.), that could work and also make playing FB a bit less spammy in general - while leaving some room for other's to compete. 

Such a slight nerf combined with the additions to Harbinger above would at least put it into the same ballpark, even if still slightly behind.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Infusion.7149]

32 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

Well, Necro offers projectile destruction, no Reflects, but close enough (although FB gets more and easier access with both Courage Tome as well as Wall of Reflection, while nec only has CPC). 

 

I still kind of wish they would scrap the all Boon Elite, which just seems to promote super unhealthy PvP gameplay if anything, and instead make it a ~40 second CD Stability Elixier + some other support), and then a 25 sec CD 10 second Prot + Aegis Utility instead of the Might + Fury, or adding that to the Stunbreak one instead of Resistance- to refine the earlier suggestion. 

Idk, some combination of that - and it would be a lot more competitive for PvE as boon support, as well as probably healthier for PvP and WvW.

 

It's not quite that simple. Just doubling Mantra of Solace would imo make it really awkward to play with the Mantra Cool Downs not aligning anymore. 

It would also be a fairly sizeable nerf to Liberator's Vow and Stalwart Speed (unless they increase Quickness duration to compensate), although that might be more justifiable than the gameplay pace disruption. 

I don't like the idea of just hacking into specs though. 

 

Maybe if they increased the CD's of all the Mantra's, while then compensating them all a bit (more heal for Solace as you said, more Burn Duration for Flame, Quickness Duration for Potence, etc.), that could work and also make playing FB a bit less spammy in general - while leaving some room for other's to compete. 

Such a slight nerf combined with the additions to Harbinger above would at least put it into the same ballpark, even if still slightly behind.

The last time they touched mantras on FBs I suggested that more weight be given to mantra of potence's quickness rather than the heal skill by doubling quickness duration and mantra coldown. There's too much riding on the heal skill since it does so many things at once. If you're HB it heals, gives quickness to people, and blocks all at once. If you're full CFB it still blocks and if you're CQB it blocks and gives quickness. Since Mantras do not have a penalty for spam since the final charge was removed it makes no sense that it has such a low cooldown.
If you look at power quickness scrapper, the medic gyro is on 20 cooldown. Unlike power quickness scrapper however, you don't need any boon duration for CQB in fractals if you have high AR (just concentration sigil or utility) and Firebrand runes give 40% quickness duration when you only need ~25% as far as 10 man content.

Increasing quickness duration on Stalwart speed if mantra of solace cooldown is adjusted is probably better because then bringing "Advance!" (not Retreat anymore...) is more effective. Mantra cooldowns not aligning is such a small thing in the grand scheme of things. Mantra of liberation doesn't "line up" either and just about every mesmer mantra doesn't line up with anything.

Anyway that's a side issue. Harbinger's Elixir quickness looks really bad next to Firebrand quickness , I think only shroud quickness is viable for boon support on Harbinger. Elixir of Anguish should be really 20s cooldown or something before the Elixir cooldown trait which tanks your damage by up to 25%. You need to use Elixir of Anguish and Elixir of Risk to be able to provide Fury , whereas if you ran Blood is Power instead you have more damage but no shared Fury. Meanwhile CQB just needs to use axe and Mantra of Potence. Likewise the elite elixir could probably have half the cooldown (at least in PVE) and it still would be mediocre since base boon duration is 5s (see Detonate Plasma , Steal has 30s base cooldown and once boon thief was made 5 targets it became much rarer).

Edited August 15, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Tobias.8632]

I was more talking about from a selfish, non-traited version of the elixirs. I think they should make it so it's 10 seconds un-traited and the elixir share trait reduces durations to not be overpowered. To the guy who commended earlier about trading engi elixirs I'll take that trade, those elixirs have longer durations and better boons and no hp reduction.

[DragonFury.6243]

i have just rewatched the stream and i notice blight not only decrease your maximum HP pool but also decrease maximum lifeforce pool too .

so now if you use elixir skills it will give you blight decerasing your maximum HP and lifeforce pool so after blight runout your lifeforce will remain the same and it will require even more lifeforce to heal you up.

elixir use will come with lifeforce plenty making them suck even more for what they give .

so instead of your utility being used for lifeforce generation now they decrease your lifeforce

elixir 100% need a buff or they will be useless

[Kodama.6453]

Deleted

Edited August 16, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[KrHome.1920]

4 hours ago, DragonFury.6243 said:

i have just rewatched the stream and i notice blight not only decrease your maximum HP pool but also decrease maximum lifeforce pool too .

 

Irrelevant as everything harbinger does with life force is percentage based.

[DraconusShade.4590]

34 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

 

Irrelevant as everything harbinger does with life force is percentage based.

It actually does matter a lot.

The only way a Harbinger on his own gets to sustain quickly using shroud is through the shroud decay. If your LF also is decreased by the same amount as your health then when you heal back up 5% of 100 is 5 and 5% of 1000 is 20. The healing differs as it doesn't drain 5% of LF to heal you for 5% of your health. It only heals you for whatever numerical value the shroud decayed by which means a smaller shroud equals smaller heals. They really should make it so that the shroud is not reduced by Blight.

 

[KrHome.1920]

34 minutes ago, DraconusShade.4590 said:

It actually does matter a lot.

The only way a Harbinger on his own gets to sustain quickly using shroud is through the shroud decay. If your LF also is decreased by the same amount as your health then when you heal back up 5% of 100 is 5 and 5% of 1000 is 20. The healing differs as it doesn't drain 5% of LF to heal you for 5% of your health. It only heals you for whatever numerical value the shroud decayed by which means a smaller shroud equals smaller heals. They really should make it so that the shroud is not reduced by Blight.

 

 

Shroud degenerates by 5%. This means you have 20 seconds in shroud. The amount of life force is irrelevant as unlike core and reaper taken hits won't reduce your life force.

 

You do only heal if you are not affected by blight. So your healing will not start before your life force pool is at max again, which means blight does not affect your healing number, but only whether you are healed at all.

 

Nobody said that your life force pool won't affect your healing. I did even say myself in another thread a few days ago that your life force pool seems to have a huge effect on your healing, because it seems the healing is working percentage based on your life force pool. But this has nothing to do with blight.

 

Side Note: The healing was not 5% (this would be overpowered) in the video, but 3%. It was 472 HP/s at a 15700 life force pool.

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by KrHome.1920

[Sigmoid.7082]

15 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

You do only heal if you are not affected by blight. So your healing will not start before your life force pool is at max again, which means blight does not affect your healing number, but only whether you are healed at all.

 

"first off...lets see...as long as you are in combat and you have life force, you're gonna see that life force is going to be drained over time to heal the necromancer"

 

So unless I missed something there is no mention of needing to have 0 blight nor lf needing to be full. The only time we see the interaction is right at the start since there is no other time that he isn't considered at maximum health for the rest of the harb demo.

[DragonFury.6243]

1 hour ago, KrHome.1920 said:

 

Irrelevant as everything harbinger does with life force is percentage based.

nope it dose matter because if you use lifeforce generation skill while you are at high blight stack you gain percentage of the lowered lifeforce pool not the max 

that mean using lifefore generation skills while having blight is less effective

besides if you use elixir skill it will lower your lifeforce meaning you have less time to spent in shroud

[DraconusShade.4590]

4 minutes ago, DragonFury.6243 said:

nope it dose matter because if you use lifeforce generation skill while you are at high blight stack you gain percentage of the lowered lifeforce pool not the max 

that mean using lifefore generation skills while having blight is less effective

besides if you use elixir skill it will lower your lifeforce meaning you have less time to spent in shroud

This is not entirely true. They are right in saying that time spent in shroud is not affected by the LF pool since it's percentage based (and so are LF generation skills).

 

[DraconusShade.4590]

37 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

 

Shroud degenerates by 5%. This means you have 20 seconds in shroud. The amount of life force is irrelevant as unlike core and reaper taken hits won't reduce your life force.

 

You do only heal if you are not affected by blight. So your healing will not start before your life force pool is at max again, which means blight does not affect your healing number, but only whether you are healed at all.

 

Nobody said that your life force pool won't affect your healing. I did even say myself in another thread a few days ago that your life force pool seems to have a huge effect on your healing, because it seems the healing is working percentage based on your life force pool. But this has nothing to do with blight.

 

Side Note: The healing was not 5% (this would be overpowered) in the video, but 3%. It was 472 HP/s at a 15700 life force pool.

 

I'm not debating the time in shroud, I completely agree that the size of the pool does not matter at all when it comes to duration of the shroud but the healing doesn't work the way you think it does. Blight has no effect on whether you heal or not only the shroud does. 

If you are in shroud you cannot be healed by the shroud but anytime that you are not in shroud and not at 100% health with or without Blight your shroud will heal you.

This healing is affected by the LF pool as you admitted and that's what I have a problem with. Since the size of the LF pool has no impact on the duration of shroud I wonder why they made Blight affect the LF bar as well. It seems like a deliberate nerf to sustain for an already fragile spec. 11k health with none of the defense mechanisms of an Elementalist.

I felt better knowing that the LF sustain will always be high but finding out on stream that the LF bar is affected by Blight completely ruined the concept for me.

They will have to find a way to decouple life and life force and have Blight only affect life.

[DragonFury.6243]

9 minutes ago, DraconusShade.4590 said:

This is not entirely true. They are right in saying that time spent in shroud is not affected by the LF pool since it's percentage based (and so are LF generation skills).

 

you are not getting it 

its true if you enter shroud immediatly after using elixirs

lets say you have 1000 LF pool if you use elixir and you didnt enter shroud your LF pool will be 900 (decrease by 10%) and if blight expire your LF pool will go back to 1000 but your LF will still be 900 and additional LF is used to heal you back that is my point .

same example LP pool is 1000 max if you exit shroud at max blight your LF pool will be 500 max (decreased by 50%) if you use LF generation skill of lets say 20% you will get 100 LF that is 20% of the max 500 LF pool but after blight expire your LF pool will be back at 1000 max nut your LF will be only 100 (10%)

so TLDR using LF generation skill while having blight will be less efficient 

using elixir will come with a penalty to the LF

[Sigmoid.7082]

16 minutes ago, DraconusShade.4590 said:

I'm not debating the time in shroud, I completely agree that the size of the pool does not matter at all when it comes to duration of the shroud but the healing doesn't work the way you think it does. Blight has no effect on whether you heal or not only the shroud does. 

If you are in shroud you cannot be healed by the shroud but anytime that you are not in shroud and not at 100% health with or without Blight your shroud will heal you.

This healing is affected by the LF pool as you admitted and that's what I have a problem with. Since the size of the LF pool has no impact on the duration of shroud I wonder why they made Blight affect the LF bar as well. It seems like a deliberate nerf to sustain for an already fragile spec. 11k health with none of the defense mechanisms of an Elementalist.

I felt better knowing that the LF sustain will always be high but finding out on stream that the LF bar is affected by Blight completely ruined the concept for me.

They will have to find a way to decouple life and life force and have Blight only affect life.

I case I am missing something where is anything about what the amount healed is mentioned? All I can find is that you will be healed and the health comes from your LF.  

[Xaylin.1860]

On 8/14/2021 at 3:25 AM, Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

I feel like there should be just one trait for elixirs right now.  I may change my mind after playing some Harbinger, but condensing both Elixir traits into one at Master tier and introducing a third way for us to benefit from Blight (boon duration/stack?) may be better.

Had the same thoughts but can't think of any class in a similar situation (unless you count Chaos Master tier and Staff on Mesmer).

 

It feels a little bit like one of those traits was an afterthought. Or they couldn't figure out how to incorporate debuffs on a Blight related trait and therefore just slapped it onto Elixirs? Then again, they could have made it "Apply Slow to nearby foes when gaining Blight" with an ICD. Would have had the same output for Elixirs. It's weird.

[mortrialus.3062]

I feel like they missed an opportunity to have some elixirs be offensively orientated and thrown.  When you think of Alchemists in RPG's as a combatant, you don't just think of the guy with healing potions, you think of the guy who has vials of acid he throws at people, and flasks that release poisonous gas when thrown and shattered, and vials filled with greek fire.  I wish they had designed the spec so that when you enter the new shroud your Elixirs go from ones that the necromancer drinks into offensive flasks they throw, kind of like how Glyphs work. 

 

I also think not having an Elixir that transforms the necromancer is a missed opportunity.  You know, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stuff.  Maybe the "Harbinger Shroud" could be rethemed into that since compared to Scourge and Reaper it's very flat thematically.