draxynnic.3719

Nothing is bulletproof? Really? Tried firing a .50-caliber (about the largest that I'd say you were talking about 'bullets' rather than shells) at the belt armour of a battleship? An extreme example, but it shows the folly of absolute statements. "Bullet proofed" historical armour wouldn't necessarily hold up to every bullet. And even if it did, non-penetrating hits could certainly be enough to knock you around. But no armour was expected to be perfect - just good enough that you're better off with it than without it. And having materials that are as far above steel as steel is above bronze is going to _substantially_ delay the point at which guns outmatch armour to the point where armour stops being worth wearing. Perhaps indefinitely - the "firepower always outmatches armour in the end" mantra is a popular one, and it's true if you're thinking about armour rendering you invulnerable instead of simply _less_ vulnerable than you'd be without it, but historically the period during which personal body armour beyond helmets was abandoned was pretty short, it's just exaggerated in people's minds because it was most of last century. It wasn't until WW1 that the cuirass was completely abandoned, and body armour has been undergoing a renaissance in recent decades - in part because you don't need as much armour to protect against shrapnel, but in part because, guess what? Advanced materials! And when you get down to it, kevlar isn't actually THAT big of a step up from steel in terms of the ratio of its protective qualities versus weight - it's just that steel had been the best we had until then. I don't think Tyrians will be abandoning their mithril, orichalcum, or deldrimor steel armour any time soon. Maybe people who can only afford steel armour would also ditch it like in real life, but mithril in Tyria seems to be pretty common for an exotic fantastical metal. Melee weapons, meanwhile, benefit from advanced materials just as armour does. Lighter materials aren't as much as an advantage for weapons since with weapons it's important to have a certain degree of weight to the blow, but that can be compensated for by simply making the weapon _bigger._ Firearms, on the other hand, are more complicated - stronger breeches would certainly _help,_ but it's not such a direct conversion of better materials = better weapons. To address a couple of specific points: > @"Psientist.6437" said: > > With projectiles, speed and mass are more important than hardness. Get a marshmallow going fast enough and it could destroy the Moon. Tyrian explosive technology may be in its infancy but we shouldn't expect that to last. Your assumptions about what bullets are made of are just assumptions and your focus on material is inaccurate. Why wouldn't there be mithril bullets? I've answered why there wouldn't be mithril bullets. In fact, you clearly haven't thought it through, but _you've_ answered it. Speed and mass are what's important with projectiles (well... not directly, but I'll get to that in a moment), and while we don't have details on the properties of Tyria's fantastical metals, mithril in pretty much every other setting where it appears, going back to Tolkein, is described as being stronger _and lighter_ than steel (let alone heavier metals that are often preferred for projectiles). It's basically fancy super-titanium. Now, you might say that this means it goes faster with the same propellant, and that's true, but now it's that moment I referred to. Whatever charge you have firing the bullet is going to impart a certain amount of kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is proportional to mass times velocity squared. Momentum, on the other hand, is what broadly determines how hard a projectile is to stop, and that's just straight mass times velocity. If you fire a lighter bullet with the same kinetic energy, more of that kinetic energy equation is being taken up by velocity, which means that the momentum of the projectile is less. Density is also important both for resisting air resistance and for punching through armour, since if the bullet has a wider cross-section, it needs to displace that much more armour to punch through (and getting extra mass by making the bullet longer only goes so far before it starts creating other problems). So for armour, you want a material that's light but strong. For bullets, you want a material with a high density, since you want the frontal cross-section of the bullet to be as small as reasonably practical but to squeeze as much mass (and therefore momentum) into that cross-section as possible. Again, we don't know the properties of Tyrian metals, but for darksteel and mithril, we can make educated guesses. Mithril is pretty consistently presented in fantasy where it appears as being lighter than steel, so it probably makes for an inferior projectile to steel (let alone copper, lead, and the like). Darksteel appears to be an alloy of platinum or some other metal found in platinum ores such as iridium, which would give a density similar to tungsten and lead. Orichalcum and Deldrimor steel we don't really have much to go on in terms of density - being even better for armour means it's probably at least not significantly _heavier_ than mithril, though, and even if it was, both seem to be materials that are rare and expensive enough that you wouldn't want to be making every bullet out of it. Maybe you'd see the odd specialist armour-piercing round made out of it, similar to how APCR/HVAP was used in WW2 (namely, generally being issued in small amounts with orders to only use them when regular AP wouldn't cut it). Regarding the marshmallow example: Technically true, but we're clearly not looking at cee-fractional projectiles in Tyria. Broadly speaking, they seem to be similar velocities to real-world projectiles of about a century ago, maybe even a little bit slower. > > We've been focusing on combat between institutions and heroes. Perhaps guns would have a bigger impact on the lives of the magic poor. Perhaps, but where's the magic poor? Human armies have generally been presented as having magic-users as a significant minority _at the very least._ The White Mantle I'd consider an outlier (they essentially have a two-tier system, with spellcasters being channeled into the White Mantle proper leaving bandit forces relatively magic-poor), but you can look at Ascalonian ghost armies or several human factions in GW1 to get a broad idea of how common spellcasters are among human armies. Technology is generally presented as being an equalising factor when a relatively magic-poor group (such as the legions after the overthrow of the Flame Legion) are having to go up against someone stronger in magic... and they still use melee troops because their _enemies_ aren't magic-poor. There is a degree to which engineers and guns in general appear to be more common among magic-poor factions, such as the non-Flame charr and outlaw groups such as bandits and Separatists (and the latter are probably motivated by stealing charr munitions). But if we're talking large-scale warfare... thus far, most known cases of large-scale warfare have had at least one magic-rich side, whether it's humans versus charr or the Pact versus dragon minions. Talking about magic-poor battles is like talking about real-world modern warfare without air power: sure, it _can_ happen between really poor countries or between factions in a civil war, but if you're talking about major power conflict, _it's going to be there._

Good question. The principle of Canthan assassins seems to be one of weapons that are reasonably easy to conceal - so pistols might actually be their _favoured_ ranged weapon, if they got their hands on them. On the other hand, pistols are loud, which they might regard as a problem.

Depends on what you want to do, really. Shiro isn't as good with condi as he used to be since Impossible Odds got changed to be pure power, but if you're running viper, you can still make that work, and Quickness is technically still available through the offensive teleport. Jalis can be good for stability and general toughness. Even Ventari can somewhat work if heavy protection against projectiles would be something useful, although usually you'd be better off with something else. Mind you, if you haven't already done so, consider running with Kalla, but run Devastation and the three bottom skills instead of Invocation. The self-healing you can get out of Battle Scars in PvE is pretty ridiculous, particularly when combined with Icerazor. Even if you run Jalis, it might be worth considering Devastation instead of Retribution. _Note that this only applies in PvE - the coefficients for Battle Scars are a lot lower in competitive modes._

There is a third option that hasn't been raised yet, the patron dragon of Skritt everywhere after they were introduced to each other by Zommoros: SHINYYYYYYYYY!

> @"Psientist.6437" said: > This is intended fully in the spirit of friendly competitive speculation > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > @"Psientist.6437" said: > > > Guns are vented bombs. Make the gun itself stronger and it can use more powerful or simply more propellant. A .44 magnum is bigger than a .22 for this very reason. The material of the projectile is important, but the strength of the gun is more important. The strongest projectile possible becomes even stronger with a bigger explosion behind it. > > > > > > Presumably, whatever magic defenses we could give to melee, ranged can use as well. It is very hard for range not to have the advantage. The Tyrian magic system is too hand wavy to make strong predictions, but I think only the strongest users of melee magic would be relevant in Tyrian large scale warfare. It looks as though magic users channel their magical ability through their gear. I don't see why magic users couldn't learn to do the same with a tank. > > > > Yeah, I did note that the strength of the barrel can certainly help, through the mechanism of allowing for a larger charge behind the projectile. However, in the race between armour and firepower, better materials usually benefit armour more. > > > Stronger materials have more impact on the chamber where the explosion happens. Projectile strength has always led armor strength. Armor can sometimes catch up but historically, has always fallen behind. Projectiles don't have to be harder than armor and projectiles can use materials armor can not. Modern anti-tank projectiles are constructed of a depleted uranium casing with a copper core that melts and then burns through the armor. I am not sure what you are basing your logic on. That's... really not true. Know where the term 'bullet proof' comes from? High-quality armour was tested by firing bullets at them. The dent was the proof that the armour could stand up to the bullet - it was "bullet proofed". People have an exaggerated idea of the effect of longbows, crossbows, and even early firearms against armour, and yes, it did get to a point where the guns got powerful enough that it became increasingly impractical to wear armour that could protect against it due to the weight it would require. So armour got reduced from full suits to breastplates and helmets, and then removed altogether - but this wasn't because people COULDN'T make armour that could stop bullets (just look at Ned Kelly), just that it was so heavy it wasn't practical for battlefield use. Armour has always been a compromise between protection and weight/practicality. Once armoured vehicles were invented, the main thing limiting how much armour could be layered on was how much weight the engine could push along. In both cases, the availability of a material that's both lighter and stronger than steel is going to make a _big_ difference. In the real world, we didn't get anything better for than high-quality steel until the invention of composite armour after World War 2, a time when advanced armour piercing shells were already flying around. In Tyria... we have mithril being presented as a material which is as much of a step up from steel as steel is from bronze, while in the meantime, we have _no_ evidence that projectile technology is any more advanced than WW1 at the latest. So you've got some explosive projectiles, incendiaries, gas and the like, but armour piercing is probably still solid slugs. Improving the metal of the chamber would help since it allows more propellant to be used per shot without risking breaking the weapon, but you're still looking at century-old propellant and projectile designs, and when it comes to armour, the quality of the material is pretty much _the_ determining factor of how tough it is once you get past design considerations. Considering that the Kelly gang's armour worked and that was pretty crude (albeit thick and heavy), then armour made out of a material that's lighter and stronger than steel would go a long way. > > > When it comes to the effect of magic - however handwavy you think it is, there are certain tendencies we can observe. For instance, almost every profession has some sort of projectile destruction or, worse, reflection field - guardian has several, mesmer has a couple, elementalist has Swirling Winds, necromancer has Corrosive Poison Cloud, scrapper has Defence Field, holosmith has Photon Wall, spellbreaker has Winds of Disenchantment, revenants have Protective Solace, and thieves have their various smoke effects (which technically only make those within impossible to target rather than actually stopping the bullets)... and Seal Area. Abilities that specifically act to keep melee enemies at bay are less common, usually on professions that _already_ have access to some form of projectile hate, and can generally be more easily countered (using Stability, teleports, or some other means of getting past the magical line). So the end result seems to be that magic, on the whole, is _more_ effective at countering ranged projectiles than other attacks, including melee. > > > > Another thing that needs to be considered is that from the Tyrian perspective, guns are more of an equaliser than a revolutionary technology. The most advanced non-magical guns we're seeing are early gatling guns - to someone capable of tossing fireballs, lightning bolts, [rapid-fire stone projectiles](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stone_Shards), or more exotic magical attacks, this isn't actually all that impressive. Most fantasy settings present magic-users as being fairly rare in an effort to _not_ have them revolutionise how wars are fought, but if you look at most human armies that you fight* in Guild Wars... traditional medieval period soldiers such as warriors and archers are certainly the most _common,_ but you're often still looking at about half their number being spellcasters, and I'd consider most _Guild Wars_ spellcasters to be scarier than any gun-armed infantryman before the arrival of true automatic small arms (which... we don't see in GW2). So if melee troops are still viable in the period of Guild Wars 1, I don't see the invention of firearms being something that really changes that. The reason why the three legions adopted technology was that, having outcast the Flame Legion, most of their enemies overmatched them in magic and they needed to close the gap - and the Pact then found ways to combine magic with charr technology. > > > > *I specify 'that you fight' because ArenaNet tends to be economical with forces that you're generally not expecting to fight. The best example is comparing Ascalonian forces in most of GW1 (where you pretty much only see warriors and rangers, apart from the Flaming Sceptre) to what you see from the ghost army in GW2 or the Ascalon Army in the Annihilator mission. > > The magiphysics behind class skills is purposefully hand-wavy. I don't have the source but the studio has said they keep the distinction between martial and magic skills unclear so players like yourself can make up your own distinctions. We have to be careful when using class skills as a genuine description of Tyrian magi-physics. Classes are also designed for balance. > > So what happens when Tyrians develop new gun magic? Look what they have done with martial weapons. You seem to be relying on scenarios pitting magic enriched melee and magic poor ranged. We can use a very simple approach to our question; magic as a multiplier for a weapons platform, magic power (weapon + armor + trinkets) = total PEW or THONK. We know Tyrian magic skills change. Using the correct definition of Darwinian fitness, we should also expect magic skills to evolve. Tyrians should get more fit at using magic guns. Perhaps the potential impact of guns depends just on the difference between the bow and gun as magic poor weapon platforms. The impact of magic(guns) would eventually be huge. > > edit: The impact of magic(exposives) would eventually be huge as well. We see some examples of 'gun magic', I think. Unclear distinction or not, the graphics for deadeye attacks look like magic projectiles to me. The end result... is not clearly more powerful than the spells that spellcasters can throw normally, unless you're talking about stuff that is essentially field artillery rather than small arms. It's certainly true that ranged weapons can likely be enhanced just as melee weapons and armour can (which is probably how _bows_ manage to remain relevant), but if improved metallurgy has brought armour and melee weapons up to the point where it remains relevant in the face of firearms (and direct spellcasting, which has been around for centuries), then the effect of adding magic is just going to boost them all up equally, assuming there isn't some factor that makes some things more enchantable than others (for instance, if enchanting a striking surface is important, it might be easier to enchant a single melee weapon than to enchant every bullet or arrow you're planning to shoot). But you've ignored one of the important points I raised: > When it comes to the effect of magic - however handwavy you think it is, there are certain tendencies we can observe. For instance, almost every profession has some sort of projectile destruction or, worse, reflection field - guardian has several, mesmer has a couple, elementalist has Swirling Winds, necromancer has Corrosive Poison Cloud, scrapper has Defence Field, holosmith has Photon Wall, spellbreaker has Winds of Disenchantment, revenants have Protective Solace, and thieves have their various smoke effects (which technically only make those within impossible to target rather than actually stopping the bullets)... and Seal Area. Abilities that specifically act to keep melee enemies at bay are less common, usually on professions that _already_ have access to some form of projectile hate, and can generally be more easily countered (using Stability, teleports, or some other means of getting past the magical line). So the end result seems to be that magic, on the whole, is _more_ effective at countering ranged projectiles than other attacks, including melee. We can point to existing spell effects and show that the effect of magic disproportionately protects against ranged projectiles. Consider if you had a squad of Guardians armed with sword and shield. With half a dozen of them, they can chain Shield of Absorption while advancing, making them (and anyone else within or behind the dome) basically immune to projectiles... and then when they're within range, they teleport in. It's worth keeping in mind that melee DID happen in WW1 once one side got into the enemy's trenches - the hard part was getting there in the first place. Now, Guardians seem to be fairly uncommon... but on the other hand, NPC guardians such as Braham and Logan seem to be able to maintain SoA-like effects for longer than the player can. And that's just one weaponset on one profession. Imagine a battlefield where Walls of Reflection, Feedback bubbles, and the like are popping up all over the place (and that's just considering the actual force fields, since if we applied real life physics things like smoke screens, Corrosive Poison Cloud, and Swirling Winds would probably just make it harder to hit with bullets rather than completely stopping them), and someone can teleport right next to you from a distance comparable to your weapon's range. Suddenly, bringing a sword to a gun (and magic) fight doesn't look like such a terrible idea. That's probably the most impactful difference between warfare in Tyria and warfare in the real world about a century ago. In the real world, there's no equivalent to all those anti-projectile fields. The fact that Tyrians also have access to improved metallurgy and magical materials which at least offers the _chance_ of providing personal armour that is still relevant against available small arms just adds to this.

> @"Edge.8724" said: > Voted for the pistol (s). > > I can see an elite spec that makes Guardian look like the Inquisitor from Grim Dawn, which is a bit like a Paladin that uses medium/light armor, pistols and offensive and healing spells. > > I can see pistol/focus, pistol/shield or even dual pistols as elite weapons, a hat as the elite armor piece and runes or glyph as utility skills (no idea for virtues yet). > > The elite spec can allow guardian to be more agile and blasting foes from range. > > > > Buuut, if we are truly going to Cantha, that wouldn't really fit...... Now I'm somewhat curious - what sort of setting would you see that fitting? Could it fit in the Utopia setting, perhaps? > @"DeanBB.4268" said: > I've seen requests for "main hand shield" on the forums a number of times, and never understood what that is all about. I can't see someone running around with two shields. How does that work? Why? It... really _doesn't._ Carrying a second shield really doesn't offer much to offset the loss of reach and striking power from forfeiting a conventional weapon, especially since people underestimate just how much you can protect yourself with a sword (especially in combination with a shield). Carrying two shields is better than one shield and an empty hand, but there aren't many good reasons to use two shields when you could be using a shield and an offensive weapon. There are a couple of games which allow it as a bit of a joke setup, but these aren't games like GW2 where each weapon has its own skills for each class that can use it and where classes have restricted weapon choices, so the developers didn't really lose much by adding the option (as long as they've got a shield bash animation or two, it's just a matter of mirroring that on the other arm). I really wouldn't want to see ArenaNet going to the effort of creating three skills (five if you count each strike of an autoattack chain separately) just to cater to people who want to recreate a meme, _especially_ if it takes the place of a serious weapon option.

> @"VocalThought.9835" said: > Right now, every class does not fill a role. I haven't seen s healing Warrior or Thief build yet. I think ANet was on to something for trying to avoid the Holy Trinity. In fact the initial GW wasn't a Holy Trinity system either. Necros and Mesmers always brought their own flavor of support to the game, by turning boons into conditions and making attacks self inflicting. Healbreaker has become a thing in sPvP, oddly enough, but that's largely due to other support builds being nerfed pretty much out of existence. With a new round of elite specialisations coming, though, there's the opportunity for those professions that don't have a support-oriented elite specialisation to get one.

Now you're splitting hairs on what a 'numbers reshuffle' is. Sure, everything on a computer is 1s and 0s, but that's not the point. The point is that any skill split between modes is only going to affect the things that come up as numbers in the tooltip. Damage and healing values. Durations. Numbers of stacks. That sort of thing. They're not going to make a change like "this well heals in an area when it ends in PvE, but in WvW, it'll deliver that area heal when the well is first placed instead". Sure, technically they CAN do it - they made much more extreme splits in GW1 - but their policy is that they won't. So we come back to my original point: your proposal would ruin the interaction between wells and Continuum Split in every mode for the sake of lowering the skill floor (and ceiling!) of the skills in WvW zergfights. I don't think that's a good trade.

Druid brings spirits. Which is why the healers in raid builds are generally not healbrands.

> @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > > > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > > > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > > > > > > > Healing well too, removes a condition on the 3rd pulse. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > That's not how Well of Eternity works. The caster gets a heal initially when they cast the well, then each pulse removes a condition from allies in the area, and when it ends it provides an area heal. Which can still be a little clunky, but I think part of the idea behind wells is to benefit from Continuum Split ending before the well does. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Ah so it removes conditions with each pulse? That's nice. I didn't notice it working like that in WvW much, but it's cool if it's like that. Still, i think the big area heal that's at the end should happen first, then the rest. Kind of reverse. And with All's Well that ends well trait, the heling should happen at the beginning. > > > > > > > > > We'll see what Anet has in store for mesmers though so... > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I think there's two elements in play here: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > First, as I mentioned, it's intended to work with Continuum Split. Put a well or two on top of where you're going to return to, end the split before the wells finish, and you get those back-loaded benefits almost for free, and can recast those wells to get them _again_ afterwards. If you front-load the effects, they go away when you end Continuum Split. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Second, the general principle with the chronomancer is that it's _supposed_ to be able to survive for a few seconds before the well goes off. Losing Distortion certainly hurts in this respect, but there's still shield, Well of Precognition, CC, and blocks on core mesmer available to helps survive for a few seconds before the well completes. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > It's certainly true that making the wells more front-loaded would lower their skill floor, but it might lower their skill ceiling as well by removing their synergy with Continuum Split. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > That's a good argument for why wells work this way, but i think you're considering it more from a PvE perspective. > > > > > > > Which is fine, nothing wrong about that, but Anet made more modes than just PvE, and whatever they design has to work in all of them. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Now you try predicting where to Continuum split and put well so they can heal your squad sub-party and yourself and give everyone their benefits in a squad of 50 people mid fighting another squad of 50 people. Even if you place them predictively, there's no telling if in a split second your commander will decide to move in another direction in response to whatever the enemy squad is doing. > > > > > > > Doesn't work anymore now does it? No other profession has to deal with that. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Now, Anet is balancing the skills and traits per game mode now, as they should, and i agree, having front loaded effects on wells would lower the skill floor and ceilling considerably in PvE. But in WvW? It would just make them *work*. But in PvE, they're fine. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Maybe in WvW if they replace Continuum split with Distortion, or just add distortion it would be better. In WvW you mostly use Continuum split to get an extra cast of 1 thing because you'll never have enough clones to shatter, they die instantly, so you can never use Continuum split's entire duration. In addition to that. Moving to a previous location with Continuum Split is undesirable because you need to stay on tag, that's where all the heals, clenses and boons are. If you even use CS fully powered, you get off tag and you'll probably die. > > > > > > > > > > > > PvE, sPvP, small-scale WvW even. Large-scale WvW was acknowledged a long time ago as being such an extreme mode that they'd probably never really be able to fully balance it, just hit the things that were serious problems. > > > > > > > > > > Well they already have the tools available, i mean, they can set each skill to behave differently per game mode. They just need to put in the work. :smile: > > > > > > > > They only change the numbers, not the base functionality, though. They're not going to make a skill front-loaded in WvW and back-loaded in other modes. > > > > > > > > I think there's a degree to which chronomancer wells just aren't really designed for supporting zergs. > > > > > > They've already changed how certain skills work several times. Bubble used to follow warriors, now it's static, it used to be charged, now it's instant cast. Mirage had 2 dodges, now it has only 1. Traits had mechanic changes, not just numerical a lot of times. Clearly the tools to change the skills are there but the fact that they're only changing numbers is just showing lazy balancing in form of a band aid. They **can** change the wells if they want, but that would require more work than just changing the numbers on skills. The whole mesmer profession needs a rework, and they **can** do it, but they either don't know what to change and how, or they're lazy or something else, i don't know. I doubt they're lazy, so they probably don't know what to do with mesmers and just leave them nerfed to the ground so no one complains. Which is a big slap on the face to the mesmer community and they should treat us better. > > > > They can change how skills work, but _only_ if they want to go the whole way and change how the skill works in _all_ modes. _They won't have a skill work differently in different modes_ (apart from number changes). This is something they've been clear about, multiple times. They'll change the numbers in a split, but they won't change the functionality, because they want someone moving from one mode to another to be able to know what their skills are going to do (as opposed to GW1, which did have some skill splits where the functionality was completely changed and which caused confusion as a result). > > > > So it's either leaving wells as they are, which is having an interesting interaction with Continuum Split at the cost of being a bit awkward in some WvW situations. Or they could toss out the baby with the bathwater and rework the wells for the sake of WvW and break that interaction in _all_ game modes, something which PvE chronomancers and the few sPvP chronomancers still around might well regard as a nerf. They are _not_ going to have wells that have a big effect when the well expires in some modes, while in other modes they have that effect immediately when the well is placed. Skill splits between modes only change the numbers, not the functionality. > > Changing wells is literally a number change. > > PvE 1st 2 hits hit for 5, last hit 10. > WvW, first hit hits for 10, last 2 for 5. > > Totally confusing am I right? Most people wouldnt know the difference because PvE players almost never touch WvW, and those who play WvW use different builds in PvE. > > Only the numbers need to change, I'm not sure why you're blowing this so out of proportion and defending anet. > > It's their game. They can do whatever they want to it, theres no real reason that they can't change something. Its only like you said, they dont want to. But it might be needed to balance the profession and get it back in line with how other professions feel and how strong they are. > > They **can** change a simple mechanic numerically, or even the functionality, which btw, is also just a numerical change as far as engine is concerned, they dont have to write a whole new code just to switch well pulses around. > > And the skill would feel different in both modes. But that's the point. If something needs changing to get In line with other professions, then no excuse is valid enough to not at least try. > > But this goes beyond just wells, no need to get stuck on that discussion longer than necessary. Except that this isn't the way chronomancer wells work. Chronomancer wells have one effect when they're ticking down, and another, usually completely _different,_ effect when they finish: Eternity heals the caster for a bit when cast, removes condis as it ticks, and heals in an area when it ends. Action damages and slows enemies as it ticks, and grants quickness in an area when it ends. Calamity damages, cripples, and weakens as it ticks, and deals large damage when it ends. Precog stunbreaks the caster when cast, grants aegis as it ticks, and refills endurance when it ends. Recall damages and chills as it ticks, and grants alacrity when it ends. Gravity damages and controls as it ticks, and deals large damage when it ends. The _only_ wells there where you can move some of the effects from the end effect to the ticks, as you propose, are Calamity and Gravity, since both the end effect and the ticks deal damage. So you could, theoretically, move some of the damage from the end effect to the earlier ticks. However, both of these wells are also designed to make it harder for the enemy to escape the well before it explodes. Theoretically, you could also move some of the heal from Eternity from the area heal when it finishes to the chronomancers personal heal when cast, but this would also make the skill more 'selfish', since the initial heal only affects the caster. With all the other wells, the effect of the final tick is something that isn't on the initial ticks at all. Moving some of the effect of the final ticks onto the initial ticks wouldn't simply be a numbers reshuffle, it'd be changing the functionality of the skill. Which ArenaNet doesn't do as a split between modes. Honestly, at this stage, I'm pretty sure you just don't understand the skills you're talking about and are arguing out of ignorance. You're claiming that most people wouldn't notice the changes you're recommending, but since you don't seem to know how chronomancer wells actually work to begin with, I think your claim says more about your own level of knowledge than the typical player's.

> @"Noh.5092" said: > Honestly I feel like while the lack of trinity is part of what makes GW2 what it is, it's also it's most glaring flaw. I think this path ultimately stunted the popularity of GW2. > Hard to say. A lot of MMOs that did have trinities failed. In the MMO space, you need to have something that distinguishes your game from WoW, or WoW is just going to beat you with Blizzard's greater resources. Taking a different approach might well have attracted just as many players who don't like the idea of classes being strictly limited to roles as people it turned away who do like strict roles. Keeping in mind, of course, that after HoT at least roles certainly _exist,_ it's just that it's generally a matter of your choice of build within your profession, rather than monks always being support and so on.

> @"Psientist.6437" said: > Guns are vented bombs. Make the gun itself stronger and it can use more powerful or simply more propellant. A .44 magnum is bigger than a .22 for this very reason. The material of the projectile is important, but the strength of the gun is more important. The strongest projectile possible becomes even stronger with a bigger explosion behind it. > > Presumably, whatever magic defenses we could give to melee, ranged can use as well. It is very hard for range not to have the advantage. The Tyrian magic system is too hand wavy to make strong predictions, but I think only the strongest users of melee magic would be relevant in Tyrian large scale warfare. It looks as though magic users channel their magical ability through their gear. I don't see why magic users couldn't learn to do the same with a tank. Yeah, I did note that the strength of the barrel can certainly help, through the mechanism of allowing for a larger charge behind the projectile. However, in the race between armour and firepower, better materials usually benefit armour more. When it comes to the effect of magic - however handwavy you think it is, there are certain tendencies we can observe. For instance, almost every profession has some sort of projectile destruction or, worse, reflection field - guardian has several, mesmer has a couple, elementalist has Swirling Winds, necromancer has Corrosive Poison Cloud, scrapper has Defence Field, holosmith has Photon Wall, spellbreaker has Winds of Disenchantment, revenants have Protective Solace, and thieves have their various smoke effects (which technically only make those within impossible to target rather than actually stopping the bullets)... and Seal Area. Abilities that specifically act to keep melee enemies at bay are less common, usually on professions that _already_ have access to some form of projectile hate, and can generally be more easily countered (using Stability, teleports, or some other means of getting past the magical line). So the end result seems to be that magic, on the whole, is _more_ effective at countering ranged projectiles than other attacks, including melee. Another thing that needs to be considered is that from the Tyrian perspective, guns are more of an equaliser than a revolutionary technology. The most advanced non-magical guns we're seeing are early gatling guns - to someone capable of tossing fireballs, lightning bolts, [rapid-fire stone projectiles](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stone_Shards), or more exotic magical attacks, this isn't actually all that impressive. Most fantasy settings present magic-users as being fairly rare in an effort to _not_ have them revolutionise how wars are fought, but if you look at most human armies that you fight* in Guild Wars... traditional medieval period soldiers such as warriors and archers are certainly the most _common,_ but you're often still looking at about half their number being spellcasters, and I'd consider most _Guild Wars_ spellcasters to be scarier than any gun-armed infantryman before the arrival of true automatic small arms (which... we don't see in GW2). So if melee troops are still viable in the period of Guild Wars 1, I don't see the invention of firearms being something that really changes that. The reason why the three legions adopted technology was that, having outcast the Flame Legion, most of their enemies overmatched them in magic and they needed to close the gap - and the Pact then found ways to combine magic with charr technology. *I specify 'that you fight' because ArenaNet tends to be economical with forces that you're generally not expecting to fight. The best example is comparing Ascalonian forces in most of GW1 (where you pretty much only see warriors and rangers, apart from the Flaming Sceptre) to what you see from the ghost army in GW2 or the Ascalon Army in the Annihilator mission.

 (Since the image doesn't seem to be working properly, let's just say I'm getting strong Poe's Law vibes out of this one.) If serious... yeah, just look at the actual benchmarks and build sites. Guardians have been falling out of the sPvP meta lately - I still see them occasionally, but I'm much more concerned when I see a holosmith or any necromancer on the enemy team, and funnily enough, those are more common. Snowcrows only recommends guardians as the main source of DPS for three out of nineteen raid bosses, and for more than half they don't recommend bringing a guardian at all. WvW they rank pretty highly because Stability, but that's because of how important Stability is in WvW - people would still want firebrands or scrappers in zergs even if that was literally all they did unless some other profession gets the ability to pump out stability like they can. Fractals they do well in because power boon chronomancer doesn't seem to do as well in that mode (not sure why, as I don't play fractals at the top level). Either way, it's pretty clear that they don't have the best at everything. A quickbrand might do well against a golem if you assume no outside boons (since the quickbrand brings its own quickness), but that's a pretty artificial situation, and a quickness reaper might actually pull ahead in that situation (a large part of why reaper doesn't perform too well in raids is because it's balanced on the basis of giving itself a lot of offensive buffs).

> @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > > > > > Healing well too, removes a condition on the 3rd pulse. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > That's not how Well of Eternity works. The caster gets a heal initially when they cast the well, then each pulse removes a condition from allies in the area, and when it ends it provides an area heal. Which can still be a little clunky, but I think part of the idea behind wells is to benefit from Continuum Split ending before the well does. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Ah so it removes conditions with each pulse? That's nice. I didn't notice it working like that in WvW much, but it's cool if it's like that. Still, i think the big area heal that's at the end should happen first, then the rest. Kind of reverse. And with All's Well that ends well trait, the heling should happen at the beginning. > > > > > > > We'll see what Anet has in store for mesmers though so... > > > > > > > > > > > > I think there's two elements in play here: > > > > > > > > > > > > First, as I mentioned, it's intended to work with Continuum Split. Put a well or two on top of where you're going to return to, end the split before the wells finish, and you get those back-loaded benefits almost for free, and can recast those wells to get them _again_ afterwards. If you front-load the effects, they go away when you end Continuum Split. > > > > > > > > > > > > Second, the general principle with the chronomancer is that it's _supposed_ to be able to survive for a few seconds before the well goes off. Losing Distortion certainly hurts in this respect, but there's still shield, Well of Precognition, CC, and blocks on core mesmer available to helps survive for a few seconds before the well completes. > > > > > > > > > > > > It's certainly true that making the wells more front-loaded would lower their skill floor, but it might lower their skill ceiling as well by removing their synergy with Continuum Split. > > > > > > > > > > That's a good argument for why wells work this way, but i think you're considering it more from a PvE perspective. > > > > > Which is fine, nothing wrong about that, but Anet made more modes than just PvE, and whatever they design has to work in all of them. > > > > > > > > > > Now you try predicting where to Continuum split and put well so they can heal your squad sub-party and yourself and give everyone their benefits in a squad of 50 people mid fighting another squad of 50 people. Even if you place them predictively, there's no telling if in a split second your commander will decide to move in another direction in response to whatever the enemy squad is doing. > > > > > Doesn't work anymore now does it? No other profession has to deal with that. > > > > > > > > > > Now, Anet is balancing the skills and traits per game mode now, as they should, and i agree, having front loaded effects on wells would lower the skill floor and ceilling considerably in PvE. But in WvW? It would just make them *work*. But in PvE, they're fine. > > > > > > > > > > Maybe in WvW if they replace Continuum split with Distortion, or just add distortion it would be better. In WvW you mostly use Continuum split to get an extra cast of 1 thing because you'll never have enough clones to shatter, they die instantly, so you can never use Continuum split's entire duration. In addition to that. Moving to a previous location with Continuum Split is undesirable because you need to stay on tag, that's where all the heals, clenses and boons are. If you even use CS fully powered, you get off tag and you'll probably die. > > > > > > > > PvE, sPvP, small-scale WvW even. Large-scale WvW was acknowledged a long time ago as being such an extreme mode that they'd probably never really be able to fully balance it, just hit the things that were serious problems. > > > > > > Well they already have the tools available, i mean, they can set each skill to behave differently per game mode. They just need to put in the work. :smile: > > > > They only change the numbers, not the base functionality, though. They're not going to make a skill front-loaded in WvW and back-loaded in other modes. > > > > I think there's a degree to which chronomancer wells just aren't really designed for supporting zergs. > > They've already changed how certain skills work several times. Bubble used to follow warriors, now it's static, it used to be charged, now it's instant cast. Mirage had 2 dodges, now it has only 1. Traits had mechanic changes, not just numerical a lot of times. Clearly the tools to change the skills are there but the fact that they're only changing numbers is just showing lazy balancing in form of a band aid. They **can** change the wells if they want, but that would require more work than just changing the numbers on skills. The whole mesmer profession needs a rework, and they **can** do it, but they either don't know what to change and how, or they're lazy or something else, i don't know. I doubt they're lazy, so they probably don't know what to do with mesmers and just leave them nerfed to the ground so no one complains. Which is a big slap on the face to the mesmer community and they should treat us better. They can change how skills work, but _only_ if they want to go the whole way and change how the skill works in _all_ modes. _They won't have a skill work differently in different modes_ (apart from number changes). This is something they've been clear about, multiple times. They'll change the numbers in a split, but they won't change the functionality, because they want someone moving from one mode to another to be able to know what their skills are going to do (as opposed to GW1, which did have some skill splits where the functionality was completely changed and which caused confusion as a result). So it's either leaving wells as they are, which is having an interesting interaction with Continuum Split at the cost of being a bit awkward in some WvW situations. Or they could toss out the baby with the bathwater and rework the wells for the sake of WvW and break that interaction in _all_ game modes, something which PvE chronomancers and the few sPvP chronomancers still around might well regard as a nerf. They are _not_ going to have wells that have a big effect when the well expires in some modes, while in other modes they have that effect immediately when the well is placed. Skill splits between modes only change the numbers, not the functionality.

It's worth noting that back in the day, what we normally call 'tanking' was also slotted under the banner of 'control'. Essentially, the roles were dealing damage, supporting your allies while they dealt damage, or controlling the enemy's ability to deal damage. Getting the enemy to hit you (while having the appropriate skills and/or stats to survive those hits) was regarded as a form of control just as much as more direct forms such as stuns.

> @"Fipmip.7219" said: > Yeah I agree magic protection is what makes melee combat more viable, perhaps not as a stronger alternative, since there's not much lorewise to suggest melee being superior except outside of game mechanics, but as simple preference based on what role is needed. Being able to close the gap over large amounts of terrain more easily is useful as a way of occupying ground and ending battles faster. however, trenches have appeared, with almorra using them against the shatterer and charr using them against eachother, so we can at least point to evidence of their value. It seems that not all types of magic are as ubiquitous and readily available for the rank and file, and simple earth serves as a cheaper and more sustainable barrier than magic shields. That's probably a reasonably accurate view when it comes to magic forcefields. We generally don't see them being maintained for long, they're more something that gets put up to protect against a specific threat. The Divinity's Reach city dome was up for a while, but that's part of the defences of a city which _also_ has a pretty ridiculous set of outer walls. The fields we can produce are fairly short-term, and based on the Sea of Sorrows novel, keeping up a defensive field long-term, particularly when the field is actually under attack, requires maintenance on the part of the caster(s) that can exhaust or even kill them. So regular fortifications and earthworks are still useful - magical force fields are more of a gap-filler for when conventional fortifications are either impractical or need to be reinforced in a hurry.

> @"The Greyhawk.9107" said: > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > This combination presents a scenario where, similar to medieval times before the introduction of gunpowder weapons, armour generally beats most weapons, allowing melee soldiers to get in close. It probably also helps that melee weapons also benefit from the improved materials technology. Granted, you could also make a gun out of mithril, but making a gun out of mithril _probably_ doesn't improve it as much as doing so with armour or a melee weapon. > > Not the gun itself, of course, but perhaps mithril ammo? I'm not sure that making a bullet out of a metal that makes for better weapons and armour would help that much. Having a harder and denser penetrator _helps,_ of course, but not as much as improving the design of the projectile (something that applies more to larger shells than regular bullets) or just applying more kinetic energy (which is something where having a stronger barrel actually can help... but not as much as having a better material increases the strength of armour). If they're firing out 19th century bullet designs, I'm not sure that advanced materials will actually help much. Particularly since mithril is traditionally a metal that's strong _and light._ For armour, this is great: you can afford to make it thicker without overly weighing down the wearer. For melee weapons, you can get the weight and momentum back by making it bigger (which actually explains a lot when you look at the design of some of the weapons). For armour-piercing bullets, though, you want density. Darksteel (which is apparently made either from platinum or a metal that is commonly found in the same deposits, such as iridium, so it could be presumed to have a high density) would probably be more suited for use as projectiles. Orichalcum is harder to judge, but is probably rare enough that most soldiers won't be using it as ammunition anyway.

And as I noted, Quickbrand benches about what bannerslave warrior does, and quickbrand doesn't have the guaranteed slot that bannerslave does. Compared to chrono, quickbrand doesn't provide alacrity, so you need a second hybrid to make up the difference. As it happens, there are hybrid chrono builds that also primarily provide quickness, and the higher DPS variants of these builds bench about the same DPS as quickbrand does. And that seems to be the broad balance for builds that aren't pure DPS. You can provide _one_ support function, such as providing Quickness or banners, and still have a DPS benchmark that's decent but not at the level that a pure DPS build can achieve. Or you can have _two_ support functions, such as quickness and alacrity or healing and a significant buff, at the price of giving up most of your DPS.

> @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > > > Healing well too, removes a condition on the 3rd pulse. > > > > > > > > > > > > That's not how Well of Eternity works. The caster gets a heal initially when they cast the well, then each pulse removes a condition from allies in the area, and when it ends it provides an area heal. Which can still be a little clunky, but I think part of the idea behind wells is to benefit from Continuum Split ending before the well does. > > > > > > > > > > Ah so it removes conditions with each pulse? That's nice. I didn't notice it working like that in WvW much, but it's cool if it's like that. Still, i think the big area heal that's at the end should happen first, then the rest. Kind of reverse. And with All's Well that ends well trait, the heling should happen at the beginning. > > > > > We'll see what Anet has in store for mesmers though so... > > > > > > > > I think there's two elements in play here: > > > > > > > > First, as I mentioned, it's intended to work with Continuum Split. Put a well or two on top of where you're going to return to, end the split before the wells finish, and you get those back-loaded benefits almost for free, and can recast those wells to get them _again_ afterwards. If you front-load the effects, they go away when you end Continuum Split. > > > > > > > > Second, the general principle with the chronomancer is that it's _supposed_ to be able to survive for a few seconds before the well goes off. Losing Distortion certainly hurts in this respect, but there's still shield, Well of Precognition, CC, and blocks on core mesmer available to helps survive for a few seconds before the well completes. > > > > > > > > It's certainly true that making the wells more front-loaded would lower their skill floor, but it might lower their skill ceiling as well by removing their synergy with Continuum Split. > > > > > > That's a good argument for why wells work this way, but i think you're considering it more from a PvE perspective. > > > Which is fine, nothing wrong about that, but Anet made more modes than just PvE, and whatever they design has to work in all of them. > > > > > > Now you try predicting where to Continuum split and put well so they can heal your squad sub-party and yourself and give everyone their benefits in a squad of 50 people mid fighting another squad of 50 people. Even if you place them predictively, there's no telling if in a split second your commander will decide to move in another direction in response to whatever the enemy squad is doing. > > > Doesn't work anymore now does it? No other profession has to deal with that. > > > > > > Now, Anet is balancing the skills and traits per game mode now, as they should, and i agree, having front loaded effects on wells would lower the skill floor and ceilling considerably in PvE. But in WvW? It would just make them *work*. But in PvE, they're fine. > > > > > > Maybe in WvW if they replace Continuum split with Distortion, or just add distortion it would be better. In WvW you mostly use Continuum split to get an extra cast of 1 thing because you'll never have enough clones to shatter, they die instantly, so you can never use Continuum split's entire duration. In addition to that. Moving to a previous location with Continuum Split is undesirable because you need to stay on tag, that's where all the heals, clenses and boons are. If you even use CS fully powered, you get off tag and you'll probably die. > > > > PvE, sPvP, small-scale WvW even. Large-scale WvW was acknowledged a long time ago as being such an extreme mode that they'd probably never really be able to fully balance it, just hit the things that were serious problems. > > Well they already have the tools available, i mean, they can set each skill to behave differently per game mode. They just need to put in the work. :smile: They only change the numbers, not the base functionality, though. They're not going to make a skill front-loaded in WvW and back-loaded in other modes. I think there's a degree to which chronomancer wells just aren't really designed for supporting zergs.

It's not up to us to prove you're wrong. You're the one who wants to completely overhaul the balance of the game, it's up to you to prove that your reasoning is justified. The promise right at the start of GW2 is that every profession had the capability to fulfill every role, they just did so _differently._ That's been watered down a bit as time goes on, since there are some profession/role combinations that have yet to be covered, but that was the general promise. I'd also note that having strict roles for professions would get _really_ awkward in the open world. I really wouldn't want to be stuck trying to play something like a GW1 Monk in any GW2 solo content without a party to heal. (Heck, even in GW1, playing a monk with a hench/hero party is a bit awkward, however fun it could be playing a monk in a party of real players). > @"Yasai.3549" said: > I agree but, only for Elite Specs. > > I would like all Professions to be able to explore all aspects, yes, but what I do not want is some Professions which can double down on multiple aspects with a single build. > > What I'm talking about are things like Firebrand, which can not only output decent damage, but can apply offensive boons as well as provide some durability to their allies. > When this sort of build becomes available, all metas will be dominated by that single profession due to how efficient it is at filling multiple roles, and be the best at filling those said roles. > > Simply put : For Core, all Professions should be able to "do it all" to some small extent. (We already have this, but some Profession could use more brushing up) > But when it comes to Elite Specializations which "mold" and "define" a certain playstyle, Elite Specs should **ABSOLUTELY NOT** be able to "do it all" You DO realise those are different builds, right? Healbrands aren't exactly known for their damage output. Quickbrands are a compromise, and give up about 13% of their damage output compared to pure DPS condition firebrands - and they're far from being the top benchmark in DPS in the game even considering Ashes of the Just on allies. Outside of having the healbrand build, firebrand is similar to berserker - you can provide quickness and have about the same DPS as a bannerslave, or if that's covered, you can go pure DPS and have about the same damage (slightly less, in fact) as a pure DPS berserker.

> @"EdwinLi.1284" said: > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > @"ugrakarma.9416" said: > > > i try imagine that explosive power of most 'advanced' stuff on tyria are still not enough. > > > Also theres lot of magical implicit stuff too, to this could explain tecnologically less advanced enemies still be resistant to weapons. > > > > > > something I find consistent in the lore is a matter of energy, the bigger weapons seem to require a lot of energy, and the Tyrians apparently have not developed very efficient energy techniques yet. So basically whenever there are "big cannons" there is an event where players need to get them to work. > > > > That's pretty much my thinking. If you look at some of the technology floating around Tyria, armoured warriors charging into melee should have been obsolete decades ago, and probably would be if steel armour was what they had... but based on the requisitions, it's typical for frontline Pact troops (for example) to have mithril armour and weapons. That's probably a high enough grade of armour to remain relevant in the face of even postindustrial technology. It also helps that even relatively mundane warriors can cross distances pretty quickly in the _Guild Wars_ universe. > > > > Magic is also a significant equaliser. Guns become less of an advantage if your enemy is able to toss fireballs, after all. It's actually a concept I've come across in the _Heroes of Battle_ supplement for D&D: once you get into sufficiently high fantasy, modern combat tactics start making more sense than medieval approaches to battle because fighting in large formations is just asking to be blown up by a fireball or some other AoE effect. It's just that magic and fantastical warbeasts take the place of technological weapons and vehicles. Charr use actual technology to compensate for being relatively weak in the magic field (even after reabsorbing the Flame Legion, the Flame Legion's magic has become a little overly specialised...), but consider that human armies in Tyria are likely to have a wide range of spellcasters and may also have some sort of construct or war beast such as Watchknights or Jade Constructs. > > > > WvW battles, interestingly, tend to revert back into formation fighting (or at least clumping), but that's to take advantage of boons, healing, and protective effects that can offset the increased damage from clumping, which is a factor that doesn't really exist in real-world modern warfare. > > don't forget how they utilize their technology and magic in forms of protection. > > In case of projectile protection, Magic and certain technology can create protection to make them immune to projectile attacks thus forcing them into melee to bypass those protections. It will be pointless to unload a entire magazine of a gun if a person is immune to it due to the protection created by magic or technology. > > Not to mention implimentation of cybernetics or exo-enhancement gears that can be created such as how Engineers can modify themselves with their tech to better perform on the battlefield. Magic itself can also provide the same effects which makes gap closing more easily done than someone who can only run in normal human speed. This adds on to the difficulty of attacking from range since if a person with enhanced speed rush a person before they can even point their gun at them, then they may not make it in time and get sliced. > > Teleportation magic is also a huge game changer since it allows people to appear anywhere for even proper ambush. > > Illusion magic can make people waste ammunition or overheat any tech weapons on decoys thus leaving them vulnerable if they don't have a form of melee combat method. Illusion magic is advanced enough that it can even trick technology sometimes if the caster is very skilled. > > If anything out of how technology and strategies advance in GW world, it is a combination of Magic and Technology due to how both sides have means to counter each other to a point both magic and technology remain equally relevant. This leads to dependency on melee weapons still due to the counters towards range weapons that force people into depending on melee weapons. > > Not to mention the resources they have to create metals that are far stronger than the stuff we can create in our world. Yeah, I was meaning to comment on a lot of that, but it was already pretty late local and it slipped my mind (apart from the WvW reference, where I was definitely thinking of things like projectile-blocking when I said "protective effects"). It's an area where Tyrian capabilities actually outstrip real-world militaries, who's only defence against projectiles is generally taking cover or shooting them down, and not everything can be shot down. Being able to throw up things like reflect bubbles is going to really change the calculus there. You can see it in science fiction settings that have some sort of shielding technology pushing melee combat back to the forefront (the slow knife penetrates the shield...) And yeah, improved materials is _big._ I don't think every soldier is going to have what the Commander has, but basic mithril armour is about a silver a piece. Now, MMO economics are a bit weird, but it does seem plausible that a Tyrian army would be able to make about as much use of mithril armour as a medieval army could make use of iron or low-grade steel armour. A conservative estimate of mithril is that it's similar to titanium, but ingame it's treated as being as big a step above steel as steel is from bronze. For all we have modern materials today, I don't think there _is_ anything that represents such a big step up - there are still a lot of applications where steel is considered the best material. Not the most economic material that will do the job - the _best._ The various other materials that we've come up with are certainly superior in many applications, but they also have downsides compared to steel that mean that there are cases where high-grade steel is still the best material we have for the job. This combination presents a scenario where, similar to medieval times before the introduction of gunpowder weapons, armour generally beats most weapons, allowing melee soldiers to get in close. It probably also helps that melee weapons also benefit from the improved materials technology. Granted, you could also make a gun out of mithril, but making a gun out of mithril _probably_ doesn't improve it as much as doing so with armour or a melee weapon.

> @"ugrakarma.9416" said: > i try imagine that explosive power of most 'advanced' stuff on tyria are still not enough. > Also theres lot of magical implicit stuff too, to this could explain tecnologically less advanced enemies still be resistant to weapons. > > something I find consistent in the lore is a matter of energy, the bigger weapons seem to require a lot of energy, and the Tyrians apparently have not developed very efficient energy techniques yet. So basically whenever there are "big cannons" there is an event where players need to get them to work. That's pretty much my thinking. If you look at some of the technology floating around Tyria, armoured warriors charging into melee should have been obsolete decades ago, and probably would be if steel armour was what they had... but based on the requisitions, it's typical for frontline Pact troops (for example) to have mithril armour and weapons. That's probably a high enough grade of armour to remain relevant in the face of even postindustrial technology. It also helps that even relatively mundane warriors can cross distances pretty quickly in the _Guild Wars_ universe. Magic is also a significant equaliser. Guns become less of an advantage if your enemy is able to toss fireballs, after all. It's actually a concept I've come across in the _Heroes of Battle_ supplement for D&D: once you get into sufficiently high fantasy, modern combat tactics start making more sense than medieval approaches to battle because fighting in large formations is just asking to be blown up by a fireball or some other AoE effect. It's just that magic and fantastical warbeasts take the place of technological weapons and vehicles. Charr use actual technology to compensate for being relatively weak in the magic field (even after reabsorbing the Flame Legion, the Flame Legion's magic has become a little overly specialised...), but consider that human armies in Tyria are likely to have a wide range of spellcasters and may also have some sort of construct or war beast such as Watchknights or Jade Constructs. WvW battles, interestingly, tend to revert back into formation fighting (or at least clumping), but that's to take advantage of boons, healing, and protective effects that can offset the increased damage from clumping, which is a factor that doesn't really exist in real-world modern warfare.

> @"ugrakarma.9416" said: > > @"The Subterfuge Of Dwayna.8320" said: > > What do we know about Queen Jennah's POV on the situation in the Farrar ? > > What is her stance on what is happening in the Lands where Charrs seem to be at war with themselves ? > > Bringing Peace to the Charrs could represent a threat to Divinity's Reach ? > > Any thought is appreciated > > The Seraphs are there, > > There is an episode, I don't remember which one, that Lady Kasmeer explains that the Seraphs were sent there, as a retribution for the help that the Legions gave to the Queen at Lake Doric. > > So basically the Queen stance is clear: se have interesting in charr end the conflict. basically the same argument Legions used to help her in Lake Doric. It's in the very first instance, where Ryland is there for a negotiation, Logan and Kasmeer portal in, and Ryland walks out.

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > The worst part is that we lost Nourishing Roots for more orb traits, meaning that heal revs can't apply regen without speccing into herald and camping facet of light. Well, that or we sacrifice assassin's presence. > > A lot of people knock it, but that regen was really useful. It let the tablet skills "stick" to a player for a bit, compensating for the cumbersome use and narrow range of the tablet. It's useful for all of those times when your teammates have to use stick-and-move strategies, or if they're running around panicked, or if they're tanking arrow carts to operate siege. Yeah, I raised a pretty big mental eyebrow when they removed that.

> @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > @"draxynnic.3719" said: > > > > > @"Veprovina.4876" said: > > > > > Healing well too, removes a condition on the 3rd pulse. > > > > > > > > That's not how Well of Eternity works. The caster gets a heal initially when they cast the well, then each pulse removes a condition from allies in the area, and when it ends it provides an area heal. Which can still be a little clunky, but I think part of the idea behind wells is to benefit from Continuum Split ending before the well does. > > > > > > Ah so it removes conditions with each pulse? That's nice. I didn't notice it working like that in WvW much, but it's cool if it's like that. Still, i think the big area heal that's at the end should happen first, then the rest. Kind of reverse. And with All's Well that ends well trait, the heling should happen at the beginning. > > > We'll see what Anet has in store for mesmers though so... > > > > I think there's two elements in play here: > > > > First, as I mentioned, it's intended to work with Continuum Split. Put a well or two on top of where you're going to return to, end the split before the wells finish, and you get those back-loaded benefits almost for free, and can recast those wells to get them _again_ afterwards. If you front-load the effects, they go away when you end Continuum Split. > > > > Second, the general principle with the chronomancer is that it's _supposed_ to be able to survive for a few seconds before the well goes off. Losing Distortion certainly hurts in this respect, but there's still shield, Well of Precognition, CC, and blocks on core mesmer available to helps survive for a few seconds before the well completes. > > > > It's certainly true that making the wells more front-loaded would lower their skill floor, but it might lower their skill ceiling as well by removing their synergy with Continuum Split. > > That's a good argument for why wells work this way, but i think you're considering it more from a PvE perspective. > Which is fine, nothing wrong about that, but Anet made more modes than just PvE, and whatever they design has to work in all of them. > > Now you try predicting where to Continuum split and put well so they can heal your squad sub-party and yourself and give everyone their benefits in a squad of 50 people mid fighting another squad of 50 people. Even if you place them predictively, there's no telling if in a split second your commander will decide to move in another direction in response to whatever the enemy squad is doing. > Doesn't work anymore now does it? No other profession has to deal with that. > > Now, Anet is balancing the skills and traits per game mode now, as they should, and i agree, having front loaded effects on wells would lower the skill floor and ceilling considerably in PvE. But in WvW? It would just make them *work*. But in PvE, they're fine. > > Maybe in WvW if they replace Continuum split with Distortion, or just add distortion it would be better. In WvW you mostly use Continuum split to get an extra cast of 1 thing because you'll never have enough clones to shatter, they die instantly, so you can never use Continuum split's entire duration. In addition to that. Moving to a previous location with Continuum Split is undesirable because you need to stay on tag, that's where all the heals, clenses and boons are. If you even use CS fully powered, you get off tag and you'll probably die. PvE, sPvP, small-scale WvW even. Large-scale WvW was acknowledged a long time ago as being such an extreme mode that they'd probably never really be able to fully balance it, just hit the things that were serious problems.