otto.5684

The direction balance seems to be going to is not to create unique support that becomes a must use going forward. Neither FB or any of the new elites fit into that the way chrono and druid do. FB does provide some support though quickness and condi support, while being a full dps elite.

> @Buran.3796 said:

> > @otto.5684 said:

> > Condi Rev is pretty good. Power, not so much.

>

>

> Look at the tournaments, is the other way around.

>

We already know that in competitive scene power rev is used more often due to AOE CC and boon dump. If you are playing with an organized team competing in a tournament, sure go power, assuming you enjoy being boon bot and AOE CC bot.

Every where else PvP wise condi rev is much better. TBH, even in PvE.

That is lame. The down vote was a good option to shoot down silly, wrong and/or false posts. It was also good to down vote devs bad posts/ideas. The new mats not being bank deposit-able post was down voted close to 100 times, and rightfully so. It seems this function was removed primarily for that reason versus anything else..

> @runeblade.7514 said:

> If there is any way to improve fashion wars 2, I am all for it.

If armor becomes purely cosmetic that will be awesome. I used to play SWTOR and they had the same light/medium/heavy concept, then they made all armor cosmetic and the armor value is based on your class. A warrior in light armor looks strange? Sure, but if that is how I like my warrior to look, I do not see that being a problem. And from functionality you get the heavy armor value regardless of the type of armor you are wearing. Mix and matching armors from different categories looks hideous? Maybe "hideous was the style I was going for.

I do not see any drawbacks as long as the armor values becomes tied to the class versus the armor, and the armor becomes purely cosmetic.

> @Buran.3796 said:

> > @Kodiak.3281 said:

>

> > I guess we can't really complain, we did ask very loudly for a ranged condi weapon.

>

> I disagree. We did ask for a ranged condi weapon, and ANet didn't bring us a ranged condi weapon.

>

> Beacuse using the bow will be a net loss in terms of damage compared to the mace, with also a lot less utility or defense (both axe and off hand sword do provide cc and either a block or a condi spike). So they gave us a weapon with no use. Did we ask loudly a weapon with no use? I don't think so.

To be fair, you would not expect a ranged condi weapon to out dps a melee one. The issue though is SB does not have any evades, mobility or a root. It is the only Rev weapon set (5 slots) with no block or evade. I think it is the only ranged weapon in the game without root, block or evade, beside DH LB.

The hope was it would be a functional PvP weapon, especially that taking Renegade gives up shield.

Condi Rev is pretty good. Power, not so much. Condi plays like necro but with more support to it. Power kinda like a thief but without escapes and condi cleanse. Though has multiple AOE CCs, which is the only reason it is still occasionally played in sPvP.

> @RUNICBLACK.7630 said:

> With regard to Aegis as a block, I have question has anybody seriously tested it against attacks that do multiple hits like Rangers Longbow attack Rapid Fire to test if it blocks all of the hits from the Rapid Fire or if it only blocks the first unlike the normal block which would stop every hit during its duration. The way it is written and described it seems to only block the first hit but I've never actually tested it . The original Aegis from GW1 would be way to powerful because during it's duration all attacks have a 50% chance being blocked.

Aegis only blocks the first hit.

This is... not news (or Guardian exclusive). Open world PvE your better off with a bit more HP. Everything else PvE is about damage maximization.

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" said:

> With the arrival of Path of Fire, many new materials and components will be added to Material Storage. But for a handful of items, we've specifically decided not to start with them in Material Storage, and instead to add them to the storage system later. Why? Well, at the launch of Heart of Thorns, we noticed a peculiar behavior: most players will deposit first when clearing their inventory, and then proceed to take actions like salvaging, opening chests, or, crucially, putting items on the Trading Post. This tended to mean that before a player will post an item on the Trading Post, they'll wait to accrue a full stack in their Material Storage. During the early period of Heart of Thorns, this significantly contributed to the early expense of flax, which was abundantly available but, for the most part, was "warehoused" in the banks of players.

>

> In an experiment to see if we can combat the early steep price of a handful of materials, we will launch Path of Fire without those items being depositable. Once we are comfortable with the supply and price—which we believe should become apparent in weeks, not months—we will add them to material storage.

>

> We know how important inventory space is to players, and we take seriously how much of your time is spent playing versus managing your play. Hopefully, this decision will help ensure a steady supply of materials to the market, without unduly burdening your bags.

>

This is one of these situations where the devs creating an inconvenience to entire player base trying to make changes in the economy for something that will be fix itself in under a month through supply and demand. Why would you make such a dumb decision is beyond me.

On the plus side you can down vote dev posts. How nice B)

> @rogerwilko.6895 said:

> I won't be at max level when PoF lands, I barely started and I don't have much time to play.

> For now, leveling is slow and tedious.

> If the mount is only in PoF I guess I will make use of everything else: food, Retreat, Symbol of swiftness and one I get to 60 I'll get the runes of the traveler (I'll switch armors every... 5 levels? not sure if it's worth the money).

The mounts are NOT PoF only. It is every where PvE wise. Core, HoT or PoF. Just like gliding works.

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> > @Zenith.7301 said:

> > It seems like they only care to give actual DPS traits and utilities to thieves, warriors, and guardians only.

> >

> > It's laughable how Guardian traps are necromancer wells on steroids with almost half the cooldown and they provide boons instead.

> >

> > Thief staff auto does more DPS than 100 blades or blurred frenzy, and many times more than our sword auto. And to top it off, thief staff auto also has a reflect component.

> >

> > Warrior gets to sit on a spec that does 30k DPS while also contributing a raid DPS of about 15k per subgroup a PS warrior is in.

> >

> > But the best mesmer DPS spec (core mesmer power) can't even aoe, has significant ramp up, and doesn't even break 30k DPS.

> >

> > They seem hellbent on keeping mesmer, power ranger, and power necro in the DPS gutter. They nerfed condi ranger into irrelevance and condi necro is mediocre despite providing little group utility.

>

> This stems, at least partly, from our contradictory class mechanic. They can't buff our personal DPS too much, otherwise it could be OP when we can have 3 phantasms up for prolonged periods of time (made even worse now with PF). Likewise, they can't solely rely on phantasms (even though they seem kitten bent on trying) due to significant ramp up time and the single target mechanic.

>

> Until they go back and fix core mesmer mechanic problems, I doubt we will ever see a cohesive DPS spec that is both flexible in different situations and also not completely broken in some way.

Sad, but true.

I started GW2 as Mesmer main, few month before HoT release. While chrono is strong, I greatly disliked because of its over reliance on shatter.

In Mirage in particular it seemed as a poorly designed concept. You use illusions to "hide," yet shatter them to dodge. You cannot even maintain phantasms with shatter, like chrono does. Will see how it works

If things do not change from demo, it probably will not be ideal for anything beside open world PvE. I am hoping it becomes viable dps option for Mesmer that does not rely solely on shatter, since that never works in PvE.

The topic of barrier for guardian is getting thrown out much lately. It sounds cool, but it is counter design to how guardian survivability works. Guardian relies on blocks, blindness and protection (plus cleanising against conditions). While protection does not work against barrier, blocks and blindness surely do.

A blocked attack does no damage, thus the barrier is likely to deginerate before you even get to use it. If sustainability is an issue why not just add more blocks instead of two systems that work against each other?

If I judge hot based on the entire content released so far:

Story B-.The story was not great but the presentation is good.

Game play A-. I like the game. I generally liked all the new maps except tangled depth and season 3 episode 5 map. Exploration is good. Mostly good mob designs. Gliding is surely great.

I liked most of the elite disciplines and the continued class balance changes. sPvP is as imbalanced as ever, but that will never change due to core designs that cannot be specifically ultered without redesigning the game from scratch.

Graphics and art design A-. The game looks good. It surely is one of the better looking MMOs. I like the art design.

Communication C-. I wouldn't call it a fail, but it is mostly one sided. MMOs require more open dialogue between the player base and the developers.

Content pace A. We are getting decent content quarterly. Most AAA games out there would charge $10 for the quarterly content. In my opinion the quality and quantity of content delivered since HoT release through today is more than worth the money spent.

Overall I would give HoT A-. It is not without flaws, but it expanded the core game significantly and had good chunk of high quality content. If player feedback and communication were better I would surely give it an A.

This a bit complicated.

SB was disappointing. It does not deal much damage. It was sluggish and with no survivablity tools. The only role it currently fills is attacking mobs in PvE where you must be at range.

If we switch to axe/mace things work out pretty well. It surely is an upgrade to condi damage, particularly in a raid environment. Though this is pretty much the same game play we currently have on live. So nothing new here... look at other elites and how they offer vastly different game plays from core and hot elites.

As for sPvP, renegade offers no tools to deal with condi, aside from grand master utility that reduce their damage. No blocks or evades. CC break on heal. No mobility tools. This makes it the worst legend to use in sPvP.

My biggest concern is that renegade fails to provide new forms of game play. It feels more of the same for condi build with a damage upgrade that works only in PvE environment. This problem extends way beyond energy or damage tuning.

PvE wise I do not see much point of the support. Dishing quickness is not unique to be worth taking FB as support. It will surely be condi dps so viper is ideal. Rune Balthazar. Sigils smodlering and probably malice. The bleeds are to weak to consider the duration.

PvP wise I do not see any dps builds possible using FB. Support will be it and probably using meanders.

> @rogerwilko.6895 said:

> Is there any 'easy' way for permanent swiftness?

> When I say PvE I mean world exploration, dungeons and not-high Fractals.

> Thanks.

I use retreat on all open world PvE builds. It is close to 100% swiftness. It is also much more flexible than using traveler runes since you can switch it out anytime. Traveler runes are major dps loss. Also, if I understand how mounts work correctly, there would be no needs for swiftness at all going forward in open world PvE. Once you killed the mobs just pop out the mount.

> @rogerwilko.6895 said:

> Is there any 'easy' way for permanent swiftness?

> When I say PvE I mean world exploration, dungeons and not-high Fractals.

> Thanks.

I use retreat on all open world PvE builds. It is close to 100% swiftness. It is also much more flexible than using traveler runes since you can switch it out anytime. Traveler runes are major dps loss.

> @cat.8975 said:

> We usually run 1 DH and 1 core guard, as the DPS on core guard is stronger when you aren't getting buffs from outside sources.

Only if you can maintain 100% up-time on Aegis, which is difficult.

TBH, it would be nice if SoJ cast is changed back to 0.25 sec, PvE only. Other than that DH needs not buffs at all.

Honestly, the main thing I wish they due is port VoJ damage from sPvP to PvE. That will help core guardian builds significantly.

In addition, not a QoL, but I think VoC base CD should be reduced from 45 to 35 secs. It is one stack of Aegis and 4 sec protection.. The new heal mantra alone can dump 3 aegis in a row and go on 30 sec CD or 1 every 9.5 seconds (traited). I do not see any reason at all VoC should have 45 sec CD..

I tried power build in the demo using Zeal/radiance/FB and it works well in open world. It might even be competitive with DH due to abundance of quickness. It surely cannot compete with DH though in raid/fractal environment.

Unless there are some major changes, power FB builds will not likely to function in sPvP.