Draygorn.7012

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said:

> > @"Draygorn.7012" said:

> > Thanks for your responses. I've tried it out on a power build and its damage potential pales a lot compared to focus and sword. But you guys are right about the #5 stun. It's a really quick animation with a 2.5 second stun. Really nice in pvp for shutting down other players with little time for them to react. Surprisingly effective :D

>

> stun duration got nerfed to 2s in pvp

Oh right. Only read the pve tooltip. Still, 2 seconds is pretty nice

Thanks for your responses. I've tried it out on a power build and its damage potential pales a lot compared to focus and sword. But you guys are right about the #5 stun. It's a really quick animation with a 2.5 second stun. Really nice in pvp for shutting down other players with little time for them to react. Surprisingly effective :D

I've always been fond of the pistol as an OH weapon. The animations and sounds are nice. But it seems like it just doesn't keep up with other OH weapons at all. For power dps, sword and focus seem to be much better, and condi mostly uses torch. I think the only place I've seen it used on the occasion is spvp for a quick stun.

But perhaps I've not done enough exploring with the weapon. In which scenarios is pistol preferred over the other OHs?

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > @"Draygorn.7012" said:

> >

> > True. They really should have explained the motive behind removing 50 endurance from a spec. Especially one that uses dodge as a part of their offensive rotation.

>

> The line of thought has probably been the same they had when giving scrapper a vitality penalty. Scrapper is supposed to be a tanky elite spec, yet scrapper's have less maximum health than any other engineer spec.

>

> Why? Because the engineer gets access to the damage-barrier conversion. Scrapper might have less maximum hp, but in the end they are still tankier than other engineer specs as long as they keep damaging enemies.

>

> Now to look at mirage: yes, mirage relies on dodges for their new ambush mechanic. Their line of thought might potentially have been that mirages actually have ways to generate more "dodges" than other mesmer specs by utilising the mirror mechanic. Thing is that mirrors simply are not used, tho. In my opinion, creating mirrors should have been a thematical focal point for the entire profession with ways to generate them baked into their class mechanic in some way. As far as I can tell, a mirror is even used as the elite spec symbol to represent mirages.

>

> If they work on mirrors that people might actually use them, then this nerf might make more sense for people.

>

>

Yeah I understand the mirror mechanic, but the reason they're not used much is the same sort of reason people don't like the healing orbs on rev staff. In order to utilize the mechanic, you have to sacrifice your movement patterns to collect the darn things :P When faced up against other players, your movements need to be erratic for several reasons. If you need to keep running to that mirror you just spawned, the other player can easily predict your movement and set up bursts on you easier. On paper, this may seem like a nice way to keep mirage's other forms of unpredictability (stealth, clones, target break) in check and give the opponent a fair way to gain an opening. But in a game like GW2, that sort of mechanic doesn't feel good and is more punishing than one might think. But I agree if they make the mirrors function better to justify -50 endurance, then by all means.

> @"scerevisiae.1972" said:

> > @"Draygorn.7012" said:

> > weird gimmicks to keep up

>

> even berserker + double greatsword, double energy sigil and energy regen food still does not get mirage into the top 10 for WVW squad dmg with a reasonable level of regularity.

>

> and that's before you consider added utility like group barrier from scourge, dwarf and boons from revenant, superspeed from scrappers.

>

> also, good luck avoiding dmg with 1 dodge when dodging is also your key dmg move.

>

> but... i didn't need 2 weeks of playtesting to know 1 dodge mirage was going to be weak - it was weak in WVW with 2 dodges!

>

> i wish anet would swallow its ego a bit and provide a video or written baancing update on why they make some of the balance decisions they make, preferably with gameplay stats, cause balance decisions like this really just make them look _bad_.

>

True. They really should have explained the motive behind removing 50 endurance from a spec. Especially one that uses dodge as a part of their offensive rotation.

It seems the general pattern of nerfing has sunk into a concerning state. I've seen band aid nerfs to thief and Rev skills is just increase the resource cost instead of altering the stats of the skills themselves, which is an egregious way of applying balance. Now they have limited mirage to a single dodge in competitive modes to prevent overperforming. Whether mirage was overperforming or not is not the point. It's the fact that these patches are ruining the flow of combat by heavily restricting the recourse mechanics tied to some of the classes, making them feel clunky and unintuitive. At this point, we have to dig up some weird gimmicks to keep up.

SB is pretty useful in open world and some raids. Not too bad in fractals, though people are more fond of power builds there, so swords will probably be better. My experience of using SB in WvW is that it's actually okay in team fights. I've had some luck in small scale with well timed scorchrazor and spiritcrush. Don't bother using the other skills though lol. I haven't done pvp in a long time, but it seems to not do very well there.

If you're not against going condi, I've seen double daggers doing pretty well in raids. Power daggers is also not bad, but unfortunately don't compare to staff.

Depends. If you prefer ranged with good access to stealth and strong single target damage, then go Deadeye. If you prefer melee with many evades and strong AoE damage (as far as thieves go), go daredevil. I haven't tried core in a long time, but I believe they can do really good burst damage.

7 ini cost is pretty much the same as deleting the skill haha.. Seriously just nerf the skill if it's overperferming, don't blow up the cost and ruin the synergy. If the daze was too accessible in pvp, then revert it to apply after a number of stacks like OP suggested.

Enhancement Shaman from Wow. Not a fan of the game anymore, but I've always loved this class. The way it combines elemental magic into melee attacks. The mechanic that allows you to Insta cast certain abilities after delivering some melee attacks, which gives off a real mage-warrior feel. You could argue that weaver gives off a simular vibe, but there's just no comparing to the primal, elemental warrior that is the enhancement shaman.

Since the nerf, Impacting Disruption has pretty much lost its viability in all game modes. My suggestion is that it could be reworked into something more condi orientated. Perhaps something like 'apply a stack of bleed when you apply cripple on an opponent'. It seems condi thieves don't deal good dps in comparison to other professions these days, so this could help out?

I think there's a trait in the Corruption traitline that causes you to self-inflict torment when using an upkeep skill (Haven't properly checked yet) It was a part of a recent update. That might be your issue?

The skill hits hard enough. Besides, you can use steal and shadowsteps while it's in use. Though I hate the fact that it roots you. It would be nice to remove the root and balance it accordingly. Though probably not possible as the root is tied to the animation

> @"The Greyhawk.9107" said:

> No, because Jormag is actually made of Dry Ice, and would only evaporate rather than become a liquid.

Then we will have to face the deadly elder dragon of gas!

You'd think they'd at least fix the audio issue...

Well now there's a reason to use speed boosting signets again :P

A core ranged condi weapon for the non renegades would be a good addition. Perhaps it can offer some good defensive abilities whilst throwing some condis in the mix.

But more so, a bunch of our current weapons need fixing/polishing, such as hammer. It's in a really bad place right now.

So... One question.. Why hasn't Anet hired you already?! :P Seriously beautiful work here! It would be amazing to have something like this in the game. Great stuff man. Keep it up ^^

> @"aspirine.6852" said:

> > @"Draygorn.7012" said:

> > There's no free item. It's a visual bug. Anet's trying to fix it.

>

> I hope they at least give away a free key for the misunderstanding :)

You and me both :P

There's no free item. It's a visual bug. Anet's trying to fix it.

I like the idea of being able to choose your character screen (between the original or one of the xpac ones). It shouldn't be hard to implement, I don't think? The PoF one kinda makes my characters look yellow with the ambient light, making me doubt my dyes. :P I'd love to use the original character screen and get all those nostalgic vibes again

Warrior - Dual wield Greatswords.

Revenant - Greatsword.

Engineer - Greatsword.

Thief - Greatsword.

Elementalist - Greatsword.

Ranger - Bow enhancement that allows you to shoot Greatswords instead of arrows.

Necromancer - Minions gain the ability to fart out Greatswords at enemies.

Did I mention Greatswords??

It's a good idea and will definitely help more noobish players (like myself) get into the swing of raids in a less daunting manner. I think a lot of us do want to try our hand at raiding, but have been a little intimidated to try it because of the large leap in difficultly, which may also be part of the reason why the raiding player base is so minimal. I know Anet has implemented Strike Missions as pseudo easier raids, but doesn't really bridge the gap well enough. Also, harder difficulty for raids will help the veterans to not get bored of the content as much :P

> @"Elric.4713" said:

> Nice bait name, but we want Ritualist.

But... Ritualist WITH greatsword? Huh?! Won't make much sense, but just let it happen. :3