Oxstar.7643

Yeah, that is a thing with engineer, you can crank out some pretty good damage, but you need to know what you are doing. Holosmith in particular, because you can kill yourself with overheating. And before someone says "every class is about knowing what you are doing", yes, but most classes do not have potentially 6 weapons to juggle.

When there is no world ending enemy to unite us... all bets are off. Maybe the charr civll war was just the start.

> @"voltaicbore.8012" said: > > @"Oxstar.7643" said: > > Sorry for double post, these forums really need an edit button. > > We do have an edit button, after you make your post look in the upper right for the gear icon. Click it, and the only option that appears is 'Edit'. > > I'm with @"Grand Marshal.4098" on the about-face we've seen with Elder Dragons. > > It's not that it's necessarily a bad idea to have multi-dimensional villains, or find out that they're not really villains at all. It's just that this "hey dragons aren't what we thought" has been executed quite poorly (by my narrative standards, at least) and Aurene has been thrust into the center of that shoddy execution. > > We have living, currently active characters (Destiny's Edge) who communicated directly with Glint. We have all 3 orders with varying approaches and exposures to the different dragons. There's an entire hidden city's worth of exalted whose existence is predicated on caring for Aurene, having inherited the task of the Forgotten (another group with quite intimate ties with dragons). > > There were so many opportunities to better build up to "hey dragons aren't what we thought" moment, but instead we just get off-screen Taimi talking in our earpieces about her deus ex reasearch revealing the fundamental role dragons play in Tyrian ecology, and a dragon baby that likes us because it came from one of the 'good' dragons and you played catch with it a few times. I guess our peek into the All, courtesy of Omadd's Machine, possibly revealed some of this, but likely only in retrospect and not in a way interpretable to the typical player running through the story for the first time. It just feels very artless. > > > Oh trust me, they did NOT take advantage of all the story could be. For instance, Eir has nothing new to say if you are a Norn when she appears from the mists, Snaff has nothing to say if you are an asura, Snaff btw, Caithe should have appeared at that point of the story instead of later, same for Rytlock so we could see how they handle a sudden reunion, Zojja is in cold storage despite that would have been a great time to bring her back out, Garm appears for like a short time, and has no part in the spirits of the wild section despite being the companion of the greatest norn hunter who were favored by the great spirits. iirc, the reason season 4 ended so openingly was because they were undecided about a new season supposedly because of insufficient interest. It's not the debate of if they could have done more. It's about people saying "Aurene bad, remove" without realizing that at this point you can't just remove her, due to how the story have developed.

Because skill trumps gear in this game and we don't need MORE powercreep to grind towards.

As for the heal thing, dragon magic is not really explained. I can only assume it becomes the power fitted to the dragon itself. Aurene it the daughter of Glint, who valued mortals and sought to help them, not enslave or consume them. Basically, the ideal formed the aspect. Aurene's aspect being that of chiefly healing is likely due to whatever Glint gave her when they had their exchange that we were not privy to. If the question is what the specifics to the process of forming light and the associated aspect of healing is, then we could ask the same for every ED, bloodstones, gods, and so on and so forth.

Yes, she is unique. Unique because she was raised by mortals with mortal values, and grown on that bond, and the shared experiences. You can't really lump her in with other ED's because frankly, she is one of a kind so far. Also, iirc the magic dragons consume goes back in a cycle. I'm fairly certain Aurene would not take more than she can give back. Didn't Gorr say at one point in the Asura storyline that the problem with Zhaitan was that he consumed magic at an unstable rate due to simple hunger? You would expect en entity with that much power and influence to do such a thing if all they know is survival. Aurene is raised with mortal values, which makes her uniquely fitted to ushed into a new age where elder dragons maintain balance, which seems to be her goal - maintain the world and mend it when need be. The very fact that a new ED rose proves that elder dragons can come and go, also, Joko kind of confirmed this. The most obvious chain of events seem to be that every other ED will eventually be vanquished or pacified and Aurene leads a new cycle for her kind. Too bad you don't like the character, but it is what it is.

Get mounts before you hp farm, solid. It makes it MUCH easier. And no, not skyscale - skyscale is behind an epically bloated achivement chain that would tire out ven youngsters. Just springer and gliding with masteries makes it possible to reach any hp if you jump and glide smartly, and it's more exciting than flying up to them.

Okay, but being able to see cooldowns off-weapon is not minor. It's a very big deal for ease of use and getting the most out of your damage.

I've played engineer since closed beta. I've watched it change and my conclusion is always the same - you need to really be good at stance dancing to get the most out of it. Not even elementalist have to do this because they have a cooldown on their element swaps and as such have to get their rotation out before changing elements. Engineers swap kits to use one or two skills then switch to something else. And back again. However - I am not sure it can compete with say warrior and revenant even in the best of hands. What makes me want to play it is because it's a very stimulating class because you have to constantly rotate and swap your weapons depending on the situation, and the better you are the more rewarded you are, and vice verse. It feels damn satisfying to make a whole group face plant with holo forge 5 and then send them careening with a big ol' bomb and then murder them piece meal with condis. If there is anything I feel this class lacks it's answer to range. Turret shields sacrifices too much output and shield loses you massive condi due to no blowtorch and the anti-range is too long of a cooldown. Also, they severly need to improve turrets because what we have now is awful. They could copy TF2 and allow us to smack turrets with wrench to upgrade it. I'm hoping EoD gives a turret focused elite specc. Anyways, core engie is not really an argument now because my experience is that elite speccs is a direct upgrade and not having them makes every class less.

A long time ago hero points wasn't a thing. You got your skillpoints to unlock everything by leveling. When they added hero points I actually spoke out that they semi-forced players to explore their world to get the full potential of their characters strength. I argued that if the world is interesting then players will explore it regardless, without being pushed into it. Then, when I did path of fire and could not progress because I didn't have raptor masteries I was angry that I had to go exploring to progress the story. Both this and what you said is still a prevalent practice. I don't enjoy gating content or pushing players to explore and do achivements. And then it turns out the skyscale is locked behind an incredibly bloated chain of achivements. ANet, not everyone likes to achivement hunt.

I just don't get why ANet is so obstinate about this. Their UI is not perfect. It can be improved in many ways. Seeing the cooldowns of all your skills seems so basic that it's just weird that they won't implement it. And then they disallow that people do it themselves. Maybe work with the fans.

> @"Grand Marshal.4098" said: > > @"Oxstar.7643" said: > > > @"Grand Marshal.4098" said: > > > > > > > > They tried to do that with Kralk and it was successful for the most part, but instead of finishing everything in Thunderhead Keep with a twist which we would overcome nonetheless, we needed unnecessary bonding with Kralkatorrik. Who should be caring for himself. Who we have been fighting (his forces) for years, the vigil exist cause of his destruction, Glint died to him before torment appeared within him. Also "boohoohoo Aurene died now we will all die" . NO, wth Anet, we defeated 2 Elder Dragons with no Aurene, how is it believable for us to drop the fight just cause the mascot died (but not rly). > > > > This part I do not get. How is maintaining "Kralk bad and evil" interesting? The entire reason why the revelation that he isn't a blind, evil force of nature is interesting is becaus it fundamentally overturns how the world perceives elder dragons. Yes, the Vigil and many other organizations exists to combat them - and now they are slowly having to re-evaluate their ideas because an elder dragon is on our side, out of benevolent ideals. Vlast would probably not have worked for this role, because he had gone too long without a champion and likely had too much bitterness inside him. Being alive to see his sister would have changed him for the better, but not to the point where he could have worked together with mortals to become an elder dragon. Aurene was molded and born for this event, that's why her bond with her friends and her champion is unbreakable, and it's this connection that she draws on to shoulder her new role. > > > > But, I do agree Vlast was underutilized. He's introduced, then killed off, and only expanded on via memory crystals. They could have done a lot more with him. He could have been a great part of the story, and a morale oomph to get Aurene to gather the courage to face Kralkatorrik. > > > > > > Ultimately it all comes down to bad storytelling. Aurene herself could have been implemented differently and work in the story I suppose. As for the Kralk part, the story was making it straightforward for the last 3 seasons, 2 expacs and core campaign, that Elder Dragons cannot be reasoned with and destroy cause that's their function in the world. Even now that Jormag tried to form an alliance with us , we knew (or believed) that it would be a temporary thing. And it was. You're basically saying what most Tyrians believe. That's not true anymore though. And grappling with that is central to the story. There is now an elder dragon who can be reasoned with and exists to balance and heal rather than destroy. And some day, she may have a child herself that becomes a new elder dragon.

Personal preference aside, she is the center of the direction the story is going now, like it or not.

I assume there is no addon that shows cooldowns on currently unactive weapons? As an engineer, being able to see when my kit and forge skills are ready without having them in use would mean the world.

Why can I only pick one? Half of these are things I want.

Likely won't do away with dragons. They are the core of the story, and now we have an elder dragon in the family. Who very soon after her acension indirectly caused a civil war. The story seems to be shifting from killing dragons to understanding dragons.

Also, reason why we were screwed without Aurene was because she was our only way of stopping Kralk in the mists. If the mists is devoured, then it will shatter the balance of reality and do... very bad thing? It's not properly explained, but basically, super dragon ends reality by devouring the foundation is rests on (magic, which is in the mists) and poof goes reality. And regular mortals can't just go into the mists and stop him. Sorry for double post, these forums really need an edit button.

> @"Grand Marshal.4098" said: > > They tried to do that with Kralk and it was successful for the most part, but instead of finishing everything in Thunderhead Keep with a twist which we would overcome nonetheless, we needed unnecessary bonding with Kralkatorrik. Who should be caring for himself. Who we have been fighting (his forces) for years, the vigil exist cause of his destruction, Glint died to him before torment appeared within him. Also "boohoohoo Aurene died now we will all die" . NO, wth Anet, we defeated 2 Elder Dragons with no Aurene, how is it believable for us to drop the fight just cause the mascot died (but not rly). This part I do not get. How is maintaining "Kralk bad and evil" interesting? The entire reason why the revelation that he isn't a blind, evil force of nature is interesting is becaus it fundamentally overturns how the world perceives elder dragons. Yes, the Vigil and many other organizations exists to combat them - and now they are slowly having to re-evaluate their ideas because an elder dragon is on our side, out of benevolent ideals. Vlast would probably not have worked for this role, because he had gone too long without a champion and likely had too much bitterness inside him. Being alive to see his sister would have changed him for the better, but not to the point where he could have worked together with mortals to become an elder dragon. Aurene was molded and born for this event, that's why her bond with her friends and her champion is unbreakable, and it's this connection that she draws on to shoulder her new role. But, I do agree Vlast was underutilized. He's introduced, then killed off, and only expanded on via memory crystals. They could have done a lot more with him. He could have been a great part of the story, and a morale oomph to get Aurene to gather the courage to face Kralkatorrik.

The expansion is named "end of dragons" so it could end that way.

> @"vier.1327" said: > It is time to let her go. > > We will never be in danger if Aurene is always around us. Even a mortal wound is not a threath anymore. > > Kill her maybe is too much, just take her to the Characters Fridge for some time, like Zojja or the Pale Tree. We talk about her, but she is not directly involved in the story. Her mere existance will likely cause problems that could potentially be a threat to even her. The only reason Bangar started a civil war is because he saw a mortal become an elder dragons champion, and thought that what was a bond built on love and trust was a champion bending an elder dragon to his will. It not only sets up the war, but also revals that such a thing could not exist in his mind. Which by proxxy reveals how damaged the entire charr psyche is by eternal war. Aurene is so centralized in the events post-ascension that writing her out now leaves too many threads loose.

> @"Cleopatra.4068" said: > We didn’t really do much of anything with her when she was young. One story step of supposedly bonding with her, then off to kill Balthazar. Waaaaay more time was spent chasing after her egg so the supervillains couldn’t get it and start whatever world ending disaster they felt like. The story spends way to much time chasing supervillain’s and stopping Armageddon, not enough time doing mundane, everyday things. If everything is the apocalypse, the apocalypse doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. It is the contrast between normal life and a crisis that makes a crisis seem like a big deal. With no low key points in the story, the high impact parts seem low key. It’s just one world ending crisis after another, and its boring for the world to be ending...again. There is never any character development. No ebb and flow. Kill her, don’t kill her, what difference does it make? Her living or dying is the catalyst for how the world will view elder dragons. I agree that more time could have been spent with her and a little less of world ending crisis, but the story development is that for the first time ever, there is an elder dragon who has the best interests of the mortal races at heart, not out of a selfish reason, but out of benevolence. This is not something anyone was raised to believe, or even consider possible. And even then, whenever she does something people get scared, and think it's because of her champion. That a bond with such a creature could be formed based on the same emotions that the mortal races value so highly means that the way the world view elder dragons is starting to unravel. Would anyone even think it was possible without her as living example? If that example dies, then the world returns to what it used to be - elder dragons bad, war with them forever. That world kind of sucked for everyone. But this is a hope for a positive change. What Aurene's motives are for being passive in the charr civil war and the Jormag situation is not clear yet, likely because that part of the story is not out yet.

Problem with that, is that elder dragons bad is a boring status quo. That is the narrative that during most of the games life span was prevalent. Elder dragons are very old and have seen the world through a perspective beyond mortals. That one is on our side and that the motives of the remaining elder dragons are unclear makes them more interesting than simply maintaining the idea of hungry for magic and destructive. This is a game about dragons - it has been for a long time. The closed beta had an event where we fought against Kralkatorrik's minions, and death meant conversion to a minion, with flavor text and all. Very inreresting pvp. But anyways, point being that Aurene is a necessary plot vehicle to expand on the mentality and role of the elder dragons. Perspective. And, side point, I have a soft spot for cool and adorable dragons.

those are in use tho, what do you substitute their functions with?