130 replies to this topic

[Sorrows]

They won't bump anything Ascended significantly. They don't want something that is a long term get to be drastically better than something relatively easy to obtain (ie exotics). The only reason trinkets are bumped higher is because they don't have upgrade slots like exotic and below so they include the basic best-in-slot same bump.


I haven't read through all the changes announced today, but overall there wasn't anything to be complaining about in my eyes. They consolidated some traits, moved some to match spec lines, got rid of pointless ones, and made some things standard rather than wasting a trait slot. It's not like they rewriting every trait and making it game breaking different. Combat style is changing for the better PvE wise with break-bars etc. Sure, this stuff will take time to adjust with in PvP and WVw, but every expansion will. The good thing is we'll have time to judge the new system on current lines before you even have to buy the expansion and that will only include the specialization trait line. If you hate it, don't buy it and find the next up and coming game. I like a little mix up here and there. It's not a huge fundamental shake-up and revamping everything about it by introducing 100 new traits and retaining 0 of the current ones.

[Silvernis]

Speedy kits is now a master trait?

[Grav]

Deceptive Evasion is now a grandmaster trait?

[Biff Rangoon]

Quote

Warrior with Roy

Damnit, Roy... don't leave me hangin'!

[Sorrows]

Have to wait on balancing alot, they have not hammered everything out yet. First specialization (non-druid) will be introduced next week.

[Inextirpable Adamas]

Grav, I also noticed that they completely took out Illusionary Persona   no more quadruple shatter bombs. Looks like they kinda tried to make up for the damage by adding the +25% to that Domination grandmaster trait. You'll also deal more damage than normal to people with vulnerability, and an even bigger damage bonus to sitting ducks.
I guess it kind of evens out, but they did say they'll probably nerf it down the line too .

http://i.imgur.com/IVzYWca.jpg

[thetoothpick]

Ok, I was trying not to be pessimistic about it, but looking at the notes, they've completely removed the two grandmaster traits for ranger that make the two builds I run possible.  This looks like it could seriously suck balls.

[UltraEM]

I'm not liking how the changes will look for PvP (sPvP and WvW)... good thing I'll have Heart of Thorns' PvE to keep me busy while the shitstorm stabilizes.

[Slein Jinn]

Inextirpable Adamas, on 25 April 2015 - 12:22 AM, said:

Grav, I also noticed that they completely took out Illusionary Persona   

They made IP baseline.  You get it just by being a mesmer now.  

thetoothpick, on 25 April 2015 - 04:43 AM, said:

Ok, I was trying not to be pessimistic about it, but looking at the notes, they've completely removed the two grandmaster traits for ranger that make the two builds I run possible.  This looks like it could seriously suck balls.

I don't know what builds you're running these days, but if they were good builds, then they got better.  A fuckload better.  The ranger changes are literally insanely positive for the class.  They're going to be the strongest "free zerk" (i.e. builds that don't make any concessions to secondary support functions) class by far.  There's likely going to be almost zero reason to run something like the current full-YOLO power necro when you could run a ranger instead.  Even the previously unassailable position of the ubiquitous rifle Engis will be under threat from Rangers now.  With the way they reorganised the ranger traits, you can literally put every important trait into a single build without having to make any real concessions.  

You shouldn't really look at these changes in terms of how they effect current builds, though.  The changes are far too radical for that to be a realistic way to look at it for most builds.  Go back to square one and look at what builds you can create for your class from the ground up.  Every class is getting a huge power gain, but some are going to gain more than others.  

Ranger and Mesmer look like gaining the most from the proposed changes across all the classes.  D/P Thief is going to be pretty fucking nuts, too.  

P.S. Note that they were at pains to reiterate time and again that the values on those traits are far from final, but that what they were keen to showcase was the functionality.  They said pretty openly that many of the Mesmer traits, for instance, were almost certain to be toned down.*¹  Even if the numbers take a big hit, though, the options that new functionality will open up will revolutionise the class; being able to have IP in a Lockdown build, for instance, is fairly insane.  

*¹ Note that this is very much a good thing.  It is absolutely without question 'best practise' in game balance to always err on the side of too strong during the development process.  If you make skills extremely powerful, then they will see plenty of use during playtesting, and if they're too strong, then that usually quickly becomes apparent, thus they can be toned down until they are no longer too strong.  If you were to instead be conservative with the strength of proposed abilities, the necessary balance adjustments would be much less clear.  

---

One of the things that bothers me the most are the new "active cooldown reduction" mechanics, where your currently ticking cooldowns are reduced by some small incremental amount whenever some particular condition obtains.  For some, where the player has very robust control over the mechanic, like the "Steal decreases trap cooldowns by 10 seconds" trait for Thief, it could be really cool, but for most of them, the activation condition is something minor and random-ish, and the reduction is correspondingly small.  This is really going to seriously fuck with skilled gameplay in a huge way.  One of the big things that sets top players apart from the the rest is that very precise sense of when your skills will be coming off cooldown, even when you're not currently in that weapon set/kit/attunement, which is a huge part of playing optimally.  With these types of traits, that will become almost impossible.  It's basically going to force players to stare at their skill bar, which is previously something they'd explicitly gone out of their way to avoid.

[ChapDev]

Necromancer just got wrecked and that hurts the soul.   Like God damn.

Still going to try and run it but I can promise you will see a significant drop in Necromancers around a PvP environment as people run different classes out of spite. Conditions took a huge hit and Power-Shroud builds basically haven't changed at all.

I find it kind of strange that A-net apparently (From what I have been told) referred to Terrormancer as it's own thing and Condition builds as something different when Terrormancer is just a type of condition build.

Ranger, Thief, Mesmer, Engi got good/amazing changes over all and I've noted a lot of Necro's on my Friend list already re-rolling into these classes.

[Aduah]

ChapDev, on 25 April 2015 - 09:37 AM, said:

Ranger, Thief, Mesmer, Engi got good/amazing changes over all and I've noted a lot of Necro's on my Friend list already re-rolling into these classes.

Glad I have every class, but are the Engi Changes actually good? I haven't watched the readyup.

[Slein Jinn]

Aduah, on 25 April 2015 - 10:25 AM, said:

Glad I have every class, but are the Engi Changes actually good? I haven't watched the readyup.

It's way too early to tell for most things.  Especially once you account for the fact that ~20-25% of the changes are bundled up in the Elite Specialisations we still know almost nothing about.  You can draw some concrete conclusions for certain classes that have either gained some key feature they were lacking or been released from some specific shackle that was holding them back, but by and large we have no way of knowing how most of this stuff will play out yet.  Engis are definitely gaining some nice things, but there is a ton we don't know about them still, and it's really all going to ultimately depend on how it compares to the nice things everyone else is getting.  

Necromancers are a good example.  People are going all doom & gloom over Necromancers, because none of the current Necromancer builds really gain much of consequence from adding a third Grandmaster trait, so they feel like they're being left behind.  But like I said earlier, it is completely wrongheaded to try to approach these changes in terms of how does this change my current build? because they aren't merely tweaking current builds; they're obliterating three years of theorycrafting, meta evolution, and balance, and replacing it all with a completely new paradigm.  These are basically brand new classes merely inspired by the current crop.  I wouldn't be overly surprised if the best Necro build in view of the currently known Specialisations turns out to be a celestial bruiser not so unlike D/D Elementalist, since there are some really substantial boosts to their individual sustain, and you're almost guaranteed to have hybrid damage given the available trait options.  Or maybe something else entirely, but we can't possibly know yet.  And hell, perhaps the 6th Necro Specialisation tree will just mesh spectacularly with the current Power Necromancer build, which I guess you could say would mean running 6/0/0/0/6/6 (no typo) with some insane new abilities.  

If people want to be pessimistic, be my guest, but they need to stop being retarded and at least be pessimistic about the right things.  There are a lot of legitimate concerns about the future of GW2 right now, but almost none of them are the shit people are bitching about.

[Inextirpable Adamas]

Ohhhh I missed that in the list ....
WELL GOOD NEWS GRAV!!


And I hear ye Cal

[Aduah]

And this is the reason I dont get caught up in the hype and don't watch/read things that haven't been implemented and are far off from being implemented. I'm not a fan of speculation. I am a fan of cold hard facts. So I'm not overly concerned about it at this moment.

Whats actually making me nervous is how my current armour will hold up with the new system. I spent a long time to get my armour, I finally got it. I'm not going to be happy if I will have to change it again because its not particularly compatible with the new system. I'm just trying not to think about it.

[Sorrows]

Which is why they have said several times that balancing expected changes is on going. We're going to get all of the shown changes before HoT to help balancing before HoT comes in and throws in the Elite spdcialization line. When this hits, its going to be a cluster-mind(insert 4 letter words)-storm for at least 2 weeks. I'm hoping this will be one of the last trait overhauls and they'll just add specialization lines from here on out.

[Jot]

The thief hype is so real

[Slein Jinn]

Aduah, on 25 April 2015 - 11:14 AM, said:

And this is the reason I dont get caught up in the hype and don't watch/read things that haven't been implemented and are far off from being implemented. I'm not a fan of speculation. I am a fan of cold hard facts. So I'm not overly concerned about it at this moment.

We have an abundance of hard facts.  We just don't have all of the facts.  There are plenty of conclusions that we can perfectly reasonably draw from the currently available information.  It's just that there are also plenty of conclusions we're not yet in a position to draw, and a lot of people lack the wisdom to be able to tell them apart.

[thetoothpick]

Slein Jinn, on 25 April 2015 - 06:17 AM, said:

I don't know what builds you're running these days, but if they were good builds, then they got better.  A fuckload better.  The ranger changes are literally insanely positive for the class.

I still run the condi/regen build here, and the Survival of the Fittest build you showed me.  Unless they made Nature's Voice baseline somehow, I'm probably going to have to change the way I play the game... but I like how I play the game now.  Oh well, I guess we'll find out in due time.

I do see survival of the fittest in there now, so your build would probably be fine.  I also see they moved Bark Skin to a minor trait, and reversed its effectiveness - it now triggers when your health is above 90%.

[Slein Jinn]

Shout builds are really not viable for Ranger currently, but the shout traits all got rolled into one Adept-level Beastmastery trait, so they've improved, too.  I guess it'd take Skrimishing/Wildnerness Survival/Beastmastery, and the end product would definitely be stronger than the current build, but there's almost no way it'll become stronger than a Survival Skills build.

[Biff Rangoon]

Slein Jinn, on 25 April 2015 - 10:45 AM, said:

If people want to be pessimistic, be my guest, but they need to stop being retarded and at least be pessimistic about the right things.  There are a lot of legitimate concerns about the future of GW2 right now, but almost none of them are the shit people are bitching about.

I may be wrong, but I think I'm detecting a slight shift in your posts. Basically, moving from outrage at such drastic (and possibly ill advised) changes to the game to maybe, just possibly, excitement over all of the new things to discover in the quest for ultimate optimization. Amirite?

Not to say you no longer think Anet should have kept it in their pants, but I bet the thought of all those new angles to find and spreadsheets in your future has you thinking....



That's how I get about spreadsheets anyway... I have a problem.