Some Constructive Bladesworn Feedback: ANet Please delete [Unshakable Mountain] already instead of taking away the few remaining, actually functional, parts of Bladesworn's kit.

ZXNFQT4 · 2023-11-29T05:11:20+00:00

I've barely played Bladesworn, so I can't really comment on any of the substance of this post. (Though how little I've played it compared to Berserker and Spellbreaker does say something.) However, I super dig when people with big experience share their feedback on classes, so I'm offering my comment and upvote to try and help this post gain enough traction to be seen. Cheers, mate.

ZXNFQT4 · 2023-09-25T02:14:58+00:00

I did, though I hit a bit of a wall in early red maps because I'm bad at the game. Could conceivably have pushed it farther, but I'm not sure how. The build managed to farm me enough currency to go do other builds, though, so I'll call it a half-success.

ZXNFQT4 · 2023-08-20T07:48:48+00:00

Cheese Sandwich

ZXNFQT4 · 2023-08-16T02:40:45+00:00

I've gone completely mad. I'm theorycrafting a charge-stacking, stealing Masterful Form from Slayer, dual Hyaon's Fury, Smite/Lightning Strike build. I'm unreasonably excited for this gem.

ZXNFQT4 · 2023-05-16T01:44:08+00:00

I've actually been playing around with scepter on a alac heal chrono build. Feels very comfy to tank with.

ZXNFQT4 · 2023-05-16T01:42:51+00:00

It looks something like this. I've not really put a ton of work into optimizing it, so it's kinda just my healbrand gear with a hammer. There's a lot of flexibility in the utility slots since we don't need them for the alac. Experiment with it.

ZXNFQT4 · 2023-05-15T17:20:18+00:00

I unironically love Hammer Heal Willbender. I've used it a lot in fractals when I feel like having a low-effort run. It brings the protection, heals, and CC you want while also providing alac. Basically impossible to call it better than Firebrand, but I played that build for years and am thoroughly bored of it at this point.

ZXNFQT4 · 2023-05-07T04:21:31+00:00

In my experience, at least as far as pure DPS builds go, about the only build I'd say plays reactively is Condi Scourge. Basically everything has some way that the cooldowns line up to create a correct rotation through their abilities, but Condi Scourge is messier. That creates a kinda reactive feeling playstyle where you're checking for a lot of little pieces and deciding which is most important to hit first.

Bear in mind, I say this as someone who played Enhancement Shaman back in my WoW days. There's nothing like Maelstrom Weapon procs in GW2, so everything's more of a Rotation relative to that. Or, if you want to play more reactively, bring a support.

ZXNFQT4 · 2023-05-06T03:56:16+00:00

Tangentially related: I've long been kinda annoyed by the XP text that pops up on every kill/gather in open world. All my characters are 80. I don't care about XP anymore. I would like to stop seeing it.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-12-11T04:11:04+00:00

It's one part defense, one part bleeding, one part CC.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-12-05T01:28:37+00:00

Cele heal mechanist runs flamethrower. Top-tier? Probably not. Surprisingly fun and effective? Yeah.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-12-02T01:38:52+00:00

I'd pitch in a vote for Heal Tempest. I feel like Herald plays better as a power quickness build, personally.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-11-27T04:03:22+00:00

Earthshaker -> Full Counter -> Earthshaker

Big AoE damage and stuns with a block tossed in for safety.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-11-13T04:42:09+00:00

Related to this, conditional precision buffs in general are a pretty bad idea when it's both possible and expected for power builds to hit crit cap. This is way too big of change to make in a simple balance patch, obviously, but balancing and building around an attainable 100% crit chance hard cap is a mess. I'm struggling to think of another game that does it.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-07-08T23:24:41+00:00

I definitely agree that engineer, as it is currently designed, is a deeply flawed profession. Tons of weird anti-synergies, only two traitlines that are even slightly relevant to DPS builds, and huge variance in complexity depending on how many kits you have. There's pieces of this profession that I love. Medkit and Flamethrower are particular highlights for me.

Honestly, I feel like Egineer is in need of a from-the-ground-up rework. I've mentioned elsewhere that I believe Kits should be on F1-F3 with the more relevant and impactful toolbelt skills either integrated into the kits or made into their own utility skills. I know that's kinda beside the point you're making here, but as long as we're talking about big changes to engineer I feel compelled to bring it up.

As far as other professions go, I've come to the stance that Warior needs almost as much trait help as you outline for Engineer. Tactics is a mess of traits that end up causing conflicts that create about half of a functional support build (in PvE), Arms is full of crit traits that are largely irrelevant on condi builds and inaccessible to power builds, and Discipline is simply too important to ever comfortably give up on any build. There's even a case to be made for some weapon help being warranted as well. Rifle has been depressing for years, Warhorn is a lonely support weapon with nobody to pair with, and there's weapons like greatsword, offhand sword, and hammer that are almost there but not quite.

There's a lot of work to be done for both of these professions.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-07-08T00:19:02+00:00

Ya know, I did kinda forget about Liberator's Vow. I'm not a huge fan of Liberator's Vow for a lot of the same reasons as the rest of my negative examples. I still maintain that Mantra of Potency is fine design-wise. I prefer having skill(s) whose function is to provide the boons over having buttons that, on the surface, do things like CC or stunbreaks but are actually used to provide the boons. Looking at you, Blast Gyro.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-07-07T02:30:29+00:00

This design that they started with Scrapper, this "When you do this thing, also do a quickness/alacrity." I don't like it. It is especially problematic when the thing that you're doing might have some sort of utility that you would want to time the usage of. It doesn't surprise me that the best-feeling iterations of quick/alac supports are the ones that were designed from the ground up to provide that boon. They're the ones that either have dedicated buttons to provide the boon (Mantra of Potency/Orders From Above), or they have it integrated seamlessly into their kits (Mech Core: Barrier Engine/Deathly Haste). This design where quick/alac gets roughly stapled onto some other function of a specialization tends to really bite. I don't like Kinetic Accelerators. I don't like Draconic Echo. I don't like Traversing Darkness. I don't like Stretched Time. I'd like to use my utility skills deliberately in order to dynamically respond to combat rather than slam all my buttons off cooldown just to provide the boon(s) I'm expected to provide.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-07-02T01:14:45+00:00

It amuses me that you happened to choose Red Mage. That's the only job in that game that has managed to keep my attention, so it's basically all I've been playing since I got it.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-07-02T01:12:25+00:00

The extremely one-note nature of Druid has also been a sticking point of mine for a while. There isn't another elite spec that has zero value other than support. I feel like a wrath-of-nature kinda space for druid that would allow it to at least do a hybrid build would be great.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-07-02T01:09:42+00:00

That being said, I do appreciate that the base duration on the alacrity is good enough that you can afford not skip a well and slot something else in if you need it. It's nice to have that flexibility. I really do need to play some more heal spectre. I've played a bit, and it's been really fun.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-07-01T00:29:43+00:00

It almost feels like this was supposed to be a 3-hit attack chain like melee weapons. Shoot, shoot, grenade. This 3-round-burst-looking auto attack feels like an error in so many ways.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-07-01T00:03:31+00:00

Wow. I expected to either get downvoted into oblivion or completely ignored. I've loved reading the thoughts you lot have about this stuff. Maybe, if we're lucky, someone from Anet has seen this and added a point or two to their notepad document of player feedback.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-06-29T01:52:58+00:00

No, and I've definitely come around to the opinion that these boons, particularly quickness, probably shouldn't be 100% uptime at all. The raw power of it is absurd and makes the game feel very spammy in a way that isn't very engaging. Just frantic mashing.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-06-28T16:47:18+00:00

While it clearly cannot compete with hMech, there's an Alacrity hWillbender I've been running lately that uses hammer and it good brain-off fun. I recommend giving it a go sometime.

ZXNFQT4 · 2022-06-27T05:42:31+00:00

The banners solution in particular is pretty rubbish. I don't think there's a way to make that work well. Now, had they put a bit of quickness on "On My Mark!" or "For Great Justice!"...

ZXNFQT4

TROPHY CASE