Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Al Masone.1274

Members
  • Posts

    92
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

Al Masone.1274's Achievements

  1. Exactly. I'm not looking for the best performance, I'm looking for the most thematic build.
  2. It's not for efficiency's sake, just for fun. In generally I like being a tanky dude in RPGs and I know that in GW2 the mobs focus on the guy with the highest toughness. So I'd like to know which class can get the highest toughness possible so the monsters will always want to spank me hard in every encounter.
  3. First of all, I'm NOT looking for the best build in terms of damage. What I'm interesting in is finding which traitlines that actually complent and/or complement the herald spec, in terms of mechanics and theme. Herald, from what I understand, is supposed to be a decently tanky spec with lots of boonsharing. As a main mechanic it has the facets, so it should revolve around upkeep skills I guess. Regarding upkeep skills, the only traits related to them outside of herald are in retribution and corruption. Retribution I think fits well with herald, since it further improves tankiness. Corruption has a trait that improves energy regen if you use upkeep skills, but you also apply torment to yourself, which I'm not sure it's great in a tanky build. Also, the herald traitline doesn't seem to improve condi damage in anyway. Instead, it has a couple traits that improve strike damage. Speaking fo strike damage... Devastation I guess is the most selfish, pure dps traitline. But the 3 traits that give battle scars actually work wonders in a sword/sword or sword/shield build, since you can reliably proc it. Invocation seems to pretty much syngerize with every other traitline, since you'll always find yourself swapping legends, no matter which spec you play. And it does have a trait that gives more boons to allies when you swap stances, and also one trait that helps with energy management. That said, to me this traitline seems mostly skewed toward personal damage, and critical strikes/fury. Herald gives you pretty much perma-fury for free, though I'm not sure I should further focus on this boon in particular. Lastly, salvation to me feels more constructed with healing to allies in general. And while your shield 4 and a grandmaster trait do push some healing to allies, I was of the impression that herald in more focused on boon sharing, with just a sprinkle of ally healing on the side. Also, while you can push perma-regeneration with your healing skill, not trait in salvation actively boosts that boon anyway. It does however have a trait that gives you barrier for each boon you have, which fits, and one that gives you damage resistance everytime you heal and ally, and works with the herald's grandmaster trait. So in the end, I would say that devastation would work best in solo situations, and salvation would be better for teamfights if you want to stack as much durability as possibile. But there's really no trait line that says to me "pls take me whenever you take herald", Which is why I'm asking this question. Oh, and sorry for the long post.
  4. I was afraid that allowing more than one vote would result in votes being spread all over the place. I am aware that pretty much everyone will like more than a single race/gender, but for the purpose of this poll I'd rather go for "choose only the very very best for you". It's nothing official anyway.
  5. It's the first time I make a poll and I found that option. Not that it was necessary really, I just used it because I could.
  6. After playing both a female charr and a male one, I found out that the difference in quality between the two genders is quite steep. Of course personal preference plays a role in it, but I'm quite curious to know which of the 10 race/gender characters available have the most liked voice acting to back them up. TO BE CLEAR: it doesn't matter if you haven't played through all the game with all of the options available, nor if you didn't really like any of them, just pick what your hears more or less enjoyed the most out of the characters that you played.
  7. But the monsters will inevitably aggro someone, right? Or do they get confused if none has any toughness?
  8. I would be ok with that in a game like diablo or path of exile, where finding the most broken builds is part of the fun. In a MMO like gw2 though I think that every spec should have very clear roles, and the attributes they have access to should complement their playstyles in very clean way. Of course every spec should have more than just one build path. Let's take herald for instance: the traits let you focus on either boon sharing or on personal survability. But given your skills, you're always a mix of those things, and you're also a frontline character. Which means that at least toughness should be a big thing for you. Yet the way the game is balanced, you're encouranged in anyway to build tanky, because there's not really a role for it. Also, given how it's boon time is already pretty good, there's no real need to build concentration, and healing power isn't really very effective. So you just power or condi because they're pretty much the only stats that have a tangible effect. But that really hurts the character's theme, since outside of active skills, it won't really have much personal survivability.
  9. We have a lot of specs with a fire theme, but pretty much the only one with an ice theme is the reaper. Vindicator will have a decent chill uptime, but that's just for gameplay reasons, not because it actually fits in thematically with the spec. So I'd like to get a legend that would fit in in an ice/cold themed spec. Svanir could be interesting, with maybe the possiblity of shapeshipfting into a bear (like the norn racial), with ice themed abilities. Jora, Svanir's sister, could also bea thing. She's the hero who first stood against jormag. Asgeir is instead the norn hero who managed to sever one of jormag's fangs, the one you see in hoelbrak. And other cool idea would be to be able to actually commune with one of the spirits of the wild. Maybe snow leopard could be the more original, transforming you into a sort of ice werewolf (well, were leopard), with with stealth thrown in the mix, which is something no heavy class has yet. More or less think about the norn racial elite, and make it into a elite spec.
  10. I quite like the options given by traits overall, for every class. What I simply can't bring myself to like is the attribute system. I'll leave PvP out of this, since in that mode you can change stats whenever you want without any hassle, and I guess pretty much every stat can have a place in the appropriate build. But of everything else, so Open World, fractals, raids, and wvw, I just can't understand the reasoning behind the system. There are so many atribute combinations to choose from, yet all I ever is full berserker, with the occasional viper for condi, diviner for renegade, and some minstrel or harrier for dedicated supports. The problem I see with this is that defensive stats are pretty much never a good option to focus on. It seems like you never look at vitality or toughness as relevant stats, and even healing power doesn't seem to be that important. Rather, all you're generally expect to be is pure damage, and sometimes concentration (for renegade or firebrand) when you need to maximise boons, in order to push out even more damage. And while that makes sense for the more fragile classes/specs, I just can't deal with it when it comes to tankier characters. Why am I expected to full zerker on spellbreaker or herald, or scrapper? I get it that it maximises damage, but at the expense of their core theme. As a herald I should be a defensive frontline, that distracts enemies and empowers allies, more or less like a traditional paladin. I should be expected to be as durable as I can, not to focus on pure damage. So now I have gone for the middle way. With celestial I get a little bit of everything, thus getting some of the resilience I personally crave, while still getting some offensive stats. And possibly the best part about it is that with cele gear, I can swap build whenever I want and always have at least some useful stats. As a "jack of all trades" gear, it will never be the best option, but it will never be useless either. Some builds benefit from it more than others, but again, every character can be somewhat decent with cele, and I don't have to get crazy about what I want or what I'm expected to build. I guess this is at least in part a rant, since they more I try to understand the reasoning behind attribute combinations, the more I get mad at how few options are actually meta. Inbefore "it's more nuanced than that", no it's not. Look at every site that gives you effective builds for group content, and see how many builds actually want you to build toughness or vitality as relevant stats. At least with cele gear, whenever a groups asks me to play a different build from my main, I just have to swap traits and nothing else. And since I main a reaper, this happens so depressingly often, which is why it gets me so mad.
  11. Seeing how many bruisers the new expansion is going to introduce, and how they pretty much all have slow but strong attacks, in addition to other stuff, I wonder how reaper will keep its identity. Bladesworn is all about strong attacks that require a lot of charge up time. So limited mobility, slow, hard hitting strikes, lots of AoE, and is relatively durable as a warrior Vindicator's GS is pretty much all about AoE, is average-to-slow in terms of animations. The spec can have great or limited mobility depending on which traits you choose, and if you focus on damage your mobility will suffer, but is still survivable enough in melee. It also has decent chill uptime. And in addition to all that, it has a lot of group support. Catalyst, well, is kind of a mess, but still is designed as a bruiser, and the hammer again has slow but hard hitting attacks. The reliance on the jade sphere severly limits its mobility, and if you use the hammer, it doesn't seem like you can dash around a whole lot. Untamed has a shadowstep, but aside from that, all attacks are either lots of damage or lots of cc. Hammer again is slow but with lots of Cleave. It doesn't have chill but has plenty of other ways to keep opponents in melee range. What I mean is that all these new spec feel to me like "Reaper but with more stuff", and that more stuff is generally more team utility that will make the far more useful. Reaper doesn't even deal a whole lot of single target damage in the first place, and the shouts are widely considered to be lackluster and underperforming, save perhaps for the Elite. It has next to nothing in terms of party utility, something that the new specs seem to provide quite liberally. Personally I'd like the reaper to be the top of the top in terms of survivability, and have cc options that are a bit more reliable. Dps to me isn't much of an issue as long as I am able to walk around taking lots of damage and scaring everyone, as the big tough dude who doesn't afraid of anything I was supposed to be from the beginning.
  12. In general I tend to gravitate toward tank classes, and while I'm aware that tanking isn't really a thing in GW2, I would still like to know which classes are most focused around "taking as much damage as possible and surviving". I don't just mean which class can absorb the most damage to cover up for mistakes in playing it, I mean which specs are actually encouraged to take damage for the team, or at least block/absorb it.
  13. Tanky, support, decent self sustain, also good in wvw. My best bet would be scrapper. I'm levelling one these days, I'm not yet sure if it's the right class for me, after years of maining reaper, but on paper it should fulfill that all-rounder yet more of a tanky support idea I'm looking for right now. So while I have played little of it so far, after doing my own research I'd say that it's the best bet, outside of firebrand and maybe spellbreaker
  14. Player will always revolve around what is most convient. And due to a painful lack of balance updates, we've had the same things for years. Thus players stick to what is keeps being most effective. Sure there are other ways to play the game, but then you have to build a full ascended set of armor (at least trinkets are trivial to get) and find a particular team composition in which you toon can fit. Meanwhile what has been generally popular continues to be effective more or less at all levels of play. IMO it's not the players, it's the devs who need to pay more attention to the professions, in order to keep the game fresh. I love, love this game, don't misunderstand me, but if the game is so stale it's because Anet is incredibly scared of touching the gameplay in general more than once a year, and even then they just change a couple things here and there.
  15. I'd just like to know if there's any chance Anet might eventually post any kind of thread in which they kinda discuss how the old specs fare, in relation to their original concepts and in terms of overall balance. Mainly to see if they're still fiddling with the specs we already have, and to let us know if there's anything planned for them, in addition to the new specs coming with EoD
×
×
  • Create New...