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Virtuality.8351

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  1. Great suggestion! I've updated my proposal as below: All's Well That Ends Well (Trait) You grant Barrier to allies around you with each pulse of Wells. The last pulse grants a greater amount of Barrier. Barrier per pulse: 1,000 (0.4) Barrier at the final pulse: 2000 (0.8) Healing: 1,310 (0.8) Number of Allied Targets: 5 Radius: 240 (Move the trait to the top row.)
  2. Well that actually surprised me. I guess I lost faith a bit too early. Though I still feel that my alternative solution kind of half-baked, I have updated my original post with it (with some minor tweaks) This is very much how I envision Mesmer's combat style too. Though I still wish the developers would do something so that players are not disincentivized to use Shatter skills. For me, distraction is what Mesmer Clones primarily about, and therefore the decision to shatter (or not to) should really depend on whether the player wish to keep the clones to aggro and nothing else. I'd even argue that Shattering should not be presented as something with a significant trade-off for Mirage (i.e., active Clones as source of damage and boons). This is why I came up with the idea that Mirage could use a unique set of Shatter skills, which create a clone near their target if three clones are successfully Shattered. I think this is a very good idea. Although I'd tweak it a bit: Mirage Shatter skills redirect their clones to the target selected by the player. Mirage Shatter skills generate a clone at their target if three clones are shattered (successfully or not). So basically, you still shatter your clones with all your Shatter skills. Meanwhile, by getting one Clone back, you still in effect 'redirect' one active clone to a new target. Yes! That's pretty much the standard rotation and it works pretty well in a more controlled encounters. However, there are also some less controlled encounters, where players have difficulty to maintain 3 active clones, let alone shattering them, even with already abundant clone generation with Staff/Staff...which leads to Infusion's suggestion: Personally, I would even take it one step further to make the cooldown reduction unconditional. A baseline 10 s cooldown (8 s traited and 6.4 s traited with Alacrity, which should be self-sufficient) in PvE really would not break anything and could make a significant QoL difference. I actually think this is the correct way to go. Personally, I never like the idea of double slotting the same type of weapon (Staff/Staff) and even less so when such setup becomes optimal under the current design. This will open up more active gameplay and less stale rotation for Mirage players. This together with my original proposal could work. It would be the player character who does the scaled-up Ambush while the clones doing just 1 point direct damage and nothing else while performing the same animation as the player character. I've updated my proposal and it now reads as following: Change how Infinite Horizon works. The trait now instead applies the following effect: Whenever Mirage generates a Clone, they gain one stack of Infiinite Horizon (special effect) for 10 seconds. (Max. 3 stacks) Boons, Conditions & Crowd Control of all Ambush skills now scale with how many stacks of Infiinite Horizon (special effect) Mirage has. To make sure that Mirage Clones still serve as good distraction/decoy to their opponent: Mirage Clones perform the ambush skill action when Mirage gain Mirage Cloak but only do 1 point direct damage without additional effect. (Baseline, with or with out Infinite Horizon) - Thank you all for your feedback! I did my best to incorporate everyone's idea and hope the developers see our discussion here!
  3. Nothing really significant for Chronomancer in the May 2 balance patch preview note...fingers crossed for the June 27 one.
  4. Still does not appear in May 2 balance patch preview note. Don't give up the hope though!
  5. Yeah, I felt the same frustration. I understand that the developers intended to get rid of all special effects that grant allies bonus attributes...but doing so disregarding the fact that it would render a Grandmaster tier trait useless, while not coming up with anything to make up for it for nearly a year...is just too hard to take. For the support part, in my opinion, vulnerability debuff on foes is sort of a group support itself for it aids allies to bring down a target collectively. Alternatives obviously include AoE Might, Fury and/or Quickness sharing (say, 240 radius of player character), which are also worth exploring.
  6. Actually, I am highly interested in your idea on how clones could function better and potential means to manage them. Would you like to share it here? Together, maybe we could come up with something that actually works.
  7. Good point. According to the developers, Phantasms back then promoted way too passive gameplay (with which I concur). On the other hand, Infinite Horizon promoted (and now still does) micro-management. They both, however, disincentivized players to use Shatter skills, the core mechanism for Mesmer. So basically there are two problems: Ill designed clone mechanics and lack of means to properly manage. Shatter skills are presented as a loss for Mirage traited with Infinite Horizon. To address the first problem, I actually came up with an alternative solution before starting this thread: First of all, Mirage Clones need better survivability: Mirage Clones gain increased health. (Introduced via Adept tier minor trait.) This change, though, still would not help Clones survive one-shot mechanics or boss phasing. Therefore: The following mechanic is added to Infinite Horizon: When a Clone is destroyed or despawn, recharge your clone generating skills. Then we need to stop punishing Mirage players for successfully defeating their enemies: When target of a Mirage Clone is defeated, it is then immediately and automatically redirected to the target the player selects. If no target is selected the moment a Clone loses its previous target, it is then redirected to the closest foe to the player character within 240 radius. If no available target is within 240 radius of player character for 5 seconds, a Clone may despawn. Introduced via Adept tier minor trait. Then we still need to fix the targeting issue: Clones are redirected to your current target when you cast an Ambush skill. (Introduced via Adept tier minor trait.) ...at which point I could not help but to ask myself: "Do people really want something as complex as such?" And I quickly lost faith. I could not come up with anything less complex while retaining Clone's current function. Eventually I scrapped everything and started over with the proposal now you see in the original post. As for the second problem, I just came up with an idea: To further incentivize players to use their core mechanics (i.e. Shatter) more often, Mirage could also use a unique set of Shatter skills that create a clone near their target if three clones are successfully Shattered. This way... Mirage players traited with Infinite Horizon will gain one stack of special effect proposed above, which still incentivize a rotation that quickly creates and then immediately Shatters 3 clones. Mirage players not traited with Infinite Horizon will still be a bit safer after Shattering all 3 clones, knowing that a new clone would be created and could aggro or catch your foes' attention.
  8. Well, I agree that simplification is not always the solution, but I am not so sure about this one. Interestingly, illusion management has long stopped being a thing for Mesmer class since Feb. 6, 2018. It was that day when Phantasms stopped persisting indefinitely after spawned, and instead became something you could just fire once and forget. For more info, check out this official post. I would say that Phantasm management has been proven to be bad gameplay design 5 years ago. The developers simply forgot that Clones shared the same problem. Now it is a good time to do something about it.
  9. Glad you like it! Though I am a bit worry that consuming all 3 stacks would force Mirage players to take Deceptive Evasion to keep up with the need of clone generation. If a balancing factor is really required here, I'd suggest that 1 stack (instead of all 3) is consumed every time Mirage casts an Ambush skill. But then that would also complicate the rotation by demanding Mirage players to create a clone before their next dodge. As @Passerbye.6291 stated, a regular Staff/Staff Mirage dodges every 3 to 3.5 s, I'd worry no clone generation could keep up with such dodge rate.
  10. April 27 update: an alternative solution has been added to the proposal along with various tweaks to the original one, base on feedback the community provides. Thank you all for participating in the discussion! I hope the developers see this and make some meaningful updates! - NO OTHER CLASS in this game is as dependent as Mirage on micro-managing their companion. The need for micro-managing Clones (with all its impracticality and the frustration it brings) comes from one single Mirage trait: Infinite Horizon. The trait demands player to maintain 3 active Clones to reach its full effect, which is obviously problematic when... Your enemies are low-health trash mobs, and your Clones repeatedly despawn after mobs are defeated. Your foes or mechanics destroy your Clones easily. Your target phases, causing your Clones to despawn for lack of target...etc. Now, here is the solution...(original proposal) Change how Infinite Horizon works. The trait now instead applies the following effect (Apr. 27 update): Whenever Mirage generates a Clone, they gain one stack of Infiinite Horizon (special effect) for 10 seconds. (Max. 3 stacks) Boons, Conditions & Crowd Control of all Ambush skills now scale with how many stacks of Infiinite Horizon (special effect) Mirage has. To make sure that Mirage Clones still serve as good distraction/decoy to their opponent (this one is more about sPvP/WvW): Mirage Clones perform the ambush skill action when Mirage gain Mirage Cloak but only do 1 point direct damage without additional effect. (Baseline, with or with out Infinite Horizon) To further incentivize players to use their core mechanics (i.e. Shatter) more often: Mirage Shatter skills redirect their Clones to the target selected by the player. Mirage Shatter skills generate a Clone at their target if three Clones are shattered (successfully or not). This way... Players are redirected toward Clone generation instead of impractical Clone management. Clones return to their intended function: decoy for enemies and ammo for Shatter skills, instead of source of DPS/Boon/Condition that one has to micromanage to maintain. Players are now no longer discouraged to shatter their Clones except some extremely specific timing. Players are now no longer required to monitor whether their Clones have finished casting Ambush skill (so that they can dodge again to proc next round of Ambush). An alternative solution would be...(Apr. 27 update) First of all, Mesmer Clones need better survivability: Clones gain increased health. (PvE only; baseline for core Mesmer.) This change, though, still would not help Clones survive one-shot mechanics or boss phasing. Therefore: When a Clone de-spawns, your Clone generating skills are recharged. (Baseline for core Mesmer.) Then we need to stop punishing Mesmer players for successfully defeating their enemies: When a Clone loses its target (be it defeated or de-spawn), it is immediately and automatically redirected to the target the player selects at the moment. If a Clone loses its previous target when no other target is select by the player , it is then redirected to the closest foe to the player character within 240 radius. If no available target is within 240 radius of player character for 5 seconds, a Clone may despawn. Baseline for core Mesmer; alternatively, introduced via Mirage Adept tier minor trait. Then we still need to fix the targeting issue: Clones are redirected to your current target when you cast an Ambush skill. (Introduced via Adept tier minor trait.) To further incentivize players to use their core mechanics (i.e. Shatter) more often: Mirage Shatter skills redirect their Clones to the target selected by the player. Mirage Shatter skills generate a Clone at their target if three clones are shattered (successfully or not). Finally, allow staff Mirage to generate Clones at a faster rate: Reduce cooldown for Phantasmal Warlock to 10 s baseline (8 s traited and 6.4 s traited with Alacrity). Although this one is obviously more complex, a good portion of player do want Clones to remain a more active and contributing component in combat instead of just distraction or shatter fodders based on various feedbacks (see the posts below). - P.S. Off the topic but I'd like to second Infusion's idea for Alacrity Mirage here: I actually think this is the correct way to go. Personally, I never like the idea of double slotting the same type of weapon (Staff/Staff) and even less so when such setup becomes optimal under the current design. This will open up more active gameplay and less stale rotation for Mirage players. P.S. For those who have played GW2 for more than 5 years, you probably remember that, before Feb. 6, 2018, Phantasms could persist indefinitely as long as their target, just like how Clones have always been. It was then completely overhauled for several reasons, but they all come down to one question: "To Shatter, or not to Shatter?" Since Phantasms could persist indefinitely, they discourage players to use Shatter skills. The tension has been well elaborated in a follow-up post by Gaile Gray: [W]e've discovered...that providing this tension usually ends up removing the incentive to use the profession's core mechanic and leads to more passive gameplay. This can be seen in a lot of "optimized" builds for mesmers involving summoning three phantasms and then auto-attacking for extended periods of time in order to avoid destroying the phantasms by using another illusion skill. The thing developers back then did not realize was that, it was all very similar for Infinite Horizon Mirage. Yes, Phantasms back then promoted way too passive gameplay for Mesmer, while Infinite Horizon promoted (and now still does) micro-management. They both, however, disincentivized players to use Shatter skills, the core mechanism for Mesmer. I would argue that distraction is what Mesmer Clones primarily about, and therefore the decision to shatter (or not to) should really depend on whether the player wish to keep the Clones to aggro and nothing else. Therefore I proposed new Shatter mechanics to mitigate such disincentivization above.
  11. EDIT: Refined my idea and started a new thread here. For me this entire fiasco boils down to two things: If Staff Mirage is problematic in certain raid encounters, fix those freaking encounters. Mirage needs its own unique clone mechanism. For Mirage, you get punished for defeating your enemy. This is complete wrong. Yes, there are means for you to redirect your clones before their target is defeated, but those means are limited either with cooldown and specific choice of weapon or slot skill. The micromanagement involved to do so is also a huge no right in the face to whoever wishes to try out Mirage. Here I will propose a radical solution... Change how Infinite Horizon works. The trait now instead applies the following effect. Whenever Mirage generates a clone, they gain one stack of Infiinite Horizon (special effect) for 10 seconds. Boons, conditions and crowd control of all ambush skills scale with how many stacks of Infiinite Horizon (special effect) Mirage has. This way... Players are redirected toward better clone generation instead of tedious and frustrating clone management. Players are more encouraged to shatter their clones instead of only shattering at some extremely specific timing. Clones go back to their intended function: distraction for enemies and ammo for Shatter skills, instead of source of DPS/Boon/Condition that one has to micromanage to mantain. Players now risk revealing to their enemies (in PvP/WvW) that they are not a clone when they cast an Ambush skill. (This disadvantage should then be offset by giving us the god damned second dodge back.)
  12. I am aware of that. In my proposal I too acknowledged such function, and proposed to merge it with the Master tier trait Wrath of Justice: Remove Perfect Inscriptions. The retainment of passive effect while recharging is now merged Wrath of Justice. Wrath of Justice (Master tier) Striking an enemy with the damaging effect from Virtue skill 1 casts Lesser Signet of Wrath. Is such function strong in itself? Yes, certainly. As you have pointed out, being able to retain a frequent passive cleansing function of Signet of Resolve is pretty handy. Does it completely mitigate the need for active cleansing and save you a free Utility Skill slot? Not really. If the environment frequently applies multiple types of conditions, including Poison or Weakness, I probably would still bring something on-demand (such as Purging Flames) to make sure that my healing skill would heal for its full effect or that my DPS would not drop during my burst rotation. On the other hand, if the environment applies little to none condition pressure, I might not need its passive effect at all and opt for another healing skill instead. For me, the problem with the Signets and Perfect Inscriptions combination is that together they still do not resolve any situation adequately. They are something really nice to have, yet when the circumstances demand, they come out lacking. And on top of that, they just can not compete. Take the other example you brought up: the Bane Signet. Being able to maintain 216 bonus Power after knocking down your enemy with its active effect is strong in itself, sure, but does it compete with Retribution (equal to ~350+ Power or Ferocity) or Righteous Instincts (equal to 525 Precision)? Numbers suggest otherwise. In fact one would fare even better not picking Perfect Inscriptions but something else instead should they choose to activate the Bane Signet or not. And this comes back to the final thing you brought up: "guardian signets happen to be little weak". The trait simply offers too little bonus to skills that are too situational, impractical or replaceable, and I do not think my proposal would make things anywhere near being overpowered.
  13. Two and a half years and counting. Please let's have Elementals compatible with mounts!
  14. Well hello there o/ I think we had some discussion on Tempest and Soothing Mist in WvW about a couple years ago, if you still recall? (By the say, glad Tempest is back to meta in WvW now!) I agree with you. The complexity induced by the endless combination of parameters make balancing a truly daunting task. This is also why most balancing are more often than not ad hoc—something adds up to unusually high DPS over time or burst potential, or something provides way too much damage mitigation, etc. And most of the time one just could not foresee these things. And by moving to the new paradigm, we are actually adding further more parameters into the equation, making balancing even more complex. I can relate if the developers might not be willing to do this for how limited the resources they have are. However, I still believe that mathematics could still shed much light on balancing. Take this thread I just made for example. The idea of Attribute Point Equivalent provides a platform for traits to be compared with one another, and to calculate opportunity cost since the maximum possible attribute point count is finite. It is not rigorous as different attribute types do different things hardly comparable or even quantifiable. Nevertheless, it still somewhat serves the purpose.
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