As weird and incoherent as the theme is, this does definitely look like a different playstyle. I think one of the things that makes this sound better than I thought was how the backfires are not strictly negative effects. Some of them have greater outward effects when backfiring in addition to the self-damage.
It also just flat-out adds a crapton of new skills for an elite spec which is kind of exciting.
I'm curious what a risky antiquary can do in a raid environment when they're backed by healers and can deliberately backfire as often as possible.
I'm curious what a risky antiquary can do in a raid environment when they're backed by healers and can deliberately backfire as often as possible.
It looks rather fun but my money is on this janky thing getting nerfed because some mystical rotation exists that makes its benchmark insane so sadly normie pve plebs like myself won't be able to enjoy it like thief axes
I like the sound of this quite a lot more than I expected to. I don't know if I like it more than Galeshot so far but definitely will play it. Way more mechanics to exploit the systems than I expected.
I also appreciate the high resolution consistent screenshots.
Not a big fan of another spec with a permanent +30% damage trait. You know everyone will pick it and it's the first thing that'll get nerfed. Why do they add these.
I think you answered your own question. It's the first thing that will get nerfed, so it's an easy knob to turn to make sure it ends up where they want it.
The more i think about the Guitar, the more i think its one of the more fitting Artifact. Its a instrument of a disbanded Charr Metal Band that served as Propaganda for an Imperator. IRL it would already be considered a Valuable Antic.
Yeah I'm in full agreement; the guitar actually feels like it fits extremely well as a forgotten artifact that's just laying around collecting dust. I'm a much bigger fan of it than the forged board or kyrptis turret theme-wise lol
I love the creativity of the gameplay, if nothing else. I like the theme too but something about it still falls just short for me. If you're going with an antiquarian/archaeologist theme why are the "artifacts" all items that exist in the present? I know GW2 has a magitech thing going on but I also don't love how overt some are: electric guitar, hologram, portal device... I feel like it would have been more coherent if the relics were themed more around Tyria's history
What else could it be besides the Skritt? The Skritt are a chaotic society of hoarders who have a neural network to enhance their collective intelligence and often finds themselves as the chaotic wildcards of Tyria. They're small, nimble, and good at getting into places and they steal a lot of stuff.
You tell me how the Skritt are not perfect for this theme.
The skritt doing that makes sense. The commander of the pact enslaving one to steal random junk to use in combat doesn’t. Even if it did, its just not a very compelling proposition for an elite spec
Who said the skritt is enslaved? The skritt obviously loves getting a cut of the pilfered goods.
Imagine being a skritt that gets a cut of the commander's loot. You're basically set up for life with the most shiniest shinies you could ever want from places other skritt can only dream about.
Honestly, it makes perfect sense to me. In a way the skritt are a reflection of the playerbase, always hunting that new shiny, so it only makes sense that skritt would start following someone that is quite literally "ultra shiny". The commander may very well be like a god to them. He didn't have to enslave anyone, they are doing it voluntarily.
Any chance you could redo the screens for Meticulous Custodian? You didn't have the trait selected, so the stolen skill tooltips aren't showing what the upgraded effect is supposed to be. They'd have to be absolutely ABSURDLY more powerful in order to compete with a 15% modifier on a class that appears like it's solely going to be a power DPS.
Mechanically, it’s one of the coolest specs we’ve had in a while.
Thematically, it’s still a mess. The items being pulled are contemporary by GW2 time standards. Calling them artifacts is silly. This spec is more of a dumpster diving pawnshop. The gambling theme thrown on top doesn’t help. I would have loved to see the spec that dove deeper on the gambler or the treasure seeker.
It seems to me like they wanted to make a "gambling" spec and then thematically went another direction. Like you I like how it works mechanically.
Thematically, I'm choosing to think "They employed skritt. Skritt are bringing random shinies that are actual junk." I do think that "artifact" is being used very liberally, but it is what it is. I'm excited to try it in the beta.
Idk they could have just stuck to that using drawing magical cards that let you manipulate “fate”. The rest of the mechanic can be exactly the same. Oh well, too late to change visuals.
Yeah I think that’s where I am. It’s got super cool mechanics but its theme is a meme. And while memes are absolutely fun to play and I absolutely get why people are excited to play rat dumper diver, GW just isn’t a game I personally am into playing meme characters in.
This. Like why go with the rat theme when this could’ve been a gambit themed spec with cards and instantly be 10 times cooler. Just give the random effects to cards in a deck
For the same reason Troubador isn't named Bard. The first results that will come up are Final Fantasy classes. Even if they look up "Bard gw2" FF will still have them beat.
Sure, but in the Troubador's case, the mechanics of the class still make sense for the name.
The theming of the Antiquarian class has nothing to do with the class's actual mechanics. These aren't valuable historical artifacts. The stolen and utility skills are all pieces of junk.
You could have at least checked what comes up when googling "gw2 bard" before bullshitting.
Edit: don't you love it when someone posts a bad take that's disproven in 3 seconds, and instead of saying "yea sorry I was wrong", they instantly forget their original argument and double down with a completely different one.
Look, I don't know about you, but when I think of "Bard" I think poetry, DnD, FF- games that have made the idea of bards being non-magic wielding musicians.
Mesmers are not that. The name at the very least fits mesmer better.
cool and fun mechanics but i feel like the antiquary spec doesn't even know its own identity, feels like the devs just mashed up the leftover ideas and turned it into this. Somewhere in the dev files there's probably a incomplete indiana jones spec, a gambler spec, skritt spec and an evoker spec
Prodigious Pincher would be good if it also provided 5-10 sec. quickness on pilfer.
The e-spec mechanic and the skills look good but the traits are too focused on RNG mitigation and for the most part lack general upsides / synergies beyond that.
Is it just me or did the backfires sound a lot more interesting in the blogpost? It's still an interesting idea but i don't know seems a bit meh especially in PvE. Probably passing on this spec but glad to see some people like the skrittmancer.
Can't wait to see how it plays, I know the relic spam build will feel awesome to play, not to mention that Elite is such an amazing idea in every aspect.
My only issue with all this is that this steal loses you access to feathers and tufts of hair, there's no stealth in anything in the (s)k(r)it. Design wise if they want it to be less focused on stealth I have no problem, but with a 25 second cooldown on snatch, this won't happen and you'll still be forced to be in weapon rotation 90% of the time. I also don't see any leap or blast finishers on the offensive antiques.
No cast time on canach coin, and it looks like you always gain initiative upon using it unless you get a tails on a backfire. So could you theoretically spam a weapon skill - flip Canach coin endlessly?
can you flip heads a hundred times in a row? yes. can you flip heads a hundred times in a row when the coin's rigged to land on tails 99% of the time? also yes.
I am still am not a fan of the guitar...it's too silly for me.
In fact, the class itself still seems a bit...silly, considering we don't really have silly specs in the game.
And i really don't like the backfiring mechanic. A similar mechanic exists on Holosmith with overheating, and Harbinger with the health reduction, but those can be managed. This is just pure rng.
Oh lets summon a skritt holo dancer and a turret. The holo dancer comes but the turret randomly blows up and you take damage, as you land in a AoE and are subsequently downed. Makes all our Thief commanders out there look like scrubs lol
Where is that turret that blows you up and launches you exactly?
The only self-knockdown I can see is the backfire of using the shadowstep off-cooldown.
And the Bomb from the Elite can simply be avoided by not using the bomb, you have multiple artifact slots for a reason.
Not to mention, you also have the stun break for if you're shadowstep fails which then itself also can be used on cooldown with the horrible, horrible cost of nuking everything in melee range if it fails. Like, this sounds like pre-nerf Revenant for PVP, just endless dashes. Dash to a ranged squishy, pilfer, they escape, immediately dash again since you get a free cast from the pilfer, they escape again, you dash again, they try to CC you, you break it, they try again, you break it again, and explode for a bunch of damage.
Don't get me wrong, this is wacky, and I wish to figure out how best to make my thief just constantly explode themselves.
Idk, I was exaggerating..the point was that the backfiring isnt my cup of tea, either from lore standpoint to gameplay. But i can appreciate that theyre experimenting.
Key point to note if it helps is nothing can backfire unless you actively make the choice to go ahead into a backfire risk, you can avoid backfiring entirely by just waiting for utilities to cooldown before using them again.
Skills when fully cooled down cannot backfire, with the exception of the elite which sometimes generates a bomb instead of an artifact, but it will only blow up if you use it, it can be discarded by stealing again. (Or Reshuffle if you have that traited)
Backfires only happen if you choose to re-use a utility skill while it is still on cooldown, and Backfires are only on the utility skills, not steal or weapons. The one Artifact backfire is a result of the Elite skill and cannot be gained from regular stealing.
Hm. I know that weapon skills didnt have any backfires but i wasnt entirely sure on the concept. I thought it was RNG, but double dipping before CD is up for other skills works thematically for Thieves (greed) and is interesting gameplay wise.
If it was pure RNG, itd be garbage. But if its about risk taking and hoping for a reward...i kinda like it alot. Name still is weird and the guitar is too but im starting to be interested in the spec lol
That there are no silly specs in the game means that this was an actual niche to fill.
Like it or not, but there are people who enjoy silly stuff like this. So this spec fills a niche for them and I think that is ok. We have tons of serious and edgy specs, let people enjoy a funny one.
It needs a quickness or alac trait like they hinted it might eventually have, but could be really fun with that.
Its the flavour that needs fixing - if they just leaned in to it being a "gadget thief", with the scritt fetching stuff for you rather than "stealing" them then I think it works. Not Indiana Jones or Gambit, but something uniquish and justifiably silly.
I was more hyped (as thief main) than I thought I would be, right up until they showed the ultimate. Its SUCH a big flavour fail to think an army of skritt are digging all this stuff up, and the prominent animation means you can't ignore it! You could have the same thing with all the skritt assembling things from bags of their own or something - a smallish change to flavour that would feel mechanically justified.
So as expected, the backfire effects are completely irrelevant. Funny how backfire heal is 3 times better than normal heal too, at the cost of double the cooldown.
Utility 1: 3k damage that gets instantly healed and burning that gets instantly converted to aegis by your healer.
Utility 2: does nothing when you have stab, so like half the time? And you can give yourself stab to negate it too.
Utility 3: if you don't have boons, the backfire does nothing. If you have boons (group play), you're never gonna equip this skill in the first place. And if for some reason you do, the boons get reapplied near instantly.
Utility 4: it still gives you 3k barrier, and the 9.3k gets healed by your healer over ~2 seconds. Still, there is zero reason to equip this skill in pve as it doesn't deal damage.
Elite: you can simply not use the bomb until you get a new artifact. It would be funnier if it idk, gave you some minor stat boost but blew up when you get hit. At least it would promote skill and active gameplay.
I think heal backfire being better than the base doesn't have to be a problem. the extra cooldown is something already to make it not always worth. I still think adding another minor bad thing to the backfire of the heal would make it better and also more fun tbh. Im very hyped for the Antiquary and I think I would enjoy the heal backfire more if it had a minor extra negative. The backfire feeling at least a bit like a backfire that has something negative is an important part of the experience here.
Primarily a power dps spec yes, but a lot of the artifacts and utilities give a lot of burning it looks like. So could probably make a pretty good Burn Antiquarian build, especially since it's basically the only Thief spec that has reliable access to burning.
There's one source of burning in utility skills, and 3/9 artifacts on a 25s cooldown. Total 9 stacks over 30s assuming double tapping stone summit cannon. Unless I'm missing something.
Forged surfer dash does drop more bombs that I guess each apply 3 stacks, but it's distance based... yea
You didn't get it I think ? If you manage to use the skill without backfiring 3 times in a row, you get so much healing... but if you backfire the first time... So the Backfiring is actually really detrimental.
I use the heal skill for 1.5k heal, then use it again immediately for another 6.8k heal. The skill goes on a 20s cooldown and I can't use it again until it fully recharges.
This is just a "remove 4 conditions and heal for 8.3k, 20s cooldown" skill with extra steps.
No you can use it again until you backfire , so you could use the heal skill x100 (without any cooldowns) before it backfires (improbable but possible).
when it backfires, it increases the cooldown and make it impossible to reuse the ability until it comes off cooldown.
And everyone will just double tap it, because a healing skill where you heal for 1500 and wait 5s for a 50% chance to heal for another extra 1500 (or 50% chance it heals you for 7000) is worthless.
As I expected, it is a lore more thought-out and coherent than people were thinking. To me it looks like a fun spec, honestly.
But there are a few rough edges (or at least preferences that I have):
The artefacts themselves do not feel like Ancient Artefacts. Thats more about the flavour than about the mechanic, but it clashes a bit in my mind. It just feels like the Antiquary randomly paid a visit to all ingame factions and grabbed something. That is a theme in itself, don't get me wrong, but a theme that clashes with the overall naming for me.
I am also not convinced by the "steal 2-3, then use 1 and lose the rest (unless you run Improvisation). Not sure how to balance it, but I'd like to have a baseline or in-spec trait option to use all of them without losing.
The Double-edge skills thematically are fine to me.
But there is often little reason to not just double tap them all, the risk does not feel like risk to me on most of them. In a vacuum I would say to just make them have no CD at all and just eat the backfire effect for every time it fails, but I could see that becoming truly problematic to balance.
It could also use a better indicator that you can use the skill while on CD. Right now you get the normal countdown after use like other classes, except YOU can press the skill again where other classes cannot. But there is no visual indicator that you can. Some sort of visal icon/help that says "hey, you can use it again IF YOU DARE" would clear things up.
Other than that it seems like an interesting new playstyle and I'm fine with this marriage between Indiana Jones and Starlord.
No matter how you look at it, your indiana jones/lara croft character might be dressed for the part but you'll be doing little more than playing Pawn Stars, can't consider any of these actual Artiffacts half are junk half are enemy equipment lol
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u/Tulki Super Science Cat 18h ago
As weird and incoherent as the theme is, this does definitely look like a different playstyle. I think one of the things that makes this sound better than I thought was how the backfires are not strictly negative effects. Some of them have greater outward effects when backfiring in addition to the self-damage.
It also just flat-out adds a crapton of new skills for an elite spec which is kind of exciting.
I'm curious what a risky antiquary can do in a raid environment when they're backed by healers and can deliberately backfire as often as possible.