Guild Wars 2

Hambow Warrior

• Arcing Shot (Longbow 3) – hit too hard, reduced damage by 15%.
• Merciless Hammer – Right now you deal 25% to crowd-controlled enemies, we reduced that by 5% to 20%.
• Impale (Sword 4) – right now it applies torment over 10s – made it so it applies torments over 4 seconds.

Pistolwhip Thief

• Pistol-whip is very strong, increased initiative cost from 5 to 6 so you can’t spam it over and over. only sPvP

Decap Engineer

• Tune down Automated Response – no longer 100% condition reduction, decreased to 50% and increased activation from 25% to 33%

Finally.

I know about PW that is sPvP only, are ALL of those changes only sPvP too?

No, only thief. I’ll edit OP

kitten that kitten burns.

Especially on engy.

I feel like those nerfs for Warrior might have gone to the wrong area but I’ll wait to see what has been done to Berserker stance

I applaud these changes as they will hopefully influence the meta in a positive way. These minor nerfs, + the new traits, + rune and sigil changes will hopefully all come together in a positive manner.

My biggest concern now is Conditions, especially with the introduction of Perplexity Runes into sPvP.

I just wish ANet would have reached these conclusions about balance by themselves instead of having them force-fed to them by the community.

Dee Jay.2460:

I applaud these changes as they will hopefully influence the meta in a positive way. These minor nerfs, + the new traits, + rune and sigil changes will hopefully all come together in a positive manner.

My biggest concern now is Conditions, especially with the introduction of Perplexity Runes into sPvP.

Agreed. Before these changes the game would still have the same meta with a couple more builds. Now it might really change it up and make it an even playing field but who knows. All i do know is that the game needed these to happen.

Basically, they’ve made automated response useless. Congratulations.
Now see why i didn’t want them to touch it with a three-meter pole?
They had many choices – could have made it cure x conditions every y seconds, for example. But no, better make it outright useless.
Because it will be useless. There is an 8% hp difference, and you’ll still get all the initial damage. Enough to die. Because engineers’ self condition removal is terrible – we must share our slots with weapons due to nonsensical design decisions AND our passive removal are basically non-existant, since transmute was nerfed to oblivion as well, so either we get something to remove conditions, or we get something to do everything else.
And with 50% duration you get all the damage anyway. Sure, reduced in time…but you are at 33% hp anyway, it doesn’t even matter, you WILL die anyway.
This balance is a joke.

I knew this would happen. They’ve removed one of the few ways engineers had to deal with conditions.. and gave us nothing to compensate.

Worse, it was due to incessant whining in PvP about decapping, but seems to apply everywhere, which means getting owned even worse to condition spam in WvW.

Disappointed… I haven’t played much recently and this doesn’t make me want to ramp up in the future.

Its about kitten time.

Auto Response – Cant you use melandru runes with this for a -75% under 33% hp? Would that make any difference? Seems like its a little better then -100% which has no counter play.

It would still be useless. The point was that you were weak to direct bursts while gaining that condition immune. Now you’re weak to both, at 33% hp it doesn’t matter if you reduce it, as long as you get damage you’re gone. It will end along with KR – forgotten.
It means people will need condition removals anyway, since passive ones are not-existant on engineers, thus there is no need to spend a grandmaster trait on such a worthless trait. Thus one of the few slots engineers have – since they start with a single weapon due to nonsensical design decisions and must spend utility slots for additional weapon, meaning that just for being on par with another class they’ll have two utility slots left (if we aren’t considering that the main weapon has its dps nerfed by design too, again due to the theoretically optional kits). One of those will have to be spent for a condition removal, the other for a stun break (or elixir gun). Assuming they aren’t renouncing to one of that, putting themselves in grave danger.
Basically, they’ll end up killing diversity as well. Nice job.

And anyway, there were ways to change it and still make it useful; could have removed conditions when used toolbelt, or to maintain the automated theme just remove x condition every y time. They had choices.
They just decided to nerf it to oblivion. Kit Refinement redux, basically. Or juggernaut redux if you prefer.

I think the changes to ar shows that if you whine long and hard enough, the developers will eventually give in. Whatever happened to making cap points bigger instead of finding a way to screw builds for every engineer – pve/wvw/pvp because of some build specific build in a specific game mode for a specific role? Now okay I understand some people dont wanna get hard countered, but 33% is too low for what it does. I wvw, I have seen engineers without ar go down from conditions in 2-3 seconds flat without a chance to fight back, all this new revised trait would do is delay it for a second.
Just make it so it works above 66% health or increase it to 50%, I would prefer the first option as it would force condi users to play smart instead of just spamming a condi burst and give engies a chance to fight back.

Penguin.5197:

I think the changes to ar shows that if you whine long and hard enough, the developers will eventually give in.

Or it just could mean there was an actual problem and both players and Devs agree on that.

Whatever happened to making cap points bigger instead of finding a way to screw builds for every engineer – pve/wvw/pvp because of some build specific build in a specific game mode for a specific role?

If its screwing “every engineer” that tells you right away the trait is too powerful/over-selected. There are 10 grandmaster traits per profession. If ANY grandmaster trait is being used by more than about 40-45% of the class population, there’s something seriously out of whack…

Nike.2631:

Or it just could mean there was an actual problem and both players and Devs agree on that.

Or just that there is no problem, aside from a majority of players whining about one of the less played classes in the game.

And the devs are the same devs that are balancing that class giving fixed penalities on the assumption you’ll use optional skills, that are nerfing skills on the assumption that any engineers uses Grenadier and any enemy stays still for 5 seconds on a poison fields and that are balancing an utility like net turret because the version used on an elite skill with 180s cooldown that stuns end up immobilizing because the target is stunned.
Oh, sure i can trust them.

Nike.2631:

If its screwing “every engineer” that tells you right away the trait is too powerful/over-selected. There are 10 grandmaster traits per profession. If ANY grandmaster trait is being used by more than about 40-45% of the class population, there’s something seriously out of whack…

Like the non-existant passive condition removal of engineers that they already nerfed with the Transmute change? Or the fact that engineers had no other choice other than using AR since they play with a reduced amount of utility to begin with due to nonsensical design decisions like the ones described above?

But no, better nerf them to oblivion. Who cares, they are a minority anyway.

Manuhell.2759:

Or just that there is no problem, aside from a majority of players whining about one of the less played classes in the game.

You can assign whatever motives to the Devs actions you want. Fact is the changes are coming.

Nike.2631:

If its screwing “every engineer” that tells you right away the trait is too powerful/over-selected. There are 10 grandmaster traits per profession. If ANY grandmaster trait is being used by more than about 40-45% of the class population, there’s something seriously out of whack…

Irc, ar was never a problem with the power meta, you know what went out of whack that forced engineers into it? Conditions did.

This new trait activates so low for what it does that it was seem to be designed to be taken out of meta, just like what they did to kr. And as what has been pointed out in this thread, our other condition removal is a joke from either deciding on kits or utilities for active removal or our nerfed passive removal traits.

Qaelyn.7612:

I knew this would happen. They’ve removed one of the few ways engineers had to deal with conditions.. and gave us nothing to compensate.

Worse, it was due to incessant whining in PvP about decapping, but seems to apply everywhere, which means getting owned even worse to condition spam in WvW.

Disappointed… I haven’t played much recently and this doesn’t make me want to ramp up in the future.

The best thing about this change is that even more engineers will play a decap build cause bunker engineer isnt viable with the nerf to AR and without proper condition removal utilities.

Manuhell.2759:

Nike.2631:

Or it just could mean there was an actual problem and both players and Devs agree on that.

Or just that there is no problem, aside from a majority of players whining about one of the less played classes in the game.

And the devs are the same devs that are balancing that class giving fixed penalities on the assumption you’ll use optional skills, that are nerfing skills on the assumption that any engineers uses Grenadier and any enemy stays still for 5 seconds on a poison fields and that are balancing an utility like net turret because the version used on an elite skill with 180s cooldown that stuns end up immobilizing because the target is stunned.
Oh, sure i can trust them.

Nike.2631:

If its screwing “every engineer” that tells you right away the trait is too powerful/over-selected. There are 10 grandmaster traits per profession. If ANY grandmaster trait is being used by more than about 40-45% of the class population, there’s something seriously out of whack…

Like the non-existant passive condition removal of engineers that they already nerfed with the Transmute change? Or the fact that engineers had no other choice other than using AR since they play with a reduced amount of utility to begin with due to nonsensical design decisions like the ones described above?

But no, better nerf them to oblivion. Who cares, they are a minority anyway.

What game mode do you play? In WvW sure, there aren’t lots of engineers. If there are, they’re usually p/s perplexity engineers. But in PvP? By no means Engineer is among the least played class.

I’m a thief and I agree with this nerf suggestion.

Well complain all you want but another hardcounter taken out of the game is a great thing. Yes, some form of compensation would have been nice, but at least they’re removing that kitten that prevents any sort of serious pvp.

lindstroem.3601:

The best thing about this change is that even more engineers will play a decap build cause bunker engineer isnt viable with the nerf to AR and without proper condition removal utilities.

My thinking was along the same lines. I played bunker before in PvP, not decap, despite everyone suggesting I should. Now I feel like maybe I should switch.

I love how another spvp thing is going to cause a nerf across all other gamemodes aswell.

I mean for kitten sake, Decap Engineer is specifically mentioned! Do you have any idea how completely gimmicky that build is? Its useless in wvw or pve, and yet there Engineers are also getting nerfed.

Goodjob arenanet, good kittening job.

Great changes and is a testament to Anet’s willingness to balance their game properly. No skill engineers will whine but the good ones will adapt and still rip.

Bravo Anet

Nike.2631:

Penguin.5197:

I think the changes to ar shows that if you whine long and hard enough, the developers will eventually give in.

Or it just could mean there was an actual problem and both players and Devs agree on that.

Whatever happened to making cap points bigger instead of finding a way to screw builds for every engineer – pve/wvw/pvp because of some build specific build in a specific game mode for a specific role?

If its screwing “every engineer” that tells you right away the trait is too powerful/over-selected. There are 10 grandmaster traits per profession. If ANY grandmaster trait is being used by more than about 40-45% of the class population, there’s something seriously out of whack…

Not saying I disagree with it being changed, but if the mark for something needing a nerf is 40%-45% of a class taking a trait then they need to look at Cleansing Ire or Empathic Bond.

I’d guarantee that at least half of Warrs and Rangers take those as they are the best things to use against condis, much like AR is/was for engis. Your benchmark for OP might be a little flawed is all I’m saying.

Azukas.1426:

Great changes and is a testament to Anet’s willingness to balance their game properly. No skill engineers will whine but the good ones will adapt and still rip.

Bravo Anet

The no skill ones are the one who whined for its nerf.
Guess timing condi bursts instead of using skills randomly is too difficult a concept for the majority of pvp players.

But yeah, just screw with the class further, it isn’t like many will bother.

Aerathnor.8305:

Not saying I disagree with it being changed, but if the mark for something needing a nerf is 40%-45% of a class taking a trait then they need to look at Cleansing Ire or Empathic Bond.

I’d guarantee that at least half of Warrs and Rangers take those as they are the best things to use against condis, much like AR is/was for engis. Your benchmark for OP might be a little flawed is all I’m saying.

Usual incoherency in balancing. Something is used by the majority of warriors? It is because the others are bad, buff the others.
Something is used by the majority of engineers? Nerf it under the excuse of increasing build diversity (by leaving only crap things to use).
What do you expect from a class that has fixed penalities for optional utilities and has its kits balanced upon grandmaster traits? Engineer balancing never made sense to begin with.

Also have to love how when warriors have something overpowered it gets very slowly and gently and carefully tweaked by small amounts.

Other classes? Hit them with the nerf hammer.

Manuhell.2759:

Azukas.1426:

Great changes and is a testament to Anet’s willingness to balance their game properly. No skill engineers will whine but the good ones will adapt and still rip.

Bravo Anet

The no skill ones are the one who whined for its nerf.
Guess timing condi bursts instead of using skills randomly is too difficult a concept for the majority of pvp players.

But yeah, just screw with the class further, it isn’t like many will bother.

Aerathnor.8305:

Not saying I disagree with it being changed, but if the mark for something needing a nerf is 40%-45% of a class taking a trait then they need to look at Cleansing Ire or Empathic Bond.

I’d guarantee that at least half of Warrs and Rangers take those as they are the best things to use against condis, much like AR is/was for engis. Your benchmark for OP might be a little flawed is all I’m saying.

Usual incoherency in balancing. Something is used by the majority of warriors? It is because the others are bad, buff the others.
Something is used by the majority of engineers? Nerf it under the excuse of increasing build diversity (by leaving only crap things to use).
What do you expect from a class that has fixed penalities for optional utilities and has its kits balanced upon grandmaster traits? Engineer balancing never made sense to begin with.

When you balance the game you don’t take outliers into consideration (your top or bottom 5-10%). You take the average player and make your adjustments since they make up the majority of your player base. You can scream and cry all you want but these changes are extremely intelligent and needed.

Oh, so now “timing condi burst instead of using skills randomly” is something that only top players can do?
No wonder that pvp is so bad. You’re basically saying that the average player spams skills randomly. That’s the userbase those changes are catered for.
With such a premise those changes are just even more stupid.
And sure, i know it will be useless to write here. It isn’t like they cared when we proposed logical changes that would have still made the trait useful while not destroying it.
But it isn’t like they care about logic. Or coherency, either.

Hard counters are unhealthy for any game, and Automated Response was no different. One should remember that condition immunity also affects Chill, Cripple, Weakness and Immobilise – these are key snares that classes without access to hard CC require to land their damage and immunity to those obviously inflated AR Engineer’s 1v1 capability to beyond just pure Rabid Condition builds.

Having said that, I am unhappy with this change. First of all, this change does not address the underlying issue that Engineers have with the current meta, which is extremely poor active Condition removal outside of CF409 and Elixirs. There is practically nothing outside of the Alchemy line for Condition removal and Engineers are now approaching the point of the post December 10th Elementalist where trait-based condition mitigation is virtually absent – only, Engineers also lack strong condition removal tools in their Utilities.

This is an unintended consequence of the Kit Refinement rework that also eliminated 2 key condition removals for the Engineer – Cleansing Fire for the Flamethrower Kit and Super Elixir for Elixir Gun. Not only did this consequently kill the FT/EG setup’s viability, it also reduced active condition removal for Engineer to practically centre entirely around Healing Turret. Unless you want to go for CF409/HGH, only, that was nerfed in other ways as well, like no stunbreak on Elixir R.

There was also a small, but significant change to Transmute that removed the RNG aspect of it, but kept Transmute’s passive nature and nerfed its maximum potential. There is no excuse for such passives in the game.

We are now approaching the nadir of Engineer active condition removal outside of Elixirs. Every single build that was not using Healing Turret before will now be using Healing Turret. We may even see some Engineers turning to Elixir C, which shouldn’t even be a thing.

To “shave” the passive condition immunity of Automated Response instead of replacing the mechanic with active, cooldown based condi removal like on the Toolbelt is absolutely the wrong way to nerf AR. Yes, on the one hand decap Engineers will no longer be a thing anymore. On the other hand, facing this condi meta with only 8 cleanses a minute (if Turret is detonated, will be minimum of 6 cleanses a minute) will further reinforce Condi Necro’s utter dominance of Engineer and bring up other builds that were already 50/50 against Engi.

I can only hope that more active condition cleanse through traits outside of Alchemy can be introduced because active condi mitigation of Engineer is now at its lowest point. So, here are a few, vain hopes for future changes for Engineer:

• Transmute: Instead of passive conversion of conditions to Boons, tie proc to Toolbelt use. Global ICD 12 seconds. If you think it’s too strong for a Minor trait, make it trigger only on next attack hitting so the conversion can be dodged and Engineer misses a cleanse.

• Introduce Master level Tools trait replacing Scope with Condition cleanse on Toolbelt Skill use. ICD 15 seconds per individual Toolbelt Skill. Scope is useless anyway. Condition mitigation in Tools will do a lot to bring Power Engineer builds back into viability as Power builds sacrifice practically all condition mitigation and utility just to bring enough damage to be relevant in the days of Soldier’s Amulet Hambow.

• Rework Rifled Turret Barrels in Inventions to make Turrets give a small heal and Cleanse a Condition in 300 AOE centred on Turret on use of Overcharge. One of the major reasons for Turret builds being unviable is that pretty much all the Condition mitigation is centred upon Healing Turret. This also lets Engineers make a choice between Projectile negation support with the new Grandmaster or more conventional support with small heals and condition cleanses.

• Kit Refinement: KR Flamethrower: Remove Fire Aura proc, replace with old KR Cleansing Fire that burned foes for 3 seconds and cleansed 1 condition. The FT proc was not the problematic one, it was always Grenade Barrage (100nades) and double Super Elixir (Triple kit bunker). Removing the Cleansing Fire proc was senseless.

• Elixir Gun: Make Fumigate also cleanse 1 condition on last tick of channel for the Engineer. It’s a long enough channel to be easily interrupted and Kit Engineer has a dire lack of Cleansing capability since the Kit Refinement nerfs. This change is also easier to shave: Changing the tick when the self-cleanse procs will change how long an Engineer has to channel before self-cleansing.

• Med Kit: Increase Drop Antidote’kittenbox so that it can also cleanse Immobilise when used. 1 cleanse per 15 is hardly overpowered, especially given that the cleanse doesn’t even work when Immobilised. A buff to Drop Antidote’s cleansing ability isn’t even needed, just make it work with Immobilise.

MonMalthias.4763:

I can only hope that more active condition cleanse through traits outside of Alchemy can be introduced because active condi mitigation of Engineer is now at its lowest point.

Which is why AR shouldn’t have been touched unless those things were done at the same time.

What they’ve done here is made one of the least played classes weaker in one of its weakest spots, in all game modes, for all players, because of the bellyaching of a handful of PvPers.

That’s not balancing. It’s being reactionary and not thinking through the broader ramifications.

Azukas.1426:

When you balance the game you don’t take outliers into consideration (your top or bottom 5-10%). You take the average player and make your adjustments since they make up the majority of your player base. You can scream and cry all you want but these changes are extremely intelligent and needed.

So what is intelligent? Nerfing one of the engineer’s only way of countering condition pressure to counter a build that ONLY EXISTS IN PVP or rather change the way of how the game mode works to make it so this one build isn’t as effective. Alternatives to nerf decap engineer would have been to shorten the length of the knockbacks and/or make the cap circles larger. This would have nerfed that pesky decap engineer without destroying every other engineer build that didn’t run this decap build. Now for alternatives to this nerf, we have elixir C to use. From that, there is no more build variation for the engineer anymore. It will always follow this setup of P/S HT 2kits and EC and SC. No variation because we have no other way of removing conditions and we can’t swap much out otherwise we will perform less effectively than most other classes. I agree that 100% immunity is BS, but literally nerfing every engineer just because of one oddball build that annoys people isn’t good design, its just giving in.

For the record, probably a good 75% of the thread that was asking about decap engineer being a problem were saying nerf AR/remove it. So a lot of people screamed and cried to get to happen. Food for thought.

Qaelyn.7612:

MonMalthias.4763:

I can only hope that more active condition cleanse through traits outside of Alchemy can be introduced because active condi mitigation of Engineer is now at its lowest point.

Which is why AR shouldn’t have been touched unless those things were done at the same time.

What they’ve done here is made one of the least played classes weaker in one of its weakest spots, in all game modes, for all players, because of the bellyaching of a handful of PvPers.

That’s not balancing. It’s being reactionary and not thinking through the broader ramifications.

No, Automated Response absolutely deserved the nerf. Hard Counters are always liable to abuse and AR is no exception. Expect the very same thing to happen once Signet of Restoration is unsplit for Elementalist in April, especially now that Stone Heart is a thing. I fully expect bunker ele to make its triumphant return – albeit with significantly less damage now that Bountiful Power is gone.

That AR was a part of your build and you are upset at the change is unsurprising, but that does not make the trait any less badly designed. Yes, it’s a “counterpick” trait against the condi meta but to be honest the fact that you were relying upon the trait in the first place should ring alarm bells as to its power. Yes, Engineer’s condition mitigation is now at its nadir. Doesn’t mean that AR’s nerfing should be delayed because it is this very attitude that Arenanet has used to justify their stultified meta and lack of frequent changes.

That you happened to be part of a minority of Engineers that somehow ran AR without a decap spec (unlikely, as most of the rest of your active defense would have come from pushes, thus making your spec decap. Feel free to post your build to disprove my assumption though.) does not change the fact that AR was abused by decap engineers to achieve results far beyond their means.

Now, believe it or not, this is (hopefully) some short term pain for some long term gain. With AR as a complete condition immunity gone, it is now justifiable for Arenanet to bring up Engineer condition cleanse in other aspects. What we can do now as a community is to push Arenanet away from passive immunities towards active play using cooldowns. Lamenting the loss of AR without proposing alternatives contributes nothing to the outcome; nor does it give Engineer’s active condi-clear back.

Having said that, the whole condition application through passive procs, being long duration and individually low intensity, the sheer diversity of conditions – 12 (!!!) in game – all of this coupled to an arms race against mass cleansing and immunity is a zero sum game that can only result in collapse sooner rather than later. That Engineers, Warriors and Elementalists needed an Immunity utility or traits in the first place demonstrates that the current system of conditions and condition applying skills is untenable and should be reworked.

There is lots of aspects of the game that are in need of improvement right now. Decap Engineer was one of them; as was Pistolwhip Thief and Hambow Warrior’s big damage despite building tanky. That all 3 mentioned apex predator builds exhibit extreme amounts of crowd control should also clue you off to the fact that there exist vast inequities of Stability uptime between professions and hard CC that is all too easily repeatable in game right now.

Look beyond your own build and class and think of the broader ramifications, as you yourself said. The game’s current incarnation has problems everywhere, but lamenting what’s past does not improve the future.

Sure, let’s nerf to oblivion now and hope they’ll fix the issues, what could go wrong?
Just like they gave a reliable stability after removing it from the old juggernaut, right? What was that, over a year later?

Bah. Keep dreaming.

Want to see the roamer ramifications? We’re further shoehorned into forced choices, those are the ramifications. A kit, a removal (elixir C) and possibly a stun break. Done. This is the new engineer diversity.

Qaelyn.7612:

I knew this would happen. They’ve removed one of the few ways engineers had to deal with conditions.. and gave us nothing to compensate.

Worse, it was due to incessant whining in PvP about decapping, but seems to apply everywhere, which means getting owned even worse to condition spam in WvW.

Disappointed… I haven’t played much recently and this doesn’t make me want to ramp up in the future.

Oh, no, you can’t be immune to conditions anymore? Poor thing, how will you run away now?

Straight up immunity is broken. Strict condi builds could never kill an ele with diamond skin because their power would never be enough to get past 90% without the ele burst healing or simply regenerating. Any strict condi build would never win against engi with that trait, because their direct damage wouldn’t be enough before the engi simply drops a healing turret and gets back up. None of the listed changes were off imo, in fact they could of done more with condi warrior but we’ll see what they decide.

It would be nice if people would learn to read BEFORE posting snarky, childish nonsense.

I never said AR shouldn’t have been changed. I said it shouldn’t have been changed without giving engineers other, better options for dealing with conditions. And also that it is off-base nerfing something that affects all players because of a game mode used by a tiny minority.

Engineers used AR because they didn’t have better options. Removing it without giving us other options is counterproductive.

But hey, why not make one of the least-played classes even less attractive? Makes a lot of… well, “sense” isn’t the right word, is it?

but they are giving engis other options… that rifle that a decap engi runs is getting another sigil slot and they added generosity into pvp.

insanemaniac.2456:

but they are giving engis other options… that rifle that a decap engi runs is getting another sigil slot and they added generosity into pvp.

Any two-handed weapon got that second slot, it isn’t exclusive to engineers. Thus the opponents can put sigils to inflict conditions as well, especially due to the different rules on processings..
And the nerf isn’t in pvp alone. And due to the sigil changes, those are actually going to hurt engineers (due to both the limited number of sigils and the stricter rules on stacking ones).
So…no. They are just restricting their options.

i think your view of balance is either too narrow or exclusive, and very warped.

^and you do realize the enemy can also equip generosity and simply send them back to you? Back to square one!

And also that weapon might actually use condition transfer in a good manner considering Rifle is power based.

And yeah, engineer condition removal is Healing turret.

Now someone might say “but you can take elixir c and elixier gun!”. In the same way that a mesmer got a heck of a lot of options to remove conditions, i mean just look at nullfield, arcane thievery, torch, menders purity, disenchanter, power cleanse, cleansing inscriptions and removal on shatter!

I mean why do mesmers complain about their condition removal?

EDIT: I did use AR in wvw to avoid getting immobistacked to death on a power build but didn’t use it in spvp. I accept that it must go for the sake of standing on circles, but this nerf simply kills it in a lazy fashion instead of actually giving us a viable condition removal trait by completely redesigning it. Not to mention diamond skin is still there, a trait which is better, but on a worse profession for now.

Because people like to complain, which is why we have this thread

insanemaniac.2456:

i think your view of balance is either too narrow or exclusive, and very warped.

No, it is just purely logical. Unlike devs’ view of balance on engineers.

Manuhell.2759:

insanemaniac.2456:

i think your view of balance is either too narrow or exclusive, and very warped.

No, it is just purely logical. Unlike devs’ view of balance on engineers.

no it isnt logical. i make a statement that engi condi removal isnt being purely nerfed this patch, and you come back and say well everyone gets that and everyone also gets increased access to condis, so therefore it doesnt count.

in addition, youre crying that 1 of 2 major components of a build that is widely perceived as cancerous to spvp is being nerfed without compensation, especially compensation to other game modes. after having played and followed league of legends since season 1, im gonna go ahead and say that its ok to balance certain things around highly specific situations. ive seen too many situations where something is op only in certain rating strata. and that its been good for overall game health to balance it around that situation, and perhaps later redesign the abused mechanic entirely.

anet isnt really good at doing overhauls. so the trait will probably languish for a year, but at least spvp wont just be uninteresting because of uncounterable decap cancer.

Dee Jay.2460:

I applaud these changes as they will hopefully influence the meta in a positive way. These minor nerfs, + the new traits, + rune and sigil changes will hopefully all come together in a positive manner.

My biggest concern now is Conditions, especially with the introduction of Perplexity Runes into sPvP.

I just wish ANet would have reached these conclusions about balance by themselves instead of having them force-fed to them by the community.

This. Conditions were already way out of hand. Now critical dmg is getting nerfed hard with ferocity being introduced. Personally I didn’t feel any class besides thief was doing to much raw dmg and the thief problem was more the fact of there being no cooldowns on thief especially backstab. Also with 2 handed weps getting more sigils and the new runes I think conditions will be even more out of hand.

insanemaniac.2456:

no it isnt logical. i make a statement that engi condi removal isnt being purely nerfed this patch, and you come back and say well everyone gets that and everyone also gets increased access to condis, so therefore it doesnt count.

And i can repeat that if you want: something that anyone gets doesn’t change the situation at all. And in this case engineers actually get less processings, due to the changed rules on them. You can process multiple sigils dealing different conditions and use those sigils that heal them as well, but whereas engineers and elementalists have got 2 slots, the others have got 4. So, if anything, it is even worse than before.

insanemaniac.2456:

in addition, youre crying that 1 of 2 major components of a build that is widely perceived as cancerous to spvp is being nerfed without compensation, especially compensation to other game modes. after having played and followed league of legends since season 1, im gonna go ahead and say that its ok to balance certain things around highly specific situations. ive seen too many situations where something is op only in certain rating strata. and that its been good for overall game health to balance it around that situation, and perhaps later redesign the abused mechanic entirely.

First of all, why is this even nerfed in other game modes to start with? You said yourself the problem, assuming there’s even one, is only in pvp.
So the nerf in other modes is already unwarranted for.
Regarding the “targeted nerfs for specific situations”, that’s your opinion and while i don’t agree, i won’t talk further about it.
Still, there should be coherency in those: instead, the engineer is the only one treated upon specific nerf over specific nerf – old juggernaut, kit refinement, incendiary powder, poison grenades, net turrets…and all of those even in pve.
Also, “redesign them later” often is equivalent to “never”. And traits like kit refinement are still useless as now. Juggernaut had even to be demoted to Master. Heh.

anet isnt really good at doing overhauls. so the trait will probably languish for a year, but at least spvp wont just be uninteresting because of uncounterable decap cancer.

And engineers’ condition removal along with them. Not that it is a problem, the least played class is always an easy target.
Whereas they have no problem taking their time with warriors, carefully shaving healing signets and, as now, doing nothing about adrenal health and cleansing ire, even if there are a lot more people complaining about those traits than the few ones that whined about AR.
But it is understandable, they’re a lot more customers.

yep, i cant get anywhere with you. gonna stop trying. oh well.

1 initiative increase on pistolwhip…. you’ll stilil be able to spam the kitten out of it. why can’t you just remove the stun… no one rooted skill in the game stuns like that. make it take some kitten skill

FeelsAlright.5860:

1 initiative increase on pistolwhip…. you’ll stilil be able to spam the kitten out of it. why can’t you just remove the stun… no one rooted skill in the game stuns like that. make it take some kitten skill

well anet will have to put a diminish return on cc anyways if they want people to have a good experiance. its not fun to get chain cced chain stunned, chain feared, chain knocked down, perma crippled, perma chilled…all these are terrible things that shouldnt be in a pvp environment without dr.

Manuhell.2759:

snip snip snip

And engineers’ condition removal along with them. Not that it is a problem, the least played class is always an easy target.
Whereas they have no problem taking their time with warriors, carefully shaving healing signets and, as now, doing nothing about adrenal health and cleansing ire, even if there are a lot more people complaining about those traits than the few ones that whined about AR.
But it is understandable, they’re a lot more customers.

I would just like to touch on the point that nerfing AR somehow nerfed Engineer’s condition removal. There is a significant difference between condition removal and condition immunity (Or in this case, condition duration reduction, which is a mitigating stat as opposed to a condition eliminating trait or skill). AR Does not remove conditions, it makes one (pre-nerf) immune to newly applied conditions which is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Engineer’s condition removal was left essentially untouched. The AR Nerf does not alter our active condition removal at all. Indeed, with AR’s mechanic of not even cleansing pre-existing conditions on activation that is mirrored across to Berserker’s stance and Diamond Skin – many engineers back in 2012 dismissed AR as unviable because the prevailing builds back then did not stack a lot of Vitality to fully abuse AR. In addition, the threats faced by Engineer back then were direct damage based; which simply stacking Vitality without Toughness does not mitigate very well. Also keep in mind that this was before Stabilised Armour was buffed and before Protection Injection became standard in many Engineer builds to mitigate Thief.

Fast forward to now where conditions are rampant and of course some Engineers are going to pick up AR. That doesn’t alter the fact that our condition removal has been somehow removed with this change because AR is not condition removal. Indeed, if you were really exploiting the trait to its fullest potential then you would actually be stacking Healing Over Time to hover around that threshold of immunity – without cleanses of pre-existing conditions you are still under threat without the sustained healing to back it up. One of the reasons why Med Kit instead of Healing Turret is so good with AR; and also why Backpack Regenerator is quite absurd combined with AR also.

That you are somehow spinning the nerfing of AR as a great catastrophe of the loss of the last vestiges of Engineer’s cooldown-based condition removal is facetious and misrepresents the issue. That Engineers are somehow this underdog class with active developer bias against it is also false, because this shave had extremely low impact on every other Engineer build other than Decap. Condi Engineers didn’t run AR, nor did Power Engineers. Even triple kit bunker (RIP Kit Refinement Quad/Triple Kit Bunker) does not run AR because Backpack Regenerator/Invigorating Speed/Protection Injection mitigates so much more at higher percentages of HP than AR does.

I’d actually argue that with this shave, Triple Kit bunker with Healing Turret will make a resurgence where AR decap was previously far outcompeting all other viable Engineer bunker builds.

With regard to Pro-Warrior bias, do keep in mind that 5% from Merciless Hammer, 15% from Arcing Arrow will do much to reduce the peak damage output of the Hambow triple stance build; which were the outliers for something built so defensively.

Combine this with the proposed increased cast time and visibility of Pin Down and the Hambow build is now a lot weaker. That being said, I maintain that the problems reside in Healing Signet as triple stance Hambow is significantly weaker when running Healing Surge or Mending, yet absurd with HS. #8%notenough etc. etc.

Your propensity for pointedly ignoring significant changes to extant apex predator builds whilst spinning shaves that do not impinge on the majority of other Engineer builds as some kind of apocalypse undermines your position.

MonMalthias.4763:

I would just like to touch on the point that nerfing AR somehow nerfed Engineer’s condition removal. There is a significant difference between condition removal and condition immunity (Or in this case, condition duration reduction, which is a mitigating stat as opposed to a condition eliminating trait or skill). AR Does not remove conditions, it makes one (pre-nerf) immune to newly applied conditions which is an entirely different kettle of fish.

But it still means you will have to heal less conditions over a range of time if you take that trait. Potentially none if you’re good enough to stay alive under 25% hp.
By itself it didn’t heal conditions, sure. Still, it mitigated the needs for removal.

MonMalthias.4763:

Engineer’s condition removal was left essentially untouched. The AR Nerf does not alter our active condition removal at all. Indeed, with AR’s mechanic of not even cleansing pre-existing conditions on activation that is mirrored across to Berserker’s stance and Diamond Skin – many engineers back in 2012 dismissed AR as unviable because the prevailing builds back then did not stack a lot of Vitality to fully abuse AR. In addition, the threats faced by Engineer back then were direct damage based; which simply stacking Vitality without Toughness does not mitigate very well. Also keep in mind that this was before Stabilised Armour was buffed and before Protection Injection became standard in many Engineer builds to mitigate Thief.

Cause AR isn’t strong by itself. It became so when everyone started using a condition build, since there was no one to exploit the weakness of the trait then (that is, being susceptible to direct bursts if you try to stay alive at 25% hp).
But again, this is a fault of the meta, not of the trait itself.

MonMalthias.4763:

Fast forward to now where conditions are rampant and of course some Engineers are going to pick up AR. That doesn’t alter the fact that our condition removal has been somehow removed with this change because AR is not condition removal. Indeed, if you were really exploiting the trait to its fullest potential then you would actually be stacking Healing Over Time to hover around that threshold of immunity – without cleanses of pre-existing conditions you are still under threat without the sustained healing to back it up. One of the reasons why Med Kit instead of Healing Turret is so good with AR; and also why Backpack Regenerator is quite absurd combined with AR also.

Like i said above, while by itself isn’t a removal, it mitigated the needs of them.
And while it was possible to do like you suggest, it was possible to do so only due to the condition meta. People simply decided not to exploit the weak point of the trait, whine for it, and it got nerfed.

MonMalthias.4763:

That you are somehow spinning the nerfing of AR as a great catastrophe of the loss of the last vestiges of Engineer’s cooldown-based condition removal is facetious and misrepresents the issue. That Engineers are somehow this underdog class with active developer bias against it is also false, because this shave had extremely low impact on every other Engineer build other than Decap. Condi Engineers didn’t run AR, nor did Power Engineers. Even triple kit bunker (RIP Kit Refinement Quad/Triple Kit Bunker) does not run AR because Backpack Regenerator/Invigorating Speed/Protection Injection mitigates so much more at higher percentages of HP than AR does.

I’d actually argue that with this shave, Triple Kit bunker with Healing Turret will make a resurgence where AR decap was previously far outcompeting all other viable Engineer bunker builds.

If it was that change alone, i could agree.
But when i see engineers nerfed for the most stupid motives, then i get quite kittened off.
Want to talk about grenades? Poison grenade is nerfed under the assumption that if one uses the kit fully traited and shoots them in melee and the enemies stays still, then it gets poisoned for quite a bit (on a skill that basically does only that).
How in the world this balancing even makes sense? You can destroy any and every skill this way. You are not supposed to stay still in the first place. It is like whining that hundred blades is damaging if you get all the hits – well, you shouldn’t have stood still in the first place.
Net turret? That is getting nerfed because…dunno. They talked about balance issues with supply crate, but that actually uses different turrets from the utility ones – that was a problem in the first place with some traits. So there wasn’t even a reason to nerf that one.
The general balancing of grenades, done over the traited version rather than the base one? Find me any other utility or weapon where they balance like that. There aren’t.

And that’s putting aside the whole issue of fixed penalities for optional utilities/kits (again, no other class is balanced upon similar assumptions).

MonMalthias.4763:

With regard to Pro-Warrior bias, do keep in mind that 5% from Merciless Hammer, 15% from Arcing Arrow will do much to reduce the peak damage output of the Hambow triple stance build; which were the outliers for something built so defensively.

Combine this with the proposed increased cast time and visibility of Pin Down and the Hambow build is now a lot weaker. That being said, I maintain that the problems reside in Healing Signet as triple stance Hambow is significantly weaker when running Healing Surge or Mending, yet absurd with HS. #8%notenough etc. etc.

And yet they’re doing nothing for the holy trinity of healing signet, adrenal health and cleansing ire, even if there were even more people whining about those than for AR. Since the major problem is their crazy regen paired with easy removal via cleansing ire (despite them should be the class weak versus conditions…), rather then those other skills.

MonMalthias.4763:

Your propensity for pointedly ignoring significant changes to extant apex predator builds whilst spinning shaves that do not impinge on the majority of other Engineer builds as some kind of apocalypse undermines your position.

Or maybe i’m just more realist than you when i see those changes.
You think they’ll fix engineers’ issues with condition removals, now. Sure, like they did with stability when they removed the old juggernaut.
That is, a year later.
Or like they fixed turrets. What was that, nine months? Assuming they’ll work after the patch, i mean.
Feel free to wait for them. In the meantime, FOTM players will just have shifted to another class. And whoever plays it because it likes the engineer class get screwed.