head here to discuss wvw without fear of infractions
Grenadier: "The Spamgineer" (6/8)
head here to discuss wvw without fear of infractions
GRENADIER: “THE SPAMGINEER"
The typical Engineer is a walking cloud of passive trait, sigil and rune procs. Fighting an Engineer is fighting a cloud of spam that quickly comes off of cool-down and requires little planning, positioning or timing to cast.
Stopped reading here. Have you ever played engineer outside hot joins? I hardly doubt it.
EDIT: I started reading. Your posts contain so much nonsense I don’t even know where to start criticize them, you and your aunt’s goldfishes.
(edited by Frenk.5917)
It’s wierd, because Engineer could be less condispam focused and a lot “fairer” if only Arenanet worked on removing a lot of the RNG from Engineer and made more mechanics leverage off of the Toolbelt. Oh, and increasing the damage coefficients for Kits, or you know, actually make their damage scale with Weapon damage. Engineer mainhand weapons like Rifle should also have a minor buff in weapon coefficients so that Power builds are actually comparable to Condition builds.
eh, im gonna stand behind my opinion that it isnt power thats the issue between power vs condi… pizzas and dire are just OP in wvw and spvp doesnt have good power stat combos (knight/cavalier). i dont think buffing weapon coefficients or skill scaling is the right move. i think nerfing pizza is, and rounding out the stat combos with more of whats available in pve will do a lot for spvp.
but then again, the upcoming crit damage nerf will hit our power builds hard, since all the trinket/celestial crit damage is what really makes bruiser builds viable…
In WvW, the Dire/Perplexity/Sigil of Bursting condi-tank is the gold standard for Engineer with Condition duration food, I believe. In my view, balancing Engineer around the presence of Food/Boosts is completely off base.
I do like the idea of introducing Knights (Toughness/Power/Precision) and Cavalier’s (Toughness/Power/Critical Damage) to sPVP in order to allow Power engineer more options to be viable. Certainly Knights will go a long way, but the fact remains that Engineer gives up a lot of utility to go Power, whilst Condi engineer has the luxury of running off hand Shield, needs only a single reel of Grenades to put a lot of condition pressure on the enemy, and still retains a lot of down state control (With Bomb/Nade, in Bomb Kit, you can Stealth stomp/Blind stomp; and you retain a spare slot for Stunbreak).
If playing, say, Static Discharge, you’re locked to targeted Toolbelt skills like Rifle Turret Surprise Shot, Goggles Analyze, Tool Kit Throw Wrench – and you’ve just given up 2 clutch Blinds, 1 Block, and you can’t safely stomp due to no Stability uptime or Blinds or Stealth. Certainly Static Discharge could be better if it wasn’t bugged for non-targeted skills – it would open up a lot of utilities, but Bomb/Nade condi is so much more forgiving that it is markedly inferior. Missing even 1 skill of your spell reel can mean the difference between deleting someone off the face of the earth or being killed; whereas with Bomb/Nade you have significant redundancy to your Blinds/snares/Condition application, and you only need a few good hits to put good pressure on thanks to Incendiary Powder/Shrapnel.
There is also the issue that Engineer lacks a strong sustained Power DPS option in PVP outside of Grenades. In PVE, Bomb Kit can get a lot of damage down – against a stationary target. This is more an issue with Rifle being a burst damage oriented weapon than anything else. On this, I wouldn’t mind if either Overcharged Shot OR Blunderbuss became a Charge skill, dealing more damage for a longer cooldown, but having a shorter cooldown and less damage if used as a pressure tool. (Probably Blunderbuss)
Marellune Malthias – 80 Elementalist
Devil’s Dominion [DD] – Yak’s Bend
sigh… had something written and forum logged me out…
basically, power builds dont have to give up utility. 1 shot builds do. sd isnt a requirement to be power. but spvp currently only supports glass power… so condi builds with staying power rule. and well condis are just faceroll in wvw small scale.
in fact, my traits of choice these days have 0 tools!
head here to discuss wvw without fear of infractions
sigh… had something written and forum logged me out…
basically, power builds dont have to give up utility. 1 shot builds do. sd isnt a requirement to be power. but spvp currently only supports glass power… so condi builds with staying power rule. and well condis are just faceroll in wvw small scale.
in fact, my traits of choice these days have 0 tools!
At the risk of going off topic:
If you don’t mind me asking, what do you run? I have a WvW Power build that is 0/30/0/20/20 taking Hair Trigger, Sitting Duck and Rifle Mod, with Invigorating Speed and Protection Injection in Alchemy, then Speedy Kits and Power Wrench. I use Sigil of Battle in Rifle, Healing Turret, Elixir Gun, Tool Kit, Elixir X for the laffs, then 5 Runes of the Traveller and 1 rune of Divinity. I swap in Bomb Kit or Rocket Boots depending on what I need. 0 in Tools would necessitate IMS traits, Runes of Speed, or 6 runes of the Traveller unless you’re willing to run slowly. To me, giving up perma Swiftness is a huge blow, one that isn’t easily compensated for unless you’ve got something else to make up for it.
*Anyway, back on topic, with regard to some of the Traits changes:
Incendiary Power (Explosives – IX)
- Recharge increased from 10 to 15 seconds.
- Now, when this trait activates, it summons an invulnerable flame turret near the side of the Engineer (possibly using the same summon detection as [Phantasmal Warlock]). The turret arrives on the field using a miniature [Supply Drop] animation. This flame turret then attacks the Engineers current target with a [Fireball] projectile. The projectile deals no damage, but does inflict the burning described in the trait. The turret explodes after shooting the projectile.
I think this change is quite off base, because it does nothing to address the passive proc nature and merely makes IP a more “readable” proc. Nerfing the uptime is also not the solution. The point of IP is to provide more sustained damage to Power or Hybrid builds; yet IP finds its way into Condition builds due to the inherent high amount of covering Conditions Grenade and Bomb kit generate along with Steel Packed Powder. The only way to directly counter IP without dodging every 10 seconds is to have Pets or AI to “soak” the proc, which is hardly a solution. More in my next post as to proposed changes to make it fairer whilst not losing the Precision requirement.
Marellune Malthias – 80 Elementalist
Devil’s Dominion [DD] – Yak’s Bend
Alternative ways for Incendiary Powder to work
: Incendiary Powder: Your next attack after using a Toolbelt Skill inflicts 4 seconds of Burning. Cooldown: 10 seconds
- Mechanically speaking, using a Toolbelt skill adds a ring of fire around the Engineer’s waist and hands to signify that IP is active and the next attack will inflict the Burning. For additional readability, add a trail of fire around the next projectile the Engineer fires – be it Pistol or Rifle autoattack, or Grenades. Buff Bar icon optional.
- This change will kill Bomb/Nade as we know it running Incendiary Powder, and I do mean that quite literally. Bleed stacks from Shrapnel will replace IP in the event of this change, for better or for worse.
- The long cooldowns of Grenade Barrage, Big Ol Bomb and (usually) Regenerating Mist and some other utility skill (probably Elixir S) will cripple Incendiary Powder’s uptime.
- This change will favour Power builds taking Incendiary Powder, as Power build oriented utilities such as Rifle Turret, Tool Kit and so on usually have lower Cooldowns.
- On the other hand, Bomb/Nade could still compensate for it by taking Rifle Turret. However, this means that Bomb/Nade is now without stunbreak and is much more vulnerable to the likes of Hammer Warrior, Basilisk Venom Thief and whatever other class uses Stuns/Hard CC to land their burst.
- Stats wise, this change will negate the need for Precision in builds running IP, making Bruiser builds be able to use IP with more stat combinations than Rabid.
As a further limiting requirement, making the next Critical hit inflict Burning instead of merely the next attack will enforce the Precision requirement – the degree to which can be limited thus:
- For the next X seconds after using a Toolbelt Skill, your next Critical Hit inflicts Burning for 4 seconds.
- Setting the number to be arbitrarily higher or lower increases or decreases the Precision requirement for Incendiary Powder. At 2 seconds, one would be required to be using Flamethrower or Grenades to roll the dice more often and be running Rabid or Rampager. At 5 seconds, even Pistol autoattacks would be sufficient.
: Incendiary Powder: Executing Combo Finishers in Combo Fields makes your next critical attack inflict 4 seconds of Burning. Cooldown: 10 seconds
- Mechanically speaking, after Combo Finishing a Combo Field (Blast, Leap, Projectile), the Engineer receives a ring of fire around the waist and hands to signify IP is active and the next critical attack will inflict Burning. Buff bar icon optional.
- This change will not alter Bomb/Nade significantly. However, Incendiary Powder is now more predictable. Bomb/Nade retains many combo Fields and Finishers, and executing them is part of the playstyle that makes Bomb/Nade so potent in both damage and utility. This change will not significantly change the build, but will lock in Rabid as the stat combination of choice for the Precision requirement. It may also lock down Shield as the weapon of choice due to the 100% projectile and Blast finisher.
- In terms of playstyle alteration, players running Bomb/Nade that are just autoattacking with Pistol through a Combo Field are now broadcasting to all that they are “fishing” for a Combo Finisher when all others are down – keep in mind that Grenades and Bomb Kit do not have high uptime for Finishers.
- This change offers a lot more opportunity for outplay on the side of the opponent, but in hectic teamfights with a plethora of Fields and Finishers, Incendiary Powder will be difficult to single out.
Marellune Malthias – 80 Elementalist
Devil’s Dominion [DD] – Yak’s Bend
these threads…
Will update once Path of Fire releases.
The two points in all of this that engineer defenders are not addressing;
1) The large amount of passive proc’s from traits that can be aligned with runes and sigils to create a near endless amount of continuous proc’s that keep recasting, repeating or overlaying each other.
2) The engineer can be played only focusing on environment. It doesn’t particularly matter what is thrown at you, as long as you stay within range of any kits and bombs. You will eventually win out. It is only if your opponent puts a priority on your kits and avoiding bombs do they then begin to threaten your position. This what is called a brass ring. The opponent needs to counter the symptoms before it can do anything about the cause. It has divide the target from what needs attention. To do this successfully, and manage all profession mechanics that are not physically part of the profession is not harming to the engineer because of the lower cooldowns, above stated survival traits etc before it can recast all turrets/bombs to replace the ones just destroyed. This is the core frustration argument about mesmers. If you leave the clones they can be used against you. If you destroy the clones they can damage you. If you effectively handle the clones they are recast near instantly..all of this you must contend with whilst still also trying to hit the memser themselves. Gw1 had a better solution with this in rangers/ritualists/dervish. If you remove the pet/spirits/enchants, they are not easily replaced and diminish your overall effectiveness until such time you can replace them. This meant time invested in leaving the target to destroy secondary mechanics related to them paid dividends if you could do it effectively without them using this time to kite away from, or simply run and regain energy.
These brass rings should be discussed in overall balance. If we use an analogy of warrior banners that can immobilise and burn you as well as heal the warrior, how balanced should it be that I have to destroy the banners, and if i do I could take damage and then face the warrior who now has pin down on recharge and earth shaker ready to go from the adrenaline they gained attacking you whilst you dealt the turrets?..So know I face more immobilise, more conditions and CC, and if we draw this process out, soon I they will be dropping yet another banner, which creates another brass ring that has to be dealt with before we can resume focusing on the warrior, who now has pin down and earth shaker ready again..rinse-repeat..
The two points in all of this that engineer defenders are not addressing;
1) The large amount of passive proc’s from traits that can be aligned with runes and sigils to create a near endless amount of continuous proc’s that keep recasting, repeating or overlaying each other.
2) The engineer can be played only focusing on environment. It doesn’t particularly matter what is thrown at you, as long as you stay within range of any kits and bombs. You will eventually win out. It is only if your opponent puts a priority on your kits and avoiding bombs do they then begin to threaten your position. This what is called a brass ring. The opponent needs to counter the symptoms before it can do anything about the cause. It has divide the target from what needs attention. To do this successfully, and manage all profession mechanics that are not physically part of the profession is not harming to the engineer because of the lower cooldowns, above stated survival traits etc before it can recast all turrets/bombs to replace the ones just destroyed. This is the core frustration argument about mesmers. If you leave the clones they can be used against you. If you destroy the clones they can damage you. If you effectively handle the clones they are recast near instantly..all of this you must contend with whilst still also trying to hit the memser themselves. Gw1 had a better solution with this in rangers/ritualists/dervish. If you remove the pet/spirits/enchants, they are not easily replaced and diminish your overall effectiveness until such time you can replace them. This meant time invested in leaving the target to destroy secondary mechanics related to them paid dividends if you could do it effectively without them using this time to kite away from, or simply run and regain energy.These brass rings should be discussed in overall balance. If we use an analogy of warrior banners that can immobilise and burn you as well as heal the warrior, how balanced should it be that I have to destroy the banners, and if i do I could take damage and then face the warrior who now has pin down on recharge and earth shaker ready to go from the adrenaline they gained attacking you whilst you dealt the turrets?..So know I face more immobilise, more conditions and CC, and if we draw this process out, soon I they will be dropping yet another banner, which creates another brass ring that has to be dealt with before we can resume focusing on the warrior, who now has pin down and earth shaker ready again..rinse-repeat..
So…what you’re saying is that every profession has their Brass Rings, as you term it?
Keep in mind that I’m not defending Engineer, even as an Engineer main. I too, would like to see the RNG procs go away. As it stands, some of the procs like Incendiary Powder, Shrapnel and so on, aren’t going to be changed in the near future. These are keystone traits that underpin multiple builds and have the potential to sway the future viability of the class one way or another.
But I don’t see you proposing your own changes.
Anyway, out of all the threads, this is probably the one where Swagg is probably the most off-base with his suggestions. I like his intention, but the changes detailed don’t address the core problem and indeed, introduce new ones while making the class clunkier to play. Minimum range, 900 max range on Bomb kit, nerfing the Rifle’s coefficients overall when it is already sidelined in favour of Pistol Shield? You can easily see why there’s some backlash.
Really the smartest thing out of all his suggestions was making Poison Dart volley a Poison Cluster Bomb that could be detonated early to provide more damage at the cost of losing the Field and longer cooldown. That’s…pretty much it.
I understand where you’re coming from in terms of making Engineer “fairer” to fight and reducing the impact of those Brass Rings. The fact remains that although the intention is sound, some of the suggestions are not. In fact, I’d wager that if the changes are swept through in their entirety, Engineer would be even more pinned down into Condition builds, their build diversity would be impacted, and this is including the introduced clunkiness of minimum range mechanics. So the hammer swings both ways.
Marellune Malthias – 80 Elementalist
Devil’s Dominion [DD] – Yak’s Bend
At the risk of going off topic:
If you don’t mind me asking, what do you run? I have a WvW Power build that is 0/30/0/20/20 taking Hair Trigger, Sitting Duck and Rifle Mod, with Invigorating Speed and Protection Injection in Alchemy, then Speedy Kits and Power Wrench. I use Sigil of Battle in Rifle, Healing Turret, Elixir Gun, Tool Kit, Elixir X for the laffs, then 5 Runes of the Traveller and 1 rune of Divinity. I swap in Bomb Kit or Rocket Boots depending on what I need. 0 in Tools would necessitate IMS traits, Runes of Speed, or 6 runes of the Traveller unless you’re willing to run slowly. To me, giving up perma Swiftness is a huge blow, one that isn’t easily compensated for unless you’ve got something else to make up for it.
yeah you start getting limited in what you can do without speedy kits, gotta have power shoes or runes. but that ok, taking power shoes gives you the heal reset as well as stats that i want and enough damage reduction to hard counter any power hammer warrior.
to bring it around to the topic… i do take shrapnel. it gives as much damage as a crit. it guarantees people who start to try to flee stay in combat for forever, long enough for rocket boots to get off cd. its aoe. its independent of crit.
speaking of which, yeah its a grenades build… weve got 2 damage kits. the others are utility/support. so yeah, if you want damage, you need 1 or both of those kits. sure anet could turn another kit into a damage kit, but thatd need to come at the cost of turning bombs or grenades into utility kits. its like asking a hammer warrior to be a gs warrior. or vice versa. you dont tell a pve warrior to use a weapon set besides a/a+gs in a dungeon, theyll just laugh cuz thats their damage.
well, our damage comes at the cost of a utility slot, while a lot of our utility is in our weapon. it is what it is. eles and mes have to make the same “choice” with respect to mobility… each has a blink, and its rare to see them not take it. is it a problem that we only have 2 options to do tons of damage (not implying we cant do viable damage without)? not really, its more a limitation of the devs or the game. each class only has like 20 utilities, for now. maybe well get another good damage option in the future, the devs seem pretty intent on releasing more skills.
so yeah, its kinda rare to see an engi without either grenades or bombs. that doesnt necessarily mean the kits need total overhauls. its actually a really good thing that we can center builds around each kit and that both are workable somewhere, engis have great build diversity. our meta builds are more like… “spend 30-40 points here, and do what you want with the rest” as opposed to, for example… guardians. where you go meta for each content type, cuz otherwise youll lose so much effectiveness that youll be a drag. its something people dont understand, dont comprehend. the build i run could easily be 30/0/0/10/30 instead of 30/10/20/10/0, and id swap a couple knight trinkets in to hold it at ~1800 tough. and swap in med kit. and thats it.
a real problem with engi? prot injection is practically mandatory in pvp modes. its as centralizing as incendiary powder was before it was moved. a build without 10 alchemy is 1/2 as effective as one with and its our answer to not having good stability. but its just so kittening good, no one in their right mind would say its badly designed… dont tell the devs.
head here to discuss wvw without fear of infractions
Swagg, I’m just waiting for the mesmer post. Cause, as it will be like all other of your class post, a total nonsense bunch of biased changes and hours of fun and laughs.
About the engineer… Here’s the Castingeer, the class that will blow away the enemies wasting all the time casting his skills!!!
PD: The autoattack Bomb with 10s of CD just killed me. And the acidic armor, really??
dont tell the devs.
Hahahaha, if you don’t want the devs to know, don’t mention it either
i7 5775c @ 4.1GHz – 12GB RAM @ 2400MHz – RX 480 @ 1390/2140MHz
What a horrible list of suggested changes. Power rifle has never been a popular build tpvp and the suggested changes would hit it incredibly hard. It is already a challenging / risky build in WvWvW and you want to me make it completely unviable.
After the suggested the changes I would really want to use what kind of builds engineers would be using in pve? E.g. dungeon speed runs as the suggested changes would completely wrack the DPS.
Woohooohooo.
Go away for a few days and the world goes crazy on you. I’m actually surprised that this thread continued to float on the first page, though.
I will admit that I went overboard with a few of these—but look at all of these good responses. People panic when they see something changed and immediately give reasons why the change is bad. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback and I’m going to go ahead and readjust some of the numbers and functionalities throughout the thread.
My only real question is why the other threads all have the class names in the title combined with some kind of attempt at a witty phrase, whereas the engineer one has the class name replaced with a trait name. It’s inconsistent.
My only real question is why the other threads all have the class names in the title combined with some kind of attempt at a witty phrase, whereas the engineer one has the class name replaced with a trait name. It’s inconsistent.
When a single skill is effectively the staple in every single “meta” build for a given profession, that profession’s identity is defined by that skill. I could have done something like that for the Thief, but the Thief really is so far off of the map that it doesn’t really belong in the game; thus that title.
/facepalm
Most talked about meta build these days: decap engi
I have yet to see someone post a decap engi build with grenades.
Founding member of [NERF] Fort Engineer and driver for [TLC] The Legion of Charrs
RIP [SIC] Strident Iconoclast
/facepalm
Most talked about meta build these days: decap engi
I have yet to see someone post a decap engi build with grenades.
The trouble with nerfing decap engineer is that it would require nerfing several individual skills that only really become the decap engineer when put together. Individually, those skills aren’t entirely broken. Nerfing them is tricky because while it could resolve the whole decap engineer build, it would probably destroy those individual skills; ensuring that nobody would choose them again as individual options in other potential builds.
My only real question is why the other threads all have the class names in the title combined with some kind of attempt at a witty phrase, whereas the engineer one has the class name replaced with a trait name. It’s inconsistent.
When a single skill is effectively the staple in every single “meta” build for a given profession, that profession’s identity is defined by that skill. I could have done something like that for the Thief, but the Thief really is so far off of the map that it doesn’t really belong in the game; thus that title.
Swagg you may be getting a lot of hate but you are atleast DOING something about imbalance. I mean look at these guys. They are not contributing ANYTHING at all. What Swagg is doing is putting forth his opinions. Why do you guys bash him for it? Why don’t you put forth your own opinions on how skills might be changed? Keep an unbiased opinion, because there are overpowered skills, traits, and combinations thereofe in ALL classes (Besides Guardian, they have pretty muched stayed the same so I assume people are content with them).
Keep doing what you are doing Swagg. Though I may not like some of the ideas you posted. I enjoyed reading the post and it got my own head thinking about some ideas for balance in GW2.
I’d just like to touch on some of your proposed changes to Grenade Kit.
- Overall I can see the intent behind your changes, however, I feel that the majority of them cut into the Engineer’s capability at mid-range.
- Many of these changes are un-necessary. The only thing required to increase the skill floor of Grenade Kit is to alter the spread by inverting the formula used to calculate the random distribution:
- At close range (0-400), Grenades have maximum random spread. This makes fighting in melee with Grenade kit difficult.
- At mid-range (400-800), Grenades have moderate random spread. This allows Engineer to have enough spread to maximise possibility of hits, whilst still having close enough spacing to enable overlapping Grenade hits.
- At long range (800-1200), Grenades have minimum random spread. This makes leading your target and prediction extremely important as you can no longer barrage a point and be sure of multiple hits; whilst making any hit extremely deadly. This also has the effect of minimising the impact Grenade Kit has on a point in PvP when freecasting at long range.
This is actually a very clever way of addressing the Grenade Kit’s disproportionate power when used within melee range.
- Grenadier as the GM trait does not require a Charge skill mechanic. What is needed instead is for Grenades to have 3 grenades thrown as baseline with damage re-distributed such that overall damage is 25% higher than at present. Grenadier would then increase damage by 25% (an extremely handsome amount) to current Grenadier values – for no overall change to maximum values. Range would increase from 1200 to 1400 instead of to 1500 as it is right now. People will feel any change in maximum range, and 100 units is a not insignificant nerf, as it makes several plays on certain PVP maps like Grenading the Trebuchet on Khylo quite difficult.
- This change would make Grenadier less necessary for Grenade Kit to function properly whilst being no less important. Grenadier would then be favoured more for Power builds; whilst Condition builds can be risker and sacrifice range without impeding Condition application.
That’s definitely one way to open up the Grenade Kit to power. When it comes to lowering the base damage on Grenade Kit skills before Grenadier, do you think that it be better to mess with the damage coefficients or with the base damage?
So that we have no precision when the travel time is minimal, and high precision when the travel time is maximum and the enemies have all the time to move out of that precise spot. Sure, what could ever go wrong with that?
Also, grenadier has an issue you aren’t considering. That is, the whole kit is balanced about having said trait, instead of being considered as an added bonus. The changes proposed wouldn’t address that issue at all.
But obviously, if a weapon should be balanced in its base form, a grandmaster trait that works only on it can’t give anything other than big bonuses – enough to shred any balance there was.
Thus the issue, imho, is that grandmaster traits relative to single weapons/utilities shouldn’t exist to begin with.
Some of the effects should be transferred back to the kit, and the remaining part in a master trait – something like 10% increased damage and range – akin to ranger’s eagle eye.
And i can’t agree with the range reduction as well – it would be another nerf just for the sake of pvp.
Grenades are quite easy to dodge from a range…you have all the time you want to move out of their AoE. That is, unless you’re in a game mode that forces you to stay still in a small area…
So that we have no precision when the travel time is minimal, and high precision when the travel time is maximum and the enemies have all the time to move out of that precise spot. Sure, what could ever go wrong with that?
Yes, I thought it was a good idea too.
Also, grenadier has an issue you aren’t considering. That is, the whole kit is balanced about having said trait, instead of being considered as an added bonus. The changes proposed wouldn’t address that issue at all.
But obviously, if a weapon should be balanced in its base form, a grandmaster trait that works only on it can’t give anything other than big bonuses – enough to shred any balance there was.Thus the issue, imho, is that grandmaster traits relative to single weapons/utilities shouldn’t exist to begin with.
That’s actually a very good point to argue. Traits like Grenadier really do pigeon-hole trait distributions for the Engineer because of just how much stronger (SERIOUSLY, A 50% DAMAGE AND EFFECT INCREASE) that that trait makes the [Grenade Kit].
Some of the effects should be transferred back to the kit, and the remaining part in a master trait – something like 10% increased damage and range – akin to ranger’s eagle eye.
I wonder about that. If the [Grenade Kit] were to be nerfed at its base level and then the Grenadier trait were to be changed to effectively refund those nerfs back into the [Grenade Kit] are we really solving anything there? The trait would be even more necessary than ever. I feel like the whole thing needs a full functionality change that would either add some new functionality to the [Grenade Kit] itself (maybe an on-swap effect) or have something to do with tool belt skills.
And i can’t agree with the range reduction as well – it would be another nerf just for the sake of pvp.
Why would a pvp-related nerf worry anyone? PvE is ridiculously easy in this game. I’m not trying to be facetious here—I’m serious.
Yes, I thought it was a good idea too.
That it would be, like, near useless. Dodging its aoe at long range is a problem only in pvp, and only because you’re forced to stay in a small area. And the high traveling time would even make attacking from a distance difficult in PvE, and useless in WvsW – you can already move out of the way by walking, and that’s with them being spread out.
Again, it would be a nerf just for the sake of PvP.
That’s actually a very good point to argue. Traits like Grenadier really do pigeon-hole trait distributions for the Engineer because of just how much stronger (SERIOUSLY, A 50% DAMAGE AND EFFECT INCREASE) that that trait makes the [Grenade Kit].
I wonder about that. If the [Grenade Kit] were to be nerfed at its base level and then the Grenadier trait were to be changed to effectively refund those nerfs back into the [Grenade Kit] are we really solving anything there? The trait would be even more necessary than ever. I feel like the whole thing needs a full functionality change that would either add some new functionality to the [Grenade Kit] itself (maybe an on-swap effect) or have something to do with tool belt skills.
You’re missing a point here – they already balance it counting the traited version as the baseline. That’s why having it traited is so important – the untraited version is terrible to start with.
As now, instead of having a balanced base version and a good traited version, we’ve got a subpar base version and a balanced traited one. The trait is effective in what it does…but they’ve nerfed the base weapon for the sake of the trait to do so.
No other weapon or utility is balanced like that in the whole game.
There is no need for nerfs – they’re already balancing toward the traited version, after all. Since they don’t want to give a balanced version as a base one because a serious grandmaster trait would end up making the weapon too strong, then just shift it down to master and give back some of the power to the base weapon.
And i can’t agree with the range reduction as well – it would be another nerf just for the sake of pvp.
Why would a pvp-related nerf worry anyone? PvE is ridiculously easy in this game. I’m not trying to be facetious here—I’m serious.[/quote]
Because PvP plays by its own rules, and they’re different from any other situation you can meet in the rest of the game.
Balancing all the game toward PvP is just detrimental: every mode should be balanced on its own.
i recall seeing a post somewhere saying we shouldnt make grenades throw 3 without grenadier because it would just make the builds we want to nerf stronger. and i actually agree with it after some thought. the main thing about condi grenade build is they can kitten out so many condis so quickly and repeatedly that you overwhelm the defenses of pretty much everyone. if grenades always threw 3, why would a condi build ever take more than 20 explosives? you dont lose damage, you only kinda want the stats anyways… while the vuln is nice cover, you only need like 1 stack that you can get elsewhere to do the same thing. even taking only 10 explosives would be legit, because shifting 20 points to another line can open up much stronger traits than 10… you could go 10/20/20/20/0 for example and have a bunch of extra defense traits/stats and more immediate condi pressure from getting an extra 100 condi damage instead of 10% duration. but grenades would till be your best damage kit, you still have shrapnel and 3 hits/throw, especially on shrapnel grenade.
and it doesnt reduce the incentive for power builds to grab grenadier either, any number bigger than 15% damage is worth speccing at grandmaster level, as we can see from people shifting to modified ammo for their pve dps builds.
so… what do i want out of grenadier changes? i want grenades to be worth using without the trait. i want to keep the traited range.
what if.. we
1. let grenades always throw 3.
2. increase cd on grenades 2 to 10sec or cut bleed duration in half. (face it, most of the condi power is here)
3. add grenade range into forceful explosives, move to master (and rename?)
4. combine short fuse and explosive powder and move them to grandmaster, buff to 15% damage (10% seems weak?)
5. think of an interesting adept and master trait to create out of thin air
power builds still wanna go in 30… condi builds still wanna go in 30… but both get usable damage from untraited grenades… bomb builds are encouraged to go in 30 (most dps bomb builds do anyways i think? except maybe some kinda modified ammo / hgh builds?)
couple this with a flamethrower 1 rework so we have a melee-midrange damage option without bombs and… maybe a healing power scaling buff to healy bombs to make the choice of “how we use bomb kit” more meaningful… as in, dps bombs vs support bombs vs both making you totally dedicated to bombs.
oh i know, move accelerant packed turrets up to master too to screw w/ decap engi.
head here to discuss wvw without fear of infractions
Yes, I thought it was a good idea too.
That it would be, like, near useless. Dodging its aoe at long range is a problem only in pvp, and only because you’re forced to stay in a small area. And the high traveling time would even make attacking from a distance difficult in PvE, and useless in WvsW – you can already move out of the way by walking, and that’s with them being spread out.
Again, it would be a nerf just for the sake of PvP.
An inversion to the way that Grenades cluster themselves over their flight path would reduce the effectiveness of point-blank grenade spam, make long-range grenade attacks into clutch, lethal strikes and relegate most grenade-related combat to mid-range (at which grenades are the most balanced). I don’t see a problem with this at all.
That’s actually a very good point to argue. Traits like Grenadier really do pigeon-hole trait distributions for the Engineer because of just how much stronger (SERIOUSLY, A 50% DAMAGE AND EFFECT INCREASE) that that trait makes the [Grenade Kit].
I wonder about that. If the [Grenade Kit] were to be nerfed at its base level and then the Grenadier trait were to be changed to effectively refund those nerfs back into the [Grenade Kit] are we really solving anything there? The trait would be even more necessary than ever. I feel like the whole thing needs a full functionality change that would either add some new functionality to the [Grenade Kit] itself (maybe an on-swap effect) or have something to do with tool belt skills.
You’re missing a point here – they already balance it counting the traited version as the baseline. That’s why having it traited is so important – the untraited version is terrible to start with.
As now, instead of having a balanced base version and a good traited version, we’ve got a subpar base version and a balanced traited one. The trait is effective in what it does…but they’ve nerfed the base weapon for the sake of the trait to do so.
No other weapon or utility is balanced like that in the whole game.
There is no need for nerfs – they’re already balancing toward the traited version, after all. Since they don’t want to give a balanced version as a base one because a serious grandmaster trait would end up making the weapon too strong, then just shift it down to master and give back some of the power to the base weapon. [/quote]
If we just keep Grenadier as a “refund the base power of [Grenade Kit]” trait, the [Grenade Kit] will never be good on its own nor will Grenadier be an interesting trait. Grenadier needs to introduce a new functionality to an Engineer’s play-style that may not even necessarily involve the [Grenade Kit].
Because PvP plays by its own rules, and they’re different from any other situation you can meet in the rest of the game.
Balancing all the game toward PvP is just detrimental: every mode should be balanced on its own.[/quote]
Balancing a game around PvP is actually ideal because a game balanced around PvP requires that PvE be filled with encounters that imitate player-vs-player encounters in order to keep everything consistent. Imagine PvE filled with enemies like Svanir, the Chieftain, the Heart of the Mists dueling NPCs and such. Combat wouldn’t require things like Defiant to sustain itself, it would require players reacting to enemy onslaughts and responding with proper positioning, organization, use of light of sight, terrain and CC. It’d be much more active and engaging that the current “hit it repeatedly until its dead” paradigm that pervades most of PvE.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
i recall seeing a post somewhere saying we shouldnt make grenades throw 3 without grenadier because it would just make the builds we want to nerf stronger. and i actually agree with it after some thought. the main thing about condi grenade build is they can kitten out so many condis so quickly and repeatedly that you overwhelm the defenses of pretty much everyone. if grenades always threw 3, why would a condi build ever take more than 20 explosives? you dont lose damage, you only kinda want the stats anyways…
This is why I want Grenadier to be a GM trait that might not be so dependent on just [Grenade Kit]; rather introducing a different mechanic to the Engineer profession.
what if.. we
1. let grenades always throw 3.
Already thinking about it.
2. increase cd on grenades 2 to 10sec or cut bleed duration in half. (face it, most of the condi power is here)
That was a change that I’ve already made—well, the change was to make [Shrapnel Grenade] more of a powerful burst skill on a reasonable cool-down for a profession that can have multiple weapon-sets.
3. add grenade range into forceful explosives, move to master (and rename?)
That could actually be an interesting idea. Moving Forceful Explosives to master would also influence how [Bomb Kit] users select their traits.
4. combine short fuse and explosive powder and move them to grandmaster, buff to 15% damage (10% seems weak?)
Could be an option. Seems a little bland (that’s just me being me), but it definitely would make a GM trait that would influence how explosives-centric Engineers play without focusing too much on a single kit.
However, my only concern with that would be making [Grenade Kit] naturally throw 3 grenades and then making a GM trait that further boosts that damage by 10% or even 15%. That just seems like unnecessary power creep. It’d rather introduce a different functionality instead of just a flat damage boost.
5. think of an interesting adept and master trait to create out of thin air
I actually really like this idea. Merging somewhat underpowered or undesirable traits can open up the door for new ideas to influence how Engineers play. The possibility of a new adept and master trait sounds really cool.
oh i know, move accelerant packed turrets up to master too to screw w/ decap engi.
I actually really like that trait. I’m sad that it’s part of the decap engineer set-up because it’s honestly a very unique and strong trait that isn’t necessarily unbalanced on its own. That’s the trouble of nerfing decap Engineer: it uses a bunch of naturally balanced skills all together in a big spam fest that turns into an overpowered combo. It’s really unfortunate because nerfing the pieces individually would destroy the decap Engineer, but it would also destroy those individual pieces that were otherwise fine on their own. Destroying those otherwise fine pieces bottlenecks the Engineer’s build options even further than it is now.
An inversion to the way that Grenades cluster themselves over their flight path would reduce the effectiveness of point-blank grenade spam, make long-range grenade attacks into clutch, lethal strikes and relegate most grenade-related combat to mid-range (at which grenades are the most balanced). I don’t see a problem with this at all.
Because they would be inefficent at short ranges due to the invariance, inefficent at mid-long ranges because enemies just won’t stay still getting hit when you can just walk out of the aoe (or come toward you, in pve) and you’re putting all of this in a weapon that hasn’t got any particular “high reward” skill, being all about sustained damage? (the only bursty one is the toolbelt, basically, as far as bursts go…)
Heh, it would affect even the autoattack, as it wasn’t already annoying to use to start with.
If we just keep Grenadier as a “refund the base power of [Grenade Kit]” trait, the [Grenade Kit] will never be good on its own nor will Grenadier be an interesting trait. Grenadier needs to introduce a new functionality to an Engineer’s play-style that may not even necessarily involve the [Grenade Kit].
No, it doesn’t necessarily need to be “interesting”. Seeing how it worked so far, i would be content enough with a trait that doesn’t hamper the base weapon to start with.
Especially seeing they continue balancing it toward the traited version, nerfing the base one even further (see: poison grenade nerf).
They should just make a balanced base version, and make grenadier gives some buff that isn’t overly good – and that probably means making it a master trait. But having it as a grandmaster trait – especially with effects that increase damage – is a sure way to make a mess.
Balancing a game around PvP is actually ideal because a game balanced around PvP requires that PvE be filled with encounters that imitate player-vs-player encounters in order to keep everything consistent. Imagine PvE filled with enemies like Svanir, the Chieftain, the Heart of the Mists dueling NPCs and such. Combat wouldn’t require things like Defiant to sustain itself, it would require players reacting to enemy onslaughts and responding with proper positioning, organization, use of light of sight, terrain and CC. It’d be much more active and engaging that the current “hit it repeatedly until its dead” paradigm that pervades most of PvE.
It is just wishful thinking. We can’t have an AI comparable to real players for any monster out there, it would be too heavy as far as computational costs go.
And PvP is quite different in scope, anyway. Small maps, capture points…you don’t even need to kill enemies, if you can stay alive and push them out.
The rest of the game doesn’t work like that.
(edited by Manuhell.2759)
An inversion to the way that Grenades cluster themselves over their flight path would reduce the effectiveness of point-blank grenade spam, make long-range grenade attacks into clutch, lethal strikes and relegate most grenade-related combat to mid-range (at which grenades are the most balanced). I don’t see a problem with this at all.
Because they would be inefficent at short ranges due to the invariance,
That’s the point of the change.
inefficent at mid-long ranges
They’d be most efficient at mid-range after such a change; the same range at which they are the most balanced right now.
because enemies just won’t stay still getting hit when you can just walk out of the aoe (or come toward you, in pve)
That’s where player skill comes in.
and you’re putting all of this in a weapon that hasn’t got any particular “high reward” skill, being all about sustained damage? (the only bursty one is the toolbelt, basically, as far as bursts go…)
Throwing the entire grenade kit at your feet while next to a target is an enormous amount of burst.
If we just keep Grenadier as a “refund the base power of [Grenade Kit]” trait, the [Grenade Kit] will never be good on its own nor will Grenadier be an interesting trait. Grenadier needs to introduce a new functionality to an Engineer’s play-style that may not even necessarily involve the [Grenade Kit].
No, it doesn’t necessarily need to be “interesting”.
Why would you not want a part of a game to be interesting?
Seeing how it worked so far, i would be content enough with a trait that doesn’t hamper the base weapon to start with.
Especially seeing they continue balancing it toward the traited version, nerfing the base one even further (see: poison grenade nerf).
They should just make a balanced base version, and make grenadier gives some buff that isn’t overly good – and that probably means making it a master trait. But having it as a grandmaster trait – especially with effects that increase damage – is a sure way to make a mess.
I’d much rather make Grenadier something that isn’t necessarily tied to the [Grenade Kit] at all because that simply removes the issue of deciding to take the trait because you know it will make your [Grenade Kit] more powerful. Instead we should make a trait that does something completely different (maybe something triggered off of tool-belt skills even) so that Grenadier is promoted more as a play-style option rather than a necessity for bonus [Grenade Kit] damage.
Balancing a game around PvP is actually ideal because a game balanced around PvP requires that PvE be filled with encounters that imitate player-vs-player encounters in order to keep everything consistent. Imagine PvE filled with enemies like Svanir, the Chieftain, the Heart of the Mists dueling NPCs and such. Combat wouldn’t require things like Defiant to sustain itself, it would require players reacting to enemy onslaughts and responding with proper positioning, organization, use of light of sight, terrain and CC. It’d be much more active and engaging that the current “hit it repeatedly until its dead” paradigm that pervades most of PvE.
It is just wishful thinking. We can’t have an AI comparable to real players for any monster out there, it would be too heavy as far as computational costs go.
And PvP is quite different in scope, anyway. Small maps, capture points…you don’t even need to kill enemies, if you can stay alive and push them out.
The rest of the game doesn’t work like that.
The enemies in the heart of the mists or on pvp maps aren’t even any smarter than any other enemy that a player would encounter in the overworld; they just have more skills and often deal more damage than the average NPC. It’s practically that simple.
I appreciate that Swagg has done a massive job at thinking class balance changes for all the professions.
Many of the suggested changes are drastic indeed. Implementing so many drastic changes would need a lot of game testing before putting live. People of course are first reacting with anger, because the proposed changes would indeed:
A) completely change the way they play the engineer
B) would cause a nerf to the DPS (and DPS is all what counts in pve, where engineers were never the top dog)
Making the grenade kit auto attack and most other grenade skills channeling skills is a really bad idea. No other profession has their auto attacks channeling. This game is about being mobile and being able to dodge. Now I have noticed Swagg has changed his original suggestion completely and he is no longer suggesting that.
Grenade kit lacks burst besides the toolbelt skill, barrage. It offers no utility and no blast finishers. The kit is all about DPS and triggering some traits. Instead of the dictating how the kit should be, I would like to hear some reasons why the kit it overpowered compared to the DPS options of the other professions and who would want to use the grenade kit if the real life DPS is significantly reduced. Engineer has no fully cleaning melee auto attack (toolkit #1, twack doesn’t cleave). Basically if you want to play a high dps engineer you are forced to use either the bomb kit or the grenade kit. And even their dps output pales compared to elementalist’s lightning hammer (correct if I am wrong, but I think elementalist has right now the highest DPS in the game?).
Bomb kit having no real auto attack and making it ranged doesn’t make sense. Engineer is already a bit like elementalist. You need to rotate your kits and weapon very fast, like elementalist needs to swap attunements to be efficient. Now this would even further push engis into this and making it less beginner friendly. Just ask any player, engis feel lackluster, compared to let’s say warrior in the first 1-60 levels. I think all professions should have some easy access to DPS and currently bomb kit sits in a very good position, having a very high damage multiplier (1.25x) on its auto attack.
Swagg was originally also suggesting to nerf the engineer rifle auto attack. This is interesting as the skill is in line with the dps of what the other professions can inflict at similar range using their auto attack. Just look at the damage multiplier and real firing rate (roughly once per second). Yet at the same time he is suggesting in another thread to buff the damage of guardian’s whirling wrath, which is one of the most highest hitting damage skills in the entire game. Guardians have always been part of top tpvp teams and together with warrior the most common profession in WvWvW and extremely popular profession in pve, while engineers are among the least played professions in pve and WvWvW. Do we have a bias here? Or is this balancing just all about hot join spvp?
Now let’s compare engi rifle #4 with ranger’s longbow #4, point blank shot. Many complain that ranger’s LB is a weak weapon, but after Swagg’s proposal rifle #4 would be in most cases clearly weaker. And ranger has at same time access to his pet, which can also inflict damage or give utility like condition removal or stealth (ranger’s weapons need to be balanced taking into account also the DPS from the pet). Point blank shot has same CD as the suggested overcharged shot, but much longer range (900/1200 vs 400!) and no penalty (no self-knockback).
I admit that rifle #4 is almost instant cast (however the projectile doesn’t hit instantly) and this makes it problematic. I am for adding a short animation to it (1/2 s), if its range gets increased slightly (e.g. 450 range untraited, 650 range with rifled barrels trait).
Almost all the top engineers haven’t been using the rifle, but most opt for pistol/shield, because the shield offers blocking and a blast finisher, both lacking from the rifle. Rifle is all about control and burst. You sacrifice survivability if you equip the rifle. In all my hundreds of hours of roaming in WvWvW I have rarely ever met a rifle enemy engineer. Rifle engis there are rare as hen’s teeth, but I have seen tons of pistol engineers as part of roaming teams. This just tells that the rifle is in a vulnerable position. Nerf it strongly: nobody will use it outside pve.
(continuing in the the next post)
The suggested changes to the elixir gun are worth considering. I feel that EG #1 is good as it is. It has a low direct damage multiplier (0.4x) and the 4 s bleed is not powerful unless you have a lot of condition duration and enemy doesn’t cleanse the conditions. For comparison: warrior’s rifle #1 does 6 s bleed with similar attack speed and higher range (1200), but does no weakness, but crack shot trait causes ALL the warrior rifle and harpoon gun skills to pierce up to 5 targets and reduces cooldown of the skills by 20%, making it extremely powerful 10 point trait. EG #3 could be used to cleanse ONE condition from the engineer (removing more than one condition would make it overpowered). I agree with Swagg here, because engineers are currently weak at condition removal, unless they take multiple elixirs and the related traits or a healing turret. Even then their condition removal pales badly in comparison with the warrior. Medkit users are very susceptible to immobilize. Thus almost all the engineers using the healing turret and this limits build versatility. I think EG#4 is good as it is, situational skill, but no need to add evade there, even though it could be sort of logical.
The suggested changes to Elixir R make sense and would make it viable again. I think it really should break stun and the 1 second cast time caused me to scrap the skill.
Elixir C should NOT be turned into some semi-attacking skill. It should be all about cleansing and I think engineers really need a skill which cleanses all the conditions. Keep it as it is, but think about the toss elixir C skill, which is weak at the moment considering its cooldown. I would bet elixir C is currently very underused skill.
What is the logic to add cast time to supply crate as its net turret is going to get nerfed in the next patch? I have been the target of enemy supply crate countless of times. I am old and I have slow reflexes but that is one of the easiest skills 1 s skills to dodge due unique clear animation (dropping crate) and even if you don’t dodge it, it does 2 second stun and then you dodge roll away. I have died against enemy engineers, but I have never ever died to an engineer while being hit with the supply crate and following burst. In fact if enemy engineer used his supply crate I have almost always won the fight pretty soon after.
The biggest problem of the engineer is the turrets:
Massive hit box (nearby AoE, which doesn’t even visibly hit the turret damages them), very low amount of health, being immobile and having no real AI and all those bugs, makes turrets seriously lackluster. Fixing the turret AI is not gonna happen any time soon, so all we can do is suggesting something else:
It will be very difficult to make turrets viable for WvWvW or for many pve events. Even giving them 10x health pool and durability would still mean that in a zerg fight or pve group events with massive enemy mobs they would be destroyed in seconds. But adding so much health to turrets could make them overpowered for 1vs1 situations in spvp.
I think the turrets will need to have their hit box seriously reduced and health increased to 1/3 of what ranger pets have e.g. ranger ursine pet has over 50k health. Why not to give around 15-17k health to a turret?
Making the grenade kit auto attack and most other grenade skills channeling skills is a really bad idea.
We’ve had this discussion and I’ve reverting the changes.
EVEN SO, one of the biggest issues with [Grenade Kit] in general is how all of the skills are just barely, barely skill shots. With the ability to throw them at one’s feet combined with their generous radius and the fact that there are 3 grenades makes aiming them a very minor issue in most fights. Another point is their lack of red circles, making it worse for opponent’s when in close range to an Engineer.
The entire kit invites players to use every skill and doesn’t necessarily punish the player for doing so given the fact that every skill has a short cast-time and all of the skills have short recharges considering that the Engineer can have multiple weapon sets at a time.
These are the issues that I am trying to address.
Grenade kit lacks burst besides the toolbelt skill, barrage.
How do you even define burst?
How does [Grenade Kit] lack burst when throwing the entire [Grenade Kit] onto a target (a rather easily accomplished feat) in a team-fight forces that target to either pop defensive cool-downs or die. It would force players on the defense even in a 1v1.
It offers no utility
How is chill not utility? How is poison not utility? How is blind not utility? How do you even define utility??
and no blast finishers.
Now you’re just being spoiled.
And even their dps output pales compared to elementalist’s lightning hammer (correct if I am wrong, but I think elementalist has right now the highest DPS in the game?).
Everything pales in comparison to Elementalist [Lightning Hammer] because the Elementalist is committing a controlled form of suicide for using that skill (as is the case with any conjure weapon). We can’t just have every skill deal absurd amounts of damage otherwise this game would be even more insane than it is now.
Moreover, you’re clearly talking PvE here if you’re mentioning [Lightning Hammer]. Nobody uses [Lightning Hammer] in PvP and that’s where balance should be focused; rather than making balances from a PvE perspective—especially in a game like GW2.
Bomb kit having no real auto attack and making it ranged doesn’t make sense.
I’m going to do some work on [Bomb Kit], but in all honesty, it is a real shame that [Bomb Kit] too is a kit that invites the player to just press every button and never really punishes the player for doing so. This isn’t a matter of “Ohhh, but only bad Engineers spam buttons,” it’s that the game allows the player to do so and will never perform less effectively than if the player had thoughtfully used those same skills in a certain order.
Engineer is already a bit like elementalist.
Engineer doesn’t have kit cool-downs. This makes kits infinitely more forgiving than Elementalist attunements.
Just ask any player, engis feel lackluster, compared to let’s say warrior in the first 1-60 levels. I think all professions should have some easy access to DPS and currently bomb kit sits in a very good position, having a very high damage multiplier (1.25x) on its auto attack.
YOU CANNOT BALANCE based around the leveling experience.
Now let’s compare engi rifle #4 with ranger’s longbow #4, point blank shot. Many complain that ranger’s LB is a weak weapon, but after Swagg’s proposal rifle #4 would be in most cases clearly weaker.
Please, launch is vastly more powerful than knock-back. The fact that [Overcharge Shot] even provides that option makes it on the same level or even more powerful than [Point Blank Shot]. [Overcharged Shot] also does more base damage.
You sacrifice survivability if you equip the rifle.
That is hiiiighly debatable. You get a 20% up-time on IMMOBILIZE without traits, a no-cue LAUNCH on a base 15-second cool-down and a leap (which can be used to also combine with a water field).
EVEN SO, one of the biggest issues with [Grenade Kit] in general is how all of the skills are just barely, barely skill shots. With the ability to throw them at one’s feet combined with their generous radius and the fact that there are 3 grenades makes aiming them a very minor issue in most fights. Another point is their lack of red circles, making it worse for opponent’s when in close range to an Engineer.
The entire kit invites players to use every skill and doesn’t necessarily punish the player for doing so given the fact that every skill has a short cast-time and all of the skills have short recharges considering that the Engineer can have multiple weapon sets at a time.
How do you even define burst?
Moreover, you’re clearly talking PvE here if you’re mentioning [Lightning Hammer]. Nobody uses [Lightning Hammer] in PvP and that’s where balance should be focused; rather than making balances from a PvE perspective—especially in a game like GW2.
…
That is hiiiighly debatable. You get a 20% up-time on IMMOBILIZE without traits, a no-cue LAUNCH on a base 15-second cool-down and a leap (which can be used to also combine with a water field).
Balancing the game based on game mode (spvp/tpvp), which roughly 1% of the player base is actively playing is one of the biggest mistakes the Arenanet designers have done. This has been a slap on the face towards the 99% (the rest). I agree that engineers are pretty strong in pvp, but can you seriously argue that engineers were ever strong in WvWvW or among the top professions in pve?
Spamming the skills is not just an engineer specific problem. Because this game has no concept of energy/mana and thieves have no cooldown on their weapon skills, every profession is spamming the skills. Staff necromancers are also gonna spam all its staff skills on cooldown, except for staff #4 (putrid mark) and staff #5 (reaper’s mark) and in a hectic fight one simple does not see the difference of the marks on the floor. How is the engineer spam worse than dagger thief spamming 222 and sword thief spamming 333?
If I could change the grenade kit, I would do it so that:
blind grenade would do no damage (only blind, thus spamming it for damage wouldn’t make any sense)
freeze grenade would have its damage halved
poison grenade would have its damage halved
grenade kit #1 is slighty buffed to compensate the damage lost (less than 10% buff would be enough! Probably around 4%, too tired to do the math)
At some point Arenanet changed the spread of the grenades, which was a mistake. I think this happened somewhere in the first half of 2013. The higher spread makes it easier to hit an enemy with at least 1 grenade at long distance and things more random and also gives larger effective AoE at shorter distance and promotes the use of grenades at very short distance.
I would very slightly reduce the grenade spread, so that it would actually be more of a skill shot. This would actually be a NERF to WvWvW, which mostly about tagging as many opponents as you can if you want loot bags. The underwater grenade spread also needs to be reduced as currently only 1-2 grenades hit from distance and grenade barrage is useless underwater (it might have all its 7 nades miss the target at point blank distance).
Rifle is a single target control and burst weapon. It is a significant reduction in survivability compared to pistol/shield when engineer is faced by multiple opponents at same time.
When I talk about burst I mean very rapid succession of attacks which take down the enemy from full health. If you compare the time it takes to kill the opponent using just grenade kit or rifle, you will see that the engineer burst is significantly slower than e.g. thief dagger burst or warrior axe burst. Many thieves are running berserker gear, because they have the tools to get out of the combat if things go awry. How many berserker engineers you see in top tpvp? In my observation almost all the WvWvW roaming engineers there are still condi semi-bunkers and same probably holds true for top tpvp (decap engineers rule in hot join spvp, not top tpvp).
The problem with Swagg’s proposals is that he is suggesting too many changes to all professions and even to those professions, which are relatively weak outside pvp. If I would want to nerf the engineer in couple of ways I would look at the following problematic traits (this forum has great suggestions how to fix them):
incendiary powder (too easy access to burning besides all those other conditions <— this is what makes bunker/semi-bunker engis so strong)
automated response (all traits giving total condition immunity are just dumb)
Updates all around:
- Pistol off-hand
- Bomb Kit
- Grenade Kit
- Tool Kit
- Flamethrower
Even though it may be a bit late, I’ll get to replying to the post above this one. All I have to say for now is that it’s wrong to craft balance changes based on PvE-centric thought because GW2 PvE combat is focused on burning through stupid enemies with literally millions of hit-points. Bringing that kind of thought into PvP and making it function as it would in PvE would completely destroy the integrity of PvP without even making PvE any more enjoyable for anyone. It’s a lose-lose situation in the worst way.
Alright, I have no comment on any of the proposed changes.
In fact, I’m only posting in this thread to point out the title. I actually went looking for this thread earlier, figuring that it would have Engineer somewhere in the title, thus making it easier to find. All of the other class threads I’ve seen from this author have the class name, and a derogatory, complimentary, or just head-scratching bit of text next to them, after all.
Instead, the thread for Engineers has ‘Grenadier: The Spamgineer’ as a title. I couldn’t take any suggestions in this thread seriously if I wanted to, because the original poster can’t even be bothered to use the class’s name in the title, instead opting to define the class as ‘the one with the Grenade Kit, and the skill spamming.’ If OP intends the thread to be taken seriously, it might be wise to change that; it’s inconsistent with the naming theme in general, if nothing else.
That said: I’m looking forward to seeing what’s suggested for Turrets. I can always use a laugh.
Alright, I have no comment on any of the proposed changes.
In fact, I’m only posting in this thread to point out the title. I actually went looking for this thread earlier, figuring that it would have Engineer somewhere in the title, thus making it easier to find. All of the other class threads I’ve seen from this author have the class name, and a derogatory, complimentary, or just head-scratching bit of text next to them, after all.
Instead, the thread for Engineers has ‘Grenadier: The Spamgineer’ as a title. I couldn’t take any suggestions in this thread seriously if I wanted to, because the original poster can’t even be bothered to use the class’s name in the title, instead opting to define the class as ‘the one with the Grenade Kit, and the skill spamming.’
Well, I can’t just lie about the profession’s identity.
If OP intends the thread to be taken seriously, it might be wise to change that; it’s inconsistent with the naming theme in general, if nothing else.
The title stays until fixes make it untrue.
That said: I’m looking forward to seeing what’s suggested for Turrets. I can always use a laugh.
I sort of forgot that I had turret changes saved somewhere. I’ll have to go over them.