Guild Wars 2

Thaddeus.4891:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m sending my first report based on this information tonight. After I get that out, I’ll want to shift the discussion to the other four professions we haven’t reviewed much yet:

1. Thief
2. Warrior
3. Engineer
4. Ranger

Thief
I don’t have much to say about thief for PvE. Change are small and don’t screw up the meta much. Some change are a little bit annoying, but not game breaking.
- Critical Strikes Grandmaster is lacking. Hidden Killer is pretty useless since we already are near if not at 100% critical chance for a PvE Meta thief. The other options are about pistol (forget about it) and a healing trait. Nothing really appealing to the dungeon meta.
- We have SA as a good third line for better stealth (ok), we have Acro as a good third line for survival (ok), but Trickery is pretty bad as third line for dps, as it work right now. Flaking strike is a huge gamble, not sure is worth the risk since you don’t control when it gonna trigger. And any of the grandmaster trait are worth using for Dungeon meta. Essentially, we gonna take Trickery as a third line only for the grandmaster minor, which is kind of sad.

Warrior
- It’s generalize to pretty much most the lines. I can’t find a trait line where you can choice three major trait that help toward the Dungeon meta. In Strenght it’s the adept that is lacking, while master is only about GS (even if that same line give a axe grandmaster trait). In Arms the adept trait have the same problem. In discipline you have none, Destructing of the Empowered and Burst Mastery don’t work very well in Dungeons. That left us with only tactics that feel complete as you have three major that work with the Dungeon meta.
- Warrior was never a champion of diversity when it come to dungeon meta. It was always GS + Axe/Mace, but you chould choose between a full dps or phalanx build. But now? It’s gonna be one build to rule them all. And worst is the fact that GS camping will be almost our only option. Warrior already didn’t have the most entertaining rotation, now it’s will be so boring to play warrior in dungeon.

Engineer
- We can’t really give feedback since we got almost no information.

I’d still say gs + axe/mace. even with PS ( should be able to maintain might with a str sigil on the axe/mace set fairly well).

I see there being room for an axe/axe + axe/mace dps option also ( certainly true if when you have 2 wars in a pug group).

Distracting strikes + tremor could be very nice for short fights with trash mobs.

New berserkers power encouraging rather than hindering burst skill use is nice too.

Other than that I’d have to agree with the comments about lack of useful traits for pve in a few slots.

edit: engi has too many TBC to really have too much opinion on it.

Engineer:
As Thad pointed out, we’re missing all the details, so can’t really comment too thoroughly, and the strength of many things will surely come down to the details. Combined with the OP TDB traits (:D) there is just a lot to be seen. I do have one big concern with the loss of Condi Duration on traits. That’s a huge kick in the teeth. Where are we going to get that back? Are Givers weapons going to be like 40% condi duration now? Could we get that all back somehow? It’s a real concern, especially with the kind of weird nature of Vuln. I want a Power Build but to get my Condi Duration I’ll need to choose runes that are condi focused, or gear that has tank stats.

To start though…

Speedy Kit+ Kit Refinement: Currently kit refinement triggers while out of combat, this could be potentially harmful when you’re trying to run through things and recharge your swiftness just to drop a bomb that plops you into combat. I’d ask that they make kit refinement “in combat” only, however not a huge deal you can just selectively choose your kits for swiftness, (Toolkit = superspeed, Med kit = Magnetic Aura, and Flamethrower = fire shield).

The other big issue is the global cooldown for ALL kits. This basically means you’ll get an opening one and one later down the road, it’s the big limiting factor for this trait currently and while the potential bonus is nice (ignoring agro issues) it just doesn’t have the flavor it could. What I’d recommend is raise the recharge to 30s but give each kit it’s own recharge(Could even give each a more personalized refresh as some are better/worse). This would greatly increase it’s tactical usage as it wouldn’t be “wasted” when using a kit you didn’t want the refinement on for any other purpose.

Excited about getting this trait for “free” but worried about it’s ability to actually be used.

Firearms:

• “Crit Chance <600”: This one, while thematically correct for the “crit chance line” I think is a bit troublesome. First, it’s competing with “Precise Sights+Infused Precision” so it’s only really going to be used IFF vuln is being capped through other means (double engi group?) with that in mind I doubt our current situation of gearing with crits in mind will change with our “on crit” traits already being a large focus. Combined with the minor 10% under 50%, I just can’t help but feel that this will quickly fall into the 100%+ crit range. So, I wonder if they could hold back on the crit chance, and add something else in with it. Perhaps extra condi duration which we’ll be losing with the new trait setup. So within 600 range you’ll get 20% condi duration and say 10% crit chance? If not strait condi duration what about just Vuln/Bleeds, both thematically making sense with the idea of close range, larger wounds and easier to aim and all.

• “Rifle/Speargun Trait”: According to Dulfy’s notes (I didn’t remember hearing it, will have to watch again later) they’re saying more crit chance. Again, we’ll run into the cap issue. Maybe nice for non assassin builds but I’d ask them to just consider the crit cap, it’s an issue we’re also seeing with Guardian. I know they want to have general focuses for each trait line but there’s a point where it’s can be overdone.

• Robo-Legs: 25% runspeed please? Especially with the speedy kit concerns and power in the invention/alchemy line now it’d be nice to have that alternative.

Inventions: Just a comment here… looks freakin awesome! not OP awesome just like something I may potentially use outside of strict meta groups, lots of support potential. Fury from Flame Turret w/Experimental Turrets. Extra Reflects with Fortified Turrets. Heals through blasts and blasts through heals and condi removal through heals all making Med kit look like it may get more use. Very synergistic trait line.

My one concern is the cooldowns. If the “heals blast” is at 10s, very nice. 15s, ok, 20s, meh. Same with the minor condi removal. The main reason it has me excited is because I see all this synergy going very well with Med Kit possibly giving us a reason to not use Healing Turret, but if the cooldowns are so long that It’s 1 blast every 20s with med kit or 2 blasts every 20s with healing turret… well guess which one I’m going to pick? So I just hope they keep that in mind when they determine these things.

Cont

Alchemy:

• Potent Elixirs: We seem to be losing this trait. This was a situationally nice trait, not something huge but something nice. I’m wondering about how they could slip it in. My initial thought is this, Take Fast Acting Elixirs off of the HGH trait, instead put the Potent Elixirs there. Fast Acting Elixirs would be combined in with “Elixir Gun Trait” for 20% reduction in reuse on Elixir Gun and Elixirs. Alternatively they could slot Potent Elixirs in the TBD Minor? Though I have to admit I think the current GM Minor is fine as is and it doesn’t need to be re-envisioned.

Tools: Lots of TBD, overall looks fine except the speedy kit thing which is my main concern overall (aside from really hoping they don’t slaughter the usefulness of the inventions line with extended cooldowns).

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Thaddeus.4891:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m sending my first report based on this information tonight. After I get that out, I’ll want to shift the discussion to the other four professions we haven’t reviewed much yet:

1. Thief
2. Warrior
3. Engineer
4. Ranger

Thief
I don’t have much to say about thief for PvE. Change are small and don’t screw up the meta much. Some change are a little bit annoying, but not game breaking.
- Critical Strikes Grandmaster is lacking. Hidden Killer is pretty useless since we already are near if not at 100% critical chance for a PvE Meta thief. The other options are about pistol (forget about it) and a healing trait. Nothing really appealing to the dungeon meta.
- We have SA as a good third line for better stealth (ok), we have Acro as a good third line for survival (ok), but Trickery is pretty bad as third line for dps, as it work right now. Flaking strike is a huge gamble, not sure is worth the risk since you don’t control when it gonna trigger. And any of the grandmaster trait are worth using for Dungeon meta. Essentially, we gonna take Trickery as a third line only for the grandmaster minor, which is kind of sad.

Warrior
- It’s generalize to pretty much most the lines. I can’t find a trait line where you can choice three major trait that help toward the Dungeon meta. In Strenght it’s the adept that is lacking, while master is only about GS (even if that same line give a axe grandmaster trait). In Arms the adept trait have the same problem. In discipline you have none, Destructing of the Empowered and Burst Mastery don’t work very well in Dungeons. That left us with only tactics that feel complete as you have three major that work with the Dungeon meta.
- Warrior was never a champion of diversity when it come to dungeon meta. It was always GS + Axe/Mace, but you chould choose between a full dps or phalanx build. But now? It’s gonna be one build to rule them all. And worst is the fact that GS camping will be almost our only option. Warrior already didn’t have the most entertaining rotation, now it’s will be so boring to play warrior in dungeon.

Engineer
- We can’t really give feedback since we got almost no information.

I’d still say gs + axe/mace. even with PS ( should be able to maintain might with a str sigil on the axe/mace set fairly well).

I see there being room for an axe/axe + axe/mace dps option also ( certainly true if when you have 2 wars in a pug group).

Distracting strikes + tremor could be very nice for short fights with trash mobs.

New berserkers power encouraging rather than hindering burst skill use is nice too.

Other than that I’d have to agree with the comments about lack of useful traits for pve in a few slots.

edit: engi has too many TBC to really have too much opinion on it.

With Fast hands the rotation with Axe and GS made sense, you could get 10 vuln on mace and 2X your 4 vuln on axe and swap back after 6-7s. Now you’ll have to hold on for a full 10, 5 less than a second mace4, and 2-3 less than a third axe2. I really can’t see it beating out the more consistent might production of just camping GS and the damage too I’d be curious on how it compared but I’d bet on GS camping winning out.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

I’d still say gs + axe/mace. even with PS ( should be able to maintain might with a str sigil on the axe/mace set fairly well).

I see there being room for an axe/axe + axe/mace dps option also ( certainly true if when you have 2 wars in a pug group).

Distracting strikes + tremor could be very nice for short fights with trash mobs.

New berserkers power encouraging rather than hindering burst skill use is nice too.

Other than that I’d have to agree with the comments about lack of useful traits for pve in a few slots.

Right now GS camping is higher dps than GS + Axe/Mace, but the additional vulnerability of the second make it better overall. Without Fast Hands, that difference in dps is getting bigger and bigger. Especially since now you also gonna have to sacrifice damage modifier sigil for a sigil of strength.

Ya you will be able to use GS – Axe/Mace, but pure GS build will be far superior.

Distracting strikes + tremor : Ya I suppose that it could in theory give you 25 stack of might at the beginning of a fight if you are really lucky (most likely that you will interrupt only between zero and 2 mobs, not 5). But then you would have to sacrifice berserker power. That’s insane.

The new berserker power fix a problem that exist since the launch of the game so it’s nice. But the greastsword F1 is still kitten in dungeon. It would be a nice addition if GS + Axe/Mace would still be the meta, but with the new trait it will impact PvP way more than PvE.

Jerus.4350:

With Fast hands the rotation with Axe and GS made sense, you could get 10 vuln on mace and 2X your 4 vuln on axe and swap back after 6-7s. Now you’ll have to hold on for a full 10, 5 less than a second mace4, and 2-3 less than a third axe2. I really can’t see it beating out the more consistent might production of just camping GS and the damage too I’d be curious on how it compared but I’d bet on GS camping winning out.

dual-wielding having a 15% attack speed boost ( and 5% damage boost) means foregoing a lot of dps while autoing though. I’m thinking strength sigil & maybe golden dumplings for might while on the axe/mace. also the multi-hitting axe auto for adrenaline gain for t3 evis spam.

comparing it to furious and HB spam – could probably get arcing to fire off at t3 more often for the 20% boost.

hmm, thinking about it I suspect there won’t be too much in it ( for adrenaline gain), but not having to swap to sw/wh while ooc for running would make it more convenient. & cheaper food options, which is what most people will be seeing.
Which opens up the possibility of final thrust to end a fight ( and maybe bloodlust sigil on a warhorn?).

GS + sw/wh has some interesting potential actually.. Not to mention making weapon swapping ooc unnecessary making it even easier to play.

edit:
@thad
Sacing berserks power for a trash mob that will be dead before you can really charge a burst skill wouldn’t really matter. So for trash mobs that shouldn’t even be surviving a single HB & whirlwind..
Aiming tramor would indeed take some skill and luck to interrupt multiple foes.

I suspect most will be too lazy to bother swapping and let HB do the might building, even though the KD is nice on some trash.

edit2:
Arcing looks like it wouldn’t be bad to fill time between 2-5 rotations when camping gs, especially given we will no longer lose a % mod for using it (disregarding the fact we’ll have to use t3 arcing every 10s for ideal damage mod anyway).

Aye, It seems like it’ll be similar to guardian Hammer builds. Main weapon so strong that you can just take a utility setup secondary.

S/W would surely be viable for running. I could see Hammer possibly making an entrance just for the new breakbar stuff, swap CC, swap back asap. Axe or Mace + Sword for blocks. Whatever you feel you might need in addition to your combat weapon that will be GS.

I hope guardian doesn’t camp hammer. I’ll be so bored.
I really dislike the idea of camping 1 weapon most of the time.

Hammer or mace/sword could lead to some interesting play for sure.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

dual-wielding having a 15% attack speed boost ( and 5% damage boost) means foregoing a lot of dps while autoing though.

And? Those buff are already in the game, what changed? Yup ok, now it’s 15% attack speed compare to the current 10% attack speed. But what is different now, that would make Axe more competitive against GS? You know what is different? GS can now have max dps AND phalanx/EA support in one build.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

I hope guardian doesn’t camp hammer. I’ll be so bored.
I really dislike the idea of camping 1 weapon most of the time.

Hammer or mace/sword could lead to some interesting play for sure.

Pretty sure GS+Mace and torch or focus for meta. 66060 dps build 66006 or 60066 for meta build.

Hammer might make a play though.

Looking at it, you should be able to maintain 18/20s of symbol coverage with 60066 GS/mace build. 100% on mace, then time it right and just have 2s in GS you will have it down and you can time it while you auto attack so the loss isn’t as big.

So while Hammer has the 100% symbol thing on them, you also have to consider the 20% decrease in GS and mace skills that are possible, meaning basically a 20% increase in effectiveness of whirling Wrath and Mace2, you’ll be able to get your 2 whirling wraths out within the 10s weapon swap and same with mace, where I believe currently there’s a small delay.

Thaddeus.4891:

And? Those buff are already in the game, what changed? Yup ok, now it’s 15% attack speed compare to the current 10% attack speed. But what is different now, that would make Axe more competitive against GS? You know what is different? GS can now have max dps AND phalanx/EA support in one build.

Remember that a non-PS build scores a bonus ~13% damage bonus from Heightened Focus in Discipline now thanks to a 25% uptime of Quickness once the enemy goes under 50% HP and picks up Destruction of the Empowered, which scales really well in certain encounters.

when is destruction of the empowered good?

coe turret golem, ginva, dredge trash, anything else?

Guardian:

66060 DPS build? Don’t you forget Unscathed Contender so easily.

I think it’s either a crit build with 66006 or a symbol build with 60066 with either

Greatsword + Mace/Focus/Torch

Hammer + Mace/Focus/Torch

and if you want full deeps take Unscathed Contender (if you can keep it up), while also getting some nice burning traits to keep up Fiery Wrath such as Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath.

That’s the big caveat of UC, “if you can keep it up”, quite often it’s just not reasonable to even try.

And before I worry about burning uptime I think we need to see their intentions on burning a bit more fleshed out.

Good and Fair points though.

That’s the big caveat of UC, “if you can keep it up”, quite often it’s just not reasonable to even try.

And before I worry about burning uptime I think we need to see their intentions on burning a bit more fleshed out.

Good and Fair points though.

Edit: though thinking about it, I really think Honor/Rad would give UC a run for it’s money even at 100% uptime.

Well, I can’t be kitten d to rewrite everything again to indulge in your fantasies of control, so I guess you can either scroll back or the mindbrain will write something much better than my useless stuff – with a lot more style.

Thaddeus.4891:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

dual-wielding having a 15% attack speed boost ( and 5% damage boost) means foregoing a lot of dps while autoing though.

And? Those buff are already in the game, what changed? Yup ok, now it’s 15% attack speed compare to the current 10% attack speed. But what is different now, that would make Axe more competitive against GS? You know what is different? GS can now have max dps AND phalanx/EA support in one build.

Not sure why there is a need for the aggressive tone of this post..

From my experience, and what I’ve heard others state, is axe auto has a higher dps than the gs auto.

evis also has much greater damage than arcing. & since we will want to be spamming the t3 version of that as much as possible, seemed like it might be better spamming evis.

but jerus helped me see the pros and cons with a much nicer manner. It goes a long way toward better discussion

Rising Dusk.2408:

Remember that a non-PS build scores a bonus ~13% damage bonus from Heightened Focus in Discipline now thanks to a 25% uptime of Quickness once the enemy goes under 50% HP and picks up Destruction of the Empowered, which scales really well in certain encounters.

Heightened Focus will never give you 13% damage bonus. It’s the theoretical maximum, but it will almost never happen. I guess between 5 and 10% during group fight, but against a boss it will be a really small advantage.

Destruction of the Empowered scale a bit with some very specific encounters. Not much mobs have boons, and usually you want to remove boons from mobs that do have them. Yes for a second warrior it will be good option, but never for the first warrior of a party.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Thaddeus.4891:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

dual-wielding having a 15% attack speed boost ( and 5% damage boost) means foregoing a lot of dps while autoing though.

And? Those buff are already in the game, what changed? Yup ok, now it’s 15% attack speed compare to the current 10% attack speed. But what is different now, that would make Axe more competitive against GS? You know what is different? GS can now have max dps AND phalanx/EA support in one build.

Not sure why there is a need for the aggressive tone of this post..

From my experience, and what I’ve heard others state, is axe auto has a higher dps than the gs auto.

evis also has much greater damage than arcing. & since we will want to be spamming the t3 version of that as much as possible, seemed like it might be better spamming evis.

but jerus helped me see the pros and cons with a much nicer manner. It goes a long way toward better discussion

Remember, some people aren’t native English speakers and tact is not necessarily the easiest thing to do in a second language Thad’s a good guy, just felt like speaking up for him because I have nothing but respect for him and all the people in this community like him, even if we’re arguing sometimes it all comes from the same place, an attempt to figure out the best way to do things.

… I guess I’m drunk and sappy right now but posting it anyways!

Concerning Warrior, i am wondering if they deleted the inspiring banners trait or if it was made baseline?

Lendruil.9061:

Concerning Warrior, i am wondering if they deleted the inspiring banners trait or if it was made baseline?

It was made baseline.

Warrior: Axe mastery should be adept level. Having to pick a 100% necessary axe DPS trait at GM versus Berserker’s Power at the same slot means that pure axe will never have even the possibility of being good.

The 3-4 average vuln that warrior will lose by using Tactics instead of Discipline is a fair price to pay for getting a 60%ish personal DPS boost when using Phalanx Strength.

If they remove the blind, maybe switch it for quickness or another buff that won’t make it OP for their stronghold? And fix the rest of its utilities accordingly, #2 could have the blind, #4 vuln on hit, stuff like so.

Gyler.8150:

If they remove the blind, maybe switch it for quickness or another buff that won’t make it OP for their stronghold? And fix the rest of its utilities accordingly, #2 could have the blind, #4 vuln on hit, stuff like so.

Why would they actually put effort into a silly pve skill when they could reduce the damage by 66% and call it a day? Hm?

Lol i’m not sure why I even try :P, what little hope is left that they actually use our feedback, which obviously is not a thing. I think we all delude ourselves or hype ourselves down just to not get as hurt in the end.

I agree, Nike. Berserker’s Power will always win out over Axe Mastery and that will push Axe out of the meta pretty much entirely. This is generally how I feel about the Warrior changes and what they mean for dungeons and fractals.

• Axe Mastery
  • Axe Mastery as a GM trait will compete with Berserker’s Power and push Axe builds out of PvE in favor of Greatsword-only builds. Axe Mastery needs to be an Adept trait in the place of something like Restorative Strength in order to keep Axe in the PvE meta.
• Powerful Synergy
  • This trait is horrible in its current form. Leap finishers are not that desirable, and don’t provide enough effect to merit sacrificing Phalanx Strength / Vigorous Shouts if you’re going into this line. If you want this trait to be relevant, have it affect all finishers, including blast finishers.
  • Powerful Synergy: All finishers you use activate combo fields twice.
• Furious & Deep Strike
  • These traits should add Power and Condition Damage instead of just Condition Damage. In their current forms they’re really not very useful traits, and should be useful with a more variable set of skill types for the Warrior.
• Heightened Focus
  • This is an interesting trait, but isn’t particularly great. It would be more generally useful and have far more play/counterplay as follows.
  • Heightened Focus: Gain Quickness for a few seconds when you hit with a burst skill. 3 seconds with L1 burst, 4.5 seconds with L2 burst, 6 seconds with L3 burst. 15 second ICD.
• Burst Mastery
  • This trait really isn’t that powerful, and unfortunately doesn’t benefit the less damaging burst skills very much. Doing the following will enable it to benefit a wider variety of mainhand weapons better.
  • Burst Mastery: Burst skills have increased effects (Eviscerate / Kill Shot / Earthshaker / Arcing Slice get +7% damage, Flurry gets +50% bleed duration, Skull Crack gets +1 second stun) and restore adrenaline on use.

I welcome feedback on my ideas here.

I feel its hard to comment on some of the traits seeing as they are reworking conditions. So while the condition increase might be negligible, at the same time, maybe it won’t? (probably will). That and the fact that they are changing the coefficients for all of them.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I agree, Nike. Berserker’s Power will always win out over Axe Mastery and that will push Axe out of the meta pretty much entirely. This is generally how I feel about the Warrior changes and what they mean for dungeons and fractals.

• Axe Mastery
  • Axe Mastery as a GM trait will compete with Berserker’s Power and push Axe builds out of PvE in favor of Greatsword-only builds. Axe Mastery needs to be an Adept trait in the place of something like Restorative Strength in order to keep Axe in the PvE meta.
• Powerful Synergy
  • This trait is horrible in its current form. Leap finishers are not that desirable, and don’t provide enough effect to merit sacrificing Phalanx Strength / Vigorous Shouts if you’re going into this line. If you want this trait to be relevant, have it affect all finishers, including blast finishers.
  • Powerful Synergy: All finishers you use activate combo fields twice.
• Furious & Deep Strike
  • These traits should add Power and Condition Damage instead of just Condition Damage. In their current forms they’re really not very useful trait, and should be useful with a more variable set of skill types for the Warrior.
• Heightened Focus
  • This is an interesting trait, but isn’t particularly great. It would be more generally useful and have far more play/counterplay as follows.
  • Heightened Focus: Gain Quickness for a few seconds when you hit with a burst skill. 3 seconds with L1 burst, 4.5 seconds with L2 burst, 6 seconds with L3 burst.
• Burst Mastery
  • This trait really isn’t that powerful, and unfortunately doesn’t benefit the less damaging burst skills very much. Doing the following will enable it to benefit a wider variety of mainhand weapons better.
  • Burst Mastery: Burst skills have increased effects (Eviscerate / Kill Shot / Earthshaker / Arcing Slice get +7% damage, Flurry gets +50% bleed duration, Skull Crack gets +1 second stun) and restore adrenaline on use.

I welcome feedback on my ideas here.

heightened focus, sorry 6 seconds of quickness on a possible 8 second cool down is a bit over the top.

phys.7689:

heightened focus, sorry 6 seconds of quickness on a possible 8 second cool down is a bit over the top.

The internal cooldown is 15 seconds.

EDIT: I edited the post to clarify this detail.

What I find interesting about the Warrior traits is that we can currently run PS/EA and can run the Elite Specialization. PS/EA will hurt a little without fast hands from Discipline, but was given more damage and more potential variety without changing it’s base use.

Also, Rising that increased effect proposal for Flurry isn’t that great, sword builds already get +50% bleeding duration anyways.

Shinki.8045:

Also, Rising that increased effect proposal for Flurry isn’t that great, sword builds already get +50% bleeding duration anyways.

Sure, but more is better here. It could also affect the base duration instead of acting as a modifier if they wanted it to not count against the maximum. The point is that Burst Mastery should absolutely benefit all burst skills, not just the directly damaging ones. If you’re using a MH sword, you’ll want the bleeds lasting as long as possible.

So I wanted to continue this series of class analyses because this weekend I’d like to send the second half of my dungeon balance in response to specialization changes report to the balance team. I decided that today I would look closely at Rangers, and see where they stood with respect to the new changes.

I’ve got to say I’m very impressed. Some changes, but overall Rangers stand to gain a lot. Below is a summary of what Ranger’s had as key traits before using a 6/5/0/3/0 build.

• Steady Focus (+10% w/ 100% endurance)
• Spotter (+150 AOE Prec)
• Predator’s Onslaught (+10% vs. crippled/etc)
• Pets Prowess (+450 ferocity)
• Companion’s Might
• Hunter’s Tactics (+10% flanking)
• Vigorous Spirits (make them useful)
• Fortifying Bond (share boons w/ pet)

Here’s what a Marksmanship / Skirmishing / Beastmastery setup with specializations gets.

• Vigorous Spirits are now baseline
• Beastmaster’s Bond (Free blast finisher + 15s fury every two pet swaps)
• Steady Focus (+10% w/ 100% endurance)
• Predator’s Onslaught (+10% vs. crippled/etc)
• Light on your Feet (+10% dmg/condi duration while moving)
• Spotter (+150 AOE Prec)
• Hunter’s Tactics (+10% flanking)
• Quick Draw (-66% first weap skill CD on swap) / Strider’s Defense (+10% sword damage)
• Companion’s Might
• Faster pet swapping / F2 skill cooldowns
• 2H Training (+5% damage to GS and Fury uptime) if you picked Quick Draw and use GS, otherwise AOE weakness on F2 or pet regeneration
• Pets Prowess (+450 ferocity +30% movement speed)
• Zephyr’s Boon (3s quickness and 3 might on pet swap)

The only thing lost here if we opt for Beastmastery is Fortifying Bond. If we go for Nature Magic instead of Beastmastery we lose Companion’s Might and Pet’s Prowess and the other perks therein, but gain 1% damage per boon, get back Fortifying Bond, and then get some defensive options for GM. I think BM is a better line overall for DPS, but Fortifying Bond is pretty great for Mighting and Furying the pet.

Some initial thoughts outside of this:

• Honed Axes
  • This trait is bad as a GM trait and cheats offhand axe users. It should work as follows:
  • Honed Axes: Gain 150 Ferocity for each Axe you have equipped. Axe skills have 300 longer range and recharge 20% faster.
  • This also merges in the lost range / radius bonuses from Offhand Training.
• Healer’s Celerity & Trapper’s Defense
  • These traits are really, really bad right now. These should be merged together into Nature Magic and then something else can be put in the Skirmishing adept slot.
  • Healer’s Defense: Create a Spike Trap when you start reviving an ally and grant Swiftness (10s) to both yourself and target ally when they are revived. Revive speed is increased by 10%.
• Skirmishing Adept
  • Based on the above trait merging, and because Light on your Feet and Sharpened Edges will both be at this level, there’s room for another trait here. An idea follows:
  • Stalking Prey: You and your pet gain stealth (2s) when you activate a heal skill.
• Instinctual Bond
  • This trait is really bad in its current form. One idea users presented was to swap this with Fortifying Bond. Another idea follows:
  • Instinctual Bond: You and your pet gain Quickness (2s) when you successfully evade an attack. 20 second ICD.

Can anyone think of any other issues or things related to the Ranger that I should bring up here? I honestly think the changes were very kind to them and put them in a really good place.

Has offhand Axe range/radius increase from the old trait been baselined? Why can’t Fortifying Bond replace/swap with useless Instinctual Bond in Beast or made baseline since pets are weak without sharing boons.

GM Honed Axes +Ferocity affecting only main hand is not useful in pve, or pvp either.

A suggestion from the Ranger forum is to merge Trapper’s defense with Healer’s Celerity:

Healers Defense
- Lay a Spike trap when you start reviving an ally
- Grant 10s of swiftness to allies when you revive them.
- Revive speed increased by 10%.

Search and Rescue is still bad, doesnt work on defeated npcs unlike other professions. Besides not sure how it can be improved since it isnt used much.

Edit: Thanks Dusk!

rojak.1894:

Has offhand Axe range/radius increase from the old trait been baselined?

They didn’t call this out in the livestream, so probably not. Honed Axes should definitely retain that.

rojak.1894:

Why can’t Fortifying Bond replace/swap with useless Instinctual Bond in Beast or made baseline since pets are weak without sharing boons.

This is a good point. I’ll suggest it to them. Instinctual Bond is a pretty terrible trait, so I think this would be good.

rojak.1894:

A suggestion from the Ranger forum is to merge Trapper’s defense with Healer’s Celerity:

Healers Defense
- Lay a Spike trap when you start reviving an ally
- Grant 10s of swiftness to allies when you revive them.
- Revive speed increased by 10%.

I definitely agree with this. I’ll incorporate it in.

I feel like ranger will become the new fresh air ele.

Looks like this thread is mostly dying, but I’m still going to post the Thief review so people can comment on it before I send it on to ANet. Thief in general looks to be in a pretty good place, although the changes to the trait lines mixing up Critical Strikes and Deadly Arts are pretty weird. We’ll review it one at a time, though.

Gains:

• 100% critical chance backstab
• +3 max initiative
• +1% damage per initiatve (max 15%, average around ~8% with PvE rotation)
• GM Trickery Trait

Losses:

• First Strikes adds critical damage instead of damage now (damage loss if under 100% crit chance)
• Flanking Strikes activates Haste instead of adding damage (5% damage lost)
• Combo Critical Chance competes with Side Strike for S/P sets

So mostly a wash for the meta PvE build (slight gain on average), but it’ll be nice having more initiative to work with and faster initiative replenishment if you go with Hastened Replenishment in Trickery as the GM.

My thoughts otherwise:

NOTE: Thieves are good, but they are in the unenviable position where an entire two sets of their utility skills (8 whole skills) are utterly worthless in all game formats (traps and venoms). Beyond that, half of their tricks also never get used, so they get a fairly long list below. Furthermore, they have a lot of unbalanced options in traits where one trait is obscenely good and all other options are really bad. I’ve attempted to suggest improvements below to ameliorate these issues.

Dagger Training

• This trait now has too many conditions. It should have one less condition for an adept trait.
• Dagger Training: Deal 5% more damage to poisoned foes.

Trapper’s Respite

• This is a really fun trait. Hopefully it stays for release!

Panic Strike

• If this is to be moved to the Major slot, it needs to be toned down in some way. Reducing the immobilize from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds would suffice.

Resourceful Trapper

• This is neat, but traps need more to be given some relevance. Merge the old Corrosive Traps trait into this and it will be a bit better.
• Resourceful Trapper: Traps inflict 10 stacks of vulnerability for 15 seconds when triggered and stealing reduces the cooldown of currently recharging traps by 10 seconds.

Improvisation

• The randomness of this trait makes it unreliable and either too strong when it works in your favor or worthless when it doesn’t. The following is more reliable and meaningful.
• Improvisation: You can use stolen items twice. Reduces the cooldowns of all skills of the skill type that is most present on your skill bar by 10 seconds when you steal.

Unrelenting Strikes

• The tooltip on this when it was shown during the live stream had an ICD and showed Might, so it seemed weird. It makes the most sense as follows.
• Unrelenting Strikes: Ferocity is increased by 400 against foes under 33% health.

First Strikes

• This needs to go back to full damage instead of critical damage. This is a nerf in basically all cases currently, and this line needs the help.
• First Strikes: Damage is increased by 10% when you have 6 or more initiative.

Combo Critical Chance

• This is fairly weak and should be merged with the old Combined Training trait to beef it up and keep S/P relevant in PvE for mob clearing.
• Combined Training: Dual skills deal 5% more damage and have 5% higher critical hit chance.

Continued below…

Ankle Shots & Ricochet

• P/P is pretty abysmal in all formats right now, and having these two traits be split as they are is hurting that. Consider the following merging of the two into a major trait (not grandmaster).
• Ricochet: Pistol shots have a 50% chance to bounce to an additional target, crippling struck foes for 2 second. Pistol attacks deal 10% bonus damage to crippled foes and have 150 increased range.
• By doing this, you could replace the old GM spot in Critical Strikes with something better suited for power-based damage. Hidden killer really isn’t sufficient alone because critical chance for most Thief builds is already so high that you scarcely benefit. Consider the following reintroduction of Critical Haste.
• Critical Haste: When you land a critical hit, gain Quickness for 2 seconds. 10 second ICD. You deal 15% more damage under the effects of Quickness.

Last Refuge

• This minor trait is bad because it’s unpredictable and often times puts revealed on the Thief when they don’t want it. It should be changed, and I suggest bringing back a reduced Infusion of Shadow here.
• Infusion of Shadow: Regain 1 initiative when you enter stealth.
  Concealed Defeat
• This trait lists the Smoke Screen it applies as a trick, yet it should be a deception.

Venoms

• Since we’re at Leeching Venoms, I figure this is a good opportunity to express a serious issue with venoms. Grenadier used to be a mandatory Engineer grenade trait because it added an extra grenade for +50% effects, and like that Residual Venom was mandatory to venom builds.
• You’ve removed Residual Venom entirely with this specialization revamp, and let me just say that hopefully it is made baseline. Without it, Venom skills will literally never even be used as a gimmick build, let alone seriously.
• Additionally, Venomous Aura massively enhances venom efficacy, and is a wholy necessary trait if you’re going to use venoms. It’s because of this trait that venoms have to be so weak, because if they were stronger then this would be obscene.
• The following is proposed for consideration.
• Residual Venoms: Made Baseline (all venom skills get +1 charge).
• Leeching Venoms: Same as it is now.
• Venomous Aura: Venom skills apply their effects in an area (240 radius, max 5 targets) when triggered and attacks imbued with venoms are unblockable. Venom skills recharge 20% faster.
• Note above that this rewards properly corralling enemy players before unloading venoms, so that you hit multiple enemies. Furthermore, making them unblockable gives them some skill shots against engineers or guardians. Lastly, because the venoms can be AOE, if you hit multiple targets, I would expect Leeching Venoms to proc for each struck target for added sustain to this kind of build.

Resilience of Shadows

• Too strong as a minor trait. This should be 20% reduction at most.

Cloaked in Shadow

• This is too weak to compete with Shadow’s Rejuvenation. It should have an extra effect, like suggested below.
• Cloaked in Shadow: Gaining stealth blinds (5.25 seconds) nearby foes (240 radius, max 5 targets) and causes you to block the next attack that would hit you while stealthed.

Guarded Initiation

• This trait will pretty much never get used. Its requirement is far too tough to meet, and the payout isn’t very good. The following is an idea to fix this.
• Guarded Initiation: Gain resistance (3 seconds) when striking an enemy while you have over 90% health. 5 second ICD.

Flanking Strikes

• This trait is really bad now because it hurts your endurance regeneration and ability to dodge in response to you playing smart. Furthermore, it’s a stunbreak you’ll never use because if you’re stunned you can’t hit something from behind. This should really be reverted to how it was, but with a slight damage boost so it can actually compete with Thrill of the Crime.
• Flanking Strikes: Deal 7% more damage when attacking a foe from behind or the side.

Sleight of Hand & Bewildering Ambush

• The 20% recharge reduction makes this trait so good compared to Bewildering Ambush it’s not fair. It’s okay if this stays, but Bewildering Ambush needs a serious buff to keep it relevant.
• Bewildering Ambush: Apply 5 stacks of confusion (6 seconds) to your target when you steal and then evade all incoming attacks for 3 seconds.

Is it really worth being concerned with trait details when the new specializations seem to be set on a power creep level that will render all previous ideas invalid? The specializations will take over and render all old content (dungeons/fractals included) pointless, it’s pretty clear.

The new content is gonna have to be pretty challenging, based on the power creep of the first two specialties.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Looks like this thread is mostly dying, but I’m still going to post the Thief review so people can comment on it before I send it on to ANet. Thief in general looks to be in a pretty good place, although the changes to the trait lines mixing up Critical Strikes and Deadly Arts are pretty weird. We’ll review it one at a time, though.

Gains:

• 100% critical chance backstab
• +3 max initiative
• +1% damage per initiatve (max 15%, average around ~8% with PvE rotation)
• GM Trickery Trait

Losses:

• First Strikes adds critical damage instead of damage now (damage loss if under 100% crit chance)
• Flanking Strikes activates Haste instead of adding damage (5% damage lost)
• Combo Critical Chance competes with Side Strike for S/P sets

So mostly a wash for the meta PvE build (slight gain on average), but it’ll be nice having more initiative to work with and faster initiative replenishment if you go with Hastened Replenishment in Trickery as the GM.

My thoughts otherwise:

NOTE: Thieves are good, but they are in the unenviable position where an entire two sets of their utility skills (8 whole skills) are utterly worthless in all game formats (traps and venoms). Beyond that, half of their tricks also never get used, so they get a fairly long list below. Furthermore, they have a lot of unbalanced options in traits where one trait is obscenely good and all other options are really bad. I’ve attempted to suggest improvements below to ameliorate these issues.

Dagger Training

• This trait now has too many conditions. It should have one less condition for an adept trait.
• Dagger Training: Deal 5% more damage to poisoned foes.

Trapper’s Respite

• This is a really fun trait. Hopefully it stays for release!

Panic Strike

• If this is to be moved to the Major slot, it needs to be toned down in some way. Reducing the immobilize from 2.5 seconds to 2 seconds would suffice.

Resourceful Trapper

• This is neat, but traps need more to be given some relevance. Merge the old Corrosive Traps trait into this and it will be a bit better.
• Resourceful Trapper: Traps inflict 10 stacks of vulnerability for 15 seconds when triggered and stealing reduces the cooldown of currently recharging traps by 10 seconds.

Improvisation

• The randomness of this trait makes it unreliable and either too strong when it works in your favor or worthless when it doesn’t. The following is more reliable and meaningful.
• Improvisation: You can use stolen items twice. Reduces the cooldowns of all skills of the skill type that is most present on your skill bar by 10 seconds when you steal.

Unrelenting Strikes

• The tooltip on this when it was shown during the live stream had an ICD and showed Might, so it seemed weird. It makes the most sense as follows.
• Unrelenting Strikes: Ferocity is increased by 400 against foes under 33% health.

First Strikes

• This needs to go back to full damage instead of critical damage. This is a nerf in basically all cases currently, and this line needs the help.
• First Strikes: Damage is increased by 10% when you have 6 or more initiative.

Combo Critical Chance

• This is fairly weak and should be merged with the old Combined Training trait to beef it up and keep S/P relevant in PvE for mob clearing.
• Combined Training: Dual skills deal 5% more damage and have 5% higher critical hit chance.

Continued below…

i like the roulette nature of improv, and to make sure you always benefit, pick multiple types.
with everything getting a type, this will be even better.
i get why some would want to change it, but its just for a certain style of play, the reactive gambler.

now i doubt speed dungeoneer would use it, but if they change it one place they change it every place

Talyn.3295:

The new content is gonna have to be pretty challenging, based on the power creep of the first two specialties.

people are overestimating the raw power of the specs, they arent gonna be that crazy in practice.

So Engineer is the last one I have to review, and I know everyone is sick of me bumping this thread up so much but I want to ensure everyone has a chance to respond before I send them along. This is also the class that was given the Powerpoint treatment in the stream, so we don’t have a perfect idea of what any of the traits do exactly (ICDs, etc), so you’ll see a lot of suggestions here to add interesting traits to the mix.

Grenades

• Grenade kit 1 should function as a typical projectile with some scattered projectiles fired nearby the target’s position. The important QOL gain here is the ability to then autoattack with the skill.

Explosives

• Minor Traits are good. The moving of explosive powder to the minor slot is smart.
• New Grenadier is great; making the third grenade baseline is smart. Other adepts in explosives really can’t compete with it, though. Consider the following suggestions.
  • Explosive Descent really belongs here as an adept trait, not a master trait.
  • The rocket belt bullet thingy is a fairly unpopular idea because the last thing players want is more passive procs. Consider the following for effective counterpressure.
  • Reserve Mines: Release a number of mines when you execute a blast finisher on a combo field (in-combat only). 20 second ICD.
• Damage vs. targets with vulnerability here is good as a master. Consider the name “Exposed Advantage” and make sure it’s 10% damage, not 5%. Note that Explosive Descent should go adept, so that opens up the slot here, which I’ve suggested something coming back below to fill.
• Performance Enhancer: Using a heal skill grants you 3 stacks of Might for 20 seconds. 15 second ICD.
• New Short Fuse is incredibly cool, but make sure it reduces the cooldown of bomb kit skills by 20% in addition to its current effect or it’ll never be good enough compared to Exposed Advantage.
• Mortar trait shouldn’t have a blast finisher on the 1 or else it fully negates the value of the dodge-roll bomb blast trait. In talking with players, having it enhance the duration of the fields was a popular suggestion.
• Bombs Away (Mortar Trait): Mortar combo fields last 2 seconds longer and mortar kit skills recharge 20% faster.
• The other grandmasters are great, just make sure Shrapnel’s numbers are high enough to make it actually worth taking for condition builds.

Firearms

• Minor and adept traits are good.
• Rifle/Speargun trait should add damage, not critical chance. It’s too easy to hit the critical chance cap in PvE already, which would waste the potential of this trait.
• Robo Legs should be a GM trait and Juggernaut should drop from GM. Flamethrower builds that cannot have both Modified Ammunition and Juggernaut will render Flamethrower utterly useless as a primary attacking weapon in all formats.
• Juggernaut needs a more offensive bend to it to really help legitimize Flamethrower usage. Consider the following.
• Juggernaut: You gain 200 Power when wielding a Flamethrower and gain boons (1 stack of stability for 3s, 1 stack of might for 15s) every 3 seconds. Flamethrower skills recharge 20% faster.

Inventions

• The new inventions trait line won’t see much real use in PvE because it’s so defensive, but that’s probably okay. It’s really interesting in its new form. There are some ways we could get it to see some use, though, as follows.
• The using a heal skill triggering a blast finisher is clutch and the lynchpin for this trait line’s success in PvE and should have a low cooldown ~10 seconds. In order to be seriously used, however, it needs a strong damage modifier in the tree. See below for a Master TBD idea that would drive this line to be used (especially since enduring damage goes away in Tools).
• Hyperactive Inventions: Deal 10% more damage for 10 seconds after you use a toolbelt skill. (non-stacking)

Alchemy

• The last minor trait really should remain as Energy Conversion Matrix. It’s a good minor trait and synergizes well with both elixirs and the trait line in general.
• Elixir Gun TBD trait should be pretty simple, consider the following.
• Optimized Catalysts: Elixir F (Elixir Gun 2) and Super Elixir (Elixir Gun 5) now count as Elixirs. Elixir Gun skills recharge 20% faster.
• Idea here is that they would count for purposes of HGH and other elixir interactions. This is strong, but note that it means that HGH builds using this would both give up Protection Injection and give up another elixir utility on their bar.
• Med Kit Trait idea follows as a merging of Packaged Stimulants and a recharge reduction.
• Experimedical Gel: Med Kit skills can be thrown, are more effective, and recharge 20% faster.
• For the TBD GM trait, Cleaning Formula 409 really should come back to this specialization line. It doesn’t make sense in Tools, and you really should have to make the decision between HGH for offensive elixirs or 409 for defensive elixirs. This makes even more sense considering the Elixir Gun trait suggestion I had above. Since the 20% reduction in cooldown gets merged into HGH, to keep it balanced the old Potent Elixirs should be merged into 409 as follows.
• Cleaning Formula 409: Throwing or consuming elixirs removes 1 condition from those affected. Elixir durations are increased by 20%.
• If you really want 409 and HGH to be used together, then swap 409 with Backpack Regenerator and buff BPR so that it’s worth it as a GM trait.

Tools

• Merge Always Prepared with the toolbelt recharge third minor trait as follows. No one would take it in its current form anyway.
• Always Prepared: Drop bandages and oil slicks when downed. Downed damage is increased. Your toolbelt skills recharge 15% faster.
• Speedy Kits merged with Kit Refinement is okay, but only if Kit Refinement’s spells trigger only in combat. They absolutely cannot trigger out of combat like they do now or these two traits when merged will work against each other.
• The idea I had for the Master TBD trait would be to create an endurance-based damage modifier mixing the old Enduring Damage and Empowering Adrenaline traits as follows.
• Fatigue Booster: You deal 10% more damage when your endurance is full and 10% more damage when you have less than 50% endurance.
• I’d recommend something supporty to replace 409, which I suggested go back to Alchemy. An idea follows.
• Surprise Supplies: Toolbelt skills drop bandages at their targets.
• The above trait would drop one bandage (like from Med Kit) at either the center of the AOE or at the target creature of the toolbelt skill (at your own position if used on self). This is a cool way to introduce a healing aspect to this trait line, and add some play / counterplay (maybe you can’t get to the bandage you spawned, for instance).
• As perhaps the GM TBD, consider a reactive survival mechanic that is based on old Armor Mods as follows.
• Subdermal Armor: When you are struck with a critical hit, you gain Aegis and become immune to critical hits for 3 seconds. 20 second ICD.
• A neat Gadget trait idea follows for that TBD.
• Gadgeteer: The next time you use a gadget skill, it has no cooldown. 60 second ICD. Gadget skills have 20% reduced cooldown.
• This would create a huge play/counterplay mechanic where depending on the circumstance you could tailor either a burst with double Slick Shoes, a double stunbreak with Utility Goggles, or even a double heal with A.E.D. This trait should absolutely add a buff to the Engineer’s skillbar when it is off internal cooldown so both the Engineer and its enemies (if PvP) know when it will take effect.

Jerus.4350:

Is it really worth being concerned with trait details when the new specializations seem to be set on a power creep level that will render all previous ideas invalid? The specializations will take over and render all old content (dungeons/fractals included) pointless, it’s pretty clear.

Yes, it is, because if we don’t concern ourselves with these details then every class will simply use the new elite specializations without any build diversity whatsoever. Additionally, I have every confidence that some of the numbers of the elite specializations will be dialed back before release to bring them more in-line with current power levels.

phys.7689:

i like the roulette nature of improv, and to make sure you always benefit, pick multiple types.
with everything getting a type, this will be even better.
i get why some would want to change it, but its just for a certain style of play, the reactive gambler.

Perhaps. I’ll make sure your opinion is represented in my report.

Yeah sorry, just being pessimistic about all this power creep with no real hope of any fun new content. Forgive me.

As for Grenade changes, I disagree, I really enjoy the current targetting thing, it’s one of the things I like about Engi (one of many things ) Map your keys right and it’s not bad at all. I have it on a side button of my mouse, little squeeze and I’m rocking.

As for Adept Explosions, there’s a TBD, so who knows. Grenadier looks nice, but not “I need this” nice considering that the current radius does pretty well in most situations.

Short Fuse does have a 20% cooldown unless I’m misreading something.

Like you said, really have a lot of questions that need to be answered on Engi to make good commentary, for instance will Mortar still have a minimum range? If so blast on 1 seems fine and all, if not, it’d render blasting evasive powder keg pretty pointless wouldn’kitten

I’ll also say I don’t think you give Inventions enough credit in PVE. Will it be used in Meta groups, naw, but will it be used in non meta groups, I really think it has potential… IF they didn’t completely kitten over turrets because of kittening PVP. Flameturret = Fury, any Turret = reflects, that’s some nice support that I always wanted to use more but simply wasn’t worth the sacrifices, with all the changes the sacrifices wouldn’t be nearly as much. I do like your idea for the TBD though. I wish they would put a bit more thought in how to fix turrets and get rid of that complete horsemanure of a change. “we think this will work without hurting it’s use in PVE” yeah kitten off on this one devs, you made a mistake here, please please please fix it.

Speedy Kit + Kit Refinement shouldn’t be too big of an issue for agro. Half our kits won’t get us in agro, if we’re doing a skip, make sure to have one of them on. Med Kit, Toolkit, and Flamethrower are all non agroing. What I’m more conserned about is “wasting” it with it’s long cooldown and it popping while your running your rotation. Yes you could say it’s a skill check to time it right, but I can’t help but feel that it will greatly limit it’s usefulness. I mean, who uses it now? Having it as a freebie with speedy kits is nice because you aren’t sacrificing something for this irritatingly difficult to use trait, and I don’t think 20% fury uptime would be enough to make me want to take it outside of maybe solo situations depending on if I want that endurance regen, or whatever the TBD is. I think a solid change to it would simply make it require “in combat” to trigger kit refinement, this would at least give us one “smart” use at the begining of a fight. Get to an area with spread out mobs, have your bomb kit ready pop it and drop a magnet bomb. If you do get in combat during a run you can pop your EG to slow them down or toolkit to speed you up. Or just grenade for an extra bit of damage at the start. It’d also go far in avoiding the “getting in combat” issue.

I also think grenade targeting is fine as is. It encourages you to actually think about what skills you’re using, instead of just autoattacking, which you really shouldn’t be doing all that much on engi. The underwater grenades are terrible though, 2/3rds of them won’t even hit unless you’re practically inside your enemies model. (Slightly off-topic, but I think the underwater grenade kit needs to be reworked into a grenade launcher type thing, with a single fast projectile with the total effect the 3 grenades had previously.)

The solution we all want to the Speedy Kit Refinement issue, as Jerus said, is to make the Kit Refinement portion proc only in combat. We’ve been asking for PvP for ages already.

I also think you’re looking at this wrong. Engineers don’t need a ton more damage to be meta, we do truckloads of it already. We’re coming out ahead in damage and vulnerability with the changes already shown anyway, unless they screw up the condition duration thing. If anything, we should work to improve versatility further. We’re pretty bad on projectile defense right now, and our options for giving allies things like fury and protection are pretty terrible (as well as our solo fury access). We also don’t do much in terms of allied defenses in boss fights, with no aegis or stability for allies, and one terrible turret option for protection for allies.

Some of your suggestions would also be terribly OP for PvP. Always Prepared as a minor, really? And as much as I’d like 100nades to return, it’s a pretty kitten bad idea. No more instant grenade barrages. And no double AED. I’d love for ANet to suddenly start balancing PvP and PvE separately, but I seriously doubt it’s going to happen, and certainly not to this degree.

The tools GM TBD definitely needs to be useful for PvE though. I’d like to see the tools master TBD slot include a damage modifier as well if Enduring Damage doesn’t return for the third minor.

The Explosives line looks good now, though I certainly hope the adept TBD trait is useful. Firearms looks okay. I’d like to see the Rifle trait increase damage instead of critical chance though; the line has enough crit chance increases as is. I don’t see a problem with both Juggernaut and Mod Ammo as grandmasters. Camping flamethrower is bad in PvE and would remain bad even if you could take both. It isn’t really a problem in PvP either, as you’d only take both in a zerker FT build which aren’t that good anyway. Not to mention that for PvP zerker FT you can now take +crit chance < 600 range as well as the combination rifle trait, and still have rifled barrels, as well as gaining stability. So buffed pretty hard as is.

Totally agree Sins. And to add, FT is pretty much the Guardian Staff for Engi. It has it’s niche use (massive tagging) and for that lacks the damage to be a good choice. I think that’s good design. You take it for the other skills which are good, but if you’re taking it for the auto you’re doing sub par damage. The Retal issue would be nice to have addressed, but /shrug it’s tough being that I think players that like it like the channeled effect, but having it do spurts of fire making it very similar to Guard staff would surely help address that issue. I just don’t see that being a preferred change for those that want to use it.

And, I’d imagine you’d want to go incendiary powder over MA with FT for a more damage focused build. MA is power damage, based on different conditions. FT has 1 condition, 2 if you count bleed procs, is 4% damage or more burning (which now stacks) going to be superior for a low power weapon? Of course without actual numbers who knows, just a thought.

Plus again, I think the people running with FT main will like picking up Robo Legs & Jugg, just as a play style thing. I can imagine it being a decent/easy to use WvW build. Swap for condi damage and incendiary power to go more offensive with a Rabid set or something.

phys.7689:

Talyn.3295:

The new content is gonna have to be pretty challenging, based on the power creep of the first two specialties.

people are overestimating the raw power of the specs, they arent gonna be that crazy in practice.

I’m not over-estimating anything. A mesmer using Domination, Dueling and Chronomancer is strictly better for PvE than any other mesmer combination. It’s a strict upgrade.

Dragon Hunter is for all intents and purposes an upgrade. More DPS and more Vuln. The only question is do you replace Virtues or Honor with Dragon Hunter, whether you will replace one of them or not is not up for debate at this point.

The only professions where I don’t expect the ES to be a power creep is Warrior and Thief since warrior gets a ton out of it’s worst line (Arms) and Thief’s Trickery is really strong.

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

Talyn.3295:

The new content is gonna have to be pretty challenging, based on the power creep of the first two specialties.

people are overestimating the raw power of the specs, they arent gonna be that crazy in practice.

I’m not over-estimating anything. A mesmer using Domination, Dueling and Chronomancer is strictly better for PvE than any other mesmer combination. It’s a strict upgrade.

Dragon Hunter is for all intents and purposes an upgrade. More DPS and more Vuln. The only question is do you replace Virtues or Honor with Dragon Hunter, whether you will replace one of them or not is not up for debate at this point.

The only professions where I don’t expect the ES to be a power creep is Warrior and Thief since warrior gets a ton out of it’s worst line (Arms) and Thief’s Trickery is really strong.

mesmer using chronomancer would be better for your style of PVE no matter what it does based soley on the 30 second boss meta.

fact is the chronomancer is worse at direct dps, worse at condi dps, worse at phantasm, worse at shatters and worse at interupts.

its good at unique party buffs, and increasing party burst.

so yeah its better for the 30 second party spike, but better overall? not really.

phys.7689:

its good at unique party buffs, and increasing party burst.

so yeah its better for the 30 second party spike, but better overall? not really.

Yeah so double Time Warp double quickness well will only be good in short fights. FWIW, time warp is like casting a skill that does about 250k-300k damage. Getting to cast it twice in any fight is by far the most OP single thing in the game. So yeah, you’re totally right that other specs are way better for PvE.