Guild Wars 2

Hello, I am really afraid of whats coming on the upcoming “balance patch”

First to clarify: I main engineer, I never played anything else in the game, and i only play engineer in Spvp, and abit wvw

The reason for this post: Dhuumfire vs Incediary Powder

A-net: t Dhuumfire doesn’t promote skillful gameplay. We want it so you can actively control the procs. Life blast/death shroud now apply the burning for 3s with 10s cd.

A-net: Incediary Powder: No mention at all

I thought this was a fair world and by nerfing one ability that does not promot skillfull play, would automaticaly assumed any other equivalent would be nerfed as well..

After the 21st…Incediary powder would be unchanged, when Dhuumfire will be nerfed to the ground
HEAR ME OUT I am not saying Dhuumfire was not Over the Top! It needed scaling down..But when you are nerfing a trait coz of its “passive” play, you better do that to all traits

After 21st patch:
Dhuumfire: 3 seconds when you land life-blast. (10 second cooldown )
Incediary Powder: 4 seconds when land a critical-strike ( 10 second cooldown ) What dhuumfire used to be

Lets discuss, with as less drama as possible.
edit: spelling

It’s because Engineers have way more buttons to press man. So that makes them super skillful.

I think that the new Dhuumfire would promote offensive death shroud instead of using DS as extra hp.

Dhuumfire has a 10 second cooldown, DS has a 10 second cooldown. Which means, if you want to burst, you have to use DS, use life blast, and your other condi burst.

It promotes active play instead of passive play. You can’t just get a free burn anytime you want, you have to do actions to get it.

If I were to compensate the nerf. I would give the burn to all DS skills.

+1 I was thinking the same thing and it never made sense!

runeblade.7514:

It promotes active play instead of passive play. You can’t just get a free burn anytime you want, you have to do actions to get it.

Cant get free burn whenever you want on necro, but you can on Engineer..
That is the issue OP is addressing

Wouldnt be surprised if they are already testing reworks of IP on there test servers. I imagine reworking IP is much harder the Dhuumfire due to kits. Do you have it a kit only trait, pistol only or both? Then how do you try to balance it so its useful across specs rather then useless for most but one specific build.

Agreed completely. Here’s an alternative I had a while back: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dhuumfire-and-Incendiary-Powder/first

Alternatives: 10 second ICD, first hit after switching kits?

Writetyper.1985:

Alternatives: 10 second ICD, first hit after switching kits?

That wouldn’t work i think…
That is an idea…
but how is it promoting “Skillfull play” when engineers switch Kits very often
It would be still “passive play”

Anets stance on.dhumfire actually makes me think a lot of traits will be reworked. Chances are you not at least one “33% chances to bleed on crit” in your class. If anet wants to promote active gameplay shouldn’t traits like that be changed as well?

They are nerfing the trait coz Dhuumfire, with terror, is somewhat powerful.
Looking at single traits for balancing issues isn’t enough.

Arcanum.1537:

That wouldn’t work i think…
That is an idea…
but how is it promoting “Skillfull play” when engineers switch Kits very often
It would be still “passive play”

After seeing what they did with dhuumfire i’m expecting IP to add burning to static shot. Which I think would work well. The bounce might make it difficult to balance though, unless they make it burn only the first person hit. I’m looking forward to the rework. Trying to bait out opponent cleanses before throwing on burning sounds like a fun challenge.

Nikkle.4013:

After seeing what they did with dhuumfire i’m expecting IP to add burning to static shot. Which I think would work well. The bounce might make it difficult to balance though, unless they make it burn only the first person hit. I’m looking forward to the rework. Trying to bait out opponent cleanses before throwing on burning sounds like a fun challenge.

This suggestion hurts those who play with rifle..(even if its less popular)
You need a change which benefits all builds.

I am not sure how they going to respond to this because obviously the patch notes haven’t been released yet, but you guys got the idea about this post

one crazy idea: (not sure how many ppl will take it)
Incendiary aura: And after 10 seconds of entering combat apply burning to the target with your next attack ( 15 second cooldown ) ( WITH AN OBVIOUS ANIMATION OFC – Just like fire aura) but this would be a trait,

all that is needed is just a freaking ICON..
Incendiary powder activated “your next attack will inflict burning” with a good visual so you can see it coming somehow..

that’s it

Arcanum.1537:

This suggestion hurts those who play with rifle..(even if its less popular)
You need a change which benefits all builds.

Thats one of the reasons why IP is a badly designed trait imo. It’s just a good trait regardless. I don’t think power builds should be requiring a condi to do damage. By shifting IP to condi builds anet could add or buff some power based traits and hopefully add to our build diversity.

You’re looking at things in a vacuum in different classes that play differently. That makes….. no sense.

Necromancer and Engineer are two classes that work in completely different ways, hence the same trait functions differently for each class. Besides, Engineer already had tons of way to apply burning, while Necromancer had none.

Fix: The next attack after using a toolbelt skill burns your target. cooldown: 10s

I guess we can go home now.

The Dhuumfire change is great b/c it keeps the trait universally usable for all necros (they all have death shroud). It also takes away the tankiness of condi-necro, or reduces their burst potential (death shroud offensively now?). This is a great change in the right direction.

With engies, the change is harder, b/c there is no single skill that ALL engies use. They don’t want to make it on-kit-swap, because then it forces the use of kits to benefit. An icon after an attack that crit would be good, but still pretty passive (for instance, use your pistol 3 skill, the second shot crits and the 3rd burns w/o any chance to react).

Possible suggestions:
1. Icon after critting – good, but not optimal (see above)
2. Proc. when another condition is applied (there are ways to abuse this, but maybe on confusion. Would be an issue if perplexity made it to pvp ever).
3. Proc less-frequently but for longer-duration (making cleanse stronger against it) so that it isn’t just guaranteed damage.
4. More suggestions?

A change, however, would be good to help reduce the efficacy of condi-tanks that still dominate.

2 months ago I created 1 thread , expecting it to be swiftly buried underneath all the Skyhammer threads, conditions too OP threads and Warriors are ridiculous threads. The responses I got were surprisingly level headed, although I will say that I didn’t appreciate garethh.3518’s negativity and lack of contribution to the brainstorming, merely shooting down ideas without trying to add anything to the conversation. I appreciate his stance against procs, and I too would like to see crit-procs through traits die a fiery death.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dhuumfire-and-Incendiary-Powder/first

Traits shouldn’t be effects that need constant watching in the game, but instead just emphasize things that already exist.
exc.
exc.

Things like… ‘reduced CD if you have 3 toolbelt skills on CD’, or ‘if you use an ability’ or ‘if you use a toolbelt skill’.

That’d create more of a risk/reward playstyle, if you burn skills you get more back faster, but the enemy will see you burning your CDs so have an idea of how/when your vulnerable.[/quote]

garethh.3518:

MonMalthias.4763:

I will say this: I agree with your assessment that the game is already busy enough with particle effects but your reply kind of says to me that you missed the “after using a toolbelt skill” trigger.

That being said, one can also rework Engineer traits to focus around Fields and Finishers,

And?
If you want to counterplay it?

It seems like you’re trying to make the skill more engaging, I like the effort.
But just know that those added proc ideas are, individually, fine ideas they add a bit to gameplay and more is more, but in GW2… they are hurting the game something terrible. It’s piling complexity and a little depth onto a system drowning in complexity (with little to no depth).

burning after certain action

hide spoiler

It’s a flaming trait, people don’t want to stare at a buff bar, or get pegged by it, before knowing what they have to do.
To boot, it’s adding the burning to ANY attack after, it means it adds an auto attack or next to instant attack (blunderbuss, exc.) to the already lengthy list of things to avoid…
That’s really bad.

The finisher idea is the closest to great, I see so much potential in combo fields, but with the current setup they are ENTIRELY rotations, you setup your own combos and blast right after, not much coordination or skill involved in it… your idea is almost a good improvement because it switches that up a bit to make where you do that rotation matter more… but the down side is… well, already explained the whole ‘nother effect deal a few times now didn’t I?
Complexity verse depth, complexity is the one you want to have the least of in a game, not most

Anyways.
What I’m saying won’t fix the game in a day but is pretty necessary for GW2 to have PvP’ers in a year.

That being said, I do agree with his assessment that procs in general add complexity without depth to play. Design wise, it is difficult to implement procs that increase depth and add variety and differentiation to combat whilst limiting the increase in complexity; whilst having adequate counterplay to balance its power.

At first I was thinking that maybe they nerfed it for necros and not engis because necros have access to more DoTs like Torment and traited fear. But, then I realized that Engis have confusion, one of the most powerful condis in the game.

So in response, I don’t know why.

garethh.3518:

MonMalthias.4763:

If Incendiary Powder were instead nerfed to:

• “For the next 2 seconds after activating a Toolbelt skill, your next critical hit has a 100% chance to cause Burning for 4 seconds (Cooldown 15 seconds)

Uhm.

Your suggestion

hide spoiler

It is already hell to watch all the animations and keep track of the skills in this game.
Adding another skill that requires staring at the opponents buff bar to counter… that is just largely counter productive.
No one will ever counterplay that.

my suggestion

hide spoiler

Traits shouldn’t be effects that need constant watching in the game, but instead just emphasize things that already exist.
exc.
exc.

Things like… ‘reduced CD if you have 3 toolbelt skills on CD’, or ‘if you use an ability’ or ‘if you use a toolbelt skill’.

That’d create more of a risk/reward playstyle, if you burn skills you get more back faster, but the enemy will see you burning your CDs so have an idea of how/when your vulnerable.

Honestly, what I’d do if I were Anet… I’d cut back the trait tree so hard, I’d just make 1 traitline with 5-6 slots and you pick an ability from a certain list for each slot.
It’d really narrow down the class, that is good, it’d make most engineers build around the same core mechanic, say that central sort of trait is ‘more skills on CD, the faster they recharge’. You can build an engi to sooo many different ends around that core one mechanic, it’d create more dynamic gameplay and people watching will always have a decent idea of how your spec works. That’s an improvement in next to every aspect by doing less work.

Anyways, idk.
Anet seems to like to do their own thing

Proposal to completely scrap the design of engineer and by extension every other class that used the 5 trait line system aside, I do think that there is some merit in revolving more traits around cooldowns, cooldown resets and play more around the “cast, aftercast, animation, cooldown” design Anet has implemented.

Some more ideas:

Incendiary Powder

• While all your Toolbelt skills are on cooldown, your weapon skills apply Burning (Cooldown 10 seconds)

• When you apply Burning to foes, every two ticks of Burning damage reduce the cooldown of your Toolbelt skils by 1 second (Cooldown 2 seconds)

• The perennial The next attack after using a Toolbelt skill applies Burning (Cooldown 10 seconds)

• While a Utility skill is on cooldown, your Weapon skills apply Burning (Cooldown 10 seconds)

• Successful Blast Finishers in Combo Fields cause your next attack to inflict Burning (Cooldown 10 seconds) (Dirame’s idea)

TL; DR: Nerfing Incendiary Powder in such a way as to increase the skill floor has been discussed in multiple threads multiple times already. It’s up to the community to find a consensus and push for it to Arenanet.

Geff.1930:

At first I was thinking that maybe they nerfed it for necros and not engis because necros have access to more DoTs like Torment and traited fear. But, then I realized that Engis have confusion, one of the most powerful condis in the game.

So in response, I don’t know why.

That assertion is a complete non-sequitur. The two claims – that Necros have more access to DoTs and that Engineers have confusion simply do not relate. You’ll note that Engineer, with Sharpshooter, Steel Packed powder (in a Bomb/Nade Grenadier build), and general condition “variety” has a lot more applicable conditions in a single attack than a Necromancer.

Indeed, before the Dhuumfire patch, Necromancers simply could not maintain their uptime on their Bleed stacks because having one heavily damaging condition was being negated by cleansing; Necromancers required Grenadier Engineers to cover their Bleeds to have good effect in teamfights.

Engineers take Incendiary Powder, despite its repeated nerfs and despite disliking its passive play, because there is little else worth taking in the Explosives line. Little else is as build agnostic or as useful to put out sufficient condi pressure. For the Bomb/Nade build and Teldo’s Condition Node Fighter build, Burning was the entire and only extent of their condition pressure._ This is NOT to say IP should not be changed, however.

Necromancers still have Bleed Stacks and Terror and now that changes can let them cover their bleed stacks, they are a lot more independant of Engineers in Teamfights. I get why Dhuumfire has been moved to DS. The fact remains that Arenanet has chosen to target Dhuumfire for skill-floor raising and overall nerfs while leaving IP intact. I suggest you read these threads:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dhuumfire-and-Incendiary-Powder/first
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Engineer-responses-to-the-Dec-10-changes/
and come up with a better idea of how to raise the skill floor of IP (and/or nerf its uptime) rather than posting non-sequiturs and negativity.

infantrydiv.1620:

It’s because Engineers have way more buttons to press man. So that makes them super skillful.

All shall bless me for I play the engineer. I hold by far the greatest amount of skill because ground targeting.

I agree, burn in generall is very strong condition and needs to come with certain costs, not just for engis and necros.

The only question, how would you change it? Engis don’t have death shroud lol.

Maybe make it based on kit?

this guy says the truth.

Change your thread’s title, it’s misleading and won’t gain the attention it deserves.

Necros can have IP when engis get Torment, terror, and decent fear up time.

IP just got nerfed in the dec patch. It got moved up a tier. It used to be a free 10 point trait you could toss into any build. Engi also getting a few more nerfs like less of an immobilze on net turret which nerfs the engi’s only elite skill worth a dam supply crate.

K U T M.4539:

Necros can have IP when engis get Torment, terror, and decent fear up time.

^
This

Engineers are not held nearly as highly within the meta. Their damage comes with greater risk (bombs) or can come with more difficult skills to land (nades won’t hit a moving target, unless they don’t see it coming).

Also, dhuumfire combined with terrors allows a player to be CCed and also to proc that passive burning tick for some crazy damage. An engineer cannot CC nearly in the same manor.

I think it could be changed, but I do not believe to be as high of a priority; which I can only assume why it wasn’t mentioned by the developers.